THE TABERNACLE of His body

Jesus Christ strongly taught that He was the dwelling place of God upon the earth. In Him God the Father lived. The earliest example of this teaching of Jesus I see in John chapter 2."And He said to him, Truly, truly, I say to you, You shall see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man" (John 1:51).This statement was a reference to Genesis 28:11-22. Jacob had a dream in which a ladder was set up on the earth and leading to heaven, keeping heaven opened to earth and joining earth to heaven. The place in which he had this dream he called Bethel, meaning the house of God.Jesus, alluding that the Son of Man was the fulfillment of Jacob's dream taught by this that He was the human house of God. Within Him the eternal God resided upon the earth. And in Him the activity of the angels ascending and descending was God's operation to establish the dwelling place of God upon the earth within a Man.Secondly, in John's gospel Jesus told His opposers that if they destroyed the temple of His body He would raise it up in three days. The language was mixed in with a discussion about the temple which the Jews took over 40 years to build:"The Jews then answered and said to Him, What sign do you show us, seeing that you do these things? Jesus answered and said to them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then the Jews said, This temple was built in forty-six years, and You will raise it up in three days?

​

But He spoke of the temple of His body. When therefore He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken." (John 2:18-22).Christ refered to Himself as Bethel, the house of God. And Christ refered to Himself as the temple of God which being destroyed He would resurrect in three days.Now we might wonder which "Scripture" John is refering to when he says that after the resurrection of Christ the disciples believed the Scripture. It would have to be a Scripture refering to God dwelling in a Man as His temple.A possible candidate is revealed in the speech of the first Christian martyr, Stephen in Acts 7:47-50. Stephen end his long defense by a reference to the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 66:1,2."Yet the Most High does not dwell in that which is made by hands, even as the prophet says,

​

Heaven is My throne, and the earth is a footstool for My feet. What kind of house will you build for Me, says the Lord, or what is the place of My rest? Has not My hand made all these things?" (Acts 7:48-50).Here are the crucial words to Isaiah's writing plus the portion which Stephen did not quote in Acts:"Heaven is My throne, And the earth is the footstool for My feet. Where then is the house that you will build for Me, And where is the place of My rest?

​

For all these things My hand has made, And so all these things have come into being, declares Jehovah.

​

But to this kind of man I will look, to him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word" (Isa. 66:1,2). The meaning is clear. For a resting place and a house God will not look to dwell in anything that man can build for Him. He will look to man himself. In other words God looks to humanity to be His house, His dwelling place, and His place of rest.Particularly then, Jesus Christ was the Man within Whom the God of the universe indwelt, lived within, was blended with, compounded with, and mingled with as one entity. He was God incarnate. And this He demonstrated by raising up the destroyed temple of His body in three days.But the New Testament does not stop here. It goes on to show that in the concept of Jesus, those who believed into His name would also be included in His Father's house to build a mutual dwelling place where God and His saved redeemed ones unite together in one divine / human habitation of God in man.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-06-2005 05:13 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-06-2005 05:15 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-06-2005 05:18 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-06-2005 05:20 PM

----------------------------------

Delusion: The lamb was indicted by Roman laws.
Reality: Pilate’s words remained the same: “I find no basis for a charge against him.”
----------------------------------The point of the gospel writers is that Christ was condemned unjustly. Pilate may have found no fault in Him but the opinion poles swayed him to act against his better conscience. Politicians often are preasured by the populace to act against thier conscience.---------------------------------

Delusion: Pilate presided at a trial.
Reality: A second trial would invalidate the authority of the High Priests and of the Synedrium before the eyes of the Hebrew people, and would violate the Law that attests "One only Law shall be to him who is born at home, and to the stranger who lives as a foreigner among you”. The fact of asking the lamb five questions doesn’t mean that Pilate held the intention of presiding at a trial. A second trial by the invader’s laws was not what the High Priest asked Pilate to do.

----------------------------------The hatred for the Messiah was manifest in the exposing clamor that they had no king but the Roman Ceasar. All the divine laws of God were out the window in the eyes of Christ's opposers. If Ceasar has the right to kill Him then they nullify everything and confess Ceasar as thier sole authority.Their passionate opposition to the Son of God over ruled even their cultural regards for the moment.---------------------------------------

​

Delusion: Pilate gave in because he was concerned about his career and about revolt - and conveyed the death sentence..
Reality: his wife sent to him, saying: Have thou nothing to do with that just man; for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him. Pilate listened to his wife and heeded her words because they pertained to the very man that the High Priests had brought before him. She was deeply troubled by her dream and even said that it had made her suffer a great deal.

----------------------------------The simple answer is that regardless of what his wife's warning was, he didn't act based upon it.Other forces prevailed upon him, like the fear that he would be called on by Ceasar for not being able to manage the situation.---------------------------------

Delusion: Pilate had the lamb crucified.
Reality: he released the man who had been thrown into prison for insurrection and murder, the one they asked for, and surrendered Gehav-shua to * their will. - * that he was suspended [his hands tied together above his head to a green Hebrew tree] according to the Law, and not according to the law of the invaders.

--------------------------------The New Testament does refer to a tree in some places.But if you were to ask Pilate if he considered this as sacrificing a lamb of course he would not have had any conept about that.That Christ was the Lamb of God is something established in the eyes of God. And it is passed on to us as the gospel. Few made the connection between Christ's death and the atoneing sacrifice of the Passover lamb.It seems quite strong in the concept of Jesus Himself and in the concept of His forerunner, John the Baptist who was a prophet of God.That He was a sacrificial Lamb is evident in His establishment of the "new covenant" in His blood for the forgiveness of sins. His body was to be broken for the forgiveness of sins.Plus the divinely arranged fact that He was ruthlessly examined for defects by His detractors and found to have had none. He was the spotless Lamb, which would harmonize with the Levitical requirement.------------------------------------

​

Delusion: The High Priests asked Pilate to have the lamb nailed to a cross.
Reality: The High Priests’ words remained the same: “We have a Law and he shall die according to our Law; because he made himself Gehaveh [I AM] the Anointed of Ishrael.” The word cross does not exist in the books of the Law and of the Prophets, and of the Psalms.

-----------------------------------Again, this was something established in the eyes of God. And God has the authority to say that this is what the death of Christ was.Of course the HIgh Priest did not ask Pilate to sacrifice a lamb in the execution of the trouble maker Jesus.Incidently, in God's providence, the people asked to release to them Barabbas and crucify Jesus. So they released the "son of father" and crucified Jesus, the Son of the Father.How ironic. And how much this is a proof of the sovereignty of God over the whole situation.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-06-2005 05:44 PM

Zsafira,==========================
There is none who is that naive to think (or assume) that the High Priests were being sincere, and that they actually confessed Ceasar as their sole authority.
=========================John records that this is what they said in John 19:15 - "... Pilate said to them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king except Caesat." The blindness of religion and the darkness of politics joined together to carry out the unjust sentence against the Son of God.Now, given the record of similar rebellions in the Old Testament, to believe that such was possible is not naive.In Numbers 16 Korah, Dathan, Abiram, On and the sons of Reuben with 250 leaders of the congregation rebelled against Moses. They accused him of actually taking them out of the land flowing with milk and honey. They were refering to Egypt where they were previously enslaved."Is it not enough that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk and honey to have us die in the wilderness, but you also exercise leadership over us?" (Numbers 16:13) Other portions of the Old Testament show degradation of the priests into rebellion against God. So it is not naive to believe John's account that the leaders of Israel opted to go along with the worldly empire rather than submit to the will of God.Man, in general, is simply not for God. This is man's most basic problem since his fall. Man simply is not for God and not for God's will.Man needs to completely identify with One Who was the only Person ever absolutely for the will of the Father. That is the Son of God, Jesus. He alone was totally given to submission to the Divine Will. By faith we can be attached to Him and His obedience becomes our justification.====================
Shall one feed "believings" before the knowledge of the Truth?
or shall one Remain in the Truth.
===================One should nourish and feed belief when such belief is ignited by the Word of God.Not only Truth is conveyed but the True One as a Living Person is conveyed and imparted into the human spirit. "That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith" (Eph.3:17)Faith is the means that God has ordained by which His living Person is imparted into our innermost being. Then man is joined to God "organically." The Son of God, bringing all that God is, dispenses the Divine Life into us through faith. And this dispensing, this organic union of the human life with the Divine Life makes us sons of God."He came to His own, yet those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become children of God, to those who believe into His name ..." (John 1:11,12a)========================
The re'Legions believe what you guess to be truth, but who ever is of I AM does remain in the Truth, not in the guessings[believings].
=======================This is not guessing at all. This is receiving a living Person into one's being. The faith has an accompanying amount of confirmation that one is on the right track."The Spirit Himself witnesses with our spirit that we are children of God" (Rom. 8:16)The union of God the Holy Spirit with the human spirit carries with it a deep internal witness that you have truly touched God and His life has been united with your life."In this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, that He has given to us of His Spirit ... Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God" (1 John 4:13,15)The assurance is in the receiving of a living Person, Jesus Christ. The confirmation is the inner witness that we truly have been joined to the Father as sons in His life.It is not "blind faith." It is faith with an accompanying degree of confirmation that the change that has taken place within us is not of us but of God.========================
The religions have "faith", but the word "faith" has been inserted in the place of the original word "Fidelity", in the Versions of the reality; the "Versions" of the scriptures as originally written.If the word "faith" in the ancient latin language(not the medieval) could hold the meaning of "Fidelity", then the word "believe", which was also inserted in the versions of the scriptures, would hold the meaning of the original verb "to remain".
=====================================I am not completely sure of what you mean. However, Christ is a resurrected and living Person. And He teaches us to abide in Him. And that reminds me of your definition of believe as to "remain." "Abide in Me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.

​

I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing." (John 15:4,5)Jesus, therefore, teaches that belief in Him is not merely to accept some correct facts. It is to remain in His Person. It is to enter into and remain in the realm and sphere of His living Person and living presence.Again, He teaches that He will come to abide in those who love Him and keep His word:"Jesus answered ans said to him, If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make an abode with him" (John 14:23)Christ, Who embodies the Father, as God incarnate, will come to His lover and make a living abode within him. Then Christ becomes that one's realm and sphere. Then He tells us to remain and abide in that sphere and He in us. That is a mutual abiding of God in a person and that person in God.==============================
That is why the faith/believings are guessings and are based on assuming.
==============================My experience is that these kinds of philsophical musing will not in the end provide peace within.My need turned out to be, not correct facts, but a living Person. God in Christ Jesus the Lord, is a Living Person. Our deepest need is this Living Person. And only the presence of this Living Person abiding in our spirit and in our heart can truly give peace.=====================
And they have, in the form of doctrine, the sign [that is made with the right hand at the height of the forehead], and the name [KRISTV IESVS - VI, VI, SEI], and the number of the bestiae [numeral cross-reference/ reverentia numerale versetto-capitolare].
=======================I don't follow this.But listen please - "The last Adam became a life giving Spirit" (1 Cor. 15:45).This is the Apostle Paul's writing. It means that Jesus Christ was transfigured into a form in which He can be dispensed and imparted into man as divine life. He is in a pneumatic form. And in that form as the life giving Spirit, He can impart the divine life of God into our created life.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-07-2005 02:12 PM

Zsafria, I think that depends upon the level of your love for God's oracles.Certainly David in Psalm 119 goes on and on about his devotion to God's statutes. And memorization was a part of his devotion.Would you say that in Leviticus God discouraged the Israelites from memorizing His precepts and statutes? I would not say so at all.I don't dispute that originally there were no chapters and verses.What you follow with is interesting and a little perplexing unless I read it a few more times.However, we are told to "let the word of Christ dwell in you richly" Numbering the chapters, praying with the verses, singing the verses, speaking the verses, memorizing the verses, and numbering the verses, I think are all OK. If the result is that the word of Christ dwells in us richly, I don't think the heavenly Father is offended.As for 666, it stands for Ceasar Nero.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-08-2005 05:20 PM