(Ver 2.8)  This is now Part 6 in a series of very advanced study in the Bible, exploring the True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12.  In the last lesson, we learned a tremendous amount of new Bible facts and concepts to think about and study.  I know there are good people yet to be convinced of the identity of the Woman described in Revelation 12.  It is very difficult and challenging to teach a complex subject. Especially,  one that can be totally new to everyone.  When teaching a new subject, I feel led to give enough Bible reasons (scriptures) for everything that is taught to eliminate doubts.  Every teacher should feel the same way.  But, we only can do this in a limited time and space format on the internet.  It is very similar to many church services.  The attention span of some people seems to have limits.    So we should try to balance not taking up too much of your Bible study time, with providing enough detail in the lesson to confirm everything that is taught.  I often leave out a lot of scriptures that could have been included.  If you are a pastor, you may know the challenge I am talking about.  If you have not been following this series from the beginning, I would strongly recommend that you go back and start reading with Part 1.

SPIRITUAL PATTERNS REVIEW

I do not wish to rehash every previous lesson in the series.  But, please allow me to approach this subject of the identity of our child suspect, in a different way than you might expect.  I believe we are beginning to learn from the Biblical evidence that only the church matches the patterns of the Revelation 12 woman’s complete description.   The facts presented so far should at least cause us to favor the woman’s identity to represent the church.  As we should have realized by analyzing God’s Word and His covenant wives, there are a limited number of women in the Bible that the woman in Revelation 12 could be.  Therefore, I want to go into a quick review of the already seen Biblical patterns.

What is a pattern?  A pattern represents an intelligent design.  It can also represent a model or an example.  One model can be a view of a much larger more significant reality that is not seen.  But, by studying the model we can gain great insight into what the real is like.  We can observe patterns, examples and models throughout the Bible.  I believe that it is worth your time in changing how you study the Bible to include looking for these hidden patterns.

If you recall there are only three covenant wives mentioned in relationship to God in the Bible.  We were introduced to these women in previous lessons.  We also went through an overview of these women in these past lessons.  We should now understand, how God the Father married a woman that represented a type (pattern) of Hagar.  This allegorical Hagar represented the natural nation of Israel (called the earthly Jerusalem) in the Old Covenant (Jer 31:32).  Therefore since we are analyzing the a woman producing a child, we should ask “can God the Father have a Son through these natural people?”  Obviously, He did and He called His name Jesus, because He would save His people from their sins (Mat 1:21).  Therefore, Israel in general appears to qualify to be a wife and could possibly be stretched to be viewed as a pregnant woman.  But, to be more specific, it was literally the single individual woman named Mary, that was chosen by God to gave birth to the only naturally born Son of God.  So Mary appears to be a closer match and best qualified to be the pregnant wife in Revelation 12.

Then we learned of the free woman and a covenant wife of God the Father, that was a type of Sarah (Gal 4:26).  This woman represented the more mature original barren wife of God the Father.  She is allegorically identified to be the “Jerusalem Above”.  We also discovered that this spiritual woman gave birth to the the risen from the dead Lord Jesus and the church (Gal 4:28).  Therefore, this heavenly woman qualifies to be the pregnant wife mentioned in Revelation 12 also.  We are not really narrowing our suspect list directly, by focusing only on this single quality of being pregnant and in a covenant.  That is exactly why, I was teaching this series subject using other important truths first.  This initial focus was to reveal the meanings of the Sun, moon and stars.

But, we haven’t reviewed the fourth suspect.  She is the church.  We learned that she is married and in a brand new covenant with the risen from the dead Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ.  Next, we already asked and answered the question, can the Church’s covenant Husband (the risen Jesus Christ) have any spiritual children?  I think you may have been surprised to find, according to the Bible, He can.  Jesus was called the “Everlasting Father” in the Isaiah 9:6 prophecy.  In fact God wrote that Jesus would be a child, a son and then become the Everlasting Father all in the same verse.  Wow, that sounds important.  These are repeated patterns found over and over in the Bible.

We have confirmed in the scripture that Jesus was a designed and designated pattern to be or become a Father as well as the Son of God.  This verse will at least leave open the door to learning how this future male child that will rule nations with a rod of iron in Revelation 12, can be called a potential Son of Jesus (God the Son).  Wow, I probably just rocked your theological religious boat.  But please hang-in there with me, until we have read all of the lesson.  We are about to potentially discover some Bible verses that we may have never seen, understood or applied.

PATTERN FUNDAMENTALS

Let us first start with some fundamental basics that we should already know and understand about the Bible and the Godhead.  Matthew 1:18 clearly informs us that the virgin Mary was espoused to Joseph.  But, before they “came together” (had sexual intercourse), she was found to already be pregnant by the Holy Ghost.  I pray that we can all agree that the Holy Ghost is the same as God the Father, but in the form of the third person of the Triune Godhead.  It is very important from this information that we conclude, that it is possible for the Holy Spirit to impregnate a physical natural woman through His spoken Word (seed).   I believe that this fact of truth will become a natural pattern on a higher level, for the pregnant spiritual woman found in Revelation 12.

Do you recall how patterns were defined why they are important for Bible study?  I try to emphasize this reality because of what we learn in Ecclesiastes 1:9.  In this verse is where God states “The thing that has been is that which shall be; and that which has been done is that which shall be done; there is NOTHING NEW under the sun”.  Now remember who we have previously discovered the symbolic Sun represents and keep that in your mind.  A light bulb should have just popped on inside of you that this verse is related to Jesus very specifically.  God does not select words by random accident or choice.  God could have said “there is nothing new under heaven” or he could have said,  “there is nothing new under the moon”.  I hope you didn’t miss the significance of God’s choice for using the “sun”.  God just prophesied something so profound that it is amazing to me.  I believe God just taught us that what was to come in Jesus, previously happened in patterns that were already done in the past by Him and others.  And I believe these could be natural patterns or spiritual patterns and maybe even both dimensions.

A pattern is nothing but a repeated recognizable form.  When tailors make a dress, pants, or a shirt, they design and create a repeatable pattern.  The fabric material is then selected and cut out from the designed pattern.  Then the individual parts/pieces are sown together to create the final dress.  Every dress that comes from the same pattern can be recognized as being from the original pattern by a trained observant eye.   What we learn from natural patterns, is “good things by design are repeated”.  It is a common sense approach that teaches us, what worked before will work again even if it is changed slightly.  According to God’s Word, He uses good working established models and patterns.  Also these divine patterns can be transferred from the spiritual realm into the natural realm and then even return back to the spiritual (Heb 8:5, Heb 9:23).  We should all begin to recognize God’s repetition of patterns in the Bible.  Every time we read the Bible we should do it using a trained eye looking for patterns of repetition.  Redefine how you view and define prophecy.  See prophecy as an a occurrence of a repeated pattern and not just the fulfillment of a prediction.  Now let’s get into a few more basic fundamental patterns found in the Bible.

We already  know that Jesus is the Son of God (Mat 16:16), the second person of the triune Godhead.  The Trinity of God being comprised of the Father (Jn 14:11), the Son (1 Jn 5:20) also known as the Word (Rev 19:13) and the Holy Spirit (Gal 4:6, 1 John 5:7).  These three unique personalities make up the One True Living God (1 John 5:7).   These are all three personalities of the same Spiritual Being; they in union represent One God. I pray that you agree with these truths.  They are actually very, very important and Satan fights us from believing in One God in Multiple Viewed Manifestations.

We must view the Trinity as being three different manifestations of the One God for His unique purposes at varying times.   We just learned in Matthew 1:18 and Luke 1:35 that the Holy Spirit caused the virgin Mary to become pregnant.  These were two verses that declare the work of the Father, the Word & the Holy Spirit’s together in producing the male child inside of the virgin woman named Mary.  Some might ask how Jesus contributed to this pregnancy?  Remember Jesus was the Word of God.  The Word of God is the Seed of God (Luke 8:11).  The same Hebrew and Greek Words for “seed” is also used to describe the male sperm that impregnates a woman.  When Mary believe the angel, she said to the messenger “be unto me according to your word”.  The message was from God, not the angel and Mary believe it and became pregnant.   We also know from reading John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God” then we find in verse 14 that the Word (God the Father) became flesh (God the Son) and dwelt among us”.  Therefore we learn how God the Father just manifested in the form of His Son by sending the Word of God to a natural woman.  Then after she accepts the Word of God though faith the work of the Holy Spirit manifests the baby in her womb.

Therefore the manifested Son of God must be the same God as the Father and the Holy Spirit God must be the same God as the Father God and the Word of God.  Wow, I pray we haven’t lost any readers.   So let’s continue our study by confirming some basic information that God (who is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit) can be called a Father in the Bible corporately  or in each of His separate manifested states of existence:

Heb 12:6  For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
Heb 12:7  If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?
Heb 12:8  But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.
Heb 12:9  Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live? 

We can clearly read that God is called the “Father of spirits” in verse 9 of Hebrews 12.  These words inspired by the Holy Spirit are very appropriate to our subject study of God being called a male Father.  Two names of God are given in this context the first is “Lord” (G2962) and the second is “God” (G2316).

We should immediately try to determine who are these spirits that God is said to be the Father of.  Perhaps you noticed that these verses are comparing 1) natural birthed sons and fathers to the much greater spiritual birthed sons and Father.  We have just discovered a new relationship, that these two different realms are made from the similar pattern.  We need to realize that every natural human being is a simultaneous spirit being.  Humans are a spirit that reside temporarily in a natural body possessing an internal soul (mind, will and emotions) (1 Thes 5:23).

By logical reasoning, we deduce that this verse in Hebrews 12:9, at the least implies that every spirit could have their origin from God.  We can say this includes every spirit of every human man, woman and child on the planet.  But, I would also say that this includes every angelic or demonic spirit that exists also.  All of these are spirit beings, and had to originate from God, the Father of spirits since they did not create themselves.  That to me is just basic logic.  However, it is much more complex than this and we just can’t go into this deeper in this lesson.

We have already examined the Biblical fact that Jesus the Son of God was born of a natural woman.  Therefore we can clearly see that God the Father can also have natural physical children, if He desires.  In Luke 1:37 God says “With Him nothing shall be impossible”.    But, remember what we learned in the last lesson.  God says in John 3:16 that Jesus was the “Only begotten Son”.  We learned from the Greek word (G3439) definition that “begotten” means the only physically born son.  This Greek word G3439 is used in 9 verses in the New Testament and they all mean “the only natural born child”.  It is used this way to describe a man in Luke 7:12 that Jesus raised from the dead.  It is also used this way for an only daughter that was raised from the dead by Jesus in Luke 8:42.

Feel free to go and study this Greek word usage for yourself.  Believing Jesus was the only physically born Son of God is very important.  This teaches us that God is not going to have any more physically born natural mortal children that can die, ever again!  Mary was the only virgin birth that God the Father will ever participate in by His admission.

GOD TO ADAM PATTERNS

God the Father is said to be the Father of spirits.  Can God the Son also be a Father of spirits?  We know that Jesus was a 100% natural male and was the 100% supernatural God.  We all should know that Genesis 1:26 says “let us make man in our image and after our likeness”.  This is an amazing statement.  Who is “our” referring to in this verse?  I believe it is a plural pronoun referring to God the Father, God the Son/Word and God the Holy Spirit.  This would at least imply that we should be able to observe limited patterns of God (Father, Son & Spirit) in Adam and potentially vice versa.  Adam is called a son of God in the Luke 3:38 genealogy of Jesus.  This genealogy is very profound to our study.  God teaches us from Jesus’ human lineage that He was a 100% Son of Adam (man) simultaneously being the 100% Son of God.  This confirms how Jesus can be 100% human of the flesh and 100% God in His Spirit.

But, notice what we find in the geneaology of Adam given in Genesis 5.  In this description we see how Adam passed his likeness given to him from God (a spiritual pattern) down to his natral children (a natural pattern).  Since the pattern of Adam is implied to be passed down from generation to generation, this means it is still in effect when Jesus was born from one of Adam’s descendants named “Mary”.  The Luke 3 genealogy is that of Mary.    This is important because it makes what Adam did or could have done to remain in the realm of possibility for Jesus.

Therefore, as a 100% male human, Jesus must have been physically capable of having natural children in the normal way with a natural woman.  But, just because some deceived people have tried to claim that Jesus had sex with a natural woman on the earth and fathered a child, please do not be so easily deceived by them.  I am not going to dignify these false claims by naming anyone that claims this falsity.  Jesus never had any natural children on the earth.  If He had done this, we would be in serious trouble because this would cause scripture that we depend upon as being truthful to become a lie.

For example, Jesus was called the “ONLY begotten Son of God” as we have read.  Then if He had physically produced natural children that would violate John 3:16.  This is because He is still God (Emmanuel=God with us).  If God in the flesh has another natural born/begotten mortal child then the “ONLY” begotten fails the test of truth.  I pray you understand what was stated.  The Bible does not contradict itself nor does the words of a man or a prophet contradict the Bible.  If words spoken to be truth do not agree with scriptures, throw them in the garbage.  Let’s get back on subject.

But, let us revisit  the other spiritual possibilities.  Can Jesus now in heaven, the second member of the Trinity, now have a spiritual child and become a new Spiritual Father?  I think that is an interesting concept to consider especially in light of reading Isaiah 6:9.  The only way Jesus could be an Eternal Father is for Him to produce an eternal son.  This would only be possible in the spirit realm since that is where He is physically seated.  Just ask yourself, when did Jesus become the Everlasting Father?  Was it before He died on the cross, after He dies on the cross but before He ascends into heaven, or was it something that would occur after He ascended?  We are touching on some very deep thought subjects.  What I believe is that the “Eternal Father” title comes into manifestation come much later after ascension.  In fact I personally believe that this eternal Fatherhood designation is awaiting complete fulfilment until Revelation 12 is consummated.  You probably are scratching your head and asking yourself a lot of new questions.  That is good if that is true.  However, if you have already written this off as not being true, then leave me a comment and tell me, when Jesus the Son of God became “An Everlasting Father God”.

Think of what we are studying this way, God created natural physical things as a view or pattern into the originating spiritual pattern dimension (Rom 1:20).  According to God everything in the natural originated from the spiritual dimension and will return to the spiritual dimension in the end.  These naturally created things that we can see around us are shadows,  types or patterns of spiritual things that we cannot see or fully comprehend.  However, these natural things point us to and give us glimpses into, a realm of unseen spiritual possibilities.

These hidden spiritual possibilities are difficult to fully grasp with our physical eyes and senses unless we understand natural things better.  Jesus said in John 3:12 “If I have told you earthly things and you believe not, how then will you believe if I tell you of heavenly things?”  Can we understand that Jesus through teaching  natural truths, He believed that He was giving us understanding of greater more significant heavenly spiritual truths?  These are all just repeatable patterns of God’s design.  I pray that you are receiving what I believe is being said by the Holy Spirit in this lesson.

ADAM TO JESUS PATTERNS

I alluded to this subject in the last section of the lesson.  So what patterns did God create in this natural world?  We obviously cannot address them all in one lesson, but we can narrow our focus into the main topic/subject of the woman and her child in Revelation 12.  How will these created patterns help us understand this concept of spiritual pregnancy, birth pains, birth and children?  I am still unable to cover the entire single subject matter in this lesson.  But we will go into some of the important points, the best that we can.

We will start with God’s created pattern of Adam and Eve in the beginning of Genesis 1 and 2.   They represent the initiating father and mother natural pattern of the entire human race.  I believe we must remember what we learned in the last lessons about Sarah being a patterned allegorical figure of a pre-existing heavenly woman (Gal 4).  It was this heavenly woman that is given to be the church’s spiritual mother.  All of this information is a repeated patterns hidden in Adam and Eve.  Therefore, the natural Adam and Eve family pattern was done before, but previously it was done in the spirit realm.  However, using the Sarah analogy we find that this Sarah type of Heavenly Jerusalem represented a barren wife that had no children.  But, that does not diminish the desire of God the Father to have children like Abraham did in Genesis 15:2.  Remember, “there is nothing new under the sun” whether it is the natural physical sun or the symbolic spiritual Sun of God.  What God said happened to Abraham was a pattern of what was happening in heaven.  Wow, this is some incredible information.

Through Adam and Eve’s procreation, they no doubt produced a lot of male and female children (Gen 5:4).  Certainly, we know from reading Genesis 4, Cain and Abel came from Adam and Eve, followed by Seth.  Keep in mind that these two natural first parents were patterns of hidden spiritual than came before them as well as the things to come after them.  For example, if we read Romans 5:14 carefully, we will learn that Adam was also a pattern of Jesus that would be born from his body.  The Greek word G5179 was translated as “figure”.  But this Greek word literally means a “die”, “model”, or “pattern”.  This G5179 is very similar to H1823 that was translated as “likeness” in Genesis 1:26.  H1823 means a “model” a parallel to the G5179 definition.  Wow, I hope you see what the Lord is teaching us.

What we can see is that God created the first Adam as a “model” or “pattern” of “Himself the Spiritual Father” and this same “model” or “pattern” is being passed down to the future “Jesus”.  Therefore we should be able to understand that the recorded Bible events occurring with Adam can all potentially apply to what God might have done before Adam as well as what could reoccur with the Last Adam, Jesus (1 Cor 15:45).  There is truly nothing new under the Sun.

You might ask “What events in Genesis might relate to what could reoccur with  Jesus?”  That is a great question.  First, Adam’s bride was taken out of his side in Genesis 2.  Isn’t it amazing that Jesus was thrust through on His side hanging on the cross (John 19:34) and blood and water poured out of Him?  I do not believe that was a coincidence.  I believe the outpouring of the blood and water from Jesus on the cross represented the church bride coming out of His side.  Do you recall what Paul wrote in Galatians 2:20?  Paul said “I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I that lives but Christ that lives in me…”.   If you do not understand what is being spoken of here, you are missing out on understanding a huge spiritual mystery being revealed to us in Ephesians 5 and other parts of the Bible.

In Ephesians 5:22-33 God goes over the law of marriage covenant relationships between husbands and wives.  In Ephesians 5 verses 31-32, God actually quotes from Genesis 2:24 from the discussion of taking Eve out of Adam side.  This description is,an expression of the first human marriage to be a pattern.  “For this reason shall a man leaven his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh”.  Then God through the Apostle Paul breaks the great revelation wide open in Ephesians 5:32 about God taking Eve out from Adam becoming one flesh as being a great mystery concerning Christ and the Church.  God is teaching us the fact that all of this in chapter 2 of Genesis pertaining to Adam was a pattern or a model for Christ and the Church.  Let’s move on to the specific topic of children now.

If Adam knew Eve and she conceived a son as Genesis 4:1 teaches us, can it be possible that this is also a pattern for Jesus and His bride?  I believe with all of my heart that it is.  However, this Last Adam marriage covenant relationship is spiritual and not physical like the first Adam.  The pattern of “knowing” is still repeated by God’s design between Jesus and the church.  Remember what Jesus says in Matthew to those that thought they knew Jesus?

Mat 7:22  Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
Mat 7:23  And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

This is very important for us all to understand!  Jesus said many will think they knew me and they have even called me LORD.  But I will say to them, I never KNEW you, depart!  Just as Adam desired to KNOW and have intimate physical relationship with his wife the same appears to reoccur with Jesus.  It not only appears to be a reoccurring pattern but has increased to be a requirement for Jesus KNOWING His bride in the New Covenant.  There are a lot of people that believe they are Christians and do great things in His name.  But according to Jesus they will not enter into the kingdom of God because they are not KNOWN by Him!  This teaches us that Jesus must have an intimate spiritual relationship with us personally His bride.  If this type of natural intimacy produces natural children, could it be possible that this occurs in the greater spiritual realm?  I believe it does because, we read in past lessons about Paul travailing in birth until Christ was formed in other church members (Gal 4:19).  Paul was attempting to get other people to come to the saving KNOWELDGE that he KNEW and this would result in their spiritual birth.  This birth produced a new spiritual child called Christ in another human.  Isn’t God amazing?

We learned previously that whatever is spiritual must produce or birth spiritual offspring.  I’m praying that you are following all of this deep information.  But, I’m not through yet.  I want us to think of something else that is important and probably new to you.

GOD’S NEW NATURAL & SPIRITUAL FAMILY PATTERN

Do you remember what God said to the church in 2 Corinthians?  We were introduced to this concept previously when I gave you Galatians 2:20.  Paul said He was crucified with Christ…”.   Paul claims to have experienced what Jesus experienced on the cross.  Then in Ephesians 2:6 Paul claims us to be raised together and sit with Christ while still being physically here on the earth.  What is this concept being taught?  Let’s read to refresh our memory:

2Co 5:17  Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

This is an amazing verse that I cannot fully teach today.  Notice that I underlined only the words that are found in the Greek and not the italicized words that were added by the translators.  Now, please read the underlined words only.  It would say “if any man in Christ a new creation: old things are passed away; behold all things are become new.”  That is an amazing truth displaying Jesus to be the “new creation” and not us.  Many times Christians make things in the Bible to be totally about them when really it is totally about Jesus Christ.

We the church do become a part of Jesus the new creation but only, if we are IN HIM.   Therefore, Jesus was made by God, a new creation that never existed before.  Why was it necessary for God to create something brand new?  Think about that question.  But, realize first that this teaches us that if we personally remain in (know) Him and He in (known) us, we are included in this new creation work.  Have you thought of why all of this would be important?  I have taught this truth in other lessons, but I will give you a quick overview of why this was essential for the plan of God.

Jesus being raised from the dead and becoming the “first born” from the dead, causes things in the spiritual realm to occur that not many have seen.   For example His death and resurrection birth caused Him to legally separate Himself from every previous covenant that He had ever made with anyone.  Remember “death” is a legal separation from a covenant marriage according to the Word of God and His Law (Ruth 1:17).  We learn this by reading Romans 7:1-4.  Paul, writing to Jewish believers, claimed they were bound under the law to their first (Old) Covenant marriage with God by law.  In other words Paul writes that if they entered into a new covenant with anyone else they would be committing adultery.   But, then Paul teaches them in verse 4, because Jesus died, they have been released from that old covenant, in order to be legally married in covenant to another, the risen Lord Jesus.  Wow, this is so important to understand.

What we learn from this teaching is that when Jesus died, He not only separated God from the Old Covenant, He must have also separated Himself from the Angelic covenant with Lucifer.  Now legally speaking God is not bound to keep His covenant with either Jerusalem.  This means the earthly and the heavenly Jerusalem were both freed from previous covenants with Jehovah God.  Natural Israel is free to now be saved from hell by believing in Jesus.  Also they are now not legally bound to keep all the commandments of the Law that were impossible to keep.  Finally, Satan/Lucifer is NOT open to entering any New Covenant with the risen Jesus.   Therefore, Satan and his angels are headed to hell (Mat 25:41) at the end of man’s 7000-year history and the book of Revelation fulfillment (Rev 20:10).

We are learning more about how God uses repeated patterns.  But we must never forget that He can also do something brand new if He so desires.  Jesus becoming a new creation was a total shock to Satan.  God becoming flesh (John 1:1-14) to die on a cross and save humans literally blew the minds of the devil and all his followers.  They never imagined that there would come a time when they could not enter into heaven.  This is exactly why Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 2:8 “which none of the princes of this world knew, for if they had known they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory”.  The Bible should be making more sense when you learn these previously hidden truths.  I believe the death and the shedding of the blood of Jesus on the cross paid the price for all of our sins.  But, I believe that it was the resurrection of Jesus from the dead that transferred saved people (those that wanted to believe and confess Him as Lord) out of Satan’s kingdom.  Never forget that according to Romans 10:9 “If we confess Jesus as Lord and believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead, we will be saved”.  Therefore, believing in the resurrection is essential.  Let’s move on to a new part of our discussion.

In recent paragraphs we spoke about the topic of intimacy between a covenant husband and wife.  The word “in” is a major part of both physical and spiritual intimacy.  I’m not going to explain that, I believe you know what that physical intimacy means.  However, what it means to be “in” Christ and for Him to be “in” us can be challenging because of the spiritual nature of the subject.  I believe this being “IN” Christ is significantly grounded to us being in and remaining in the Word of God.  There are a lot of people that walk down the church aisle to give their lives to Jesus, but then never open their Bible to learn who He is.  I hope and pray that is not you.

Just understand there are a lot of verses in the N.T. that claim we should be “in” Christ and Christ should be “in” us.  This principle represents spiritual intimacy.  What does it mean to be “in” Christ?  It includes a lot, but it must include us studying the Bible more than occasionally.  It should also include us praying and seeking to hear His voice.  Remember in John 10:4 Jesus said “My sheep KNOW my voice”.  But, that is getting us off the main subject.  The main part of the 2 Corinthians should be that we are in Jesus who is a New Creation.  That implies a lot of new things for us to consider.

God created the family of Adam and Eve as a separate and independent new family unit from heaven. I believe that this new family unit was modeled after God’s pre-established family unit already established in Heaven.   As we know now Adam was created as a natural pattern who represented a new natural family father.  Adam had every natural living human being on this planet on the inside of him.  Adam should be called the natural father of the entire human race because we were all “in” Adam.  We learn a principle in the Bible that whatever happened to Adam, happens to everyone that comes out from Adam  in 1 Cor 15:22.  We were all “in” Adam when he sinned therefore, death passed to every human (Rom 5:12).  This natural pattern is further confirmation to what was taught about us being in Christ.  We were crucified with Christ because we were “in” Christ and sprang forth out of Him.

We all know that Adam had a child through Eve.  This I believe is future pattern of the Last Adam Jesus that was to come.  There is a spiritual truth being given to us here that anything that happens to your father is passed down and has happened to every descendant of their father.  We can learn this by us inheriting the law of sin and death from our original father Adam.  We can confirm this as us now being “in” Christ to be crucified with Him.  Wow, this concept is amazing.  This knowledge literally shook me to the core of my inner being when God revealed it to me.  We can find a great confirming witness in Hebrews 7:9-10.  In these verses God’ reveals to us that Levi paid tithes “in” his great-grandfather Abraham three generations before him.  This occurred because Levi was contained within one sperm cell inside of Abraham that created the descendant Levi.  Wow, wow, wow!

That was a major clue to why Satan should not have killed Jesus Christ, if you didn’t understand it.   Our current subject is really focused upon spiritual fathers and their sons and how they can have children because they were made in the likeness of their father.  Just as God was the Father of Adam and Adam took a wife and had a son, so I believe God the Father impregnated Mary to give birth to Jesus.  And this Son named the Last Adam has the same potential to have His own Son like the first Adam.  Can you see what I am proposing for your evaluation, consideration and study?  I do hope you are following this logic and that you understand the concepts of patterns.  But, let us take a look at what the Bible says, here are some interesting verses that pertain to our current subject:

Eph 2:18  For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.
Eph 2:19  Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;

These verses in Ephesians give us two valuable further conformations.  First that God is a Father and that He also has a family.  Previously at creation in Genesis 1 God’s household was comprised of only a family of spiritual beings in heaven.  I believe that these heavenly patterns were representative of the patterns that He implemented and passed down to be followed by Adam and Eve’s household and family structure here on the earth.   I believe that Adam’s family was a natural family with natural parents giving birth to natural children.  I then believe this pattern was passed further down the line into the life of Jesus to be repeated again concerning a new spiritual family.  I’ll talk about this from the Bible next and give you scriptures to confirm it.

Now let’s explore this logic scripturally and see if it holds water and passes God’s litmus test of truth.  We need to see if there are any scriptures that speak about Jesus beginning a family.  Let’s start this analysis with this scripture in Hebrews:

Heb 3:6  But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.

When I first read this verse, I almost missed what God was saying.  It is so interesting that I studied it for a long time until God showed me what it was really teaching us.  You see this verse is speaking of Jesus our Lord as the Son of God.  This verse declares that this new Son Jesus has established a new house.  This is a new house that did not exist before just like the New Covenant had never existed before either.  This was also just like Him being the new creation that never existed before.  But what does God mean when He says house?   A new house implies a new family.  In fact if you look up the Greek word (G3624) translated as “house” it is defined in the Strong’s that it figuratively means “a family”.  How does God define a family?  We can learn this through His creation.  Jesus implies in Matthew 19:4 God made His type of family as beginning with one male and one female.  These two then have children and that is the normal basis of a family.

Why did the Father God have the need to establish a new spiritual family through Jesus Christ?  Apparently there was some major flaws and problems with the old spiritual family of God.  We have already discussed this answer previously.  We should not understand that everything in heaven was great and even called perfect until sin was found in Lucifer.  You can read about the rise of evil in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28.  God gives us a windowed spiritual view of His problem in these chapters.  Lucifer was filled with pride and God needed to find a legal solution to remove this evil from His presence.

As we learned Satan would not have crucified Jesus on a cross if he had known the consequences for killing Jesus (1 Cor 2:8).  You can learn from that scripture that something happened through His death on the cross to cause Satan to be very unhappy with the outcome.  Something major happened that affected him directly and personally.  We have already seen how this was the loss of God’s covenant with him and the angels.  Therefore, Satan lost his right to his home in heaven and his place in the previous family of Jehovah.  This is separation and loss of heavenly rights are finally put into full effect in Revelation 12 the exact chapter that we are studying.  Can you see the connections being made and how the Bible all fits together to tell one story using dispersed clues?   I wish I could go into all of this in more depth but I just don’t have the time.  I did give you major clues on this subject so I hope you can put the pieces together and seek the answers for yourself.

So we can see from Hebrews 3:6 that Jesus has established a completely new family unit for a new God family.  We have already seen that God calls Jesus Christ the last Adam in the New Testament (1 Cor 15:45).  God connects Jesus to the pattern of Adam directly.  We can definitely see that Adam was a natural pattern of the spiritual Jesus.  Adam had one wife who was the body of Adam, Jesus now has one wife who is the body of Christ.  Let’s review this verse to confirm:

Rom 5:14  Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam‘s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.

What is the subject of this verse?  It is directly related to Adam, and God says Adam is a pattern of Jesus to come.  There are many other parallels and patterns that we could explore, but let’s continue with our subject and study, can Jesus have his own family.

We know from Hollywood and a non-Christian author that Satan has attempted to say that Jesus who was a physical man for 33 and 1/2 years, had a sexual relationship with a woman on the earth and had children.  I often times wondered why it was important for Satan to try to plant these misdirected false seeds in the minds of people on the earth.  Satan rarely does anything that does not have a purpose.  I believe it is an attempt to distract us from the truth.  True Christians will always reject that Jesus had a sexual relationship with a natural woman, but what else does the words of author do to us?  They automatically cause us to potentially reject any other new Bible assertion that Jesus could be a spiritual father of a spiritual child.  The automatic conclusion would be, if we accept the physical child birth we are more likely to reject a spiritual child birth. But here is the main reason why we should reject the physical child birth, because it is not in the Bible.  So we should determine if the spiritual child birth is found in the Bible.

We can see so many verses that give us widespread implications of the establishment of a new family of God if we look for them.  Here is a verse that speaks to us along these lines:

Gal 6:10  As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.

Using basic logic and common sense again we can see this verse speaks of two divisions of people.  Those who believe and those who believe not.  Those who believe are a people in a new family or a new household called faith.  This word “household” literally means people who are close relatives.  This is like those who are living in the same family dwelling.  But this is not just any family this is His family, the family unit of Jesus Christ.  Those that have believed in Him.

So we have seen scriptures that indicate Jesus has established a new family of God and that this family is a new spiritual household with new family members of faith.  So does Jesus Christ have children?  Here is another scripture that I found absolutely fascinating.  We have seen this before but we will review it again:

Isa 9:6  For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

This verse is absolutely more proof and evidence that people read things and don’t see exactly what God says.   I’ve had this Bible verse printed in a bunch of my Christmas cards and I didn’t see it for a long time.  Did you see it?  What are we researching?  Are we not attempting to find verses that declare Jesus the second figure in the Godhead to be a new father? Is not this verse about Jesus Christ?  Sure it is!  Jesus is the child that was born, and the son that was given.  We can clearly see that Jesus, the Son of God is also being called a father.  But, notice this verse in Isaiah 9:6 calls Jesus Christ the “Everlasting Father“.  Do you understand the implications behind that short statement?  I doubt very seriously that many do.  Why does God need to put an adjective “everlasting” in front of the noun “father”?  The reason anyone does this is to differentiate one father from another father using a finite descriptive quality of one that is not found in any other.  You see I thought God the Father was the Everlasting Father?  This is truly mind blowing information that is much deeper than I can fully cover in this lesson. But, I will give you one verse to consider in the discussion of why Jesus can be called the Everlasting Father and why the Father God the 1st in trinity did not use this title to describe Himself.  I mentioned this verse earlier but it is worth emphasizing again:

Rom 7:4  Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.

We know from reading the context that this verse was written directly to only “Those that KNOW the LAW”.  That is just God’s way of saying the Jewish people that were under the LAW of Moses and legally married to Him according Jeremiah 31:32.  Because natural Israel was in a legally binding covenant with Him, they would not be able to be joined into the new covenant with Jesus Christ without being called an adulterer.  Wow, notice the fact that God is informing us the old covenant is not the new covenant and being in both simultaneously is spiritual adultery.

But, since Jesus who was God made flesh died on a cross physically we learn from this verse that the naturally born Jewish people can now legally be “Married” (in a New Covenant) with the risen from the dead Jesus without being called an adulterer.  Wow, this is so important to understanding so much of the Bible that it would take a book to write everything that is being taught here.  The main point for this discussion is simply this is the reason why the risen Lord Jesus will be given the title “Everlasting Father”.

Did you know that you or I can not be legitimately called a father or a mother, unless we have children.  That is just a basic Bible fact.  So if we read in Isaiah 9:6 that God calls Jesus the “Everlasting Father” we can conclude that he must have at least one child.  However as we have been discussing there are two kinds of fathers in the Bible, one is a natural father and the other is a spiritual father.  A natural father is only someone that has sown natural sperm into a natural woman and she has conceived and has given birth to a natural child.  Then and only then is he is called a father.

Spiritually speaking a pastor, a priest or a bishop could be a spiritual father.  All of the apostles in the New Testament were considered spiritual fathers.  Paul was considered a spiritual father (1 Tim 1:2, 2 Tim 1:2).  In fact any Christian can sow spiritual seed (God’s Word) into the heart of a non-Christian and if they believe and Christ is conceived in them, then they also become a spiritual parent.    You see there are spiritual families in different designs and patterns in the Bible as well as natural families that are similar.  That means there are spiritual seeds that were sown into the hearts of men and women and they have believed and accepted Jesus as Lord to now be in Him.  The spiritual process follows a pattern of the natural process so that we can understand it.

CONCLUSION

So I have given you a lot of new information to think about.  I have given you direct and indirect scriptures that teach us Jesus Christ is a Son who has established a new family for God.  This family consists of Jesus the bridegroom, the Church his wife and some potential spiritual children.  You have to study the pattern of Adam and Eve and you have to put some pieces of the puzzle together.   I know there are still some that don’t see what I’m saying.  Before I comclude let me quickly give you one more revelation from the Word of God.  Jesus called Himself the Son of God and the Son of Man.  The Hebrew word “Son” (and Jesus was a Jew) means “the builder of the family name”.  In other words Jesus said I am born a Son to build a new family for God and for Adam.   Everytime Jesus said He was a Son, He implies that He will have children.  This basically leaves Satan and the other demons out of the new family established by Jesus and His bride.   I guess I’ll stop there in order not to overwhelm you with too much new information all at once.

I hope you realize how difficult it is to give you just a little bit and not cover a subject with all the possible scriptural backing.  If what I write is just my opinion it is not worth a penny, but if it is God’s Word, then you cannot dismiss it or write it off, unless you are foolish.  All we have seen so far is the possibility that this child in Revelation 12 is a child of the church and Jesus.  , We have learned the basic foundation for why it was necessary for a new divine spiritual family.  We have not yet fully learned all of the reasons why God did this.  I personally am not sure anyone but God knows all of the reasons.  But, we will continue with the subject of the identity of the woman in Revelation 12 and her child in my next lesson.   I pray that you are thinking with your spiritual eyes open and that you understand the Bible lessons being presented.  I would recommend that you reread them over and over.  Thank You for taking the time to study the Word of God with us.  God Bless you and keep you until next time.

If you would like to continue reading this series, you can continue with Part 7.