OUR GREAT HIGH PRIEST

 

OUR GREAT HIGH PRIEST

“…Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.” Heb. 6:20

It is regrettable that many churches and preachers have virtually put aside the Old Testament. In doing so they have cut themselves off from revelation that is needed if the Church is to fulfil its mission in the Earth. Jesus said “You search the scriptures for in them you think you will find eternal life, and these are they which speak of Me.”  (John 5:37)  The scriptures He was talking about were the Old Testament scriptures as obviously the New Testament hadn’t been written then.  The Old Testament Scriptures were all about Jesus and we will not come into the depths of the Cross without studying them. They were a platform set up to enact the Redemption of Man and on centre stage was Jesus, Son of God. It stands to reason then, that we need to study them closely in order to grasp fully, what the Cross accomplished.

The text from Hebrews says that Jesus is our Great High Priest. How can we know what that means for us unless we study the High Priestly ministry in the Old Testament and how it applies to Jesus? The Tabernacle of Moses where the Priests ministered is a Type of Christ, “the Word made flesh who dwelt  [literally ‘tabernacled’] among us.”(John1:14) The Amplified Bible renders it ‘fixed His tent of flesh among us.” God told Moses to build a Tabernacle ‘That I may dwell among them.’  Jesus came that God may live among us – He is Emmanuel, God with us. The tabernacle and everything about it spoke of Christ. Volumes could be written about it; but for now we are just going to look at one aspect – the garments of the High Priest. God told Moses that these garments were for ‘beauty and for glory.’

Jesus Himself didn’t wear the literal garments of a High Priest, but those garments were symbolic of Jesus’ ministry. They are given so we can understand the priestly work of our Saviour. Every detail is important. The breast plate bore 12 stones, one for each tribe and on each shoulder there was an onyx stone bearing the name of 6 of the tribes. 12 is the number of completeness. Thus he represented all Israel. When he appeared before the Lord he WAS Israel.

Even so, Jesus as our Great High Priest represents all Mankind.  When He was ‘about 30 years old” Jesus began His ministry; 30 being the age when priests entered the ministry. After a sacrifice was made for him, the candidate for the priesthood was washed at the Laver by other priests, after which he was clothed with the white priestly robes.When Jesus presented Himself to John the Baptist of the priestly line, at the River Jordan to be baptised, He was fulfilling this requirement. The candidate was then clothed with the white priestly garment. When Jesus rose from the Jordan, the Holy Spirit descended on Him as a dove. This is the priestly garment. Before His ascension into Heaven, Jesus told His disciples to ‘Tarry till ye be endued [clothed] with power from on high.” The Holy Spirit is our priestly garment without which we cannot enter the Holy Place in the Temple.  Being baptised with the Holy Spirit takes us into a new dimension in Christ, the Holy Place.

At the River Jordan, as He was immersed in the waters, Jesus was immersing Himself into all Mankind. As we identify with Him in Baptism, so He identified with us.

 God deals with all Mankind according to two men – Adam the 1^st Man and Jesus the 2^nd Man and the Last Adam. Sometimes people refer to Him as the 2^nd Adam but the Bible does not call Him that, it calls Jesus ‘the Last Adam’. There is a significant difference. In the last Adam, God wrapped it all up.

When Jesus stood before those who judged Him, He represented all mankind. In Him we were judged crucified and buried. For six hours one Friday in Jerusalem, the last Adam hung on a Cross bearing the shame of the sin of all Mankind, till at last He cried, “It is finished,” and gave up His spirit. Christ’s body bearing our sin was buried. No more Adam!

What does that mean for us? All the sins we have committed, all the imperfections in our lives that we have, all of the 'dumb' things we do, is already judged and buried. When the accuser tries to keep us down by constantly reminding us of our failures, we can silence him. Adam is finished! We are a new creation in Christ and His Spirit is in us.

When Adam sinned we all fell with him; and the life giving Spirit of God departed. All who are born of Adam bear his image and share his fate; even so all those who by faith in Christ are born again, bear His image and share His destiny.

“The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. As  the image of the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust, and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly and as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man.” 1 Corinthians 15: 47-49

Having dealt with sin and buried the 1^st Man, Jesus rose as the 2^nd Man and thus began the New Creation. The Old Creation began with the creation of the heavens and the Earth and ended with the creation of Man; the New Creation began with the New Man and ends with the new heavens and new Earth.  All who put their trust in Jesus share in His new life. God again breaths into us the Holy Spirit – the breath of life, and we are one with Him forever. Who He is, we are.

“Love has been perfected in us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgement; because as He is, so are we in this world. “ 1 John 4:17

THE JORDAN PASSOVER

In my interaction with people of prayer and listening to what prophetic people are saying, a strong Word from the Lord has been coming through. This Passover is a very significant one. The word is that the virus is going to be defeated and God’s people are going to rise up in Victory.  This really resonates with me and brings confirmation to the things the Spirit has shown me and that I have written about in my books.

The Passover we have come to is the fulfilment of the Passover celebrated at the River Jordan. At this Passover, all that was accomplished for God’s people in the first Passover comes into manifestation and they come into the fullness of their deliverance. They had wandered in the wilderness for many years because of unbelief. The wilderness is all about identity. God said ‘Israel is my Son, my firstborn’ Exodus 4:22; but their faith confession was ‘We’re only grasshoppers’. Numbers 14.Now after many years in the wilderness, they had come into the understanding that they were who God said they were and were going in to possess their Promised Land.

The Promised Land for the spiritual Seed of Abraham which is the Church, [Galatians 3:16,29] is the Earth. [Romans 4:13] It is not Heaven as we have been led to believe; it is the Kingdom of God on Earth as it is in Heaven. This is what we lost at the Fall; this is what the Cross has purchased. Jesus destroyed Satan’s authority at the Cross and gave it back to redeemed Man to exercise in His Name. There are ‘giants of evil and their strongholds in our inheritance and we are now coming into battle against the enemy for possession of the Earth.

In the Type of the Journey to the Promised Land, we have come to the River Jordan. [Read Joshua chapters 3-6] God’s people were told to watch the Ark ‘so that you will know which way to go for you have not passed this way before’. Joshua 3:4. The Church is going to go beyond where we’ve ever been in history. This is what God has been working towards since the Fall. The Ark is a type of Jesus; it was to precede them by about 2,000 cubits. Two thousand years after Jesus came out of the wilderness and began to bring down the enemy’s strongholds, the Church will follow. 

Moses [the Law] is dead and Joshua [a type of Jesus] now leads them. This is where we come out of depending on our own works and focus on what Christ has done alone. Twelve stones [one for each tribe] were placed in the Jordan and twelve stones from the Jordan were placed on the other side; signifying the death of the old and the beginning of the new. At Gilgal they renewed the covenant with the rite of circumcision and God told them ‘This day I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you.” Joshua 5:9 Circumcision signifies the putting away of the flesh or old nature. Egypt is a type of the place of bondage. We were in bondage to sin and death under the rule of the tyrant Satan. God ‘has delivered us from the power of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son; in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins;” Colossians 1:13,14 Nothing of the enemy’s hold over us remains and we are truly a new creation in Christ.

On the other side, a host of angels were waiting to join them in the battle.  The Church is coming into Victory “Christ in you is the hope of glory” Colossians 1;27. This is the time of the ‘manifestation of the Sons of God’ as in Romans 8;19 which will bring in ‘the restoration of all things’. Acts 3;21. Jesus is going to rise up in power in His Church. There are glorious days ahead. 

END TIME ERROR

DANIEL’S SEVENTY WEEKS AND THE THIRD TEMPLE. In my last post, I stated that there are two errors that are shaping much of the end time teaching in our churches. Let’s remember that Satan is the ‘father of lies’ and is a deceiver. Ever since the resurrection he has known that his days of control over the earth are coming to an end. The best he can do is to prolong them. This he does by veiling the eyes of God’s people to the truth. One of those errors is what is known as ‘Daniel’s seventieth week’ i.e. that there is a period of seven years that God has reserved for dealings with the Jews. Christians will be taken out of the Earth during or before that time. Thus instead of being God’s agents of restoration in the Earth, many Christians are looking to escape from it.

In the time of Daniel, God’s people were in exile in Babylon because of their repeated rebellion against Him. The angel Gabriel came to Daniel with a message that gave Israel another chance. They would return to their Land and rebuild their temple in preparation for Messiah the Prince. The prophecy would commence with a command to restore Jerusalem and rebuild the temple, known later as the second temple or Ezra’s temple.

In this prophecy God tells Daniel:-

           

“Seventy weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy.” Daniel 9:24

The ‘weeks’ in the prophecy are weeks of years, so a week is seven years. According to this wrong teaching, only 69 weeks have been fulfilled and there is another week or seven years to go. They teach that between the 69^th and 70^th week, God has inserted the Church Age. When the Church is ‘raptured’ out, then comes the 70th ‘week’ of God’s dealings with Israel during the great tribulation. They believe that all the promises contained in vs. 24 have not yet been fulfilled.

Coupled with this idea of a 70^th ‘week’ yet to come is, what I believe is a MIS-interpretation of Daniel 9:27

 ”Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week;

but in the middle of the week he shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering.”

This interpretation goes like this: - ‘He’ in the sentence refers to the Antichrist. He makes a peace pact with Israel. After three and a half years, ‘in the middle of the week,’ he breaks the covenant and stops the sacrifices at the temple. From this they reason that a third Temple will have been built. This supposedly happens during the last ‘week’ or seven years of the prophecy given to Daniel, and will be a time of God’s special dealings with Israel – a time of great tribulation. Meanwhile Christians will be ‘raptured’ out to escape the tribulation and there is much speculation about whether this will be ‘pre-trib,’  ‘mid-trib,’ or ‘post-trib.’ This is the popular end time teaching in many evangelical and Pentecostal churches. It is a firmly held and rarely questioned belief, passed on from one generation to the next.

  The truth is that the seventy weeks were seventy consecutive weeks as you would normally expect. If God was intending to insert a long period of at least 2,000 years between the 69^th and 70^th week, one would expect some indication of it in the Scriptures. There is none. The ‘He’ in vs. 27 refers to Christ not the Antichrist. The seventieth ‘week’ was the week which included Jesus’s ministry. After 3 and a half years of ministry, In the ‘middle of the week,’ Jesus brought an end to the need for animal sacrifices, by making the one perfect sacrifice for all time. By His ministry and sacrificial death on the Cross He confirmed or strengthened the Abrahamic covenant, “The covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ,” (Galatians 3:17) and in so doing, He fulfilled all the promises contained in vs 24. God has only one answer for this world’s condition, and that is the Cross of Christ. Anything that He is going to do was accomplished there. It is a finished work. We just haven’t understood the full extent of all that the Cross and resurrection has achieved. In these last days of the Church Age, God will bring revelation on the finished work of Christ which will cause the Church to rise up in Kingdom authority.

Jesus moved with a sense of purpose. He understood the plan of Redemption and worked within the will of the Father. He often said, “it is not time yet” or “My time is not yet come,” (e.g. John 7:6), because He was working to the plan. He said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.”(Matthew 15:24). When He sent the disciples out He told them to go only to Israel. (Matthew 10:5:6) That is because the work of redemption had to be first demonstrated in Israel, the pattern and priestly and prophetic nation. During that seventieth ‘week,’ Jesus taught the principles of the Kingdom; He was crucified and resurrected; the Holy Spirit was poured out and the infant Church established. Then and only then, the word came to take the gospel to the Gentiles. (Acts 10) and Paul, who was to be the apostle to the Gentiles, was called and commissioned. The seventy weeks had been completed. There is no ‘seventieth week’ to be yet fulfilled.

When we see that, we can see that this teaching which occupies so much of our thinking about the end time is wrong. We can stop looking for an Antichrist to make and then break a pact with the Jews and stop watching for the third temple; it is not part of God’s plan. The third temple as far as God is concerned is the Living Temple which Christ is building as in Ephesians 2:21:22. The Jews may or may not build another temple but it is not a marker for a seven year count down to the 2^nd Coming, preceded by the ‘Rapture’ pre, or mid ‘trib.’ Jesus is not planning to snatch His people out of the world but to cause them to rise up in Victory over the forces of darkness which keep the world in bondage. 1 Thessalonians 4:16,17 [the ‘rapture’ scripture] is about the manner of the 2^nd Coming, when the Church will be caught up to meet the Lord and escort Him back to the throne.

On the night He was betrayed Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane for His disciples-

“I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.” John 17:15

God told Daniel that some end time truth is sealed until the time of the end; (Daniel 12:9) but about 200 years ago, there were those who went ahead of the Spirit and put together an end time scenario which doesn’t leave a lot of room for the Holy Spirit to bring revelation on the real plan of God for the Church. Getting raptured out any moment may sound exciting but what God really has for the Church is even more exciting.

Very soon a ‘Joshua’ generation will arise in the Earth that will bring down the ‘gates of Hell.’ [Mat 16:17,18] This is what God has been working towards since the promise in the Garden that the Seed of the Woman will crush the Serpent’s head. (Genesis 3:15).Christ and the Church is that Seed. This Seed is also the Seed of Abraham which will possess the gate of his enemies and be a blessing to the whole earth. (Genesis 22:17, 18)(Galatians 3:16, 29) If you belong to Jesus then you are part of this Overcoming Seed. Jesus has done all the work and is now seated at the Father’s right hand ‘waiting till His enemies are made His footstool.’ Hebrews 10:13. That’s our job!

A generation of the Seed of Abraham and the Seed of the Woman will rise up to our full potential in Christ. This is ‘Elijah’ that Jesus said would come and ‘restore all things’ before His 2^nd Coming. [Matthew 17:11]. In Acts 3:21 it says that the heavens must retain Jesus “until the times of the ‘restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.” This will happen any time from now to 2027. How I know that is for another time

The days ahead are days of the restoration of all things which God has been working towards for millennia. These are exciting times.  “Christ in you is the hope of glory.”

THE BATTLE FOR THE INHERITANCE

The case of Israel Faleau has brought the rise of hostility against Christianity sharply into focus. This is not the Australia we knew even 20 years ago. The slippery slope we were assured wouldn't happen at the SSM vote, is getting more and more slippery . What is behind it all? We are in a battle for the Earth!

This battle is the ongoing battle for the inheritance which is depicted in the struggle between Isaac and Ishmael, sons of Abraham and continued with Jacob and Esau and on to this day. Abraham has physical heirs through Isaac i.e. the nation of Israel and spiritual heirs through Jesus i.e. the Church [Galatians 3:29]. The physical heirs were given the Land of Canaan and the inheritance of the spiritual heirs is the Earth.[Romans 4:13] It is an inheritance that has to be possessed. The journey to and possession of the Promised Land by Israel is a picture or type of the spiritual journey of the Church into truth and the possession of the Earth for the Kingdom of God. This is what we lost at the Fall.

During the temptation of Jesus, Satan boasted that all the kingdoms of the world were his. Luke 4:5-8. In 1 John 5:19, it says "The whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. “that is why it’s such a mess and getting worse. Ever since the Resurrection, Satan knew that it was only a matter of time till his rule was challenged and he is making a desperate push to strengthen his grip on the Earth. His two main instruments are Islam and Marxism. Israel and the Church [all true believers in Christ] are the two Covenant peoples of God. Satan hates them!

Israel had to bring down the strongholds of the enemy, possess the Land and establish the rule of the Kingdom; The Church is to make disciples of all the nations which also involves bringing down the enemy strongholds and bringing people into the Kingdom. Jesus said ‘I will build My Church and the gates of Hell will not stand against it.” Matthew 16:18,19. The Church is the Army of God. What we need to be doing at this time is preparing for war i.e. spiritual warfare over the nations. Where that is happening, people are getting saved. Moslems are coming into the Kingdom by the thousands. However much of the Army is preparing for the Rapture Retreat. This is because of error which came into the Church about two hundred years ago. Two errors shape much of our end time thinking; i.e. The “Rapture” of the Church and Daniel’s 70th week.

I will address these two errors in the next two posts.

PS Yes I do know that when Jesus comes again we will be caught up to meet Him in the air; but what happens next?

TIME FOR ACTION

  TIME FOR ACTION
Most Christians would be aware that things have changed and changed very quickly and not for the best. What to do about it? While some are endeavouring to stand against the tide of anti-God activity, others see the downward trend as a sign that Jesus is coming to ‘rapture’ them shortly and take them out of the mess. People are looking for answers. They need to understand just what is going on. We need a Biblical worldview.  How does God see things?

First of all we need to understand who we are. How many know that Christians are the Seed of Abraham? What difference  does that make?
Let the Bible speak:-
“Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “And to your Seed” who is Christ.”  Galatians 3:16
“And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Galatians 3:29

There is One Seed and that Seed is Christ AND the Church.- Jesus and His Church are the Seed of Abraham, and we inherit all the promises made to Abraham.  Abraham had physical seed through Isaac and spiritual seed through Christ. To the physical seed God gave the Land of Canaan, which they had to possess; To the spiritual Seed, God gave the Earth.
“For the promise that he would be heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.” Romans 4:13

That’s us! We are heir of the world. We also have to possess our inheritance. The journey of Israel from slaves in the kingdom of darkness to conquerors possessing the Promised Land is a template for how the Church will possess their inheritance. Israel had to possess the Land, bring down the strongholds of the enemy and establish the rule of God, i.e. the Kingdom. Our inheritance is occupied by satanic forces with their entrenched strongholds.
“We know that we are of God and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.”    1 John 5:19

During the temptation of Christ, Satan showed Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and boasted that they were his. This is still the case. That’s why we have a messed up world. Jesus removed his authority over the world by bearing all the sins of the world. Authority over the earth now belongs to the Seed of Abraham but Satan still operates illegally. Jesus has done all the work but we have to enforce His victory in the Earth till the satanic strongholds crumble.
This is a spiritual war against spiritual enemies:-

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12
A generation of the physical seed of Abraham rose up under Joshua and claimed the Land of Canaan. Eventually the Kingdom was established under Solomon, son of David and the glory of God filled the temple.

This current generation is the Joshua generation. This is the generation destined to rise up and liberate the earth from the clutches of the wicked one. Since the resurrection he has been waiting in fear and trembling, knowing that his days are numbered. All he could do was exercise his only remaining powers, to deceive and accuse, to keep the Seed of Abraham from rising up and claiming the Earth for the Kingdom. He does this by blinding our spiritual eyes to spiritual realities. He is also quite happy to let us believe in wrong teaching about the end times; anything but the truth. Wrong teaching has bred an apathetic Church, just waiting to be raptured out any moment now; when what we are supposed to be doing is getting on the offensive against the enemy.

Jesus said that He would build His Church and the gates of Hell would not stand against it.
Time to wake up Church! It’s not just about taking us to Heaven when we die; it is about bringing back the King and the Kingdom to rule over our Earth. The Earth is our inheritance; the Kingdom of God ‘on Earth as it is in Heaven’ is our Promised Land. But we have to claim it. The Hosts of Heaven are waiting to do battle with us. The Victory is ours! Amen

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