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Laws of Sonship, part 3

God's ultimate purpose in creation is to bring forth a corporate Son in His own image. This was the real meaning of His command in Genesis 1:28, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it.” If Adam had brought forth children before his fall into sin, he would have brought forth children in the image of God, after whose image he himself had been created. Instead, however, all of his children were born after he had lost the glorified body. Thus, all of his descendants have been born mortal, carnal, and imperfect, lacking the original glory of God that once permeated Adam's being.

The feast days of Israel were designed to reveal to us the pattern of restoration to the glory, which Adam enjoyed before sin entered the world. The feast days are not an end in themselves, but a means to an end. The feast days are a progressive pattern, revealing a journey from the depths of bondage and sin to the heights of the glorious liberty of the children of God and the glorified body. It is not a journey from earth to heaven, but a journey on the earth from death to life, from corruption to incorruption, and from the image of the first Adam to the image of the Second Adam.

This is the great secret of creation that has been largely hidden from the world and even from most believers throughout history. God has not seen fit to reveal His entire plan all at once, even to those who love Him. It has been a progressive revelation. The truths themselves have been revealed from the beginning, but God did not give men an immediate understanding of what was being revealed. For this reason, the truths were written on tablets and in books, so that at the proper time their meanings could be discerned by future generations. So Paul tells us of the great mystery of God in the Bible in Colossians 1:26, 27,

²⁶ that is, the mystery [musterion, “hidden thing, secret”] which has been hidden from the past ages and generations; but has now been manifested to His saints, ²⁷ to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles [ethnos, “ethnic groups, or nations”], which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

The Image of God

Jesus Christ was begotten of the Father above in what is called the Virgin Birth. Hebrews 1:3 tells us of Christ's nature and character,

³ And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation [Greek: charakter, “imprint”] of His nature [Greek: hupostasis, “substance”], and upholds all things by the word of His power.

Vine's Expository Dictionary says that the Greek word, charakter, means:

“firstly, a tool for graving (from charasso, to cut into, to engross; cp. Eng., character, characteristic); then a stamp or impress, as on a coin or a seal, in which case the seal or die which makes an impression bears the image produced on it. . . The Son of God is not merely His image (His charakter), He is the image, or impress of His substance, or essence.”

Some may argue the finer points about man's ultimate relationship with God when he finally attains His image. Even John himself did not claim to know. 1 John 3:2 says,

² Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him just as He is.

It is enough to know that Jesus Christ was begotten from above, that He was the exact image of His Father in heaven, and that, as Christians, we have been begotten from above as well, in order that we too might bear the image of the heavenly (1 Corinthians 15:49). Jesus was the pattern Son. His begetting, birth, life, and ultimate glorification showed us the path that we too must follow. That path does not begin with birth, but with begetting, or conception.

The Marriage of our Soul to God

In the Greek language, the soul is pseuche. This is a feminine word. Thus, when God made man a living soul, He created him feminine in the sense that man was to be impregnated by the Holy Spirit of God to bring forth Christ, “the hope of glory.” The soul of man is the womb of God by which He reproduces Himself in the earth. The spirit of man is inside the soul, which is why Paul calls it “the inner man” (Romans 7:22).

When a child is conceived, he has the genetics of both his mother and his father. Adamic man “is of the earth, earthy” (1 Cor. 15:47). But God is Spirit (John 4:24). How can a Spirit mate with an earthly creature to produce a child? There is no way to explain how it can be done. All we know is that it has already happened, and the demonstrated evidence is Jesus Christ Himself. The Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary, a virgin, and she conceived a son that was called the Christ.

In the same manner also, the Holy Spirit must overshadow us, our souls, and beget Christ in us. We are begotten by the seed of the Gospel (1 Corinthians 4:15). This is the great mystery of God. It is not only hidden from the world at large, but also it is a hidden work within our souls. This is the great marriage between spirit and soul, between heaven and earth, between God and men, between Christ and His Bride. The purpose of this marriage is to bring forth what the KJV terms the “Manchild” (Revelation 12:5 KJV).

The Apostle Paul established the Galatian church. He pictured himself as the midwife, or the primary caregiver during the church's pregnancy. And so he says in Galatians 4:19, “My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you.” The Christians in Galatia had accepted the truth of Jesus Christ and, in essence, had been married to God. The Holy Spirit had come upon them to engender Christ in them, and Christ was now being “formed” in them as they matured in Christ.

The problem was that they had strayed from the truth, putting their trust in the Old Covenant—particularly in the law of fleshly circumcision—as being essential to their justification. Paul reminds them that circumcision of the flesh was the sign of the Old Covenant, while heart circumcision was the sign of the New Covenant. Hence, their dependence upon fleshly circumcision was a sign that they had begun to place their confidence in the Old Covenant, as if it could make them righteous. If this belief were to take root, it would effectively abort the Manchild in them.

Putting one's trust in fleshly circumcision also identified the Galatian church with the Old Jerusalem, even as the unbelievers in Judaism. Paul explains that the Old Jerusalem was Hagar, not Sarah (Gal. 4:25), and was associated with Mount Sinai, which is in Arabia—the inheritance of the descendants of Hagar. God had removed His name from the Old Jerusalem, as prophesied in Jeremiah 7:14, and seen in a vision by another prophet in Ezekiel 10 and 11. God said He would remove His name from Jerusalem, even as He removed it from Shiloh in the days of Eli the priest. Revelation 3:12 and 22:4 clearly tell us that God has now placed His name and the name of the New Jerusalem upon the temple that is His Body. Never again will He glorify a physical temple on the old temple mount in the old city of Jerusalem.

We learn from the book of Galatians, and from Paul's concern for them, that it was possible for the church to abort the Manchild. And, indeed, Paul's concerns were well justified, for no generation of the Church has yet brought forth the Manchild.