Jesus the pattern Son

 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin. He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper His hand (Isaiah 53:10, emphasis added).

 In the beginning God purposed to bring many sons to glory and through sufferings perfect the Captain of their salvation. The vision of Christ was to see His seed. This was fulfilled on the cross. Without the cross there is no covenant and thus no fulfillment. For the joy that was set before Christ, He endured the cross, despised the shame, and purchased us for His own possession. By one offering He has perfected those who are being sanctified. We who were separated from Him in Adam were brought back. Now He will again be in us and we in Him as it was in the beginning. He in us refers to Christ being one Spirit with us and we in Him means that we are placed as members in His body. The vision of God and of Christ is our vision, which is to know Him as Father and to mature in Christ as His sons. It is to receive the testimony of sonship in which the Father is well pleased in us and we find our joy and fulfillment in Him.

 Therefore the Lord Jesus is not ashamed to call us who are in Him, brethren. Through suffering on the cross the Lord Jesus Christ completed the work necessary for our salvation and sonship. He needs to do nothing more because everything is completed and finished in Him. We only need to rest in His salvation and to grow up like newborn babes, in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in maturity into the full measure of the stature of the Son of God. Our cry is to know God, as Father and God’s cry is to know us as His sons.

 God has not subjected the inhabited world to come to angels but to the sons of man. For a while He made man little lower than the angels. He has crowned him with glory and honor and set him over the works of His hands and brought all things in subjection to him. He has left nothing that is not brought into subjection to man. Presently we do not see all things put under man (Hebrews 2:5-8). This was said about Jesus whose life is the prophecy of those who are in Christ. Although Christ has made this provision on the cross we know that since the transgression mankind has never moved in this level of authority.

 Man has achieved much but has not come close to what God has in mind for him. Man can move down into the depth of the ocean with a submarine but outside the protection of that vehicle he will die. He can move into outer space to a planet but outside the sealed capsule around his body, he will die. These are achievements that belong to the natural realm that is far lower than the realm of Spirit, which belongs to the kingdom of heaven.

 God never had a limited plan for us in mind but He saved us and placed us in His Son to be bodily filled with the fullness of the Godhead. Christ is the fullness of the Godhead bodily and we are to grow up in all aspects into Him. It means if Christ is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent we will be transformed into the same likeness. God who determined that all creatures would bring forth after its own kind call us His offspring. Therefore, as God is, so we will also be. It is also written, “I said, ‘You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High’” (Psalm 82:6). Jesus quoted this scripture, in John 10:34, to the Jews who accused Him being a man, making Himself God. So God is bringing forth after His own kind, He produces gods. It is not a picture of how important we are but of how much He loves us. For all eternity we will be in Christ and Christ will be in us so that the excellence of His power may always be made manifested in us who have believed. For all eternity the power and the glory and the wisdom will only belong to God and the Lamb so that no creature will glory in His sight. Although God has blessed us with His immeasurable glory in Christ Jesus all worship for all eternity will only belong to God and the Lamb (Revelation 19:10).

 As God dwells in the supernatural realm of the Spirit He desires for us to live now in heaven where He is. He wants us to be with our bodies on earth but with our spirits in heaven. We need to be more at home in the Spirit (heaven) than in the flesh (earth). When we move in the revelatory gifts of the Holy Spirit, God shares with us some of His omniscience. The revelatory gifts of the Holy Spirit are prophecy, word of wisdom, word of knowledge, discernment of spirits and the interpretation of tongues, dreams and visions. It is knowledge obtained through the Holy Spirit. So, it is knowledge received supernaturally that belongs to the realm of Spirit. It is a wonderful privilege to learn from books but to be taught by the Holy Spirit surpasses all instruction. To share some of God’s omniscience is just a foretaste of the fullness of what God has prepared for us. We have received the Holy Spirit in a measure, which is just a small deposit of what God has in mind for us. The end of it will be to be partakers of the fullness of His omniscience. Omniscience is to possess a complete knowledge, understanding and insight of all things and to have an infinite and eternal awareness of all things, in all realms and dimensions of eternity at the same time.

 When we are dreaming spiritual dreams or seeing visions the Holy Spirit shares with us some of His omnipresence. Omnipresent is to be present at all places, in all time zones of eternity, in all realms and dimensions of the universe at the same time. So God is the One that fills all things and all places of all times of eternity with His presence at the same time. Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold you are there (Psalm 138:7-8). When you see a prophetic vision concerning the future God is there to reveal His glory in the days of its fulfillment. God, through His Holy Spirit, enables you to witness future events, phenomena and marvels because He is there. In the natural some marvelous achievements were accomplished with life television broadcasting. For example millions of people over the Globe can simultaneously witness the Olympic games or the inauguration of a new president of the United States of America. They can even witness rebroadcasts of such an events and other historical events. The natural man can record the past and forecast the outcome of a future event but cannot guarantee the accuracy of its prediction. Neither can a person know the future by reasoning it out with his or her mind. This is also valid for all past events for which there are no recorded account or hard evidence. Man lives in the uncertainty of his own mind. Charles Darwin tried to understand the origin of creation with His fleshly mind. As he did not like to retain God in his knowledge, God gave him over to a debased mind being filled with deceit and being deceived he invented the evolution theory in his evil-mindedness. His theory asserts that widely divergent groups of plants and animals have arisen from common ancestors as a result of natural selection of offspring which develop slight variations that make them better adapt to their environment. Through that ridiculous explanation he led many people, open to his deception, astray. The Scriptures do not refer to plants and animals having common ancestors but stated emphatically that God created every living thing after its own kind. And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good… And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good (Genesis 1:12,25).

 When we experience prophetic dreams and visions God share with us only a glimpse of His omnipresence. We have received the Spirit of God only in measure. Imagine what it will be when the fullness of God is poured out in us bodily. God’s desire for us is to have the fullness of Christ’s omnipresence.

 When the power gifts of the Holy Spirit are manifested, God shares with us just a foretaste of His omnipotence. The power gifts of the Holy Spirit include the gift of faith, gifts of healing and the working of miracles. The omnipotence of God is a display of His infinite power and authority and excludes the workings of men. Marvelous achievements were obtained through science. Some monumental achievements include organ transplants in the medical field, space technology and electronic technology. These are nothing in comparison with the workings of the Spirit. The gifts of the Holy Spirit are just shadows of what God has prepared for us. To share some of God’s omnipotence in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, gives us an indication of what the fullness of God’s omnipotence would be. We have received the Holy Spirit only in measure. Imagine what it will be when we are immersed in the fullness of God. God has in mind for us to be partakers of the fullness of His omnipotence. Omnipotence is to possess unlimited power and authority over all realms and dimensions of the universe. We learned that God through His Son made the worlds and uphold all things by the word of His power. What a display of His power and authority. If He turns His face away from creation it will disintegrates.

 The greatest ever display of His power and authority was made manifest in love. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that the earth through Him may be saved. About three o’clock the afternoon of the crucifixion the Lord Jesus Christ yielded up His Spirit and the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. Immense pain flooded the being of the Holy Trinity as the Father and the Spirit for a moment in time forsook the Son. The Father was devastated and the Holy Spirit heartbroken, yet victorious. For a moment in time the Holy Trinity was not a trinity as the Son was forsaken. It happened when Jesus uttered in torment, “My Father, my Father why hast thou forsaken Me.” To ease the pain, They thought about us, the heirs of salvation. Forever the veil of partitioning was removed between God and His people. God through the Lord Jesus Christ has reconciled all things to Himself, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross. From that time forward the heirs of salvation obtained the right, in Christ, to boldly draw near to the throne of grace through the blood of the Lamb into the presence of Almighty God. One song of worship expressing our love and gratitude to the Holy Trinity for what They have suffered on our behalf will be a greater work than the creation of another universe.

 Jesus is the way to the Father. He said in His Father’s house is many spiritual places of existence. If it were not so He would have told us. He told us that He went away to prepare us a place of glory, power and authority that He might receive us unto Himself so that where He is we may be also. Where is Jesus? He is at the right hand of the Father. He is in our hearts, we are in Him and He is in the Father that we may be one. The universe is in Him for He is exalted above all things. He fills the universe; He fills eternity with all its realms and dimensions with all of His glory. This is the place where He is and where we already dwell by faith. Our spirits are alive to God because of righteousness but our bodies are still dead because of sin. You can perceive God and the rest of the spirit world through the Spirit. Because your body is dead to God you cannot enter the realm of Spirit with your body. You cannot hear God or see Him or touch Him with the body of flesh. For this reasons no flesh and blood shall enter into the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. But at the last trumpet, those who went before us, the dead in Christ, who were sowed in corruption, will be raised with an incorruptible body, and those who will be alive with their mortal bodies will be clothed with immortality. I believe this is the time when we will move into the full manifestation of the image of God where we will put on all the divine attributes of the Son, which include His omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience. All the hero’s of faith and the rest of the family of God that is captured in the cloud of witnesses has not received the fullness of this glory yet because it is written that they should not be made perfect apart from us. For if those in heaven has found this glory, the book of Hebrews would not have spoken of this perfection to be inherited. We who believe will enter into this glory at the last trumpet.

 Many things must take place before this glorious day. Jesus is our vision and the pattern Son that have paved the way toward our sonship. To study the life of the pattern Son is to interpret the prophecy concerning our lives. Why? He is the first among many brethren and those to follow will follow along the same way. There are three major events in Jesus’ live that needs to be mentioned to follow the course of events that will follow our lives. These are His birth and maturing process, His baptism when the Father declared Him Son and His glorification on the cross.

 Jesus’ natural birth placed Him in the kingdom of God for His own Spirit is the Spirit of Christ (Romans 8:9). Though Jesus is God He came into this world, as one of us, a mortal being yet without sin. Coming as a perfect man into the world He said He could do nothing of Himself but confessed His utter dependence on His Father. The Father who sent Him was in Him and He in the Father so that the excellence of the glory and power was from God in Him. Though Herod sought to destroy Him, He survived the onslaught on His life and then kept Himself busy with the things of God, His Father’s business. In this He grew up and become strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him. He increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.

 The parallel to the birth of Jesus is to be born again. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His (Romans 8:9). If you are not born again you cannot see the kingdom of God. If you believe in God and in His Son, Jesus Christ, God will place you in the body of His Son and you will be delivered from your transgression and you will be justified in His sight. You will be joined to the Lord Jesus Christ and become one Spirit with Him. It is not a mixture of your spirit with His but you become one spirit with the Spirit of Christ, which means He is in you, one with you, and you are in Him, one with Christ in His body. A mixture of spirits would indicate a mixture of your glory (earthly glory of the flesh) with the glory of Jesus Christ (glory of the Spirit of God). God will not share His glory with anyone. One spirit with Him means there is only one glory, the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. God gave us only one glory, Christ in us the hope of glory. This glory is the image of His Son, the only image He gave us to grow into by faith.

 Over a 30-year period Jesus was maturing into sonship by occupying Himself with His Father’s business according to the anointing that was working in Him. Then John baptized Him, the heavens were opened to Him, the Spirit of God descended like a dove and remained upon Him and the Father declared Him, His beloved Son. The Father also gave testimony that He was well pleased with His Son. Enoch received the same testimony of sonship that Jesus received. Before He was taken he had this testimony that he pleased God. The first 30 years of Jesus’ life show you the road to follow from being birthed by the Holy Spirit until you mature into sonship. One of the characteristics of sonship is the testimony from the Father that He is well pleased with His son. This means to walk with endurance with God.

 Christ is the first born of many brethren to follow. Before the foundation of the world God predestined those whom He foreknew to be conformed to the image of His Son. Thus, God made Christ’s life the prophecy, pattern or blue print of the lives of the other brothers to follow. Like Him we are to be concerned about our Father’s business. Our Father’s business is the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God consists of our relationships toward God, our neighbors and toward all of the earth. Since born again believers are one Spirit with Christ they share His life and relationships with Him. Any ability other than Christ’s, which is the fountain of life and the source of light, is independence from Him and of necessity death and darkness. The ability of the flesh is of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and is death no matter how good or attractive its appearance. Sonship is the manifestation of the Son in the sons.

 When the fullness of time came Jesus bought our perfection in Him with His own blood. When Jesus ascended on high He gave men gifts to equip them to grow up into a perfect man, the full image of Christ. Through the work of the cross Christ provided everything for us that pertain to life and godliness. We need not to revert to some formulae of legalism to attain to our own perfection. He has done it all for us. We only need to appropriate His provision through faith and rest in His victory to the glory of the Father. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons (Galatians 4-5). Spiritual growth is a natural process through faith by being obedient to the knowledge of the truth.

 In the Near East, during biblical times, the word adoption had an entire different meaning than in our present Western civilization. The Western civilization perceives adoption as an orphan or a homeless child being adopted by foster parents. This is not the biblical meaning or the way the people in the Near East understood it. In Israel and in the Near East, adoption was a public ceremony where a young man who had proved his responsibility and faithfulness over time serving his father was proclaimed a son. The ceremony is called adoption.

 At the ceremony of adoption, with friends, neighbors and relatives present, the father publicly proclaimed his matured boy his son. This proclamation gave the son certain privileges not enjoyed by him before this time. Firstly, the son was given power of attorney. He could buy or sell or do business in his father’s name. Secondly, he received his inheritance, and thus was able to use the wealth that his father had provided for him. It was his from then on and he did not need to ask any question about its distribution. Thirdly, the son was given equality with the father.

 The adoption ceremony of the Lord Jesus took place when John baptized Him and the Father declared Him, His Son. Since the foundation of the earth God predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself. Because of Adam’s transgression all creation was subjected to futility, not willing, but by Him who subjects it in hope of being delivered from bondage of corruption into the same liberty of the sons of God. Presently our bodies are dead to God because of sin. Because of hope all creation groans and labors eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God together with us who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, which is the redemption of our bodies. If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in us He who raised Christ from the dead will quickens our mortal bodies to God through His Spirit who dwells in us. Thus, the Spirit of God (the Father) brings redemption to our bodies, even the manifestation of our sonship. We are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God (the Father) dwells in us. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God (Romans 8:14, KJV).

 When Jesus was born he was a mortal. When the Father declared Him, Son, He received the Spirit of God without measure and His mortal body put on immortality through the Spirit of His Father. He became the Christ or Messiah or Anointed One of God. Nobody took His life from Him. He had the power to lay it down and to take it up again because He was Son. Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father (John 10:17-18).

 The Son of Man was glorified on the cross, which means He underwent death to the honor of God and in His resurrection He was adorn with luster, clothe with splendor and glory was poured into Him. He was full of majesty, made renowned, rendered illustrious and exalted to the highest rank, even the right hand of God. The Father has glorified Jesus with Himself, with the glory, which Jesus had with Him before the world was. The redeemed body and glorified body is not the same. Jesus the pattern Son is our prophecy. When Jesus was declared Son people recognized His appearance. When He was glorified Mary stood outside the tomb weeping did not recognize Jesus when He asked her why she was weeping and whom she was seeking because His glorified body took on a different shape. Once again He was omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. So shall we also be at the last trumpet.

 To sum up, Jesus emptied Himself from the glory He had with the Father before the world was made and become one of us yet without sin. He matured in the grace of God. He was declared Son and did the will of God and accomplished His works. He was glorified on the cross and returned to the glory He had with the Father before the world was made. So there are three phases in the plan of God for us, namely our conversion and spiritual growth, sonship and final glorification at the last trumpet.

 Those who wait for the rapture cannot ignore sonship, neither can those who believe in sonship ignore our final glorification with the glory the Lord Jesus had before the world was formed. The manifestation of the Lord Jesus in the flesh as the firstborn of many sons is the pattern of God’s plan or prophecy for our lives. To explain the vision of God’s plan for us in detail will necessitate an entire book on the subject, which I hope I will write shortly.