(Ver 1.2)  This is part six of a series of advanced Bible lessons on the methods that God has designed and implemented to conceal spiritual truth and information in the Bible for us to find.  By studying these methods we will greatly increase our ability to understand the spiritual truth of God’s Word.  Some might ask why is important to know this?  I believe that the Bible will only be understood correctly, by understanding how things are hidden in the Bible.  God is making known these hidden things today and if you didn’t know that there were hidden things to find and how these things were hidden you would really not be able to understand how to study the Bible.  Here is a prophecy that Jesus made to us:

Mat 10:26  Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known.

This is a prophetic statement of the end times that we live in.  God is saying that the things that He has hidden in His Word will be understood by the church.  The true believers will participate in this knowledge.  Those who are known by God and who know God will see the revelation shine forth.  Those who walk in the darkness will not perceive it and will fail to comprehend what is happening.  Satan will do everything that he can to deceive you into a lie, but if you are wise you will overcome.  This revelation will cause the true believers to unite and become one in mind, one in purpose and one in spirit, and this will allow them to make themselves ready for the coming of the Lamb of God.

Isa 42:9  Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them.

This is one of the Standard Operating Methodologies of God.  God declare something will happen before it happens.  However, these things that are prophesied are not very self apparent or self revealing.  In other words they are hidden to allow God to reveal them at the right time.   If you understand what God is doing before He returns you will be able to participate.

In my last lesson on this subject I talked specifically about how God can call one thing by multiple names, titles and descriptions and how difficult that makes it to find related verses in the Bible.  Linking two completely different names in the Bible to be references to the same spiritual individual subject is one of the most prevalent methods that God uses throughout the Bible.  Today, I want to discuss the opposite to that technique and introduce you to a new paradigm.  If you have not read this series from the beginning I would strongly suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1“.

Technique 6:  Calling Multiple Things by the Same Name

There are so many different methods of concealing truths that sometimes I wonder how we have learned anything from the Bible.  Obviously if it were not for the Spirit of God showing us how to read it and study it we would all still be hopelessly lost.  So I want to tell you something else that is extremely important in the correct interpretation of the Bible and this one will probably be somewhat controversial because it might be totally new to you.  I’ve studied the Bible a lot for many years and this is one of the things that God showed me that certainly has helped me to better understand the Bible, so I hope it will help you also.

This method of concealing information is based upon a trick of calling multiple things, people, places or objects by the same name, so that if you hear someone say it you won’t really know which one they are talking about.  This is really a common problem that we face every day in our usage of the English language and many times we are forced to decipher what is being said by the context of a particular word or by even knowing who it is that is speaking.  Wow, that was an incredible statement that God had me type and it helps to explain many challenges that we face today in a wide variety of Bible interpretations found on the planet.  Two people can say the exact same words and they mean something differently because of who they are and how they said it.  You see an English word can have multiple meanings and can be used in a wide variety of ways and even in slang.  You must automatically decode the meaning of the words based upon the speaker, the intent and the usage.  Believe it or not, this is a clever way that God has used to encode information into the Bible for us to figure out.

Let me give you a quick example, if I told you to look at my fruit, what comes to your mind?  Maybe you would think I had a basket of apples or oranges.  But Jesus said you will know them by their fruit?  So how did that change the definition and what you are now thinking about when I say look at my fruit.  You see the difference and the difficulty of attempting to think naturally versus thinking spiritually.  What I did was show you a common approach found in the Bible.  God speaks of fruit in verses found from Genesis to Revelation.  How do you know which kind of fruit He is referring to, or could it be that He is referring to both of them sometimes simultaneously?   It is a very challenging puzzle to consider.

Let me go into another example of what I am talking about, the concept of calling different things by the same name in the Bible.  The term “heaven” is used multiple times in the Bible.  If you have studied the Bible very much, you must have noticed that the Bible refers to at least three different areas or realms and they are all referred to as “heaven”.  You can see this in the New Testament when Paul writes about being caught up to the third heaven.  Obviously if he went and visited the third heaven there must be a first heaven and a second heaven.   Looking through the Bible you will find that one heaven is the atmosphere around our planet where birds soar, the wind blows and clouds form.  Then another dimension called heaven would be the area of outer space where stars, planets and other celestial objects exist.  Finally, we know that there also exists a spiritual place or city that contains the throne of God.  A place full of angelic beings and those that have departed to be with the LORD.  This last one is definitely a spiritual reality and location.  But we can see that there are three completely different areas all called by the exact same name and this makes our job of reading and studying the Bible that much more complex.

I’ll attempt to give you another example, but this one will be tricky.  I noticed this when reading the Bible that the city named Jerusalem was mentioned a lot.  From the Old Testament nation of Israel to the New Testament ministry of Jesus all the way to the book of Revelation.  In fact by my Bible program’s search it found 767 verses that contained the word “Jerusalem” from Joshua to Revelation.  Jerusalem is certainly one of the central themes of the Bible.  But here is the secret, pay close attention to what I am about to tell you because it will be very important.  There is more than one city named Jerusalem in the Bible.  In fact I have found three different cities all called Jerusalem.  I’m not talking about a conquering nation coming into Israel and destroying the earthly city Jerusalem and then it being rebuilt into a newer version of the same city.  I’m talking about three separate and distinct cities that all potentially exist right now in time in different locations.  So when we read a verse that says “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.”  The first question that you should ask yourself would be “Which One?”.

You see there is the earthly city Jerusalem in the nation of Israel located in the middle east and this is the main city that everyone always associates with the name Jerusalem.  But we can also see in Revelation chapters 3 and 21, a new city called Jerusalem and this one is certainly not the same city as the one in the middle east today.  So that is definitely number two.  Then in the Epistles we can read about a third city called the “Heavenly Jerusalem” (Hebrews 12:22) or as it is also called “the Jerusalem that is above” (Galatians 4:26).  This is certainly new information to many so I anticipate that I will get some opposition, because they haven’t seen it and don’t understand it yet.  Oh well?   You know I don’t expect you to believe something just because I said it, I do expect you to study things for yourself and find out if they are true or not.  You see the implications being given to us by this revelation is that the earthly city Jerusalem represents the Old Covenant relationship of God and natural Israel.  The New Jerusalem is said to be the bride of Christ and corresponds to the New Covenant relationship of Jesus and the church.  Then there is the heavenly Jerusalem which I would guess some have said was the same as the New Jerusalem, but that does not fit the scriptures.  You see in Galatians 4:26 it describes the “Heavenly Jerusalem” to clearly be the spiritual mother of the church and therefore we can imply that it says that she is not the church.  The implication is that of a mature woman capable of child bearing.  The church is called the New Jerusalem in Revelation 3, so we know that the heavenly Jerusalem must have existed prior to the spiritual birth of the church in order for her to give birth to us.  It is only logical.

There are a number of clearly implied references and associations of these three cities.  First, they are all cities and they all represent women.  They are all implied to be women so there is also an implication that they all have children.  They are all implied to be related to a covenant relationship with God.  Three women, three cities, three covenants.  I don’t have time to explain everything here in this blog.  My goal is to make you familiar with a technique that God has shown me that He has used to conceal information in His book, the Bible.

What do we know about Moses, God said in his Word that he gave Moses instruction to pattern things after those things that were already in heaven.  Moses built an arch of the covenant and created a temple, priests and garments that were all patterns of things that already existed in heaven.  What was God doing?  He was establishing a city, a covenant and a temple on the earth that revealed another one that already existed in heaven.  This one was in heaven was a very old city and had to exist prior to the church.  In the allegory given to us in Galatians 4, we can see that this heavenly city was a type of Sarah who was a very old lady when she had Isaac, the promised child.  But it says the earthly city Jerusalem was a type of Hagar who is in bondage with her children.  What does the Bible say, it says to cast out the bond woman, for her son will not be heir with the children of the free woman.  This is very strong words and speak volumes of information about the current state of Israel and the middle east city of Jerusalem.

I can certainly say that if God referred to three different cities, all with the same name that would certainly make things significantly more complicated to figure out what He was talking about.  Do you agree?  First, just learn the concept and method and then go and see how it is applied in the Bible.  If there are three cities called Jerusalem, that implies three different nations called Israel.  The number of parallels and duplicates of earthly and heavenly things are very huge.  Then God tells us that there is coming a new heaven and a new earth.  That implies these Old things will pass away and vanish.  But that also confirms why God tells us that there will be a New Jerusalem to take the place of the other two cities.  There are so many examples like this in the Bible if you look for them you will find them.  This process always starts by you realizing that they exist and for you knowing what to look for.

I’ll give you another example of what I am talking about to help you see it more clearly.  A” day” can be interpreted to be a literal 24 hour time period where the earth revolves around one complete cycle and we sleep and then we get up and go to work.  This 24 hour time period is just the first definition of the word and here is a scriptural example of this word being used in this manner:

1Co 16:2  Upon the first day of the week let every one of you lay by him in store, as God hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings when I come.

Then the word “day” can be interpreted to mean a 12 hour time period that the sun shines into and this period is in direct contrast to “night” another 12 hour time period.  So now we have the same word but used to mean a 12 hour time period instead of a natural 24 hour time period.  Here is an example of this word being used like that in the Bible:

2Ti 1:3  I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day;

I hope that you are already seeing the potential conflicts in correctly interpreting the word “day” in the Bible.  But, we certainly are not through with all of the possible ways to use the word “day” in the scriptures.  Let’s look at another example:

Heb 10:25  Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.

What does this word “day” mean in Hebrews 10:25?  I think that it means a coming event.  But it could also mean other things.  There is the complexity of correctly interpreting the Bible.  You see here is another problem with correct Bible interpretation; many, many times it is imperative to get God’s definition for a word in order to correctly apply it and understand what is being said to us in the Bible.  Here is an example of what I am talking about.  God gives us His definition for a “day” in this verse:

2Pe 3:8  But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

You see a problem now exists.  After learning God’s definition of a word, you need to try to apply God’s definition to every other occurrence in the Bible of the word “day” and see if it fits or works to help you understand the spiritual side of the verse.  This is a very tricky method of hiding information in the Bible.  Take for example, the Genesis 1 account of the creation of our world.  If you notice it describes a 6 day period of work by God.  But, you can also learn by applying God’s definition to what 6 days imply to us in prophetic terms.  God actually lays out the plan of man and salvation and redemption in the first chapter of Genesis.  By noting what God did on what day and applying it using God’s definition of a day you can see several major spiritual truths being hidden in these verses.  There is a prophetic verse in the Bible that says “I make known the end from the beginning”.  So by studying the beginning we ought to be able to see and understand the end.  I’ll give you a quick example, on day 4 God divides day and night and caused the sun to rule the day and the moon to rule the night.  This is a prophetic view into Christ being born on the 4th day of human history or around 4000 years after Adam.  Do you understand that Jesus is the Sun and Satan is the moon?  Any way I have gone long enough in this blog so I hope that you are understanding the concepts being given.  You might not understand everything that I write about in these blogs, but try to get a hold of the concepts and then apply them when you are studying the Bible.  Thanks for taking the time to read my blog.   God Bless!

If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons, please go to “Part 7“.