Blog Archives
Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight — Understanding God’s Methods of Hiding Information in the Bible! Pt 7
(Ver 1.1) This is now part seven of a series of advanced Bible study lessons on the methods that God has used to conceal truth and information in the Bible for us to find. By studying these methods we will greatly increase our ability to understand the truth of God’s Word. I have covered a lot important concepts and information in these lessons that will not be repated. If you have not read this series from the beginning I would strongly suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1“.
Technique 7: Types and Shadows
The next technique for concealing truth is what I call the usage of “Types and Shadows”. Types and shadows are very interesting patterns that God has used and are very prevalent in the Old Testament especially. A type or a shadow is many times a recognizable representation of a New Testament spiritual truth. Types and Shadows can be found within individuals, groups, events, Jewish feasts and festivals and even places. Types can be referred to as an archetype or archetypal. Here is one definition for this word:
archetypal – representing or constituting an original type after which other similar things are patterned. Archetypal Patterns.
This term describes something that is a pattern of something else that is to come. In other words there is a recognizable resemblance of the past thing from knowing or seeing the future thing. I hope you got that last statement, because it was significant. The idea that you must know the new in order to recognize the pattern in the old is the primary reasons why the Jewish people don’t see Christ the Messiah all over the Old Testament and we do. Because they don’t know the new, they don’t see the old patterns that reflect and describe the new.
Here are some scriptures that describes the usage of types and shadows by God in the Old Testament:
Heb 8:4 For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law:
Heb 8:5 Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount.
These verses inform us of God’s instructions given to Moses through the law. God says these things that Moses had written about were shadows of things which already existed in Heaven. That is an informative verse and demonstrates the principle of types and shadows. Two specific words in this two verses stood out and these are the words “shadows” and “patterns”. That is exactly what I am talking about. These natural types or shadows are given to Moses by God, to provide a view of something that is not seen in the spiritual realm. God showed Moses what to build on earth using the patterns of the things that already existed in heaven. These things can be looked at in one of two ways. They can be viewed as a way of revealing that which existed in heaven or they could also be viewed as something that concealed the things in heaven. Because we have never seen these things in heaven we would not really know by looking at the earthly things what they represented, would we? Let’s examine another New Testament verse that also deals with the subject of types and shadows:
Col 2:16 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
Col 2:17 Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.
God provides a short list of some things that can be found in the Old Testament and declares that these things are types and shadows of things that were to come in Jesus Christ. The principle is again that God gave us things in the law that were recorded to provide insight into something that was going to come in the spiritual realm. The thing that was to come was greater than the thing given to be a type. It’s like if I’m walking in the sunshine and I cast a shadow on the ground. You might be able to look at just the shadow and tell a lot about me, but there are a lot of the details omitted in the shadow representation. Only by looking correctly at the real can you fully comprehend the shadow. There lies a problem with people reading just the Old Testament in isolation, they are looking at shadows and it is many times very difficult to determine what something is by just looking only at the shadow.
The term shadow is a term that implies the light has been blocked by something. In other words a natural shadow on the ground is caused because some object is blocking the light. The absence of light causes shadows. In the natural realm the light can be from the sun or from another light source like a lamp. In the spiritual realm God is the Light! Who is blocking God from shining into the minds of people on the earth like the Jewish people who do not know Jesus? The Bible says that “the god of this world has blinded the minds of them that believe not”. This verse is of course speaking of Satan as being in control of our current world system. But the term “blindness” means the inability to see light. This applies physically and spiritually equally.
There are types and shadows from Genesis chapter 1 until Malachi. If you are a serious student of the Word of God you will also realize that the Gospels are all predominantly Old Testament. I think sometimes people forget this, but Jesus did not implement the new covenant until his resurrection. Knowing this fact we can see further types and shadows in the life and ministry of Jesus. For example, in the life of Jesus, he walked up to a fig tree and cursed it and it died overnight. Maybe you didn’t realize it, but Jesus didn’t get angry and do anything on a whim or by accident. This action of cursing the fig tree was symbolic and a type of something else that was a much greater truth. Since this is not my subject I will not attempt to explain it for the sake of time.
I guess I should try to point out that a pattern found in the Old Testament might be very similar to an analogy that I previously discussed in the topic of symbolism. Sometimes types can be real people that point us to spiritual truth. But a type or pattern can also be a holiday, like the Feast of Passover. The Passover Feast can be viewed as a type of Jesus the lamb of God being sacrificed and Him shedding his blood. Then there is story of Moses in the wilderness who puts a serpent on a pole and everyone that looks upon it is made whole. Again this is a type and a shadow of Christ’s work on the cross. Christ became sin that we might become the righteousness of God. There are many patterns given within the law of Moses and I cannot begin to try to include them all in this blog.
Heb 10:1 For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.
This verse in Hebrews actually describes types and shadows very accurately. The law of the Old Testament contains many shadows of the good things to come. Of course it then tells us that these things are not the clear image of the real item. After all they are just shadows. God informs us the real thing that was coming is the New Covenant. The things given in the Old were purely given to point you to the real. That is why the nation of Israel is in so much deception. They have embrace the shadows and have chosen to purposely ignore the real.
There are so many other examples that I could give you right here, that I’ll just pick one example, that is found in the book of Ruth. Ruth was a Moabite or gentile woman, whose Jewish husband died. We can see a man called Boaz who is called the kinsman redeemer of Ruth. Ruth moves back to Bethlehem with her mother-in-law, where she meets Boaz and eventually marries him. Without going into a lot of details of this story the major types and shadows are as follows, Ruth represents the church, Boaz represents Jesus Christ and Naomi represents the Nation of Israel. A type and a shadow is never a perfect image of the true image portrayed. Like a real shadow on the ground it always points you to the real image that is causing or making the shadow. The shadow should be an outlined representation of the real without all of the detailed features of the true image. This of course is sometimes difficult to see or recognize at first until you figure out what the shadow is pointing you to. But once you see it then it becomes much clearer what everything means. There are many other types and shadows in the book of Ruth and I didn’t give you all of them because it would certainly complicate your world without a much more in-depth teaching and understanding.
So I’ll end this blog on that note. We have now gone through seven different techniques that God has utilized to hide information in the Bible for us to find. That of course is not every method that there is and hopefully I can continue to discuss some more in my next blog. God Bless!
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons you can go to “Part 8“.
Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight — Understanding God’s Methods of Hiding Information in the Bible! Pt 6
(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“.
Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight — Understanding God’s Methods of Hiding Information in the Bible! Pt 5
(Ver 1.3) This is part five of a series of advanced Bible study lessons on the methods that God has used to conceal information in the Bible for us to find. By studying, learning and understanding these methods we will greatly increase our ability to understand the real truth of God’s Word. We have already discussed that God uses various methods of hiding information of which I have first mentioned has consisted of Him spreading the information out randomly over the entire Bible in an unorganized pattern which causes it to be difficult for us to find all of the verses on any related subjects. I like to call this the truth seed scattering method of hiding truth. It is very much like a farmer out in his field planting seeds to produce a single crop. The seeds fall in random order but they all grow together in unison to make up the unified crop to harvest. That is exactly like the Word of God was designed. You can find subjects throughout the Bible and they must all be considered equally when interpreting the Bible. Other methods we have talked about are God’s usage of figurative language, God’s usage of symbolism and symbolic representations and God’s usage of parables. If you have not read these lessons from the beginning I would strongly suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1“.
Technique 5: Referring to the Same Thing Using Multiple Names, Titles or Descriptions
Another very common method of hiding information in the Bible is something that God uses very often and it is literally a very tricky method of hiding information. You see if God wanted to tell you something and He wanted to make it harder to find, one method might be that He could depict it using different descriptions, terms, titles or names. God could be talking about the exact same thing, but this makes it significantly more difficult to associate and put the pieces together correctly. What if your Bible study subject was about “the words that people speak” or just “spoken words”. Have you ever thought how you would attempt to find every verse in the Bible that refers to this one subject so that you could potentially gain a thorough knowledge on it? You would have to search the Bible for “word”, “words”, “speech”, “speeches”, “spoken”, “spoke”, “speak”, “speaker”, “say”, “saying”, “sayings”, “tell”, “told”, “console”, “consoled”, “council”, “commune”, “communicate”, “converse”, “demand”, “demanded”, “demands”, “command”, “commanded”, “commandment”, “commands”, “talk”, “talks”, “talker”, “voice”, “voices”, “breath”, “mouth”, “lips”, “tongue”, “tongues”, “whisper”, “whispers”, “whispered”, “question”, “questions”, “questioned”, “ask”, “asked”, “asks”, “inquire”, “inquiring”, “inquired”, “request”, “requests’, “requested”, “utter”, “uttered”, “utters”, “babble”, “utterance”, “declare”, “declared”, “declares”, “inspire”, “inspired”, “inspiration”, “encourage”, “encouragement”, “correct”, “corrected”, “correction”, “scorn”, “sarcasm”, “mockery”, “cynicism”, “irony”, “ironic”, “sound”, “sounds”, just to name a few of the obvious ones. How many other words am I leaving out that can be taken as “spoken words”? What about the truth, a lie, or lies, or lying? What about someone who prays or is praying, or has prayed, isn’t that speaking words to God? This is the root of the problem, there are so many other synonymous words that I did not include and then there are also some not so obvious ones that are very difficult to find. For example, what about a babbling brook or a flame of fire? What about a reference to a fountain, a rudder, a bit or a bridle? What about the fruit of your lips? Jesus said “out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water.” That is a not so obvious reference to something coming out of their mouths and it must be their spoken words. This verse does not mention words directly nor even have a direct reference to the area of the mouth, but yet it speaks about something coming out of an area of the body that normally you put stuff into, to feed your body. That is very tricky, if you ask me. Then the Bible describes Jesus as the man with the sharp two-edged sword coming out of his mouth, and again that is a symbolic reference talking about His spoken words. Words are described in terms of a weapon that cuts two ways. That is some very powerful information on the subject of spoken words, yet how would you find it and recognize the significance?
I do hope you grasp what I’m saying for it is very important that you do. There are so many ways to describe and speak about any subject that it makes it very difficult to think of them all, much less to find all of them in the Bible. You would have to read the Bible from cover to cover on every Bible study, paying very close attention to every word to see if it is related to the subject you are searching for. Even then many of the references could be symbolic, figurative, or some other reference that makes it difficult to recognize with just a surface reading.
So let’s talk about the “devil” or Satan. How many different Bible verses can you come up with that describe this spiritual being in not so obvious terms. I can think of a bunch so I’ll give you a few examples to get you started in thinking of new ways to recognize this technique used in the Bible. Satan is called the “serpent”, the “dragon”, the “deceiver”, the “accuser”, the “prince of this world”, the “god of this world”, the “thief”, the “enemy”, the “ruler of the darkness”, “Lucifer”, “Beelzebub”, the “moon”, and I probably could go on and on. Wouldn’t it have been easier, if God had always called Satan by the name “Satan” and then we would have been able to understand when He was talking about him in a more precise and clear manner? Of course it would! But nobody said the Bible was simple! God intentionally designed every word of the Bible to conceal and reveal information.
By calling one thing by a multitude of different names or titles, you make it significantly more difficult to find and understand them. But God can also give new implied information in using this technique. For example, one of the first times that Satan is mentioned in the Bible, he is called “the serpent” (Genesis 3). But, in Revelation 12 he is called “the dragon”. We are also clearly told in Revelation 12 that the dragon was the ancient serpent. Therefore, both are symbolic references to the same spiritual entity. However, you can infer from these two references some qualities that have transpired or have developed in the course of time over the last 6000 years. Satan who was called the serpent was a much smaller and insignificant spiritual being in Genesis. As a symbolic serpent he was a manageable force. But, now as a great red dragon in Revelation he has implied growth and strength which also infers a much greater power. In other words, Satan is a much larger formidable spiritual opponent in Revelation than he was in Genesis. This information was given to us indirectly by God using two different symbolic references for the same spiritual being called Satan. If you would like to read my lesson on the “Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols of Satan” found in the Bible it would be worth your time to go and check it out.
I’ll give you one more example, since this subject is so vitally important to correct Bible interpretation. God calls the sun by multiple names and descriptions. If you just searched the Bible for the obvious word “sun” you would miss some of the most important verses in the Bible on the subject. By only searching for the obvious “sun”, you will miss the not so obvious ways to describe the sun. The very first reference in the Bible of the “sun” is found in Genesis 1 on the 4th day of creation and God calls the sun the “greater light” in Genesis 1:16. The “Greater Light” is the prophetic symbolic ruler of the day and of course represents a symbolic type of Jesus Christ who was to come to the earth on the 4th day (4000 years) of human history. Then in 2 Peter 1:19 God calls the sun the “Day Star“. If you understand astronomy you understand our sun is nothing but our closest star that lights our days. This is a physical reality that symbolizes a spiritual reality. In this verse in 2 Peter, Jesus is again called the Sun that rises in the hearts of men. Finally, in Revelation 22:16 the sun is given another completely different name and is called the “Bright and Morning Star“. Again this is literally speaking about the sun. This verse in Revelation is Jesus speaking directly to us and claiming to be the Sun of Righteousness found in Malachi. Then in 1 John 2:8 we find a symbolic sun being referred to as the “true light“. That is radically important to the subject of the sun, but a reference that would be very hard to find. So if you just searched the Bible for the term “sun”, you missed three or four of the most important verses on the subject. To adequately satisfy the subject you would need to start with the obvious references of the “sun”, “day”, “daylight”, “light”, “morning”, “dawn” and then be smart enough to look for the not so obvious ones like “star”.
Another technique that I haven’t spoken of yet is opposite or antithesis truths. To understand “day” you might also have to understand “night”. To understand the “Sun” you might also need to understand the “moon”. To understand “light” you might also need to understand “darkness”. Many times in the Bible a subject is covered by speaking about what it is not. Light is not darkness so when God tells you about “darkness” you can infer some meaning to what light is. It can get very complicated and I know you will get it if you start to look for it. I also just gave you a small sample of the names of Jesus found in the Bible, if you would like you can go to “Names, Titles, Descriptions and Symbols of Jesus” found in the Bible and begin to recognize how many ways there are to describe one person. It is almost overwhelming.
Begin to recognize that there are literally dozens of ways to describe the same thing. God can be talking about the same thing in multiple verses, but calling them by different names. All this does is make it more difficult and challenging for us to figure it all out. I do hope you get it! This is a very prevalent and widespread technique used by God to conceal information in the Bible. Why, because you probably didn’t realize that there were so many multiple ways of naming something. Things, events, people, and places in the Bible are often referred to using different titles and names based upon different descriptive qualities and attributes. I can’t tell you how important it is that you grasp this concept and know this technique of hiding information in the Bible. Using this knowledge alone will cause you to learn more than you can imagine.
If you would like to continue reading this series, please continue to “Part 6“.
Genesis 6: Prophetic Salvation and Redemptive Patterns in Noah? Pitch Within and Pitch Without!
(Ver 1.1) I know I teach things that are new and different than anything you have ever heard before, but that doesn’t mean they are not true or what the Bible says. If you diligently study the Bible I believe you will come to the same conclusions that I have. In my blog today I want to teach you about something prophetic that God showed me about the story of Noah. Noah as you recall was selected by God to preserve the human race. God looked at humanity and said “The end of all flesh has come up before me.” This was obviously not a good thing because violence and sin had filled the earth. Men and women were lovers of themselves and didn’t care about anybody else. However, Noah found favor before God. God told him to go and build an ark that him and his family could get into along with the animals of the world and God would then send a flood to cause a new beginning or a new starting point. Apparently something this catastrophic came as a result of the tremendously sad state of the human race at that time. Jesus told us “As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the coming of the son of man” (Mat 24:37). We do not have much to look forward to, if this is truly the case. There does seem to be a growing evil presence in the world. It would appear that those in the darkness are growing darker and more evil. A day does not go by on the 6:00 evening news where someone has not done something evil against another human on the earth. But since this is not my mainline subject I will not go into that in any more depth. What I want to show you today is God’s plan of salvation and redemption in some hidden types and patterns found within the Old Testament story of Noah:
Gen 6:13 And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.
This pattern and type is not easily found, but it is not hard to understand once you see it. In studying the Bible maybe you noticed that many English translations are void of the original Hebrew language meanings and that they also lack the true importance of what God had originally intended it to say. Today’s scripture verse will be a prime example of this problem. It would appear that the translators did not know how to correctly translate the verse so they used their best guess method at what they thought that it meant to say. After you read the rest of this lesson you will understand why it is so important to study the original Hebrew words in order to see what you might be missing. So here is the key verse to our subject lesson today:
Gen 6:14 Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.
God told Noah to make an ark out of gopher wood. The Ark is a symbolic representation of humanity and the human condition. God uses the Ark to save humanity. This is also symbolic of God’s plan of salvation and redemption. God comes to the earth personally and becomes the very thing that He wants to save. By becoming a man, God is now able to save the human race. It is a fascinating concept to consider. But that is not my subject today either. So let’s look at the Ark. God told Noah to put pitch on the inside and then to put pitch on the outside of the ark. Let me stop right there and describe the human condition. Humans are spiritual beings that inhabit or dwell in a physical body. The body is the outside part that we see, the inside of a person is their spirit that we do not see. I do hope that you understand spiritual things enough to see what I am telling you is true. So what we have described to us in the form of a symbolic ark are the external vs. the internal parts or dimensions of a man. A man or a woman alive in the world today is in contact with both the natural and the spiritual worlds simultaneously, whether they know it or not. The vast majority of the unsaved people of the world are not aware of the spiritual dimension of things at all. Even a great number of carnal Christians are also oblivious to spiritual things and there lies the problem. Oh well?
So we have man in two separate dimensions simultaneously, one is natural and one is spiritual and God’s plan of salvation and redemption must include both of these dimensions in order to be fully effective. Do you understand that concept? Well the story of Noah and the Ark gives us some valuable clues to how God did this and most have never seen it. You see the two words translated as “pitch” in Genesis 6:14 are not the same Hebrew words. Both Hebrew words are related to each other, in fact one word comes from the root word of the other. But one Hebrew word seems to mean something almost completely different than the other one means. So why would translators make them the same word in the English translation? That is a really good question, I guess they couldn’t figure out what other words to use so they assumed they both meant pitch. If you look at the base definition of each word the root of each word means “to cover”. To cover something implies that you are hiding something or removing something from plain view. This is an intentional act of taking something found in plain view and covering it with something else to not be seen. I personally think that this applies to God’s work of salvation. In building a physical Ark, Noah would have had to do something to make it water tight. In boat making this usually involves some coating or a sealant; especially for a wooden boat. If a wooden boat sits in water without a water tight coating, the wood would eventually become water logged with the water that you were hoping to keep out and it would probably soon leak and sink. So a coating of pitch was placed on the inside as well as the outside of the Ark to make it waterproof. But what was this covering and what is the symbolism a representation of with these two different Hebrew words translated as “pitch”?
Let’s consider the facts. A human is a spirit being made in the image and likeness of God. God being a spirit being created man to look and resemble Himself. However, God limited man’s ability by confining him to a physical body. By confining the man to a physical body, he is limited to a specific three dimensional time and space. In other words, while God can be everywhere at every time all at once, man can only be in a single location at any given point of time. Man is confined to a specific environmental condition range of temperatures and living requirements. Physical man needs oxygen, food, water and other essential elements to survive in this world. By God’s intelligent design man was severely limited in a state of specific fragile circumstances in order to learn and to be able to make choices without affecting any other spiritual eternal being or spiritual place or location. While one physical human being can kill another physical human being, one physical being can do nothing to the real spirit man in their body. God created our lives as a series of lessons in a temporary natural environment so that we could choose where we will spend our eternity. Spiritual beings will never die or cease to exist somewhere.
So what is a human body? Your physical body is your earth suit and it is comprised of a multitude of different physical elements and parts. The number of trace elements in the human body is over 50 different types ranging from Oxygen to Tungsten. The human body by weight is 70% water. Oxygen is the most abundant element in both the earth and the human body by weight. The top three elements in the human body are Oxygen, Carbon, and Hydrogen. It is really most interesting to note that the human body can be called a hydrocarbon unit. These are two of the key elements found in bitumen. Bitumen is a waterproofing agent used in asphalt and other areas and surfaces to keep water out. According to the Strong’s definition of the Hebrew word H3722 translated as “pitch” for the “within” inward part of the ark this word represents this type of waterproofing agent called bitumen. But if you think of the human spirit as being like the interior of the ark, it is also covered with a waterproofing surface called a body. I just think that is interesting to note.
So let’s explore the human body from a different angle other than its physical composition. I personally believe that the physical human body is the only factor that gives you legal access to this planet. To be born here of a woman is the only legal entry or door into this physical world. Your physical body gives you the right to choose your eternal destiny. Jesus said unless a man is born again he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven (John 3:3). To be born again means you first must be born the first time physically to even qualify to be born again spiritually. That is a very difficult concept for some to consider, but it also means that it severely limits Satan and the other demons from participating in God’s plan of salvation.
So let’s do an analysis of the two words translated as “pitch” in this verse and see what they reveal to us. The first word that I will look at is the “pitch” that is said to apply to the inside of the ark. The inside of the ark would be representative of the spirit of man so let’s see what God says about our spirits. This “pitch” word comes from a Hebrew word in the Strong’s number H3722 and has the following definition:
WITHIN
H3722
A primitive root; to cover (specifically with bitumen); figuratively to expiate or condone, to placate or cancel: – appease, make (an) atonement, cleanse, disannul, forgive, be merciful, pacify, pardon, to pitch, purge (away), put off, (make) reconcile (-liation).
This word has a lot of potential overlapping meanings. First, let’s talk about the last meaning found in this definition called “reconciliation”. To reconcile one thing to another is to restore it into right relationship. Of course in this lesson we are talking about the condition of the fallen man being restored back into right relationship with the One True Creator God. The word reconciliation is a very important theological concept given to us in the Bible. Here are some definitions for this word reconciliation.
Reconcile:
- to make (two apparently conflicting things) compatible or consistent with each other; often passive; usually foll by to) to make (oneself or another) no longer opposed
- to become friendly with (someone) after estrangement or to re-establish friendly relations between (two or more people
- make peace between, reunite, propitiate, bring to terms, restore harmony between, re-establish friendly relations between
Whether you realize it or not before you were saved, you were an enemy of God. God directly opposed everything that you stood for, even though He died for your right to change and be saved. The human race was separate and directly opposed to God and everything that a Holy God stood for. After sin entered into the world, the human race was in direct opposition to God. After sin, the human nature was no longer God’s nature. Knowing this God had to do something to reconcile the situation. We have one spiritual being, God being opposed to another spiritual being, man and God’s plan of salvation includes something called “atonement”, “forgiveness”, “mercy” and “grace”. The implied ways of this reconciliation are represented to us as a cleansing process. A cleansing process involves a washing in the blood of Jesus, spiritually speaking of course. Our sins have been purged or annulled by the shed blood of Jesus. Through what Jesus did for us as a man on the cross, God was able to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Now we have been given the ministry of reconciliation. What is that? It means to go and tell people, God is not mad at them. God is not opposed to them anymore. They are not God’s enemies anymore. God has invited them to be His friend and a part of His family.
2Co 5:18 And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;
2Co 5:19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.
You can clearly see what I just described to you take place in God’s plan of salvation. In these two verses God declares that the Church should be telling people this good news. This should be the emphasized message from the church of God to the lost world. Reconciliation is the prophetic representative work of the “pitch” within in the Ark of Noah. Our spirits have now been forgiven and reconciled back into the right relationship with God is part 1 of God’s plan. But, man lives in a physical body and God’s plan of salvation must also include this external part of man to be an all inclusive work and fully effective. So let’s explore the symolic “pitch” which is applied to the external portion of the ark called the body of man revealed in this Hebrew word in the Strong’s number H3724:
WITHOUT
H3724
From H3722; properly a cover, that is, (literally) a village (as covered in); (specifically) bitumen (as used for coating), and the henna plant (as used for dyeing); figuratively a redemption price: – bribe, camphire, pitch, ransom, satisfaction, sum of money, village.
This word is contrasted to be a completely different work of God. Where the first “pitch” on the inside meant to “forgive'”, this “pitch” on the outside has a financial implication of someone paying a sum of money to buy back an object. This is where “redemption” comes into play. Maybe in your Bible study you have heard about Christ’s work of “redemption”. But maybe you did not understand the difference between “redemption” and “atonement”. As you can see they are dramatically different realms of man. One work applies to the “spiritual” side of man and the other applies to the “physical” side of man. By God accomplishing both of these simultaneously, man is wholly saved in one act of God’s grace. Let’s look briefly at the definition of “redeem”:
Redeem
- To recover ownership of by paying a specified sum
- To set free; rescue or ransom
- To save from a state of sinfulness and its consequences
Again we see a process of someone paying a sum of money to buy something back. Something is implied to have been taken either legally or illegally and a sum of money is paid to recover what was taken or lost. This is more of what Jesus did on the cross, even though you might not have fully understood it. How did Jesus accomplish this redemption and what price was paid for our redemption is now the part of the lesson that we have arrived at:
1Ti 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;
1Ti 2:6 Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.
You see in these verses, Jesus Christ is said to be the price paid for our redemption. Jesus gave himself for a ransom. A ransom is a sum of money you pay to a kidnapper to get your child back. Apparently the human race belonged to or was taken captive by someone that had to be paid in order to get us back to God. What are we talking about though? We are only talking about the human body. The spirits of the man and women were already forgiven and reconciled to God. What we find is that God had to pay a price for the bodies of the human race.
Isa 52:3 For thus saith the LORD, Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money.
In this verse God prophecies that man will be redeemed without the payment of cash, gold, silver or monetary value changing hands. God makes a statement that the human race had sold themselves and gotten nothing in return or of value for their stupid act. So God’s plan of salvation and redemption did not cost Him any money either, but it was certainly not FREE!.
1Co 6:20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.
We can understand from this verse that we, the human race were bought out of something or someone’s possession and now belong to God. God paid the price for our redemption from sin with His blood sacrifice. It is very much like a person who takes a valuable item to a pawn shop and temporarily sells it for money. They are given a specific time limitation to redeem their item and if they do not the item is forever lost. We have been purchased back from our sad sinful state and by accepting Jesus as our Lord have received the free gift of salvation and redemption. Unlike a pawn shop analogy where the item sold never has a say or a voice on its destiny, people are the objects that was sold and they can choose to be redeemed or stay where they are at. But the redemptive work of God is more complex than my simple pawn shop analogy. We are actually still awaiting for a part of the redemptive work of God to occur or be completed in the future:
Rom 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
You see if you look for verses in the Bible, you will see that we are still waiting for the full redemptive work of God to be accomplished. We still have mortal temporary bodies on this planet and according to the Bible we will be transformed on the outside very soon and all get new bodies that our spirits can live in forever. God writes in Roman’s 8:23 that we are all awaiting this to happen with anxious anticipation. A groaning is applicable to a birthing process, I believe. God has already paid the price for our redemption, but yet we still await the redemption of our bodies. It is a very complex subject, I know.
I hope you enjoyed this lesson on the pitch within and the pitch without and how it relates to the Word of God for the salvation and redemptive work of Christ. This two part work of God completed the salvation which involved the forgiveness of the human spirit as well as the purchased redemption of our bodies. God has hidden little things like this in the Bible for a reason and they can only be seen if you look for them diligently. I pray that you see them and understand them. Until my next blog, God Bless You.
Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight — Understanding God’s Methods of Hiding Information in the Bible! Pt 4
(Ver 2.2) This is part four of a series of lessons on methods that God has used to conceal information in the Bible for us to find. By studying these methods we will greatly increase our ability to understand the truth of God’s Word. I have been attempting to go through the techniques that God has used to conceal spiritual information using definitions, terms and descriptions that are not complicated or laced with educated phraseology that is intended to be studied only by the elect doctorate types. I am using plain language and common terms that hopefully anyone can understand. If you did not read this series from the beginning I would strongly suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1“. I have covered a lot of good information and it will not be repeated in the same level of detail.
Technique 4: The Use of Parables
Eze 17:1 And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Eze 17:2 Son of man, put forth a riddle, and speak a parable unto the house of Israel;
Another widely used technique found in the Bible is the designed use of parables. God purposely uses parables in the Bible to conceal and reveal spiritual truth to us. According to the Bible a parable is a sort of riddle or a puzzle. You may have noticed while reading the Gospels that Jesus taught a lot in parables. Many times parables would give powerful spiritual truths using the terms of natural things like, seeds, farms, fields, wheat, tares, leaven, weddings, a bride, a groom, etc. Jesus actually fulfilled prophecy by teaching in parables. You can clearly see in this next verse that God prophesied something very profound about the words that Jesus would speak to us:
Mat 13:35 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.
To speak things that have been kept secret since the world was established, is the key reason for why Jesus spoke in parables to us. We can clearly understand that these parables must hold some very complex secret information within them, but yet people do not still appreciate their value, because they do not fully comprehend their meanings. There are over 40 different parables that Jesus used to teach people with in the Gospels. Some parables are repeated in multiple books of the Bible and some parables only occur in one book of the Bible. How many of these do you know and understand? I will give you a list of parables later in this lesson, and you should spend time studying them because they hold some of the greatest spiritual secrets of the Bible within them. The words of the prophet referred to in Matthew 13:35 are recorded from the book of Psalms and we should go back and read this verse for confirmation:
Psa 78:2 I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old:
We can see some powerful truth in this verse of prophecy. It says in speaking of Jesus that He would open his mouth and speak in parables. A parable is defined to be “mental superiority”. This word says that it uses “metaphors” and “similes” to convey an implied hidden message. There is one word in this verse that describes this type of speaking and it is the Hebrew word H2420 which is translated as “dark saying”, and this word has the following definition in the Strong’s.
H2420
From H2330; a puzzle; hence a trick, conundrum, sententious maxim: – dark saying (sentence, speech), hard question, proverb, riddle.
That is a truly amazing definition and is certainly very relevant to the subject of God hiding the truth in plain sight. You see these parables describe spiritual truths in a puzzle or riddle form. This means that you might be able to see some of the truths on the surface but the really deep stuff is hidden from our natural view and human understanding. This makes the usage of parables a very tricky method of concealing information in the Bible.
Pro 1:6 To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings.
One time Jesus said to his disciples, to you it has been given to understand, but to them I speak in parables (Mark 4:11). So obviously this was a technique that both concealed and revealed spiritual truths. A parable is always something that is “like” something else. It is a reference to a natural thing that has deep spiritual truths attached to it. I do not know how many parables there are in the entire Bible. I do know there are a lot of them. Here is a quick example of a parable:
Mat 13:47 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind:
So you can observe some similarities between symbolic references and parables. Both are techniques that use natural things to describe spiritual realities. A symbol can be a single word used in a story to conceal a single spiritual reality and a parable is usually a story that conveys and relates several spiritual truths together. In this verse in Matthew Jesus is speaking about the kingdom of heaven and tells the people that heaven is like a fisherman’s net that is cast into the sea and it brings out every kind of fish that it can pull up. Since Jesus was speaking to a nation of people that understood fishing and fishing methods this was an interesting puzzle word picture for them to think about. How can the kingdom of heaven be like a fisherman’s net? It was a puzzle and a very descriptive reality of what was going to happen in the spiritual realm in the near future. There are several elements in this one verse parable. We have the sea, the fisherman, a boat, the fish and the net and each of these must represent some key to the correct meaning of the story. The sea must represent the world that we live in; the fish must represent the people who are saved out of the world. The net must be the Word of God. The fisherman must be the preachers and the angels of God. God was telling the people that the new kingdom of God would consist of every nation and every kind of people in the world. God was telling them that there is not favoritism with Him and He loves everyone the same. There are many hidden inferred meanings within this parable and it is a great subject to study to learn about spiritual things. This was truly a puzzle to their natural thinking religious minds and the people of Israel clearly did not understand what God was saying to them.
So we have talked a little bit about what a parable is, but let’s address what a parable is not so that we can clearly understand the difference. A parable is never a story of a specific named individual, place or actual event within history. That would be an allegory. An allegory if you recall is an actual story that occurred in human history that also has a spiritual meaning attached to it. Some ignorant people have tried to make Jesus’ story of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16 to be a parable and even go so far to try to say hell is not a real place, but it is only symbolic of a spiritual place of torment. I don’t know how people can be so easily deceived, but it takes all kinds, I guess. However what you must understand is that Jesus is not a liar, if He tells you a story of someone specifically named Lazarus this is not symbolism and this is not a parable. Lazarus must have existed as a real historical man. It would be a physical lie to tell you of something or someone with a name that did not specifically exist or actually happen and try to pass it off as symbolism. Jesus never says “hell” is like a rich man and a beggar in this chapter of Luke. But, if Jesus said, the Kingdom of God is like a ….” and gave you a natural example without naming names or specific places, dates or events, then it would be a legitimate parable and a legal method of communicating without telling a lie. The Bible clearly says that it is impossible for God to lie (Heb 6:18). Be smart and learn the difference between a lie and a parable. Parables do not contain the names of any real people. A real parable is only a story of nameless and anonymous things that can relate to a spiritual reality.
There are very few examples of Jesus explaining a parable’s meaning to us. However, we can see that He does give us some examples of correct interpretation for us to follow. Jesus taught that of all the parables that He gave to us, the parable of the sower was the most important one for us to understand and he talks about this in 3 gospels (Matthew 13:3, Mark 4:3, Luke 8:5). God uses several key farming elements to describe spiritual things to us. There is a farmer who sows seed. There is seed and there are 7 different types of soil that the seed falls in. There are also seed enemies, like birds of the air and weeds. Everything in this parable has deep spiritual meanings attached to them. Jesus taught us that the Word of God was the seed. Jesus taught us that the soil represented the hearts of men and women in the earth. The birds of the air were demons and spiritual forces that come to steal the Word of God from the hearts of men. If you have never studied this parable, then you should do so immediately. Jesus said it is the key to understand every parable. I only went through a few examples and their explanations. I have covered this subject in other lessons if you want to learn more. I’ll end the discussion of parables with this verse found in Ecclesiastes:
Ecc 12:9 And moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge; yea, he gave good heed, and sought out, and set in order many proverbs.
You see this verse speaks of a wise man of God who teaches God’s people truth and diligently seeks it out. The verse ends in the term to “set in order” the words found in the puzzle. The word translated here as “proverbs” is the same Hebrew word for “parable”. There is a clear implication that there is a puzzle and a riddle to solve and someone is responsible for solving it. One of the ways that God hides things in the Bible is by using parables and proverbs, dark sayings that have hidden meanings. These are stories and descriptive words of natural things that describe powerful concealed spiritual truths. Parables often times involve metaphors and metaphoric expressions. These are usually used in communications that convey new ideas by using objects and things that the listener is already familiar with. We can also understand that if you are not familiar with “farming” then Jesus using a farming metaphor to describe the kingdom of God will not help you to understand what is being taught until you do become familiar with the natural process of farming. Therefore, parables conceal and reveal information simultaneously.
There are so many parables throughout the Bible and you must locate them and then correctly interpret them. To quote a famous movie line “Are you the one or should we look for another?”. God bless you until next time when I continue talking about other methods that God has used in hiding information in the Bible.
Parables in the Gospels
|
Scripture(s) |
Parable |
| Matthew 7:6 | Parable of the Pearl and Swine |
| Matthew 7:24; Luke 6:48; | Parable of the Wise Man Who Built His House |
| Matthew 11:16-17; Luke 7:32; | Parable of Children Sitting in the Markets |
| Matthew 13:3; Mark 4:3; Luke 8:5 | Parable of the Sower |
| Matthew 13:24; | Parable of the Wheat and Tares |
| Matthew 13:31; Mark 4:31; Luke 13:19 | Parable of the Mustard Seed |
| Matthew 13:33; Luke 13:20-21 | Parable of the Leavened Bread |
| Matthew 13:44; | Parable of the Treasure in a Field |
| Matthew 13:45 | Parable of Merchant Seeking Pearls |
| Matthew 13:47; | Parable of the Fisherman’s Net |
| Matthew 13:55; | Parable of the Householder’s Treasure |
| Matthew 18:23; | Parable of the King’s Servants |
| Matthew 20:1; | Parable of the Hired Workers |
| Matthew 21:33; Mark 12:1; Luke 20:9 | Parable of the Vineyard Leased Out |
| Matthew 22:2 | Parable of the marriage of the King’s Son |
| Matthew 23:27; | Parable of the Whited Sepulchers |
| Matthew 24:32; Mark 13:28; Luke 21:29; | Parable of the Fig Tree |
| Matthew 25:10; | Parable of the Ten Virgins |
| Matthew 25:14; | Parable of the Talents and Servants |
| Mark 3:24; | Parable of a Kingdom Divided |
| Mark 3:27; | Parable of the Strong Man’s House |
| Mark 4:26 | Parable of the Man who Casts Seed into the Ground |
| Mark 13:34 | Parable of the Man taking a Far Journey |
| Mark 13:34 | Parable of the New and Old Cloths |
| Luke 5:37 | Parable of the New Wine In Old Wine Skins |
| Luke 5:39 | Parable of the New and Old Wine |
| Luke 6:39 | Parable of the Blind Leading the Blind |
| Luke 10:30-36; | Parable of the Good Samaritan |
| Luke 12:16 | Parable of the Rich Man who Laid Up Treasure for Himself |
| Luke 12:36 | Parable of the Men who Wait for their Lord to return |
| Luke 13:6 | Parable of the Fig Tree without Fruit |
| Luke 13:35 | Parable of the Shut Door |
| Luke 14:8 | Parable of the Wedding Seating Arrangement |
| Luke 14:12 | Parable of the Feast and the Poor |
| Luke 14:16 | Parable of the Great Supper |
| Luke 14:28 | Parable of the Cost of the Tower |
| Luke 14:31 | Parable of the King Going to Battle |
| Luke 14:34 | Parable of the Salt that Lost Its Flavor |
| Luke 15:4 | Parable of the Lost Sheep |
| Luke 15:8 | Parable of the Woman with 10 Pieces of Silver |
| Luke 15:11 | Parable of the Prodigal Son |
| Luke 16:1 | Parable of the Rich Man and Steward Who Wasted Mammon |
| Luke 17:7 | Parable of the Servant in the Field |
| Luke 18:2 | Parable of the Judge and the Widow Woman |
| Luke 18:10 | Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee |
| Luke 19:13 | Parable of the Rich Man with 10 Servants & 10 pounds |
| John 10:1 | Parable of the Sheepfold and the Gate |
| John 10:7 | Parable of the Sheep Door |
| John 10:11 | Parable of the Good Shepherd |
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons, please continue with “Part 5“.
Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight — Understanding God’s Methods of Hiding Information in the Bible! Pt 3
(Ver 2.1) This is part three of a series of lessons on advanced studies concerning the methods that God has used to conceal information in the Bible for us to find. By studying these methods we will greatly increase our ability to understand the truth of God’s Word. The first technique I discussed was “Widely Dispersed Information”. This is the method of spreading out and not covering a complete subject in any one location of the Bible. Next, I talked about “Symbolic and Allegorical References”. These are very common practices of calling spiritual things by natural names, descriptions and titles and not telling you that is what is occurring. So we have gone through two fairly complex methods of hiding information in the Bible, and today I want to shift gears and slow down and show you something more basic, but yet still very effective. Today, I want to talk about another common method called “Figure of Speech”. If you did not read this series from the beginning I would strongly suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1“.
Technique 3: Figures of Speech
Like in other writings of the English language, the Bible often times uses language and phrasing which is known as “figures of speech”. Figures of speech are words that usually cannot be taken literally. A figure of speech is one technique that can be used to conceal or hide the truth or true meaning of a verse of scripture while using words that clearly describe something to you in very expressive terms.. Here is a definition for a figure of speech that I found on the internet:
A figure of speech is a use of a word that diverges from its normal meaning, or a phrase with a specialized meaning not based on the literal meaning of the words in it such as a metaphor, simile, or personification. Figures of speech often provide emphasis, freshness of expression, or clarity. However, clarity may also suffer from their use, as any figure of speech introduces an ambiguity between literal and figurative interpretation. A figure of speech is sometimes called a rhetoric or a locution.
As you can see from this definition the usage of “figures of speech” can bring clarity or they can introduce ambiguity to the interpretation and I have seen both of these. I have often times heard preachers try to take a verse of scripture that uses this technique of “figure of speech” and attempt to make it a literal truth found in the Bible. It was obvious to me that they were wrong, but obviously they did not see it that way at all. So I think that I should try to give you some examples of this type of writing found in the Bible that to me is obvious not to be taken literally. For example, the Bible describes events where God tells Israel that if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land, they shall be “thorns in your side” (Numbers 33:55, Joshua 23:13). God was not speaking in literal terms, was He? God did not mean that these people would literally be a natural thorn in their natural flesh. The people of Israel would not be walking around with sticks and thorns poking out of their robes or their clothing made from the people found in the land. That would be an incredibly bad interpretation of the Bible to try to take this literally. Here is a sample of one of these verses from the Old Testament:
Num 33:55 But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell.
God uses two figures of speech in this verse found in Numbers. We see a reference being made to pricks in their eyes and thorns in their sides. Neither of these can be taken literally, because they are purely “figures of speech”. This is just another literary technique that God has implemented in the Bible to make things a little bit more difficult for us to read and to understand. What God is referring to here, is a people that would become a spiritual hindrance and a distraction from them obeying the Law of God. These people would become stumbling blocks of potential temptations that would introduce them to other gods, idols, religions and things that were presented to deceive them. God knew the dangers and warned the people about something using figurative wording from what they could understand. Almost everyone in the world has had a time when they got stuck by a thorn and this is a very unpleasant experience physically. God is saying that this is what will happen to them in the spiritual realm if they do not do what God said to do. If you have ever had a thorn under your fingernail you can understand that this is a pain that you are better off not ever having this to occur. This is the idea that God is trying to convey by writing to the people using this technique. This usage consists of the fact that a word or phrase is used differently than the ordinary way that it is normally used within a context that is only done to create an added emphasis. Therefore, when God declares people to be thorns and pricks, He is not speaking literally. Figures of speech always represents departures from the given laws of normal language in order to communicate an emphasized point.
People today use figures of speech in their everyday conversations all the time. I often times hear someone say something like “She is a real pain in the neck.” That is a figure of speech and it means something else other than a literal pain in their flesh. Do you understand figures of speech? Have you ever been guilty of using a figure of speech? We can clearly see the usage of “figures of speech” throughout the Bible and we have to be smart enough to recognize them and treat them accordingly and to interpret them correctly. In my example that I have given you there is another similar occurrence in the New Testament where Paul wrote about a thorn in his flesh that was given to him.
2Co 12:7 And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.
I’ve heard so many confused individuals who try to imply that Paul was sick, crippled, and blind or that he had some other physical imperfection based upon this clear usage of a figure of speech. People please wake up and realize the difference between literal words and figurative language. Paul is clearly speaking in the same terms that God spoke to Israel in Numbers. This is a figurative explanation for a spiritual reality. Paul tells us what his “thorn” was, when he says it was a “messenger of Satan”. That sounds like a spiritual force and not a physical imperfection. If you take a figure of speech and attempt to make it literally true, you cause confusion to occur. You can promote a lie or a fabrication of a misinterpretation and that is a key problem occurring in the Body of Christ today. What you must do, is first understand the concepts behind “figures of speech” and then be smart enough to recognize them when you are reading through your Bible.
There are many different literary styles and techniques and God has used them all in the Book that He has given to us. As a part of studying the Bible we are required to be smart enough to read a verse and analyze it correctly in order to truly understand what is being said. One of these techniques that causes people trouble is what is known as this “figure of speech”. I do not claim to have done an exhaustive or comprehensive study on the usage of this technique; I merely wanted to introduce you to it so that you become aware of it as you read and study your Bible. Become intimately aware of God’s techniques and writing styles. Try to discover the methods that God has used to conceal information in the Bible and this will help the church to become united with one mind.
Php 2:2 Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.
God bless you and continue to prosper you through the knowledge of Jesus Christ. I will hopefully endeavor to expand this subject in my next blog.
If you would like to continue to read this series, please continue with “Part 4“.
Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight — Understanding God’s Methods of Hiding Information in the Bible! Pt 2
(Ver 2.1) This is part two of a series of lessons on methods that God has used to conceal information in the Bible for us to find. By studying these methods we will greatly increase our ability to understand the truth of God’s Word. Today I want to talk about a subject that I have taught on before, but this is so important and you should be able to see why I feel that it fits with this series to do again. If you did not read from the beginning I would strongly suggest that you go back and start with “Part 1“.
Technique 2: Symbolism and Symbolic References
Another technique in the Bible widely utilized by God is the usage of symbolism. Symbolism is usually an interesting coded message. Biblical symbols often times describe spiritual things in the terms of natural things, events or people. God uses symbols of things that we can naturally see and understand to describe and point us to the things that we cannot see in the spiritual realm. Daniel and Revelation are both covered with symbolic references and are probably the books of the Bible that come to people’s mind when describing this subject. In Revelation we have a harlot, the great dragon, a beast, the serpent, the sun, the moon and the stars, a woman, a city, a bride as well as many other symbolic references. Why did God use this type of writing? It is interesting to see how this writing style makes it so challenging for us to figure out what God is talking about. Most people who just read the verses in Revelation without studying them are very confused and do not understand very much about what is being said. So interpreting symbolic references correctly is critical to understanding these references in the Bible. So how do we interpret symbolic references correctly? I believe that we must use other interpretation rules that I have not really discussed yet. One of these rules is that we let the Bible interpret itself. Another rule is, we use the law of first mention to help determine the definition. Still another rule is that we look at other descriptions and related dependent symbols to help point us to the true identity of the main symbol. Often times by figuring out a descriptive symbolic reference first, it will help us discover the bigger symbolic reference. For example, if you want to identify the symbolic woman in Revelation 12 you must first start by correctly identifying the “sun” that she is wearing and the “moon” that she is standing upon. By correctly discovering the identity of the sun and the moon we can only then correctly identify the woman. The error that most people make is that they assume that the woman is Israel and then try to make the other symbols fit their erroneous assumed interpretation. But, I learned by the help of God that this is not the correct approach to take.
I mentioned Daniel and Revelation as being heavily symbolic books. But there are symbolic references in almost every book of the Bible. For example, Genesis contains heavy symbolism in the first three chapters of the book and I will briefly go into a few examples to help you to start to look for and recognize them. You see the first three chapters are largely all symbolic references with some real events and people mixed in among the symbols. There are 6 days of creation and the 7th day God rests. If you read your Bible carefully you will discover these 6 days are all symbolic. The division of waters from land is a symbolic event. The division of day from might is a symbolic event. The Sun that rules the day and the moon that rules the night are both symbolic references to spiritual truths. The mention of fruit and trees are strongly symbolic. The serpent in the garden is symbolic coded reference to a hidden spiritual being. The woman is symbolic; the seed of the woman is symbolic. The marriage of the first woman and the first man is also a symbolic event. I could go on and on, but I hope you get the message.
But, please do not misunderstand me. I’m not saying these symbols did not occur in Genesis. Adam is a real man. Eve is a real woman. Dividing the waters was a real event. On and on I could continue to go. What I am trying to say is that there are parallels of truth in almost every statement. One truth is a natural truth and the other truth is almost always a greater spiritual truth. Anyone can see the natural, but the spiritual truths are the messages that were hidden from our plain sight. Let’ look at a new example of this next.
Let’s look at another important Bible reference which describes a different type of symbolism. But this time it speaks of another usage of symbolism that is called “allegory”. Allegory is always a Bible story with two meanings. The first meaning of the story is the literal description of the subjects given. The second meaning of the story is a symbolic reference to a much greater spiritual truth. Notice what God said in the book of Galatians:
Gal 4:22 For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.
Gal 4:23 But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the freewoman was by promise.
Gal 4:24 Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
You see from these verses God specifically shows us how he has used allegory in the story of Abraham to demonstrate a much larger spiritual truth. In these verses in Galatians 4, we are told that the story of Abraham having two sons is a story that contains an allegory. We are then told that the two women Sarah and Hagar represent two covenants. Sarah is called the freewoman, and Hagar the slave woman who is in bondage. Hagar represents the earthly Jerusalem and the Old Covenant wife of God. Therefore we know that Abraham represents God in this scenario. We are told that Sarah represents the heavenly Jerusalem who is called the spiritual mother of the church. There are certainly many other spiritual truths to learn from these verses, but I will not elaborate further in this blog. So an allegory is an extended metaphor in which actual people, places, objects, and actions in a story are equated to meanings and truths that lie outside of the realm of the story. In other words an allegory is a real story in which the people, places, and things represent spiritual concepts, individuals and moral qualities that we cannot see or perceive with our natural senses. We can see from this great example that God gives us a view of something that is of extraordinary value through an actual event and the people in a story that happened in human history without telling us this in the story.
You see there is absolutely nothing found in the book of Genesis that tells you the story of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar is a picture of God and his spiritual family, but when you read in Galatians 4 you discover that God has encoded this information within the story in a hidden format. Remember point 1 was widely dispersed truth and now point 2 is about symbolism and allegory. Therefore we can clearly see how God combined two different methods together to hide a greater spiritual truth. Do you understand these concepts?
This is a very important lesson key for correct Bible interpretation. These are very prevalent methods that God has created and used in concealing spiritual truths in the Bible. The story of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar is not the only allegory in the Bible. It is however, the only one that God tells you about so that He can give you a clue into how He has hidden information for you to search and to find. God uses real historical true stories with real people and places to reveal some very powerful spiritual truths that have been hidden in the Bible for thousands of years. The book of Ruth is heavily allegorical information. The book of Genesis has significant amounts of allegorical information throughout it. The books of Exodus and Numbers are widely interspersed with allegorical content. I do not understand how God is able to do this; I just know that He did it. God obviously is not bound by time and He could see human history before it happens. To say that God caused it to happen this way would violate man’s right to choose and his right to freewill; so I do not believe that God manipulated people to get things to happen the way he wanted them to happen. But, that is my opinion.
Please understand the difference between symbolism and allegory. A symbol is a reference to something that you might understand, but it might not actually exist in the natural realm. For example, in Revelation a prevalent symbol of Satan is a dragon and I have never seen one of these in the world, but I understand what they are because of books, movies and cultures like those that are found in China where they parade a large dragon figure down the middle of the street. So a dragon is a fictional character representation of the real spiritual being called Satan using a coded name. An allegory is quite the opposite, because it is always a real Bible story where each character named in the story represents something else in the spiritual realm. An “allegory” is always real historical people and “symbols” can be either real or fictional representations for real spiritual things. They are both very similar while being totally different at the same time. They both convey a truth that is well hidden on the surface only reading that most people do when they read their Bible.
The usage of symbolic references is widespread and can be found in almost every book of the Bible. Especially the books that contain prophetic scriptures where the prophesies concern the coming future events, people, things or places. Of course practically every book of the Bible contains some prophetic verses and you should be aware of that also. Because of God’s usage of allegory where any story found can represent a greater future spiritual story you will have to read every story in the Bible with new ways of looking for how does this potentially fit into what is going to happen in the future.
You see there are scriptures in the Bible that declares “the thing that has been, is that which shall be and the things that were done is that which shall be done again” (Ecc 1:9). In other words God said history will repeat itself. What happened naturally in the Bible is that which will happen in the spirit realm. This kind of information causes you to look at things in the Bible with some totally new perspectives; if it does not do this then you are clearly spiritually blind. Surely you can see the importance of learning how God has hidden information in the Bible and I pray that you will benefit as I have from knowing this.
If you would like to continue reading this series, please continue with “Part 3“.
Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight – Understanding God’s Methods of Hiding Information in the Bible! Pt 1
The Introduction:
(Ver 1.5) This is Part 1 in a series of basic important Bible lessons that deals with the question “Why is the Bible so Hard to Understand?” Many of us have certainly discovered by reading and studying the Bible, that everything that is presented in the Bible, is not always clearly perceived or self evident. In other words, everything in the Bible is not easily understood using natural human reasoning or logic. I am personally convinced that the Bible contains many outstanding truths, even though the Body of Christ hasn’t been able up to this point, to agree on a lot of them. I can at least hope that you too can see and understand the challenge that we all face in studying the Bible. Based just upon the number of Christian denominations in the world you can see that God has chosen to conceal Himself not only from the people in the world, but He has also chosen to hide Himself in His Word to give the church, the opportunity to search for Him and to discover Him. By searching for the truth we come to know Him who is the Truth (John 14:6). We can conclude that God, if He wanted to remain a mystery forever and keep men in the dark all that He would have to do is to stay silent and not speak to us. But we can clearly see by the Bible alone that He has given to us, that He has not chosen to do that. Let’s briefly establish the fact that God has hidden information in the Bible.
Pro 1:23 Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you.
To make something known implies something was first hidden from plain view. To make God’s Words known implies that what we read in the Bible we need God’s help to understand. There is an implied unveiling process in this act. There is an intentional act of uncovering also implied. To “reveal” that which was hidden. The Bible is God’s Words written down by chosen men. These words are not encrypted in a modern coded system of unreadable text. Yet these words according to the Bible must be revealed in order to be understood.
Eph 6:19 And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel,
In Ephesians we are told that the Gospel of Jesus Christ was a mystery. Even Jesus confirmed this reality when he told the Jews to search the scriptures because these were words that testified about him (John 5:39). If they had to search to find Jesus it is very clear that Jesus was hidden in the words that were written in the O.T. As we have seen the Jews did not understand the scriptures and did not embrace the Gospel of Jesus. We can clearly see that while Paul and the other apostles used the Old Testament as the basis for their message, very few of the Jewish leadership understood it. So was it hidden from them only? Or did they just choose not to see it?
Rom 16:25 Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began,
In this letter to the church, God declares that which was being preached came as a result of a revelation being given. A revelation is a revealing of that which was hidden from plain view. It was written in their language, but they did not see it or perceive it. Why is that so important to understand?
Pro 25:2 It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.
Here is an Old Testament reference that describes the nature and character of God. This verse declares that it is to God’s glory to conceal or hide information. But in the same sentence it also declares that “kings” are intended to search it out? Who is the King of kings? Jesus is the King of kings. Who are these “kings” that Jesus is King of? Who are these kings that need to do this searching for this hidden information? I believe we are these “kings”. So I have given you several scriptures that all point you to hidden information in the Bible. There are certainly many other scriptures that I could have included and you can find them if you search.
There are a large number of reasons that I believe God has hidden information in the Bible. One reason is to conceal the information from His enemies. Another reason is to give man a choice in what they believe. Still another reason for hiding information is to allow God to reveal the information at the right time to the right people. There are certainly other reasons for God doing this, but as long as you see and understand that He has done it, you will at least be far ahead of a lot of other Christians in the world that do not understand this.
So knowing God has concealed spiritual truths within His Word, we should be smart enough to recognize some of the techniques that God has used to hide these truths. I call this concealing or hiding the truth in plain view. Every word in the Bible is clearly readable by anyone that picks the book up, but every word is also equally hard to understand because of the methods and techniques that God has selected to record His words in a book format. It is much like a game of hide and seek where everyone that you are looking for is out in the open in plain view, but many of them are wearing camouflage and have blended into their surroundings so that you don’t see them clearly. They are there right in front of you, yet you walk right by them. So it is with the Bible, just because we can see all of the words and read them, it is clear to me that we need to follow some very strict rules in order to understand what they say, correctly. Satan can read the same words that we can and he didn’t understand them and he is doing everything in his power to make sure that you don’t understand them either. If Satan would have understood what was written, he would not have crucified Jesus.
In reading Proverbs 25:2, it reveals to us one of God’s intentions and purposes for giving us the Bible. This verse specifically informs us that it is God’s Glory to conceal information. This Hebrew word translated as “conceal” means to keep secret, or to hide from plain view.. When you conceal something that means it is not clearly visible or self apparent. The US army often times camouflages themselves and their equipment to conceal them from or cause themselves not to be seen by the enemy. If a government in our world wanted to conceal information from their enemies they would have probably created a code or an encryption system that would in effect make the textual message unreadable to others. In this way the encoded message is only readable to the intended person to whom the message is sent using the decryption method and the key that would unlock the true meaning. While many have done crypto analysis of Old Testament scriptures and have seemed to have discovered encoded messages, I am not talking about this method of hiding information. While I do not discount these or attempt to preach against them in any way, this is not the information that is hidden in plain sight that I am talking about. Being a computer programmer I understand the complexity behind creating a readable textual message with embedded ELS coded messages. Without a very, very powerful computer it would be impossible to find them, much less try to create them. The Bible Codes are to me just an additional proof that God exists and He has written something for us, to us that only He could have done. To those who don’t believe in God, it is a sign that someday they will understand.
So what I want to do in this blog series, is to explore some of the primary ways that I have discovered how God has hidden Himself in plain view for us to find. By studying some of these methods we can use them to unlock more of the truth and to see and know Him better. So did God encode things in the Bible for us to discover? You might still not understand code concepts, and that is OK. I’m not here to teach you computer algorithms. What I want you to see is some general concepts and methods that God has implemented in the Bible to hide information and truth. By understanding these concepts we can then apply them to our Bible study and hopefully learn whatever God wants us to know before Jesus comes back for us very soon.
Earlier I mentioned a common trait of codes and encryption. This has to do with knowing the key that unlocks the code. The key is the electronic word, phrase, numbers, symbols, or combination of all of these that we use to unlock the encrypted information. That is what we are going to explore in this series of lessons. I want to show you some keys. By understanding the methods that God has used to hide information it will give us the keys that we need to unlock it and to understand it. Jesus makes this statement:
Mat 16:19 And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven:
I know I pulled a part of a verse to make a point, but take this information and understand the concept given. Jesus tells us that there are keys to the kingdom of heaven. That implies there are hidden or locked things within the kingdom that are not readily available to all. What Jesus is doing is giving us a simple concept lesson and He is telling us that it is our responsibility to open the doors that these keys are associated with. You never hand someone a key, either a physical key that unlocks a lock or an electronic key to unlock a code and not expect them to use it. Are you grasping the concept? So let’s explore some of the key methods that God uses to hide information in the Bible.
Technique 1: Widely Dispersed Truths
One method that God uses frequently to hide truths in His Word, is to spread out the information so that a subject is not completely covered in any one location of the Bible. The Bible is a significantly large book with a lot of words and subjects within it. Finding specific related scriptures is not always as easy as you might think. By spreading the information out in a widely dispersed random pattern, it become exponentially more difficult to grasp the correct meaning of anything. Spreading out information in the Bible is just one of the many techniques that God has used to hide things for us to find. One advantage that we have today over previous generations, is the proliferation of computers within our society. By using a computer’s database indexing and search engine capabilities, we are blessed with a tool that makes it much easier to explore the Word of God and to find truths that are spread out over 783,137 words in the King James Bible. If you don’t study the Bible using a computer you should, it will help you tremendously once you get over the initial learning curve of using a computer to read and study the Bible. What we discover in our search is there are scriptures everywhere in the Bible that speak to, or comment directly on other passages in the Bible. In other words we have the commentary of the author, the Holy Spirit given to us on any given subject. God did not leave us in the dark, he just made it a little challenging to find. I also made mention that the commentary and related information may appear in any random order. Information can be given on any subject in any book of the Bible. This certainly is a very tricky method of hiding information.
Let’s take creation and the story of Adam and Eve. If you search the Bible you will soon discover that both Adam and Eve are referred to in other books of the Bible by name. These are God’s direct commentary on the Genesis story given to Moses. But by studying these verses we can gain a significant amount of insight into the original story. But of course that is not all the information, we would have to search for all of the subjects found in creation, like: man, woman, temptation, sin, serpent, gardens, fruit, seeds, trees, and all of the other subjects that are mentioned in the book. By omitting these facts from our study of the subject we are lacking vital clues to what God intended for us to understand. This example is just a simple sample of a much larger truth that God has spread out the information so that while it is in plain sight, it is not easily found, related or understood. This is one of the most important lessons from this blog that you should take away and learn to put into practice. Don’t read a single verse and attempt to say I understand that, without researching and looking for the related passages and God’s commentary on the subject.
Think with me and consider the hidden reference to the serpent in Genesis chapter 3. I have heard people say that this is not Satan while others say it is Satan. However, there is absolutely no way to know this by only reading this chapter of Genesis. If you read the Bible cover to cover, it would take you a long time to finally find the answer to who this serpent is. This infromation is not revealed until Revelation chapter 12. God finally sees fit to reveal the identity of the hidden serpent in the last book of the Bible. This is a clear example of a widely dispersed truth. Where God introduces you to a subject in the 3rd chapter of Genesis, but does not reveal the identity of the being until the 12th chapter of Revelation. I hope you are beginning to understand these tricky concepts that God has implemented in the Bible.
Widely dispersed truths are an essential part of finding the hidden information in the Bible. You see the Old Testament is a large set of books that Jesus told the Jews to search, for he said these are they that testify about Him (John 5:39). But if you read the Old Testament you will not find one chapter called the story of Jesus. While there are hundreds of prophetic verses of the coming messiah, not one said you will call his name “Jesus”. Yet if you have eyes that see, you can find Jesus on almost every page of the Old Testament in some form or reference. Some are more easily found than others, but none are in plain view and self apparent. The Bible is a complex tricky book written with complex and tricky techniques that record truths in a manner that is not easily recognizable. We have just touched on this subject in this blog and talked about one of these methods. By putting little pieces of information here and little pieces of information elsewhere in a large random order you can certainly understand that this would make it very challenging for us to find anything of value. This one technique alone would make the Bible very difficult to understand, but God has many other techniques of hiding information that we will get into later.
If you would like to continue reading this series, please go to Part 2.
Genesis 12: Was Abraham A Liar? Seeing the Truth in Genesis!
(Ver 1.3) Today is a subject that contains some very deep water concepts. As you can see from my diagram in this post, these are warning signs concerning water hazards. So please be advised that this is an advanced Bible study lesson with some new concepts that forces you to get into things that may be over your head. So many times I have heard ministers in the pulpit accuse Abraham of being a liar because of one story in the book of Genesis that they clearly misunderstood. In this story, we find that Abraham is faced with what he perceives as a threatening situation and he makes a decision that many have thought was a lie. But, what we have is an example of how preachers can take a part of a story and try to make it the whole story and as a result they have jumped to some erroneous conclusions and an incorrect interpretation of the Bible. I do not attack these preachers personally, I just attack their ignorance. Truth will always prevail if you want to see it. We will pick up with the story of Abraham starting in Genesis chapter 12 and verse 11:
Gen 12:11 And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon:
We can see in this verse that Abraham is traveling about and he comes near the country of Egypt. Abram begins to speak to his wife and this is where it starts to get good. Abram tells his wife Sarai that she is very beautiful and this must have been the truth. No one that I know of has ever questioned the beauty of Sarai his wife.
Gen 12:12 Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive.
Abram begins to speculate and imagine some very negative things as he approaches Egypt. Egypt is a type of the world, if you did not know that, keep that in mind as you read accounts in the Old Testament about Egypt. We can see that Abram’s fear is that the men of this country will see how beautiful his wife was and kill him in order to take her to be theirs. So Abram was very concerned about his own personal well being and safety and did not think much beyond that, it appears. So Abram comes up with a plan or so the ministers said, he lies about who his wife was.
Gen 12:13 Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee.
We can see that Abram asks his wife to tell everyone that she is his sister and not to mention that they are married. Abram thinks that he will be spared and be safe if anyone in Egypt wants his wife Sarai. So this was Abram’s plan, a plan or work of some sort of alleged deception to save himself from being killed, or was it? You see if you only read these verses and come up with a sermon based upon this limited information you would probably conclude that Abraham was a liar. That he out of fear chose to purposely lie to a group of people because he was afraid of being killed. This would in affect make Abram a type of Satan, the deceiver. I just can’t go along with that picture because it doesn’t fit his character. Nowhere in the Bible that I know of is Abram ever called a liar. So if God does not call Abram a liar, I do not feel it is right that a preacher should call him a liar. So we have to come up with another explanation or interpretation of the verses or at least some more information that helps us to understand what the real truth is about Abram and Sarai. So we continue to read the book of Genesis and we read chapter after chapter and finally come to the answer later in Genesis 20. During these chapters and this time period, Abram and Sarai have a lot happen to them. God changes their names. Abraham enters into a covenant with God. But, it seems that Abraham repeats the same plan when he comes to another country called Gerar, ruled by Abimelech the king of Gerar. We can see that Abraham didn’t learn very much from his Egypt experience and he repeats the same plan.
Gen 20:2 And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah.
So Abimelech believed what Abraham said, that she is my sister and he takes Sarah to be one of his wives. God again saves the day and keeps the king from doing anything to Sarah with a dream.
Gen 20:3 But God came to Abimelech in a dream by night, and said to him, Behold, thou art but a dead man, for the woman which thou hast taken; for she is a man’s wife.
Apparently God frowns upon one man taking another man’s wife. I guess that is putting it very lightly since God told Abimelech that he was a dead man. Apparently God thinks it is very serious to take another man’s wife. That would be a very strong lesson for many Christians to learn, I don’t think God has changed his mind any time in the last 6000 years. So as we continue down the chapter we discover that Abraham gets his wife back and he is not killed. God saves the day again and preserves the linage of Christ. But did Abraham lie? We still haven’t resolved the situation or the circumstances that he was faced with. I believe the answer to the question and the solution to the problem is finally solved by reading Genesis 20:12:
Gen 20:12 And yet indeed she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother; and she became my wife.
You see from this verse the solution to the problem that Abraham never lied. Abraham did marry his sister. However, she was a half-sister, the daughter of his father, but not the daughter of his mother. Abraham had a different mother than Sarah, but she is still called his sister, legally and truthfully. Abraham could call her, his sister and omit the wife part and still not be called a liar. If you omit part of the truth and only tell a different part that is true, what would you call that? I call it being very tricky. I do not defend what Abraham did at any time. It seems if it was not for God saving the day that Sarah would have ended up in someone’s harem. God is faithful though to save them both.
I had one reader write me a comment that Abram was guilty of the sin of omission. In other words by not telling all of the truth he committed a sin. I thought that was an interesting misinterpretation of the Bible again so I spent time studying the subject in more depth. I looked for any scripture that said withholding information was a sin and I could not find any. Then I went and studied the subject of deception and I learned some new things found in the Bible that are very profound. While Satan is called a deceiver, the Bible does not indicate that every deception is a sin. I could give you more examples found in the Bible, but I wrote a blog on this subject and you should go and read that to find out more about the subject of “Righteous Deception“.
We can really learn a whole bunch from this story of Abraham if we look for it. I will not go into all of it, but I will tell you that Abraham is a type of Christ a picture of Jesus the man born of the natural woman Mary. God is both the spiritual and physical father of Jesus Christ. Mary is Jesus’ natural mother in the flesh. The church is called the spiritual children of the “heavenly Jerusalem” in Galatians 4. We can see that if there is a spiritual mother there also has to be a spiritual father in order to have spiritual children. So the picture of Abraham as being a type of Christ with the same father of his wife Sarah, but with different mothers, actually fits the pattern given to us of Christ and the church. The Bible is full of little complex imbedded hidden truths like this. If you understand how to look for them you can learn a lot. In another blog I told you that Jesus married his sister. I told you that Solomon was also a type of Jesus and that 3 or 4 times in the book of Songs that Solomon calls his lover bride to be his sister. Interesting isn’t it? Why are things like this written in the Bible for us to figure out? So I’ll end this blog with a picture diagram of Abraham’s family and hopefully you will that this is a pattern of another family that I will talk about in the future:
The Bride of Christ Revealed – Part 11 The New Jerusalem
(Ver 1.2) This is now Part 11 in the series of advanced Bible lessons on the subject of the Bride of Christ Revealed. In my last lesson in this series we came full circle back to the New Jerusalem and today I want to address this bride city in more depth. This will probably be the last lesson in this series on this subject for now. Today’s lesson will cover the city of New Jerusalem mentioned in Revelation 21 as the Bride of the Lamb and how she is representative of the church. This city has long been a point of controversy since she is described symblically and these symbols can potentally be interpreted to mean many things. However if we use the Bible to interpret the Bible we will only come up with one true identity that she can be. We have really covered a tremendous amount of new information found in the Bible in this series. If you have not read the first 10 parts of this series I would strongly recommend that you go back and start reading with Part 1.
I have already given you a lot of scriptures and references that the woman in Revelation 21 appears to represent the church. But we have certainly not exhausted the scriptures on this subject and probably would not be able to if we tried. The Bible is much more complex than what people see on the surface of the text. So let’s go through some more of the scriptures in this blog and see if we can find other confirming verses of the identity of the New Jerusalem.
Let’s look at some other scripture that I’ve heard does reflect the identity of the bride. In fact it is almost impossible to ignore since it directly reflects this title.
Rev 21:1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
It is very interesting to note that God finds it necessary to create a new heaven and a new earth. There is an implied problem with the old heaven and the old earth. Why buy a new car if your old car is still in great shape and useful. Why create a new family or a new covenant if the old is in such good relations. There lies the problem that God had and the solution that He has implemented with the establishment of a new heaven and new earth. If is also noteworthy that this verse says the “first” and not just the “old”. That actually tells us there were none others before this first heaven and earth. But yet it does tells us that there will be a second.
Rev 21:2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
Rev 21:9 And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife.
I can’t emphasis enough the reality that this city is called the wife of the Lamb. We already have a good understanding of who the Lamb is, but many may still be struggling to figure out the identity of the city called New Jerusalem. So let’s look at some other verses in this chapter that describe this city:
Rev 21:12 And had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names written thereon, which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel:
Rev 21:13 On the east three gates; on the north three gates; on the south three gates; and on the west three gates.
Rev 21:14 And the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
Revelation gives us significant additional information that I think we should take a look at now in some depth. If the church is the bride and Jesus is the bridegroom, then God is also calling the church the “new Jerusalem” the new covenant city of God. I’ve heard some say that here in these scriptures it proves that the “new Jerusalem” is the bride and not the church. If this is true this doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. I’ll put it to you this way why couldn’t the church be both? In fact if you look at scriptures accurately I believe you will find out that the church is both. Someone said that we are the body of Christ and therefore, if Christ has a bride we have a bride. You know based upon scripture that I’ve shown you that this is not true. We have been called the body of Christ, but we are never called the Lamb. I don’t know of any scripture that says we are the Lamb of God and here in Revelation Jesus is referred to as the Lamb more than once. I’ve given several scriptures that demonstrate how the church became the body of Christ and that was clearly by a marriage covenant. So we have already established that the church is the bride of Christ, but now we need to further confirm that the church is also the New Jerusalem.
In Biblical days a city was usually a walled dwelling place where all the human people of a common nation lived. The reason for building a wall was for safety to keep enemies from stealing from them and killing them. This city is said to have 4 walls as if a square or a rectangular structure. Each of the 4 walls has 3 gates. Each Gate has an angel. It still appears that God is guarding the way in an out of this city. But all of these can also be taken symbolically. If we are talking about a symbolic city with symbolic gates, symbolic walls and symbolic foundations we really have a lot more to learn. I believe we make a mistake if we think of this spiritual city in terms that it is a physical place.
We have already discussed that a city represents a covenant and is referred to as a woman. The covenant is not with the city however, it is with the inhabitants or residents of the city. I could give you several good scriptures, but I’ll choose one that I liked and one that stood out to me. Let’s review the Word of God in Isaiah:
Isa 54:11 O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires.
Isa 54:12 And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones.
Isa 54:13 And all thy children shall be taught of the LORD; and great shall be the peace of thy children.
These scriptures are an amazing parallel to the description of the city found in Revelation 21 called the New Jerusalem. We see the mention of many of the key qualities of a large city with stones, foundations, windows, gates and borders. We also see the mention of key stone types meaning they are valuable, precious and rare. These key elements describe a city for sure in verses 11 and 12 of Isaiah 54. However, did you notice the reference found in verse 13? It speaks of this city as a woman with children. Isn’t that an interesting commentary. I tell you when you see what the Bible is describing as a woman you begin to see a lot more clearly the things that are symbolized in the Word of God. We again see in Isaiah that a city represents a woman and not just any woman in our case it is called the bride of the Lamb in Revelation 21:9. A woman has children and that is one of the primary reasons for marriage.
There are so many good things within these scriptures in Revelations, but I saw a definite significance of the number 12 mentioned, did you notice that too? It is not an accident that there were 12 tribes in the nation of Israel for this was a type and a shadow of the spiritual Israel to come. It is no accident that Jesus choose 12 Apostles and the book of Revelations informs us that their names are written on the 12 foundations of this new city Jerusalem. If the names of the 12 apostles are written on the foundation doesn’t that describe the church? Who started the church if it wasn’t Jesus breathing on the apostles (John 20:22) I don’t know who it was. We also see the reference of 12 angels and of the 12 tribes of Israel so the new Jerusalem is comprised I believe of, at the least a part of all three of these groups. So if we get right down to it, I don’t think that the Gentile Church is the entire city, only a big part of it. Hopefully you will understand this more as the Word of God is revealed further. Let’s look at just one part of this new city and see the part that the church plays. Once you finally realize that this woman represents a covenant marriage relationship, then you can easily associate the role of the church to this woman.
Here is a good time to remind you of what we read earlier when God said my wife “Jerusalem” committed adultery (Ezekiel 16:32). Who did God call his female wife? The earthly city Jerusalem was referred to as “her”. This physical city is in no doubt a foreshadowing of the new Jerusalem the spiritual city that we just read about. The reference to a city is the a reference to the people within the city who were in covenant with God, Yes? The people living in the earthly city Jerusalem were in covenant and married to God. God calls all of these people by a name of Jerusalem and says she is my wife. This was the Old Covenant people or the earthly nation of Israel. So, who is in the New Covenant with Jesus Christ? It is those people in covenant or marriage with Jesus that are the residents of this new Jerusalem. The distinct parallels between these two cities are very numerous and cannot be ignored, unless you just want to remain ignorant.
Do you remember in the Old Testament the life of David the king of natural Israel? In the book of Acts David is called a type of God. If you understand the significance of Biblical Typology these Old Testament stories have meaning for us in the church today. The Bible in Acts 13:22 says that David was a man after God’s own heart. David had it in his heart to build a temple in Jerusalem, but God said it was not for him to do, but for his son Solomon (1 Kings 8:17-19). Solomon represents a type of Christ as I said before and he was the builder of the physical Temple of God in Jerusalem. But Christ Jesus was the builder of a spiritual house for God. Natural types are only God’s patterns or foreshadows of that which was to come. Jesus today is the builder of a new spiritual temple and we can prove this by reading the New Testament:
2Co 6:16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
Here is a most significant scripture with great revelation. The implied reference is that of a building. But buildings are many times built within cities. It says God will live in them and walk in them. That sounds like a really big house or a city to me. If you live in Dallas Texas, and wanted to go for a walk, where would you be walking? But this is not a physical building or temple, for God in the same context speaks of this temple in the terms of people. In other words the temple is built with people. People are the spiritual building blocks that make up this structure. Do you understand that concept?
1Co 3:16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
Here is another scripture that says we are the dwelling place of the living God right here and right now. There is a clear implication of a building or a house or even a city within both of these verses. After all what does it mean to “dwell”? When it says God dwells in us what does that mean to you? If I said I dwell in Dallas Texas what does that mean? It specifies the location of my home. If I said I dwell in a big white house on Jones Rd. What does that tell you? It describes a building or house that I live in and helps give you the location of that house. I don’t know how we can be the bride and the temple and the city and the body of Christ and all of these things at the same time, but I believe we are.
What is a temple? A temple is a building or a structure that is created to be inhabited or occupied by someone. Modern temples are called places of worship many times. However, the original temple was put together by Moses according to God’s instructions and made out of tents. A tent represents a temporary dwelling place. It was not until Solomon, that the permanent dwelling place was built in the earthly Jerusalem. Both of these are representative of what the church is experiencing now and foretells that which is to come. Look at these scriptures:
2Pe 1:13 Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance;
2Pe 1:14 Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me.
This is a very interesting pair of scriptures and I believe they give us some light on the subject of the temple of God. These scriptures say that Peter was dwelling in a tabernacle. This is not talking about a physical house or a building made by the hands of man. In fact he is not talking about any kind of physical building at all with walls, doors and windows. No, it is speaking of his body that he and God dwells in. God has showed him that he was soon to die and leave his body and go and be with the Lord. The tabernacle represents a temporary dwelling place. The Greek word translated “tabernacle” comes from another root word that contains the meaning of a “tent”. A tent represents a temporary dwelling place and we know that if Jesus doesn’t come we will all die. However, when we are raised from the dead and given a new glorified body then we will have a permanent dwelling place for God.
2Co 5:1 For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
2Co 5:2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven:
2Co 5:3 If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.
2Co 5:4 For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.
2Co 5:5 Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.
2Co 5:6 Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:
2Co 5:7 (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)
2Co 5:8 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
These are very powerful scriptures and teach us many of the things that I’ve been attempting to convey. They speak of our current mortal bodies as a temporary home and even calls them an earthly tabernacle or tent. What is an earthly tabernacle? It has to be a tabernacle made of earth or dust as it says in Genesis that God formed the body of man from the dust of the ground. But it also gives us the hope of a new house that was not built with man’s hands, but it will come from God and will be immortal. So we see a pattern from the Old Testament where Moses established a temporary tabernacle for God made of tents. Then came Solomon and he built the permanent tabernacle. These are types and shadows of what Jesus has done and is doing.
Eph 2:19 Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;
Eph 2:20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;
Eph 2:21 In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:
Eph 2:22 In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.
These are some of the most interesting scripture references comparing the church to a symbolic building and they say that we (the church) are ALLL the habitation of God. Notice first in chapter 2 verse 19 God is referring to the church as being fellow citizens with the rest of the saints. A citizen is a resident of a city. Which city are we now citizens of? Isn’t that very relevant to what we are talking about in Revelation? God then implies that this city is where we were once on the outside of the walls being called strangers and foreigners but, we have now become a residential part of this implied city of God. Then notice all of the symbolic architectural terms and references in these verses. There is a clear reference to the act of constructing a building. Also notice in verse 20 the reference to the symbolic foundation of the 12 Apostles and prophets. Doesn’t that sound familiar? What about the description of the city in Revelations coming down from Heaven? It also had a foundation of the 12 Apostles of the Lamb. This is no accident, but demonstrates a confirmation of the relationship of the church to the city New Jerusalem. Going back to verse 19 you see the connection to the household of God and the spiritual building that God is putting together. These verses also further imply the members of the church are symbolic building blocks in this construction being joined together laid upon the foundation. These are amazing verses to remember for our study of the New Jerusalem. Let’s review an earlier concept and remember what God said in 1 Corinthians using new light:
1Co 3:16 Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
Don’t you know that you are the temple of God? What does that now mean to you? That means to me that each and every one that is born again represents a living stone in a new temple dwelling place for the True Living God. I know the natural earthly Jerusalem contained the temple of God as one of its key components. So at the minimum the temple of God is within the new Jerusalem and to say it is not the entire city would be difficult in my perspective. So if we are this new temple then we are at minimum a major or significant part of the new Jerusalem referred to in Revelation.
1Co 3:10 According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.
1Co 3:11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
I included these scriptures as a contrast to what I was talking about previously. For they contain more building and architectural terms, but the reference is given in much different context. We see a foundation which is clearly Jesus Christ. Then there are references to other builders that continue to reveal the word of God. So does these scriptures contradict the others or complement them to give a different perspective or view. I say they only complement. I’ve spent a lot of time and effort showing multiple scriptures that at the minimum shows the church is a significant part of the new Jerusalem, if not the entire city. I don’t feel like I’ve exhausted the subject but I feel I’ve given enough scriptural evidence to justify the claim. So now I want to stir up a different point of view and look at some other scripture that seems to indicate to me that the church is this woman mentioned in Revelation 21.
Eph 5:26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
Eph 5:27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
Verse 26 in Ephesians 5 specifically mentions the church as the bride and says she has been made clean by Christ. In verse 27 we see another inference of marriage in direct relationship to the church with the word “present” her. Present in the Greek means to stand beside. So if the church was only the body of Christ then there would be a direct contradiction, because how can a man stand beside himself? In a marriage ceremony usually the bride is standing beside the groom when taking the vows. Finally in verse 27 there is a reference to the church not having spot or wrinkle, holy and without blemish. I know that is speaking of God’s righteousness that was bestowed or given to the church and not something that we earned or achieved on our own. But did you notice a distinct parallel to another verse in Revelation 19 where it speaks about the bride in this regard:
Rev 19:7 Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.
Rev 19:8 And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.
This is a most interesting choice of words. It speaks of a cleansing process that has taken place. You might could infer a washing. Fine linen infers a garment that is spotless without stains, imperfections, rips or holes. Isn’t this what Ephesians was saying also? Also notice that it says in the last part of verse 8, the righteousness of the saints, not the righteousness of God. I fully understand it is God’s righteousness I’m just making a point. The word “saints” is used in other places in direct reference to the church. Look how God addresses His people in Rome:
Rom 1:7 To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I think the similarities and parallels between the scriptures in Revelation describing the bride as a city to other scriptures that are written directly to the church in the epistles are so amazingly related that they complement each other. They simply give a different perspective of the same thing. God simply uses symbolism that we can grasp hold of and shows us some natural things to help us to understand these spiritual realities. In this verse in Romans 1:7 that is written to the church, we are called saints of God. I’m not sure if I’ve ever heard anyone besides the church ever referred to as saints. Have you? Then I noticed something very interesting in this verse, God calls the church “His beloved”. I don’t know if you noticed this or not, but this is a term used some 27 times in the Song of Solomon. The beloved is often times used in conjunction with a direct reference to his bride. Is this a coincidence or a clue to God’s purpose and plan? I believe it is a valuable clue to see. The church is this beloved, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…”. To love someone that much to give yourself for them is an incredibly unselfish act.
Before I end the discussion in this blog, let me show a verse of scripture that has tremendous significance to the identity of the “Lamb’s Wife”. As you read this verse notice that Jesus is speaking and who Jesus is speaking to. I believe you will see Jesus is talking to the church:
Rev 3:12 Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.
I don’t know how you can read this verse and not see clearly that Jesus is speaking to the church. Jesus is telling the church some very specific things. These specific details confirm in other words what we read in Revelation 19 and 21 about the New Jerusalem. Again the city is referred to as the city of God and it comes from above. But the name of this city will be written on or given to them that have overcome. Who is it that has overcome? What city name was it that was to be written on them? Of course Jesus says that to those who overcome, He will write the name of the New Jerusalem upon them. Jesus also said these same people will be living stones or pillars in the temple of God. This confirms that the spiritual temple of God and the spiritual city New Jerusalem are one in the same thing. These are totally complementary views of the exact same spiritual structure. If you can see it you will understand some very powerful spiritual truths. Then there is the whole name changing operation that takes place at a marriage between a husband and the wife. The wife traditionally always takes the name of the husband and isn’t this what this verse is saying? The church is taking the name “New Jerusalem” and becoming the wife of the Lamb. This is all New Covenant language and spiritual truths that have been overlooked by many. I hope you have enjoyed this lesson the identity of bride of Christ. I know I did not cover everything that I could have, but hopefully I gave you some new things to think about and study.
The True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12! Pt 4
(Ver 2.4) This is Part 4 in a very advanced Bible study series on the Book of Revelation concerning chapter 12 and the True Identity of the Woman. This woman was described by God with a crown of 12 stars, clothed in the Sun and standing with her feet on the moon. We have covered so very much important information on this subject already. There is absolutely no way that I can teach it again today. Therefore I would strongly recommend, if you have not read from the beginning that you stop and begin your study with “Part 1“.
INTRODUCTION AND QUICK REVIEW
I knew this subject would take a lot of effort to get people to begin to understand it and accept it. The main reason for this resistance is that I have never heard anyone else teach the chapter this way. We have been using very important new Bible revelations that are focused upon 6 key symbolic elements that surrounded the woman. These were the crown on her heard, the sun as clothing on her body and the moon that was found under her feet.
This is now the fourth lesson on the subject in the search for the true identity of the woman in Revelation 12. There are so many diverse opinions to who this symbolic woman in Revelation 12 represents and all of these can produce a presupposition that can become a mental stronghold. These prejudices can be used by Satan to block any new information from entering our human mind. Any previous knowledge on a subject can potentially produce a state of human “bias”. “Prejudice and bias is a human condition that occurs when someone is prejudging someone or somethings before all of the facts are given, known and understood.
For example, many people today hate the Jewish people and most of these haters have never really even met a Jewish person and talked with them. That is usually one form of racial prejudice, injustice and bias that is easily utilized by Satan due to our ignorance of not knowing the full truth. This type of hatred must have been passed down from someone’s parents, or from teachers, or from other groups of influence that we associate with. This type of prejudice does not come from birth or from God. Almost every little child if raised in a good family without prejudice, will like everyone regardless of their gender, race, education or whatever. But, this open early attitude of like and trust can change when someone does or says something evil to us personally. Then there can come a new problem of thinking that everyone that is similar to them, is the exact same type of evil. This is called lumping everyone of the same type of category to be all equally good or evil with knowing any of them very well. What a complex world we live in.
There is really so much more to explore on this subject of the woman in Revelation 12. We have only touched on a few of the subjects and there are so many more questions to ask and answer. Why is the woman pregnant? Who is the child? Why does she appear in heaven first in verse 1 before any other description? I try to write and teach using progressive revelation, where truth builds upon truth. This means if you missed the beginning lessons you missed the foundation to all the other building blocks. I don’t claim to have all of the answers, but I’ll tell you what I do know and we will trust the Spirit of God to answer the questions that have not yet been answered.
In Part 1 we focused on the answering the question of when these events occur and found God said they are in the future. We continued to study and discovered the identity of the “Sun” clothing to be Jesus Christ the ruler of the Kingdom of Light. We have also found why this woman is clothed with the Sun. Then in Parts 2 and 3 we talked about the moon being the ruler of the darkness, a kingdom that is directly opposed to God’s kingdom of light. Then we looked at the specific meaning of how the moon is found in relation to the woman as being under her feet. I believe this is so very important to understand what this means.
I have shown scriptures that spoke about the church bruising the head of the serpent (Satan). I talked about Jesus delegating His authority to the church to tread on (walk on or over) the serpent (Luke 10:19) who we know is Satan (Rev 12:9). I then showed how Jesus today is seated at the right hand of Majesty in heaven, still waiting for all of His enemies to be made His footstool (Acts 2:35, Heb 1:13). All of these are scriptural references, patterns and pointers that God uses to help us identify the woman in Revelation 12. Today we are going to go into more detail concerning how the books of Genesis and Revelation are divinely designed to be connected bookends. We were introduced to this concept previously. But since this is a potentially new concept, I believe we need more information and that requires a deeper study. Let us get started.
GOD’S GENESIS AND REVELATION CONNECTIONS
I want to readdress some things that were potentially new to some people. Previously, I talked about the “seed of the woman” found in Genesis 3:15 as possibly being a spiritual seed and the woman being a prophesied picture of the church. Today in this lesson, I want to teach some things that I believe the Lord has taught me on this subject that could potentially help us to see some things from a new and fresh spiritual perspective. These are absolutely fascinating and completely related to our subject of the identity of the woman as being related to the Genesis 3-woman prophecy. This is why I called this section “God’s Genesis and Revelation Connections”.
In Revelation 12, the very first verse is focused upon our suspect mystery woman in question. But we can also see and know that the very last verse 17 is about the same woman. In fact, it is very important to see that at least 10 of the 17 verses of Revelation 12 mention the woman directly. She and the dragon are the two primary subjects.
Also, note that there is a new truth that I did teach you before. The Greek word that occurs in 10 verses in Revelation 12 for “woman” is G1135 and yes, it is correctly translated as woman. But it is normally associated to be a married woman called a “wife”. Ok, you may think that this does not really help us that much because after all, the woman is pregnant. And all of our suspect women candidates were all married wives. But I still feel like this is important to study.
From this information we learn that this woman in Revelation 12 is not an unmarried woman or more specifically not a virgin. Or we could say more positively that she is a woman in covenant with a man. Finally, notice that this Greek word G1135 translated as woman in Revelation 12 is again used in Revelation 19 to describe the Lamb’s wife. But this time the word was chosen by translators to say “wife”. Just keep that in your mind as we continue. I believe this could be a significant connection to apply to our study.
I have mentioned previously the direct connection of Revelation 12 to Genesis 3 by God’s designed purpose. God designed the Bible with concealment of related subjects, by spreading out much of the connected information for us to discover by searching the Bible. We are so very blessed to live in the last days when computers, phones and tablets are available to help us in this task. Remember, Daniel 12:4 informs us that in the last days knowledge will increase. God knew computers would exist and He prophesied it accordingly. Praise the LORD!
We understand truth connections do exist simply because the book of Genesis was written by Moses nearly 1600 years earlier than the book of Revelation which was written by John. These two men did not know each other personally, yet their books go together with exact precision. I’m going to repeat something that I have said several other times. But it is important to know and understand. In the book of Genesis, God usually introduces us to every major Biblical subject. Then in the book of Revelation God concludes the discussion on these subjects to conform to how He desired them to be and remain from the beginning. That is why I like to call them bookends. It is like a modern fiction author writing the introduction to the characters and subject in chapter 1 and then concluding with the last chapter and all of the surprises, twists and turns.
The information from the chapters, books and authors that come in between the book of beginnings and the book of the revealing can also provide us additional clues to the subject in question and they usually do. This introduction and conclusion of divine subject information is popularly known as the “Laws of First and Last Mention”.
We need to notice in Genesis 3 the direct connections found in our woman suspect subject study. In Genesis 3:15, we can see that God is introducing us to 1) a woman (other than Eve), 2) her seed, 3) Satan called a serpent, and 4) Satan’s seed. Then in addition to these main characters there is a described 5) great prophesied enmity (hatred) between them. It would probably be good to go back and reread the entire chapters of Genesis 3 and Revelation 12 to see the common subjects, noun and verb connections. Make a list of nouns, verbs and adjectives and then compare the two lists. Sometimes subjects are implied and not directly mentioned so it is good to note the implications. For example, in Revelation the woman is said to be a pregnant wife, and this would imply a husband, even though he was never mentioned directly in the chapter. Let’s examine some of the direct important connections that I found next when reading.
In reading Genesis 3:1 we should easily learn of God’s introduction of “the serpent”. We are never told who this creature is, or if he is literal, or symbolic in this chapter. There are several other Bible studies on this subject that contain additional information, on the subject of the serpent. But we can conclude and believe that this serpent in Genesis 3, was only a symbol for Satan and he was not physically manifested in the garden through a body of a physically created beast of the field. I would highly recommend you go read the Bible lesson “Genesis 3 – Was there a Literal Talking Snake in the Garden”.
We learn from the introduction of the serpent in Genesis that there is a connection to Revelation 12 because this unknown serpent is finally defined and identified to be the dragon in Revelation 12:9. Because God chooses to give us the true definition and identity of the “old serpent” as being the dragon and Satan we should automatically begin to examine what else could also be connected here in these two chapters. This is how God gives us clues to discovering truth, and it is amazingly wise.
This direct connection teaches us clearly, that this “old serpent” in Genesis 3 had to be a symbolic representation for the now implied much larger symbolic “red dragon” in Revelation 12. Both the serpent and the dragon are symbolic names and descriptions of the same evil being named Satan. Also note that there are two verses in Revelation that define the serpent’s identity. Ask yourself, could both of these be a connection? These verse definitions are Revelation 12:9 and Revelation 20:2. These are the only two verses (currently know) in the Bible where God chose to define the true identity of the “serpent” introduced in Genesis 3. This is a very common method that God uses to hide truth in the Bible for us to find. God will talk about a subject in one place and then will suddenly define the subject in a completely new and different place later in the scriptures. This can even occur in a completely different book using a new inspired author like we find in the book of Revelation.
It is just interesting to note that these two referenced definitions of Satan occur in the vicinity of two described women. Revelation 12 is where the woman is mentioned first and then the dragon is introduced with the connection of the serpent definition. Both occur together within one verse in the same chapter. Notice in Genesis 3:1, the serpent occurs first and then immediately followed with him speaking to a woman. This is typical bookend patterns. I pray you know what bookends look like. I placed a sample picture in this paragraph to help. Bookends exhibit a pictured image, but in the reverse order. Wow, that is very similar to what we see in these two chapters. I do not believe that is a coincidence.
Then in Revelation 20 we find the dragon and the serpent definition being preceded again in Chapter 19 by another woman. But this woman in Revelation 19 is called the “Lamb’s Wife”. The word “wife” was the same Greek word translated as “woman” in Revelation 12. Isn’t that interesting? I do not believe that these are accidents either. These are the signs of highly intelligent design connecting related subjects and patterns together.
But, in Revelation 19 and 20 there is a new person that comes between the woman and the dragon. He is the LORD Jesus coming back to the earth with His saints riding on a white horse. Since chapters and verses were numbered and added by imperfect humans long after the writings of the scripture, we can understand that Revelation 19 and 20 are still connected together by verse association and context.
I am not making a fixed declaration of doctrine or a statement of “I’m right and you are wrong” type of conclusion. But I believe that both women mentioned near the dragon and serpent definitions are the exact same woman/wife. I hope you find it very interesting where and how God put them close together for us to discover and learn from.
While it would be nice to go through all of the 10, Revelation 12 verse references today of the woman, we will not because of the increase of the size of the lesson. However, let’s change our focus in Revelation 12, to the woman found again in verse 17 for what God reveals to us to be more directly connected words and subjects found in Genesis 3. This is the last verse in the chapter, and it would appear the subject changes in Revelation chapter 13 to something new.
Revelation 12:17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
I personally see so many similar subject subjects, characters, descriptions, nouns, adjective and verbs as what we found in Genesis 3:15. This might not be an exact quotation, but the synonymous comparisons are amazingly parallel. We should all be able to see how there are enough overlaps for us to confirm that they are speaking of the same subjects. Can we notice what it says?
Verse 17 starts with a statement that declares Satan to be very angry with this woman. The statement or word in the KJV is actually “wroth” (G3710) and it means to be enraged and angry. That really sounds analogous and synonymous to God’s phrasing of “enmity” and “hatred” (H342) we found in Genesis 3:15. I know that these are slightly different words, but they synonymously connect us with a similar meaning of hatred toward two enemies. Next, we then see within the context of this verse that Satan is said to be at “war” with the remnant of this woman’s seed. Again, this signifies an adversary relationship with the seed of a woman. We learn from this that Satan and the woman are direct enemies in conflict against each other.
That statement is absolutely essential to see and understand, “….and went to make war with the remnant of her seed”. Did you notice that we have been talking about the “seed of the woman”? In Genesis 3 we clearly observe scripture where God prophesies that Satan, and his seed will be at odds with a woman and her seed. Isn’t that what Genesis 3:15 said? God said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between her seed and your seed”. Fascinating, isn’t it? Clearly this is not a chance occurrence.
Here in Revelation 12:17 we have God’s very specific mention of 1) a woman, 2) her “seed”, and 3) Satan (the serpent). But this time it is in clear context and relationship to a new symbolic woman revealed in Revelation 12. Or is it a new woman? I have concluded from this information God is connecting the Revelation 12:17 woman with the Genesis 3:15 woman and that they are the exact same woman being spoken of by God. Therefore, whoever the Genesis 3:15 woman represents, the Revelation 12:1 woman must also represent. I believe that God was first introducing us to her in Genesis 3:15 and is now confirming the fulfillment of the prophesied pattern here in Revelation 12. This must be the same woman that God was talking about in Genesis 3:15. We should be able to see that there are too many connections being given to us in these two chapters by divine design and purpose to deny it.
Now how does this verse Revelation 12:17 end? The ending words of the chapter provides us a clear window to the view of the identity of the woman. Who does this verse claim that the Revelation 12 woman is? God in this verse gives us two very specific dependent qualifications for the identity of the Revelation 12:1 woman. These are two distinguishing characteristics of determined truths that must be applied correctly in order to understand (interpret correctly) the identity of the woman in Revelation 12 and here they are:
- She keeps the commandments of God
- She has the Testimony of Jesus Christ
How can we read these statements and not know who God is talking about? Does this describe the Old Covenant natural nation of Israel who practices Judaism? Perhaps you see that it does. If so, please explain why you see it this way to us. Where can you find verses that back this belief? Have you seen any that describe this natural nation of Israel, have succeeded in following all of the laws and the commands of God? It is interesting that only Jesus Christ succeeded 100%. Praise the LORD!
Of course, we might say the same thing about the church also. Has the New Covenant Bride of Jesus Christ completely followed every command? I don’t know of any Christian that is yet perfect and never makes a mistake or sinned. Do you know one? I believe Jesus was the only one and we all should be rising to His living example. But Christians do have an advantage over the Old Covenant. True Christians should be following Jesus Christ their Great Shepherd and listening to His voice on a daily basis (John 10:27). Christians should have the Spirit of Christ living on the inside of them guiding them and this is the help that we need to become more like Him. Also, there are many natural Jewish people that have become Christians by believing in Jesus. The church began with 120 Jewish people in an upper room in Jerusalem (Acts 2) and then they began to spread to Gentiles later with God’s help. So, no one is being anti-Semitic at all. We love all people especially the Jewish people and we want everyone to come to the saving knowledge of Jesus.
Every human has the opportunity to repent and believe in Jesus Christ to be saved. This begins the walk with Him. When we start down this narrow path, we should be led by the Holy Spirit to become like Him and that means to become holy. Now that is when we change to begin to possess the “testimony of Jesus Christ” as God reveals to us in Revelation 12:17. Ask yourself this question; “Does Natural Israel have the testimony of Jesus Christ?” Maybe some teach and believe that this will come to fruition in the tribulation because Revelation mentions the 144,000 from every tribe to prove that will occur. We can’t dispute that. But we should believe that this woman mentioned in Revelation 12 will have Jew and Gentile, bond and free, male and female (1 Cor 12:13, Gal 3:28) and we will all jointly be called the “Bride of Christ”.
I’ll briefly discuss another factor of Grace that is important to know. We are not made righteous because we are perfect. We are made righteous by Grace. It was a gift. 2 Corinthians 5:21 informs us that “He was made sin who knew no sin, so that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him”. Wow, that is amazing. I do not have time to teach this subject fully. Just understand righteousness was a gift, but it was given so that we could change to become dead to sin aka holy, like Him (1 Peter 2:24).
Then there is another verse in the middle of chapter 12 of Revelation that is also related to the identity of the woman with her enemy relationship to the serpent and the dragon:
Revelation 12:11 – And they overcame him (Satan) by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
When I read this verse, I see the corporate church described as an overcoming, victorious body of believers. This can only be describing those that have received the Lamb of God as their personal savior and Lord (Jew, Greek, male, female, bond or free). This must be speaking of people that have applied and appropriated the shed blood of the Lamb of God to the doorposts of their spiritual hearts. When someone is described as having overcome something, that denotes a clear sign of victory at someone else’s ominous defeat. Here we have another confirming picture of the woman in Revelation 12: 1 standing with her feet upon the moon (Satan). Currently there is still just one woman in the Bible suspect list that qualifies to be this woman and it still is only the church the Lamb’s wife!
I would also like to make another quick point about Revelation 12:11. The blood of the Lamb, was just one enemy overcoming factor. The second part of that verse says “… and the word of their testimony”. Do you realize what that says or at least implies very heavily? The Greek word translated as “word” in this is G3056 and it is transliterated as “logos”. The definition literally means “something spoken” but it is used in reference to the Word of God numerous times. It is specifically used by Jesus in Mark 4:20 to describe the “seed” that was sown on good ground to produce fruit. This means real Christians.
We have just discovered a new connection to the woman in Revelation 12. I believe that Satan is in an all-out battle with anyone that professes the Word (seed) of God. Therefore, when we get to Revelation 12:17 I believe this is who Satan is fighting against on the earth. There will be people that were not truly saved after the rapture takes place that will understand what a mistake they have made and attempt to come back to the LORD. These people will have a very difficult time on the earth, but God will help them.
Notice in Revelation 12:15 when God is trying to help these people left on the earth that we are told that Satan the serpent spews water like a flood out from his mouth to try to overcome the woman. Wow, please realize this flood represents “spoken words”. The words could be lies, they could accusations, they could be threats, tricks and deceptions. There are a lot of tactics that could be used to try to get people to turn from their beliefs. However, again God helps the woman by opening the earth to swallow his words. Again, we see a prophecy that they overcame Satan by applying the blood and speaking the Word.
We have just learned of two weapons that can be turned against our enemy Satan. This applies today as well as during the tribulation. These weapons can be transferred back into us wearing the Armor of God. We are told to wear this armor in Ephesians 6. I believe all of the armor of God is based upon the Word of God. So, we have just confirmed how this chapter 12 of Revelation is in parallel to the Genesis 3:15 prophecy. We definitely have a woman versus a serpent and her seed (words) against his seed (words). But let’s go into some verses about the blood next. How many scriptures in the New Testament can you recall that speak of the blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ?
Romans 5:9 – Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
1Co 10:16 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?
Eph 1:7 In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;
Eph 2:13 But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
Col 1:14 In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
Hebrews 9:12 – Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.
These are just a representative sampling of verses in the Bible that speak of the work of the blood of Jesus for His church. Understanding the power of the blood of Jesus is an essential part of a successful and victorious walk with Christ on the earth. Knowing what the blood of the Lamb purchased is critical to knowing who you are in Christ. Understanding the purpose of the blood of Christ is essential to a successful earthly Christian life. After understanding these verses, I hope that you can see the direct relationship to the descriptive qualities of the woman especially being clothed with the Sun of Righteousness in Revelation 12:11.
I am not going to go through every verse, but I would like to make a quick point on the first verse from Romans 5:9. Did you notice the connection from the church appropriating the shed blood of Jesus to be justified and to us missing the tribulation? I know it does not say tribulation but please understand this is when the wrath of God will be poured out on the ungodly upon the earth. This 7-year time period is divided into two 42-month periods. The greater tribulation occurs at the last 3.5 years. But yet I believe the church will not be here for any of it if we overcame Satan already using the blood of Jesus and God’s Word. It is a mystery of sorts when people believe the tribulation will occur with some even thinking that God will send His beloved bride through His time of wrath and judgement. But what loving husband would do that to His bride/wife?
If God did this He would violate His own written word. Remember in Ephesians 5 God instructs husbands to love their wives like Christ loves the church. So, if Christ sends His bride through brutal judgment to be murdered then we should do the same! I am being very sarcastic with that last comment. No, we should not do that at any time. Therefore, is the church the bride of Christ? I believe she is! Is the church going to encounter God’s fierce wrath? Not according to the Bible. Wow let’s please wake up and see the true heart of God.
Finally, here is what the Bible says in relation to the qualifications of the identity of the woman described in Rev 12:17. In these verses we will see instructions for the church to obey God’s commandments. God told Israel the basic same things, but this time in the New Covenant He came inside the hearts of people removing their hard hearts of stone to place tender hearts of flesh. This is where He writes His laws on them for us to follow. I just quoted a lot of Old Testament prophetical statements written about the church. But let’s read the instruction in the New Testament:
1Jn 5:2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.
1Jn 5:3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.
Joh 15:10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.
Joh 14:15 If ye love me, keep my commandments.
Joh 14:21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
We can see from these sample verses that the Church has been directed (commanded) to keep God’s commandments. They all say something like, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. This is how we know we love God, because we keep His commandments. We know of course that this does not mean that the Church is supposed to keep the law of Moses, but rather the new law of Jesus Christ. Jesus taught us that all the law is summarized in two statements. Love the Lord your God with all of your heart and then love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus gave the church a new commandment to love one another. This new commandment fulfills all of the Old Testament law. If you love your neighbor, you are not going to steal from them, you are not going to cheat them, you are not going to commit adultery with their spouse, you are not going to do anything that will harm them or cause them pain, emotionally, physically, mentally or spiritually. This is the law of LOVE! So let’s look at scriptures concerning those who have the testimony of Jesus Christ, who could this describe?
1Co 1:6 Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you:
2Ti 1:8 Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God;
Rev 1:9 I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Rev 19:10 And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
Here are just a few of the scriptures related to those who have the testimony of Jesus Christ. We can see that the testimony of Jesus Christ was confirmed in the church members of Corinth. We can see Paul’s instruction to Timothy for him not to be ashamed of the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then in Revelation 1:9 we can see that John was imprisoned on Patmos for having the testimony of Jesus Christ. Finally in Revelation 19:10 in context with the description of the New Jerusalem, the bride of the Lamb, the angel of the Lord tells John not to worship him, but worship God with his brothers that also have the Testimony of Jesus Christ.
So, we have seen numerous scriptures that indicate directly and indirectly that the church are the people that are supposes to keep God’s commandments and keep the testimony of Jesus Christ. They were also confirmed to be people that must overcome the serpent (Satan) using the blood of Jesus and the Word (Seed) of God. So, we can see from all of these descriptive elements that this certainly narrows the potential identities of the woman in Revelation 12 to only one woman. Using the Word of God to explain the Word of God is the key to understanding the Bible. Perhaps you will join me in my next lesson. Thank you for reading and commenting and may God Bless you tremendously with the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in knowing Christ Jesus. Amen.
If you would like to continue reading this series, you can go to Part 5.
The Bride of Christ Revealed – Part 10 The Bride in the Old Testament 2
(Ver 1.1) This is now Part 10 in the series of advanced Bible lossons on the subject of The Bride of Christ Revealed. Today will be a lesson on more Old Testament references to the Bride of Christ. I have already covered a lot of infromation in this series. For example, if we are talking about someone being a bride then there are implied subjects that we needed to be covered. For example, an implied bridegroom and an implied wedding or marriage. I went over the subjest that Jesus was the Bridegroom of the bride providing you with many scriptures. I then defined what a spiritual woman or a spiritual bride was in the eyes of God using the Bible to help us to understand her. I further have defined the reality that a marriage in the eyes of God is a covenant between God and his bride using several verses. If you have not been following this blog series from the beginning I would strongly suggest that you go back and read it from the beginning Part 1 The Introduction.
As we have seen, we know from the Old Testament prophets that God was married to the natural nation of Israel and the people of the earthly city of Jerusalem. Maybe you didn’t realize that, but it is there. What we see is a natural example of a marriage covenant between Israel and God the Father. This is a pattern and a foreshadowing of the New Covenant that was to come. When Jesus was crucified He implemented a new covenant, which represents a spiritual marriage to a spiritual woman called the new Jerusalem. The parallels between these two women are numerous and I really think they are obvious if you look for them. Here are just some of the parallels I found from studying these two women:
| Old Covenant | New Covenant |
| Physical People | Spiritual People |
| Natural Nation of Israel | Spiritual Nation of Israel |
| 12 Sons of Jacob | 12 Disciples of the Lamb |
| Earthly Jerusalem | New Jerusalem |
| Unholy Jerusalem | Holy Jerusalem |
| Solomon Builds God a Natural Temple | Jesus Builds God a Spiritual Temple |
| Priests unto God | Jesus our High Priest |
| Blood of the Lamb on the Doorposts | Blood of the Lamb of God covers our Sins |
| Offers Yearly Sacrifices for Sin | Jesus the Lamb of God once for all Sin |
| Described as a Natural Woman | Described as a Spiritual Woman |
| Married to God the Father | Married to Jesus the Son of God |
| Abraham The Natural Father | Abraham the Spiritual Father |
| Called the Natural Seed of Abraham | Called the Spiritual Seed of Abraham |
| Circumcised in the Flesh | Circumcised in the Heart |
| Covenant of Mt Sinai in Arabia | Covenant of Mt Zion in Heaven |
So who is this new covenant with? It has to be the church, those who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. The parallels and patterns between these two women are very significant and intentional by God’s design. God implemented an Old Covenant to give us patterns into the New Covenant. Let’s go through some verses in the Old Testament now and look for the bride of Christ. Here is an Old Testament scripture that I believe is very relevant to the subject of the identity of the bride:
Isa 54:5 For thy Maker is thine husband; the LORD of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; The God of the whole earth shall he be called.
We see a clear reference that God our maker is called the husband. I know this verse could be taken as directed at Israel and God, but I believe by the law of double reference it is referring to Jesus and the church. This is a prophetic verse of scripture for it speaks of God being “our” husband. How did I get to “our”? Because it says “thy Husband” is also called “thy Redeemer”. So who has redeemed us? Did you know we were redeemed from something, maybe that ought to be my first question. Here is a familiar scripture to some and others might not have seen it:
Tit 2:14 Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
You see in this verse that Jesus is called our Redeemer. God writes to the church and tells them that Jesus gave himself for them. Jesus did this to free them from their captive state and from the consequences of their sin. Here is another verse that speaks along these lines:
Gal 3:13 Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:
So we see from Galatians 3:13 and Titus 2:14 that Christ has redeemed “US” the church. So who did Isaiah say our husband would be? He said our Redeemer would be our husband. These kind of scriptures are all over the Bible if you look for them. I know it can be like putting a big jig saw puzzle together, but the pieces of the puzzle only fit together correctly one way so keep trying them to figure out what is right and what works. God didn’t give you a puzzle that couldn’t be solved. I hope you can see why I included this scripture right here and how it also fits with the story of Ruth in the Old Testament. I talked about the story of Ruth in the last blog. Christ is our redeemer and he is now also our husband. We can see that this verse is one of those that I referred to as applicable to the church by the law of double of reference. It was historical and prophetical at the same time. You can learn so much if you can accept these simple truths. I think I should briefly talk about what “redeem” means. If you look this word up and see the definition, it informs us that God buys us out of an impending doom or disastrous state. The word states that the item being bought is on the verge of being lost and the buyer paid the price to save it. We were that item on the verge of being eternally lost and Jesus Christ with His blood bought us out of our impending disaster.
So many times people do not think when they read the Bible. If God had to buy us out of our sin and pay the price for our freedom, who did this payment go to? If you have never been in a pawn shop perhaps you do not know how they work. Someone takes in an item into the pawn shop that has some value to it. This item is pawned for a specific time period. The shop owner gives the owner of the item some amount of money, usually pennies on the dollar for the item and keeps the item in their vault until either the owner comes back and buys the item back or the time period elapses. If the time period elapses the pawn shop owner is then free to take the item and sell it for more than he paid for it and that is one way that they make their money. If the original owner of the item comes back for his item he usually has to pay what he was loaned plus interest to get the item back. So what does this have to do with God redeeming us? We were that item of value that was pawned and held for ransom. God in His infinite mercy paid the price for our redemption. Perhaps I’ll do a blog on this showing you the Bible verses in the future.
Let’s get back to the bride in the Old Testament. The book of Isaiah has several scriptures that can be taken to heart by the church and here is another example of one of these:
Isa 62:5 For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee.
This verse gives us a scriptural comparison of a natural and a spiritual truth. We can clearly see a reference given to a marriage between a natural man and a natural woman. We can then see that compared to a covenant marriage between God and his wife. By the law of double reference we can easily make the leap and see that this is Jesus and the church. Jesus as you recall was called the bridegroom with a bride in book of John. So as this verse says it says the bridegroom will rejoice over you. Who do you think “you” is? Of course it is the church. Who do you think the bridegroom is, who rejoices? Of course that is Jesus. Verses like this are so easily overlooked and ignored and people do it every day. But, when you see the truth it makes it easier to see other related truths in the Word of God.
We have seen two very significant verses in Isaiah that are relevant to the church, but there are also other verses and other prophets which can be viewed in more than one way by “the law of double reference”. What does this law of double reference mean to us? It simply means that it can be taken in a natural and a historical way according to the natural nation of Israel and then it can be taken in a spiritual or prophetic way that relates to the new Jerusalem and the new Covenant people of God. Here are a couple of verses that I think further reflect what I am telling you.
Jer 50:4 In those days, and in that time, saith the LORD, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together, going and weeping: they shall go, and seek the LORD their God.
Jer 50:5 They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward, saying, Come, and let us join ourselves to the LORD in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten.
We know reading this scripture in verse 4 that this appears to be addressed to the natural people of Israel and Judah. During this time period the prophet Jeremiah had seen the natural nation of Israel split into two opposing factions. This involved the 10 tribes of Israel to the north and then the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin to the south. Israel experienced a split and we won’t get into any of that because even though it is important, it is not relevant to the identity of the bride of Christ at least as far as we know right now. For you see there is a verse in the New Testament that gives us some clues into this statement:
Heb 8:8 For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:
We can see from this verse written to the church that God is speaking of the New Covenant. God states that this new covenant is with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. But, since this is written to the church we can very easily say that we are them, the spiritual Israel and the spiritual Judah.
Look back at Jeremiah 50. We can see a stark change in context in Jeremiah 50:5 with these natural people being previously mentioned. Did you notice what they said? Probably you don’t fully grasp what was said without studying and finding out the significance of the words. It starts by them asking the way to Zion. They end with a statement that says let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant. A perpetual covenant means an eternal, everlasting, never ending covenant. We know from study that to join with another is a part of a marriage covenant. The wife is joined to her husband they become one flesh by the law of marriage in Genesis 2. So we are definitely talking about a bride and a her husband in this verse. But, do you understand what Zion is? It has far reaching implications that are very significant. I do not feel I can fully explain everything in this blog, but I will try to give you enough information to help you see what I am talking about. I’ll start by saying that Mt Zion has an earthly reference to a mountain in Palestine called Mt Hermon. This is not the mountain in this verse that the people are asking for directions to. If you think it is you are probably just confused. Let’s look at some key verses in the New Testament that will help us unlock the meaning. Here are two verses that are quotes from the Old Testament:
Mat 21:5 Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.
Joh 12:15 Fear not, daughter of Sion: behold, thy King cometh, sitting on an ass’s colt.
Both of these verses say basically the same thing. But, it give us a key phrase or wording that maybe you don’t understand fully yet. These words are addressed to the daughter of Zion. Do you know who the daughter of Zion is? This may be news to many of you, but the daughter of Zion is the church. I think several readers just choked on their drink. Jesus is prophesied to be riding on a donkey into the city of Jerusalem. But, it says look daughter of Zion here is your King. Who is the King of kings and the Lord of lords? If you don’t know the answer to that you may need to do more Bible study. Who are the kings and lords that Jesus is King and Lord of? This is not a trick question. Let’s look at some more verses and this will become clearer as we do further study. Let’s first establish the location of Mt Zion. Where is Mt Zion, this mountain is not in Palestine or the natural nation of Israel. Here is a clue and a verse that might help you see it.
Rom 9:33 As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.
Isa 8:14 And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
The Bible is so much more complex than we give it credit for many times. When we read the Bible most of the time we see Israel and Jerusalem and only think in natural terms of the physical country and city on the earth. However, there are more than one of both of these in the Bible. From what I have seen in the Bible there are three cities in the Bible all called by the same name Jerusalem. One is physical and two are spiritual. I really don’t have time to teach you this in this lesson. I have included more information on this in other blogs so go read and study. So who or what are these verses speaking of? Who is the stumbling stone? Who is this rock of offence? Here is another scripture from Isaiah that also speaks of this stone:
Isa 28:16 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.
You can see that God has laid a stone in Zion to start a foundation for a building project. This stone was tried, which has all kind of implications on it. Jesus was tried by Pilot and sentenced to death. Then it refers to this stone as a corner stone. A corner stone in terms of building is the stone that all the other stones are aligned from. It is the first stone laid in a building project. God is talking about a building project, yes? Sure He is! However, God is building a spiritual building, a spiritual city which is to be His eternal dwelling place. This dwelling place is the church and it is called the New Jerusalem. Let’s read some very important verses in Ephesians 2:
Eph 2:20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;
Eph 2:21 In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:
Eph 2:22 In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.
You can clearly see a reference to a very, very large building project in these verses. This is a large building project because we have a really big God. God is building an eternal city, a holy city to dwell in. This city is of course the New Jerusalem. This city will be His eternal dwelling place and will be a glorious place to be forever. As you recall this city is described in great detail in Revelation and is called the Holy Jerusalem, the New Jerusalem. It is New because the Old is going away and being replaced totally and completely.
Heb 8:13 In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.
So God tells us that the New replaces the Old. The New is not an augmentation or a modification of the Old or even an upgrade from the Old. The New is a better covenant, built upon better promises. God tells us that the Old will soon vanish away completely. We can see this repeated in the New Testament if you look for it. God tells us there will be a new Heaven and new Earth. So obviously both of these will also be completely replaced. It would appear to me that God is preparing a new spiritual world that replaces the old spiritual world.
So we are still talking about Mt. Zion and where it is. Who was this “Stumbling Stone” that Isaiah 8:14 is referring to? Of course it is Jesus Christ? Where is Jesus Christ today? He is in heaven sitting at the right hand of the Father. Do you agree? So apparently Mt Zion is in heaven. Here is a verse that will clear things up better for you since it tells us exactly where this Mt Zion is located:
Heb 12:22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,
Heb 12:23 To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,
This verse is so clear and so informative that I wonder why we haven’t seen it before. Of course this verse is written to the church and it declares us, the church as having come to this Mt Zion. Then it reveals the location of this Mt Zion as being the city of the living God. This time it names the city directly as the Heavenly Jerusalem. As I hope you recall we have already seen this city named in Galatians 4, where it was called the Jerusalem that is Above. Who was this city according to Galatians? Wasn’t it the “Jerusalem from Above” that was the mother of the Church? Uh Oh? We are beginning to put together pieces of the puzzle that have huge implications to challenge our current understanding of God’s word. If you use your brain a little bit you realize that every covenant of God has a corresponding mountain associated with it. From reading in Galatians 4 the Earthly Jerusalem is tied to Mt Sinai where Moses received the law from God. This heavenly Jerusalem also has a mountain associated with it inferring there was another covenant that most of us don’t know about. If the heavenly Jerusalem contains the mountain named Zion and this city is said to be the mother of the church, could the daughter of Zion also be the church? If you keep studying longer you will come to the conclusion that it is, as I have.
Son 3:11 Go forth, O ye daughters of Zion, and behold king Solomon with the crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart.
The daughter of Zion is mentioned in the Song of Solomon when speaking of his wife that he loves. Solomon is an O.T. type of Christ and a pattern for Jesus’ marriage to the church. The “daughter of Zion” again is a reference to the church a spiritual name for a spiritual woman.
I have in a roundabout way gone in a complete circle in this teaching about the bride of Christ. As you may remember, we started out very early with a definition of a woman coming from a description of the woman in Revelation called the New Jerusalem. This woman has suddenly reappeared from Old Testament references thus completing the circle. If you have been following this you will soon begin to understand the connection and the process of how we got to where we did. God does things like this on purpose to teach us. This woman called the New Jerusalem is the Holy City of God. The eternal dwelling place for the Spirit of God. The eternal covenant wife of Jesus Christ the Son of God. This city is a new spiritual habitation for God because the Old spiritual city in heaven will soon pass away. Why was it necessary for God to create a new spiritual city? Why was is necessary to create a new heaven and a new Earth? Why did God have to marry a new wife through His Son Jesus Christ? Why was the Church a necessary part of God’s plan as a woman and a wife? There are just so many questions to answer and research. Before I close out this incredibly long lesson, I’ll leave you with one more set of scriptures about this city called “New Jerusalem”:
Isa 52:1 Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.
Isa 52:2 Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.
Isa 52:3 For thus saith the LORD, Ye have sold yourselves for nought; and ye shall be redeemed without money.
Here God is speaking to the New Jerusalem. If you noticed He again called it the “Holy Jerusalem” like He did in Revelation. There is a parallel given to us of a spiritual truth. We know the uncircumcised refers to those not in covenant. But, in the New Testament God informs us that we who have been circumcised in our hearts are the true Jews (Rom 2:29). So God is speaking prophetically as well as naturally. Then in verse 2 it says to free ourselves from the captivity of sin. Where we were bound in darkness to Satan we have been purchased and redeemed by God. As you can see in verse 3 it says we sold ourselves for nothing to Satan, but God has bought us back without paying any money for us. It didn’t cost God any money to redeem us, but it was not free either. God shed His blood, which was more valuable than anything else that He could have given and paid the price to buy us out of our dilemma.
So we have gone full circle and ended where we started. Funny how God does that. The City of New Jerusalem is the New Covenant wife of the Lamb of God and this spiritual woman is the church. There are certainly many other scriptures that I did not cover, but I know I have run very long in today’s lesson, so I will stop here.
If you would like to continue reading this series, you can go to “Part 11“.
The Bride of Christ Revealed – Part 9 The Bride in the Old Testament
(Ver 1.1) This has been a very long extensive advanced Bible study about the identity of the bride of Christ. This is now Part 9 in the series and is my 100th blog on this site. I have been going through an intentionally designed set of information to step you through a process so that you could clearly see and understand the identity of the Bride of Christ. We have discussed a lot of subjects and a lot of scriptures. These are absolutely critical for you to understand so that you know who you are in Christ. By knowing who you are spiritually, it clearly indentifies you and your responsibility in the spiritual realm and helps you to understand your covenant relationship with Christ. If you have not read these blogs from the beginning I would strongly recommend that you go back and start with Part 1 The Introduction and then continue forward in progressive blogs so that you can clearly see and understand what God is saying.
Within the Old Testament there are several styles of writings found within the pages. First we should realize that God originally started by giving the first part of the Old Testament to Moses. Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible and these are many times referred to as “the law”. The law represents commandments and instructions given to the nation of Israel so that they would learn and know of God and His ways. There is a lot of information contained within the law, but most of it does not apply directly to the church. We know from the New Testament in verses like Romans 6:14 that it says the church is not under the law, but under grace. So we have to understand the law, but not live thinking that by obeying the law that is what saved us. Jesus also said that a new commandment I give to you and this was the commandment of Love. Jesus told us that in this one new commandment was summed up all the other commandments of the Old Testament. Next, we should see the Bible as a historical document with actual events, places and people recorded for our benefit. The Bible says these things were written to us for examples (1 Cor 10:11) so that we could learn from what they did right or wrong. Learning from History will help us to not repeat it, so the saying goes. So we should read first and foremost for examples that we could learn from. Next, there are prophetic words recorded of events and things which have not yet occurred. Jesus of course fulfilled many of the prophetic writings when he was born a man and walked the earth. Then he was killed and rose from the dead and these were all prophesied events. Events that were written hundreds of years earlier. So we should be reading the Old Testament for events that are soon to occur. The next type of Old Testament writing that we should be aware of when reading, is the fact that God has developed patterns, types and shadows of future events and people. Many times it is a natural occurrence of a specific event that parallels a future spiritual event. God informs us that the thing that has been is the thing that shall be again ( Ecc 1:9). He told us that there is nothing new under the sun. So what we can determine from this is that God has given us glimpses into future spiritual events by showing us previous natural events. So as we read the Old Testament keep this in mind and look for natural patterns, types and shadows of people, places and events. I believe there are many other types and styles of writings in the Old Testament, but there is only one more that I want to point out. The last type of writing that I want to make you aware of are scriptures that many call double references. In other words they may be words that are originally given to or directed at the natural nation of Israel, but these words can also be applied to the spiritual nation of Israel or the church as it is also known. The law of double reference represents words that come from God that can be viewed historically and prophetically simultaneously. The Bible declares that all of the promises of God are yes and amen to us (2 Cor 1:20). For example, some of these promises were from the Old Testament given to Abraham and his seed (Gal 3:14). But, we know from Galatians that now we (the church) are the seed of Abraham and whatever God said to him, he said to us also (Gal 3:29). We can see from this example, that the story of Abraham has vast spiritual implications for the church. However, without reading and understanding double references and O.T. writings styles, you would never know these promises were yours without Galatians 3. So let’s look at some Old Testament scriptures and see what God has revealed about the identity of the bride of Christ.
There are so many Old Testament references as well as specific patterns, types and shadows that reveal the identity of this woman called the bride of Christ, but unless you are looking for them you will probably glide right over them and not even realize it. For example, have you ever read the Song of Solomon? This man goes on and on about a woman, describing her in detail and speaking of his deep feeling of love for her. I really don’t know how you can read that and not realize that woman’s true identity, that woman is the church. The man speaking is God in the flesh. Jesus died and gave himself for payment to purchase the church with his blood. I think for time sake I will not go through that book, but it does have many verses that are relevant. I would strongly recommend that you read this book with a new perspective and focus and look for examples of the bride. We can easily tell because we know who the author is, who the male or bridegroom is in the relationship. Jesus made this statement,
Joh 5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.
So as you read stories about the man in the Song of Solomon, remember what Jesus said. Search the scriptures, but keep this in mind for they are written about Him. That will help you a whole bunch in figuring out what they mean. I’ll give you a hint that will help you maybe in your study of the Song of Solomon. The woman in the story is many times referred to as the “daughter of Jerusalem” or the “daughter of Zion”. In the King James Translation it is incorrectly translated as “daughters of Jerusalem”, but if you look up the word you will see that it should have been singular. So who was the daughter of Jerusalem? If you recall we read in Galatians 4:26 that the Heavenly Jerusalem, is the spiritual mother of us all (the church). That would of course help confirm the identity of the Bride as being the daughter of the Heavenly Jerusalem in the Song of Solomon. There are many other interesting things to read in the book of Song of Solomon so I recommend that you spend time in studying this book in great depth. For example, six times in the Song of Solomon the woman is called his “sister” and his “spouse”. The term “spouse” is obvious and it means wife. The term sister is of course is more difficult for religious people to grasp. However, the church has to be a spiritual sister to Christ since we have the same spiritual mother and father. But I guess I won’t elaborate anymore and get you upset at me.
Another classic Old Testament type and shadow of Christ and the Church is given to us in the book of Ruth. The entire story is about a woman who is the primary named character. This woman is a gentile woman and ends up marrying her Jewish Redeemer. Sounds kind of familiar to another story in the New Testament. People who don’t see the Church as this woman must be ignoring the obvious or just blinded by the enemy so that they won’t see it. The book of Ruth is not a very big book, it is only 4 chapters and you can read it without spending much time doing it. However, reading is not the same as understanding it. You are going to have to study to show yourself approved a workman unto God. Study involves digging for the big hidden nuggets of truth and not just scanning the surface for the easy stuff. Study will always involve work on your part. If you would like to read my blog series on this woman Ruth you can go to “The Book of Ruth“.
Here is a quick synopsis of the story of Ruth. It seems that this story begins when there was a time of famine that existed in the land of Israel. A man, his wife and two sons moved out of Israel to find food. They went to the land of Moab and settled down. The father of the family dies there. His two sons marry Moabite women to start their own families. However within 10 years time, the two sons also die leaving no heirs. With all of the Hebrew men dead that left the mother-in-law and her two daughter-in-laws only. Naomi, the older widow then attempts to convince her two daughter-in-laws to go back home and find new husbands because she can’t have any more children for them to marry. One daughter-in-law takes her up on this and one does not. The one daughter-in-law named Ruth declares where ever you go I will go, where ever you die I’ll die, your people will be my people and your God will by my God. This is covenant talk if you didn’t realize that. So Naomi and Ruth return to Naomi’s homeland where her relatives lived. This so happens to be in and around the city of Bethlehem. This is the exact future birth place of Jesus. This is certainly not a coincidence. Ruth must have become familiar with the law of Moses being married to a son of Israel or from her mother-in-law Naomi, because everything she does going forward follows the things written in the law.
The law of Moses provided for a method of raising up an heir in the case and circumstances that Ruth was experiencing. A man called a kinsman redeemer was responsible to marry the widow of the dead relative and have children with her. This child would become an heir for the dead husbands family. This kinsman redeemer was named Boaz in the book of Ruth. Boaz was a very wealthy man and owned a large field that Ruth would gleam from in order to get food to survive. Boaz ends up meeting this woman Ruth and finds out who she is. The net result of this meeting is a marriage. Boaz redeems Ruth from her widowhood and they have a child and an heir. This natural child becomes the great grandfather of David the king and eventually directly in the lineage of the birth of Jesus, our redeemer. You might be able to recognize the types of some of the characters in this story fairly easily and others will be much more difficult to see. Boaz is definitely a type of Jesus, the redeemer. Ruth the gentile is a type of the church. Naomi the mother-in-law would be a type of the nation of Israel. I don’t know of any type and shadow that is a perfect match otherwise it wouldn’t be a shadow it would be the object that is making the shadow. Everything may not fit exactly like you think it should, but I guarantee you everything is significant and has meaning, you just don’t know what it means yet. I could attempt to explain more things in this blog, but since it is not my primary subject it would just cloud the issue at hand. If you go and read the story of Ruth closely you will find that I didn’t include every character mentioned. I didn’t include every interaction between these characters either. There are certainly many more things to learn from this book, but you will need to wait.
I would highly recommend if you haven’t read those two books that you go back and read them and pay very close attention to what is being said. Take note of who the characters are and what they do. The patterns, types and shadows given are very relevant to our subject of the identity of the bride of Christ. Both books are about a male and a female relationship. Both books are about love and marriage. Both represent types of Jesus and the church.
So that was an introduction to two major patterns of Christ and the church in the Old Testament. You should be intimately familiar with these stories and have a really good understanding of them so that you will know who you are in the spiritual world. We will continue looking at other Old Testament scriptures for the bride in my next blog.
If you like to continue reading this series, you can go to “Part 10“.
The Bride of Christ Revealed – Part 8 The Bride in the New Testament 2
(Ver 1.1) This is now Part 8 in the series of lessons on the Bride of Christ Revealed. I have been going through an intentionally designed set of information to step you through a process so that you could clearly see and understand the identity of the Bride of Christ. We have discussed a lot of subjects and a lot of scriptures. These are absolutely critical for you to understand so that you know who you are in Christ. By knowing who you are spiritually, it clearly indentifies you and your responsibility in the spiritual realm. If you have not read these blogs from the beginning I would strongly recommend that you go back and start with Part 1 The Introduction and then continue forward in progressive blogs so that you can clearly see and understand what God is saying.
I heard a minister say that speaking of Saul in the book of Acts when Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus, that those scriptures prove we (the church) represents Christ. Jesus says to Saul “why persecuteth thou me” in the book of Acts and if Jesus said you are doing something to me that proves we are Him. But, you see the reason that Jesus could make that statement, is because it says in Corinthians that the church is one spirit with Christ because they were joined or married to him. So we are not Christ, but have been joined to him by a marriage covenant, making us His body. This is the law of Genesis 2 concerning marriage, where God said the two will become one body. I tell you if you ignore these easy scriptures, you are going to have a lot of problems with the harder stuff in the Bible. In the last lesson we looked at the verse in 1 Corinthians:
1 Cor 6:17 But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.
This verse says that the church was joined to the Lord and became one Spirit. To be joined to someone is different than actually being someone. A wife is always joined to her husband and she becomes his flesh and bone. But that never means her role changes. She is never the husband or the head in the relationship. This is just basic reasoning and logic based upon scripture that we have read in Ephesians. Look at the Greek G2853 word translated as “joined” in the Strong’s dictionary:
G2853
From κόλλα kolla (“glue”); to glue, that is, (passively or reflexively) to stick (figuratively): – cleave, join (self), keep company.
The word translated as “joined” means to glue, cleave, or to stick together. This is another clear definition of marriage which is the act of taking two separate distinct people and making one out of them. That’s marriage in the clearest form of God’s definition given to us by God himself in Genesis 2, Matthew 19:5, Mark 10:7-8 and Ephesians 5:31. The two shall become one flesh. Glue is the joining substance and this could very well represent the Holy Spirit. But the purpose of glue is to take two separate and distinct pieces and join them or put them together and make one piece out of them. It is interesting that this Greek word is different than the previous Greek word that we looked at and since I am not a Greek language expert I don’t really have an explanation of why and how it is different. However, I did notice that the Greek word G4347 which is used in Ephesians 5:31, Matthew 19:5 and Mark 10:7 in the marriage law from Genesis comes from G2853 so they are definitely connected and definitely related and they definitely say and mean the same thing.
I don’t know how to make this any clearer. So if you think the church is still not the bride based upon these great witnesses I sure hope you will begin to see it someday. There are certainly more scriptures in the Bible that indicate that the church is the bride of Christ and I will give you some more for the stubborn and those who have chosen to close their eyes to the truth. Here is one that I found that I thought was very interesting and certainly fits together with a bunch of what we have been studying. This scripture is found in the book of Revelation and here we have Jesus himself again speaking to the church. Notice the words are in Red and then notice closely what Jesus is saying to us.
Rev 3:12 Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name.
I want you to first notice who this is written to, to whom is Jesus speaking? According to verse 13 of chapter 3 it is written directly to the church. That is certainly a critical point to understand up front. Then let’s go back to verse 12 and see what Jesus said to the church. The primary subject or theme of the verse appears to me to be a name changing operation. He says to them that have overcome, He will do what? He is going to give these people a new name. From what I see it could be three different names or all three new name references could also be the same. But did you notice the relationship to the new Jerusalem? This is definitely a part of the naming process. Who gets a new name in a normal wedding and marriage? Of course it has traditionally been the bride that takes the name of their husband. If the church was already the body of Christ, I don’t think there would be any need to write a new name on his body if the head already has a new name, then the body also has a new name. But, somehow Jesus finds it necessary to write a new name on the church, that sure sounds like a marriage to me. Putting the pieces of the puzzle together correctly sure seems to make things work together better. One of the main take away from this verse would be to see the association of the name “New Jerusalem” to the church. Are you one of the overcomers Jesus is speaking to? Jesus is telling you if you are, then you are the New Jerusalem of God. You are the city called New Jerusalem. You are the new house and temple of God. You have become a pillar in the temple of God. A pillar is a key part of a structure that holds the other parts together and keeps it from falling down. That is a major responsibility being given to us. What I wanted you to see was a verse of scripture that implies a marriage between a bridegroom and a bride. The bride should be willing to take the new name of her husband and this is what Jesus is telling us to do. What we have is a confirmation to the fact that the bride of Christ is a spiritual city of people called the New Jerusalem. This New Jerusalem is a New Covenant marriage between Jesus Christ and the church.
I want to show you some verses in the Bible written to the church that clearly reveal us to be a chosen woman. Do you realize that when a man asks a woman to marry him, that man has already made a choice. Out of all the women on the planet, that man chose this one. That was a selection of one and the rejection of all the rest. This is what Christ has done and you can find that in the Bible if you look for it. Let’s read this verse:
2Jn 1:1 The elder unto the elect lady and her children, whom I love in the truth; and not I only, but also all they that have known the truth;
So what do you do with a verse like this? It is easily explained away or it can be taken and understood to be very profound. God is writing a letter to the church through the Apostle John and he calls all of us the “elect lady”. If you think only naturally you will try to say this is a letter written to a dear friend of John or maybe his wife. It is a great error to conclude that based upon the context of the words that are written. The “elect lady” being called “her” is the spiritual church of God. A lady by definition is a woman with character and moral standards. It would be the opposite of calling a woman a “whore”. Uh oh, I guess I won’t go there.
2Jn 1:5 And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another.
As you can see John and God calls the church a lady. The commandment of love was the same new commandment that Jesus gave to John and the rest of the disciples. This commandment is now being passed on to the rest of the body of Christ. However, you have to see that the church is called “a lady”. A lady certainly qualifies to be the bride of Christ.
It seems that there are numerous other scriptures that imply marriage even though they don’t say it directly. Here are some of those that I have found, you of course can disagree and ignore them if you like. Remember in the Old Testament the word “Knew” was used numerous times for a sexual act between a husband and a wife. It says “Adam knew his wife Eve and they had a son”. That of course represents a covenant act between a husband and his wife as we have seen before. There are numerous scriptures in the New Testament that could very easily be taken to mean the same thing but in a spiritual context, not a natural physical act. After all God is a Spirit. His Spirit resides in the believer and as we have seen they become one Spirit with Him.
Gal 4:9 But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?
You can see from this verse that there is a two way street being spoken of. We the church are now said to know God and now God also knows us. This is spiritual knowledge and represents a spiritual consensual covenant act. This is marriage in the purest spiritual form. We can easily ignore verses like this or overlook them or we can figure out what they are saying and believe them. Here is another example of God knowing us the church.
2Ti 2:19 Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity.
We can again see a covenant act of consensual spiritual knowledge being expressed in this verse. It said the Lord “knows” them that are his. It would be the same as saying Adam knows his wife and they had a son. I guess some might say we shouldn’t be talking about this kind of stuff in a lesson about God. I think they forget who invented and created sex. You can see God all over it if you look at it the right way. The other critical piece of information in this verse is the reference to a name change again. Again this describes a marriage covenant act of a name change performed by the bride. This verse in 2nd Timothy 2:19 says that they (everyone) have taken the name of Christ. Here we can see another reference to how the church became the body of Christ, by taking his name in marriage. Moving on to a couple of other example, I found in the book of 1 John these verses.
1Jn 2:3 And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
1Jn 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
As you may or may not know, John wrote and delivered a thematic message of Love. Love was his primary theme throughout all of his writings. We again see the covenant act portrayed in verses like these in direct relationship with love. This of course fits precisely with God’s definition of a covenant marriage. It’s amazing how many verses you can find that speak of the church in terms of the Bride if you look for them. I hope I am helping you to see these verses in a new light. Here is another interesting scripture reference that also speaks of the church as the bride of Christ in a clear but indirect reference:
Rom 9:24 Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
Rom 9:25 As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.
You can see in verse 24 of chapter 9 of Romans that it is speaking to those God has called? I cannot speak for you, but I know that is me. He then informs us that this group of called individuals are made up of both Jews and Gentiles. That is correct, isn’t it? Then in verse 25 He speaks of the prophecy of Hosea and that is an interesting reference that we really haven’t explored very much. Let me first point out the last statement in that verse, that says I will call her my beloved who was not my beloved. That sure sounds like a marriage to me. If you recall, Hosea was commanded by God to marry a whore. He went and bought her out of whoredom and married her. While this could indirectly relate to the Gentiles, we know for sure that it is speaking of Israel as being the whore. The Old Testament quote is given that I will call them my people who were not my people. Right here we miss something that is implied and is dramatically different than what I’ve heard many teach. Many preachers speak of the nation of Israel as being God’s people today. I certainly believe that in the Old Testament, Israel were God’s people. But this verse says that I will call those that are not my people, my people. Do you understand the reciprocal truth given here? What is an inverse or reciprocal truth? I’m not sure if you’ve ever thought about that question or not. It is mathematical in its roots. The inverse or reciprocal of a number is the measurable opposite of what is given. In other words it is the opposite or negative truth of the positive truth that is given. It means the verse says more than what is on the surface. If the people who were not God’s people are now God’s people, what happened to those that use to be God’s people? The inference is that they are now not God’s people and can never be God’s people again because they were once God’s people. You see something that is pretty hard to grasp if you are not a logical, mathematical type thinker, grasping concepts and laws that are based in these verses can be difficult.
Since Israel is not my primary subject, I really can’t elaborate any more on verses like that one in this blog. I will recommend that you do some additional research on your own about Israel and their fate. I think where we need to go now is to review some more Old Testament types and shadows of the bride of Christ. So let’s dive into the Old Testament. In my next blog we will go back into the Old Testament and look for patterns, types and shadows for Christ and the church as the bride. We have already seen the Old Testament reference to the nation of Israel as being a woman, a wife and a bride to God in the Old Covenant. That is certainly a great pattern for the New Covenant, but there are other verse in the Old Testament that we should also be aware of. So until next time I hope you are having a great day.
If you would like to continue reading this series, you can go to “Part 9“.
The Bride of Christ Revealed – Part 7 The Bride in the New Testament
(Ver 1.1) This is now Part 7 in this series on the subject of the Bride of Christ Revealed and I have covered a lot of information on the subject. In my last blog on this subject I introduced you to some very strong New Testament verses that confirm the identity of the Bride of Christ directly as being the church. Ephesians chapter 5 is predominately about the subject of marriage and the relationships between husbands and wives. We went verse by verse through key verses in this chapter and counted the references to see how many times natural husbands and wives were mentioned and then we looked at how these natural marriages fit a pattern for a greater spiritual truth. Jesus is clearly given to be the head, the husband and the bridegroom in these verses. The church is clearly given to be his bride, his wife and his body by marriage. If you have not been following this series from the beginning I would strongly recommend that you go back and start reading from Part 1, The Introduction. This series is designed to step you through the subjects in a way that you can more easily see and understand this very deep and complex topic. So read each part of the series in order and hopefully you will grasp all of the spiritual concepts.
I heard more than one preacher say “search the Bible and you won’t find one scripture that says the church is the bride”. I sometimes wonder what Bible they are looking at, for I found a bunch of verses that tell me the church is the bride of Christ. These were well known ministers and men who have been teaching and studying the Bible for 50 years. The main problem they are experiencing is one that Jesus said you will always find what you are seeking. Jesus actually said seek and you shall find. But the problem is when people seek wrong things you find wrong things. If you are looking for no verses that say the church is the bride you will find no verses that say this. You always get what you seek and not necessarily what is the truth. That is how God designed the Bible to give you a choice to believe whatever you want to believe. That is a law of Bible research and study. Here is another law of Bible interpretation, it tells us that in the mouth of two or three witnesses let every word be established. I already showed you Ephesians 5 about Christ and His bride. So what other scriptures can we find in the New Testament that reveal the church to be the bride of Christ? Read these next scriptures very carefully, for they too are written directly to the church in Rome and they reveal very clearly the identity of the church as being the bride of Christ.
Rom 7:1 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?
This is an incredibly critical verse to understand fully. It speaks about the law. Here is the important thing to grasp, it says as long as a man is alive the law has dominion over him. Do you understand that statement? The implication is that when a man dies, the law is no longer in effect over his life. But did you notice who Paul and God wrote this verse to? It says “brethren” and that would be the church, except then it qualifies it further and says to only my brothers who know the law. Do you understand that statement? I bet you don’t fully get it. You see to “know” is a covenant term between a husband and a wife. Adam “knew” his wife and she had a son. To “know” is a sexual type reference, but God is not talking about a physical intimacy but a spiritual intimacy. What God is saying in this verse is, these next verses are written to members in the church who were previously under the law of Moses and the Old Covenant wife of God.
Rom 7:2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.
So we see some more important information concerning marriage and the law. If you recall in an earlier blog I discussed the law of marriage using Genesis 2. This verse confirms that there are laws in the Old Testament that govern marriage relationships. This verse says that a woman is bound by the law to her husband as long as her husband is alive. Why is that? The law of marriage said that they are one flesh. You can’t cut off a piece of your own body and get rid of it and still be whole. In most marriage ceremonies there is usually a phrase “until death do us part”. God informs us that death is a legal separation of a marriage covenant. There is really a tremendous number of applications of this scripture to the women in the Bible. If you recall Israel was called a woman married to God. That is exactly why God is using Paul to write these verses to Messianic Jewish believers. He is informing them of something that is very profound and relevant so let’s keep reading:
Rom 7:3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.
I really don’t want to get off of the subject and go into a lot of detail right here concerning Israel, but I guess I will mention it so that you can do further research and see that it does apply. If you read Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Hosea to name a few good examples you will see God called Israel a whore because of her unfaithful interaction with foreign gods and idolatry. God considered these acts as adulteress conduct of sexual perversion. God also considered these acts as covenant acts of marriage to these foreign gods and idols. So I gave you a lot to research, but let’s get back to this verse and what it says. It is speaking to those under the law and it tells them that as long as their husband is alive if they are in covenant with another then they are committing adultery. But then it says if a woman’s husband is dead, then she is free to marry or enter into covenant with another man. Remember these verses are written to brothers, males and these men are referred to as a woman. I think sometimes people don’t see this and miss out what God is saying.
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.
I hope you are getting what these scriptures are saying for they end in a very clear statement in Romans 7:4 that says you are now married to another, the Lord Jesus Christ! Try to explain that away! I’m sure you’ll come up with something if you don’t want to see the truth. I could say a lot more about these scriptures because they reveal so much more that we haven’t seen, but since that is not my primary purpose in this lesson, I will not weigh you down with any unnecessary things to think about. The main thing to take away from these verses is the reference to a man married to woman and how she is bound to that husband until he is dead. If she marries another while he is alive she is called an adulteress. However, Paul clarifies the problem because he says the first husband died by the body of Jesus Christ. So now they are free to be married to another and that is to him that was raised from the dead. This is an incredibly detailed discussion about the law and the law in specific relation to marriage covenants. Only people under the law would have been concerned to this level of detail. Gentiles were never married to the law or God, so they are free to marry Jesus the same as a natural Jew is now free to marry the Lord. The primary point to see is that the New Covenant is a marriage. But instead of a covenant with the Father God, it is with the Son of God, Jesus Christ and that is a very important concept to note and pay attention to. There is always a reason for everything that God says and does and this is no exception.
So is the church the bride of Christ? Some sure have gone through great extents to try to prove that we are not. I don’t know how they don’t see it, it sure seems to be there to me. Are you seeing it? Let’s start going through some more scriptures and continue by looking at this important verse:
2Co 11:2 For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.
This verse is another that some Bible teachers are determined to explain away not letting people know what it really says. All the ingredients of marriage are mentioned in this verse. The identity of the bridegroom is clearly given as Jesus Christ. The mention of being married or “espoused” to Christ is a very clear reference. So who is the verse directed to? The verse is written to the bride. Bible teachers who don’t believe this verse say it is just making a comparison with the word “As”. You of course know if you can read that the word “as” is added by the translators and is not in the original Greek language so that argument is shot down pretty easily. We can clearly see that it is not making a comparison but it is identifying the church to be the chaste virgin. The Greek word translated as “virgin” has the following definition in the Strong’s:
G3933
Of unknown origin; a maiden; by implication an unmarried daughter: – virgin.
The description of an unmarried woman is clear from this definition. The reference is specifically to an unmarried daughter being presented to Christ. The word “present” in this verse is the same word we looked at in Ephesians and it means to stand beside. So we again see the reference to a marriage ceremony. Then there is the Greek word translated as “chaste” in the King James Bible and here is what Strong’s says about it:
G53
From the same as G40; properly clean, that is, (figuratively) innocent, modest, perfect: – chaste, clean, pure.
Wow does that describe the church you know, it’s not a whole lot of the church I know. So you can read this verse in 2 Corinthians and do what you want to with it. But it clearly has all the necessary ingredients and parties of a wedding ceremony and a marriage covenant. The clear inference is this bride is unmarried and a virgin that has not been touched by another man. The reference is basically the same as a woman dressed in clean and white fine linen that has made herself ready for her husband. But I guess that is just me speaking isn’t it? I can’t prove it to you, either you see it or you don’t. It is so funny how that you can’t make anyone see the truth if they don’t want to see it.
I tell you if you look for scriptures that identify the church as the bride you will find them, the trouble is so many are just not looking for them. I know sometimes that verse can say things indirectly and sometimes not be totally obvious when you read it. Look closely at this scripture because you will find another reference to the church being the bride of Christ:
1Co 6:15 Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.
1Co 6:16 What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh.
1Co 6:17 But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.
Verse 15 starts with confirming the church is the body of Christ. God tells us that our bodies are like individual cells in the bigger body of Christ. We make up the pieces that His body is comprised of. It is a spiritual truth using a natural pattern of the human body. The natural human body consists of many different organs, tissues, bones, cells and other components that when working with each other make up a healthy living body. But as we have already seen we know how we got to be the body of Christ was by the law of marriage found in Genesis 2. That law states that two shall become one body after they are married. This marriage covenant between Adam and Eve was a pattern for the Jesus and the church. Finally, in this verse the subject of harlots come into play in direct relation to the body of Christ. The implication is given that the church now that they are married in covenant with God can still have spiritual sexual relationships with other gods and other spiritual entities. I will agree that these verse seems to go both for natural relations with whores as well as spiritual relations with whores. I believe there is a clear application to the law of double reference. Where a verse of scripture can be taken naturally and spiritually and both points of view are true.
Within the context of these scriptures here we see another direct reference to a physical relationship between a man and a woman. The reference is purely sexual in nature and contains an inference of a woman being joined to her husband by covenant. In 1 Corinthians 6:17, the husband is clearly the Lord Jesus so who is Paul writing to that has been joined to Him? What does it mean to be joined together in Holy Matrimony? Doesn’t this verse have the same contextual relevance to our subject of marriage between a man and a woman? God contrasts the union of Christ and the church to that of a man to a harlot. This is certainly a significant comparison and gives us a lot of information that we should be aware of. For example, having a sexual relation with a whore is called a marriage in the eye’s of God. The sexual act is a covenant act. So if the man has a one night stand with a whore, it declares that in the eyes of God they are joined together as husband and wife. I was watching TV and to my surprise there was a group of individuals sitting around a table and discussing how many sexual partners some of them had. Of course in the unsaved world to men it is a matter of conquest to say they have had a lot of female partners. Who knows who was lying and who was telling the truth, but a couple of them had estimated they had 40 to 60 different women in their lives. According to scripture God sees each of these relations as a marriage covenant act. Obviously men and women don’t see it the same way or they wouldn’t be so casual about who they married. If the courts viewed sex as God views sex, there would be a lot more alimony going out of some of their pockets.
Going back to the verse in 1 Corinthians 6:17 we see the same sexual act reference given but this time to the Church with Jesus Christ. If you don’t see this it is because you don’t want to see it. The difference or contrast is given that we the church have become one spirit with Jesus and the man with the harlot has become one flesh with her. Both have become one by a marriage covenant act. There is a very clear statement of the church being joined to the Lord Jesus. To be joined is of course a marriage. A marriage is always where God takes one male and one female and makes one body out of them. This is so critical to understand.
I have given you at the minimum three great witnesses found in the New Testament that all deal with the church being called the bride of Christ by a marriage covenant act of God. The law of marriage is applicable and helps to explain a great number of other Bible verses, like how the church became the body of Christ? So we have explored more than enough witnesses to confirm this truth, but I might give you some more unique points of view in my next blog on this subject. I think I have said enough today so I hope you have a great day.
If you would like to continue reading this series, you can go to “Part 8“.
The Bride of Christ Revealed – Part 5 The Law of Marriage
(Ver 1.3) In the last blog on this subject we talked about a covenant being a marriage. Before that, I talked about a woman being a nation of people and a city. We have been building our scriptural knowledge base to understand the identity of the bride of Christ and today I want to talk about the Law of Marriage. I hope you realize that the Old Testament holds the law of God written down by Moses. In these books God has established principles, concepts, definitions, and laws concerning every subject you can think of. So today I want to establish what happens when God enters into a marriage blood covenant with a group of people. If you have not been following this series from the beginning I would strongly recommend that you go back and start reading from Part 1, The Introduction.
I know this is a very new advanced study of a complex subject. I know that it will be difficult for some to see and understand. Based upon your current spiritual level of maturity, that alone will determine if you are able to fully grasp what is in this lesson series. Many times I know people read my stuff and think it is not true. It is funny how Jesus would go around and tell people “let him who has ears, hear”. Jesus was not talking about just hearing sounds with their ears, he was talking about them understanding with their hearts and that is something completely different. Too many people know how to read, but do not know how to see what was written. Getting understanding is the key to growing in spiritual maturity. Just as you cannot hand a first grader a college calculus book and say learn this, if you are struggling with the things that I have been saying you are probably not ready for this lesson. I would recommend that you either go back and study the basics some more until you fully grasp the foundational truths before you attempt to tackle any of the advanced subjects found in the Bible.
Let’s get into the second chapter of Genesis and see the account of the creation of woman and the first recorded marriage covenant and what happened to all of the participants. After all, we are talking about the identity of a woman called the bride of Christ, so where did the woman come from?
Gen 2:21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
Gen 2:22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
We can clearly see from these famous well known verses where God says woman came from? You’ve read this before I’m sure, but I doubt if you really fully understood what you read. You see these verses declare that woman was taken out of a man. That is representative of a mathematical operation of division or subtraction. You could say God took one and made two. One divided by 2 gives the same answer as one subtracting one half. Using either division or subtraction the result could still be two halves. But here is another perspective of division and mathematics. If you divide one by one you get one. Isn’t that an interesting concept. The reverse multiplicative principle would be to multiply one by one and you would still get a result of one. One male times one female equals one flesh and here is why I say that. Look at the next verses in Genesis in what Adam has to say about his wife:
Gen 2:23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
Gen 2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
Since the woman was taken from his body, Adam then declares that she was his body. Did you see that? What is flesh and bones? His flesh and bones is the same as his body. Adam’s body consisted of flesh and bones. God took a portion of his body and made her body. Flesh and bones are the primary parts or pieces that make up his body. I hope all kind of light bulbs are going off in your mind based upon this revelation. Flesh and bone and the body are different terminology for the same thing. There are so many ways to describe, label or name the same things that we have to be smart enough to know when they are the same and when they are not. When Adam looked at his wife he called her the body of Adam. This is a pattern for another New Testament marriage we will see later. If God took a part of man out and created a woman who became the mother to all the natural living descendants on the planet earth, then you might say it would be legal for God to put back a woman into his son Jesus Christ. I’m sure you are wondering how I came to that reasoning and conclusion. It starts with this fact, did you know that Jesus is called the “last Adam” in the New Testament? Read this verse:
1Co 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
Not only is Jesus called a quickening spirit in contrast to a living soul, but Jesus is specifically called the “last Adam”. Meaning there is a direct and specific relationship and connection to the “first Adam”. The distinct parallels and patterns between the two Adam’s are quite profound. I hope you are grasping this concept. 2 different Adams, one natural and one spiritual. If it was legal for God to take one man or as we have seen one Adam and create one male and one female, then the reverse logic would be to take one male and one female and multiply them together giving you one flesh again. Multiplication and division of 1 and 1 always results in 1. It is the only set of numbers that I know of that you can do this with. 2 times 2 doesn’t equal 2. 2 divided by 2 doesn’t equal 2. This is of course, very basic math truths, but it is amazing how God does things. Sometimes it is the really simple things that God uses to confound the wise.
When Jesus is called “Adam” in the New Testament, this of course is the same Hebrew word that we looked at earlier. This Hebrew word can be translated either as “man” or it can be translated as “Adam”. Both translations originate from the exact same word and this makes understanding the Bible much more complex. It is a puzzle of sorts, but that is the way God works. God is much smarter than we are and he could have chosen any words that fit, but he specifically selected these words to describe a man/Adam.
So, what other relationship do these two Adams share? I’ll probably lose some of you right here, but here goes. Both Adam’s were sons of God and therefore they are natural brothers. Both Adam and Jesus had the same Father. If you don’t understand that, don’t throw it away because it does have significance. There are things in the Bible that are difficult to grasp and understand at first because they are so different. The more religious you are the harder it will be for you to grasp certain things in the Bible and this is probably one of them and there are many others. I did not say Adam was God, but I will say Jesus was. Jesus the Last Adam was also the son of Adam. Jesus walked the face of the planet and constantly called himself the “son of man”. You lose the meaning and significance of that statement by reading an English translation. Jesus being a Hebrew and of the house and lineage of David was saying I am a son of Adam. The Hebrew word for “Adam” can and is translated as “man” several times. It’s the same word “H120” and “H121”. Sometimes translated as “Adam” and other times as “man”. How can the Son of God also be the Son of Adam? The Son of Adam and the brother of Adam? It’s pretty tough to grasp, but nevertheless this is what the Bible says. Nobody ever told you that the Bible was easy to understand. If they did they lied to you. If you look at the family lineage of Jesus given to us in Luke you will see that it goes all the way back to Adam and then to God. There is a clear implication that Adam was also called a “son of God”. Not God, not “The Son of God” either just a “son of God”.
Luk 3:38 Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.
Reading this verse is very informative, even if the words “son of” are added by the translators. Some say since these words are not in the original Greek we can explain away what actually is being conveyed. However, I believe the words “son of” do assist us in correctly interpreting the meaning. The clear implication is that Adam is called a son of God. You don’t go through a long list of names in a genealogy and every named pair represents a father and a son relationship except the last one. That would be idiotic to attempt such reasoning. I’ll say it again, be consistent a list is a list and every entry in the list should be treated the exact same. I know I got off of the subject for a side trip, but I believe it was important. Let’s get back to the original husband and wife.
We can sometimes ask questions that help us in our discussion. When God formed Adam’s body from the dust of the ground as it says he did, why didn’t God also make the female’s body from the dust of the ground? He wasn’t out of dirt or dust? It is of course an interesting puzzle? Why take out a part of something you already made to make another complementary piece of work? That of course is a hard question. Obviously God had a good reason, or He wouldn’t have done it. Let’s figure out why he did it?
Believe it or not the verses that we read in Genesis 2, gives us an established foundation of how we the church became the body of Christ. If the first Adam has a wife, God is saying it is Ok, for the “last Adam” to have a wife. The first Adam’s wife was a physical woman, the last Adam’s wife is a spiritual woman. Let’s go back and reread verses 23 and 24 in Genesis 2, because these are absolutely critical to understand.
Gen 2:23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
Gen 2:24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
We see again in verse 23 that Adam declares his wife’s body to be his body and obviously that is where it originated from. God purposely selected this way to create the woman. This was a prophetic event of Biblical proportions. Again I will reemphasize that “flesh and bone” is the same terminology for the “body”. In other words a human body consists of both flesh and bones. Jesus actually confirms this with words in the New Testament when he used this terminology in the Gospels, he told his disciples, “handle me, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones”.(Luke 24:39). So Jesus confirms that he has flesh and bones and the clear implication is that is also called his body. If Jesus says “touch me” where would a man put his hand on Jesus to see if he was real? It seems obvious to me that Jesus is referring to his body as being flesh and bones. This is not rocket science, and you should be seeing something new by now.
Moving on to verse 24 in Genesis 2 we see God’s law of marriage being established. This is the first reference in the Bible of the marriage covenant relationship between a man and a woman. This again sets the “type” or “pattern” for every marriage relationship between a man and a woman in both the natural and the spirit worlds. I call this God’s “Law of Marriage”. God gives us a rule or a law for a blood covenant marriage. God said that a man in this case Adam would leave his father (God) and his mother (the earth) and would cleave unto his wife (the woman). I probably lost some of you again by including explanations in that preceding statement. I’ve already dealt with who Adam’s father was so you should already understand that. Since Adam did not have a birth mother and God formed his body from the dust of the ground I consider “the earth” to be his mother. That of course is my opinion, since I don’t have a Bible verse for that statement. You’ve heard the common term “mother earth” before haven’t you? Then the verse finishes up with the most critical thing that you should learn on the subject of marriage with a woman and that is it says the two (the male and the female) would become one flesh (body). This reveals how the church became the body of Christ, it was by marriage. You can obviously still reject everything I’ve said up to this point and say I don’t believe it. However, I’m not through though and I have many more scriptures that confirm what I just said. Is this what God really meant? Did Jesus believe this? Well guess what, I think so, because here is what Jesus said to us on the subject. If you notice these words are in Red, meaning Jesus in person spoke them directly.
Mat 19:5 And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?
Mat 19:6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
Again we see a clear reference to the exact same words spoken by God in Genesis 2. Within the context of these scriptures you will find that the subject being discussed is divorce and is it lawful? Jesus’ attitude toward divorce is the same as it is today, he says “can’t you read?”, “didn’t God create them male and female in the beginning?” “Aren’t the two joined together and are they not one flesh.” How can a man cut off a part of his own body and get rid of it, isn’t that what he is really saying? Are they not the same body? Jesus said there should be no divorce if it was done right. Jesus is saying that the man and the woman were two, but after they are married God considers them to be one body. This is the Biblical law of covenant marriage. Two people have become one body. This is why Jesus when he married the church with the New Covenant has become one body with her. We can now begin to see how the church became the body of Christ. Just as Eve was the body of Adam, so the church is the body of Christ. These are very important truths to learn and remember. We will continue this study of the identity of the bride of Christ in my next blog. I hope you are beginning to see and understand these important spiritual concepts. We have now laid a foundation for getting into the subject of the identity of the bride of Christ using scriptures we can search for in the New Testament. We have discovered that a covenant is a marriage. God when in covenant is always the male in the relationship. The people that God is in covenant with is always the female. A female in covenant with God is a nation of people consisting of males and females and is always associated with a city named Jerusalem. Then we discovered the law of marriage that states when they are joined together, they become one body. I have another lesson that might be good to go read now that might help clarify some things or give you more information on the subject. This lesson is called “How did the Church become the Body of Christ“. Within this lesson I actually answer many questions that I have presented in this series. I hope that you are learning and we should be able to move into the identity of the bride in the next lesson in the series.
If you would like to continue reading this series, please go to “Part 6“.
Gen 3:15 The Seed of the Woman! The Seed of the Serpent!
(Ver 2.6) This is Part 9 in the Bible study series on Understanding Genesis 3. If you have not read the series from the beginning you might benefit from starting at the beginning and reading “Part 1” first. I have given some important key points in the first lesson in the series that is needed for you to understand this lesson completely. This lesson concerns the words spoken to the serpent and you need to understand who this serpent is identified to be in order to understand how to interpret these words in this verse. One of the keywords in my title today is the subject of “seeds”. I have already touched on this subject in other Bible lessons that I have published, but since we are studying in Genesis 3, I feel that this needs to be discussed again so that people will understand it more thoroughly. It is disturbing to me how people can read the Bible and not see what it really says. In my opinion there are too many Christians that don’t have a clue what the Bible actually says. There is a great number of Christians who rely on others to tell them what to believe. If their preacher says it’s true then they are instantly on board with it without studying it for themselves. That kind of attitude has caused a bunch of people in the church to be deceived. Do not believe anything I say or anything anyone else says without you reading it in your own Bible and you seeing it for yourself; you must be able to determine if it is really true for yourself and no one else can do it for you. Here is today’s central Bible verse found in Genesis 3, let’s look at it carefully and consider what God says to us:
Gen 3:15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
From the context of this scripture we know that God is speaking. This verse occurs after the man and his wife had sinned by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God is speaking to each participant in the ordeal in the reverse order of mention found in the chapter. If you read all of chapter 3 you will see that Satan (the serpent) is mentioned first, then the woman and finally Adam. But, God comes to the man first, since he is supposed to be in charge of the situation. Did you know if you are just a member of a church that God will not come to you and tell you how to run the church? God always communicates from the top down and not from the bottom up. I just threw that in for good measure; there is no extra charge for any new information that helps you personally. So if you look at this verse God is finally speaking directly to Satan who has initiated the problem. We know that in Chapter 3 of Genesis Satan is referred to in the terms of a symbolic “serpent”. That only means that there was not a literal talking physical snake in the garden during this chapter. If you don’t understand that statement you need to read my lesson on the subject called “Was There A Talking Snake In The Garden“. In that lesson I gave at least 4 sound Bible reasons why there could not be a literal talking serpent. I will not repeat that subject in this lesson to try to prove to you what I have already taught and confirmed with the Bible. If you do not understand there wasn’t a talking physical snake then go and read about it and then come back to study this subject about the seed of the woman. So we can see that God is speaking directly to Satan in reference to a woman. If you automatically try to assume that this woman is Eve, you would be totally wrong. Even though at this point in time Eve is the only physical woman on the planet, we can clearly see that God is speaking of a prophetic woman and this woman has to be a spiritual woman, since Satan is her spiritual opponent. A physical woman is not capable of stepping on the head of a spiritual being. If you think so, you would be wrong again. There are too many distinct differences between natural things and spiritual things for you to think otherwise. Let us start an analysis of the verse by reviewing the nouns in this verse and see what God has said to us. We can see that there are 8 primary nouns given to us in this verse. Here they are in order of mention:
- I (God)
- Enmity
- Thee (Satan, the serpent)
- Woman
- Seed of the serpent
- Seed of the woman
- Head
- Heel
If you look at my list and you study the verse you might notice that I left off two nouns. One being “it” and the other being “his”. These I believe are mistranslated words and do not reflect correctly the true meaning of the verse so I left them off for now. The first noun in Genesis 3:15 is “I” and this is God and God tells us and all the other participants what He was going to do as a result of their actions. This is the first thing that you should recognize, if God says something you can believe it will happen exactly like He said it would. We can see that this is one of the first direct statements of God’s plan of redemption that has far reaching implications. You can also see that this is God’s Will in action. God says “I will” and then tells you what He is going to do or make happen. Now, here is a list of the important verbs found in the sentence:
- Put
- Bruise
We can see that there are far fewer verbs given than there are nouns. Let’s start with the verse’s first verb “put”. We can clearly see that this is something that God says He will do. This word has a meaning “to place”. For example, you can “put” something on a shelf. You can “put” something in the refrigerator. But this verse says God will put something between two other direct nouns. The implication is given that God will change the order of something from one thing to another. You could say a reversal of roles, for example? You could also say this is a division or a separation of one noun from the other noun being separated with something in between. You might see this more clearly if you read my other blogs. What we need to do at this point is see who God is talking to and then to see what was placed between them to cause this separation.
Let’s start by looking at the second noun in Genesis 3:15 and this is “enmity” and this word clearly means “a hatred” or “hostility”. These are words normally between enemies. What we can clearly see at this point is that God says that He will put ”hatred” between the next two nouns. These nouns are of course the “serpent” and the “woman”. You can clearly see that God who has not identified who the woman is, has told Satan that there will be a hatred between him and her. In other words these two will become great enemies who will do battle. These are implied meanings derived from the chosen words and wording from this verse given to us by God Himself. Please note these important items and then notice the next two nouns in the verse. God seems to shift into talking about something new, or does He? I believe what we have here is a new point of view being given but, God is still talking about the same original two nouns. Notice what God says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed. So did God change subjects? We are still talking about the same enmity, right? So what makes you think that the “seed” of the serpent is separate from the serpent? Have you ever thought about that? You see if you logically conclude that the enmity is the same between the serpent and the woman as the enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman, then you could say that God is still talking about the same two individuals. Let’s look at the very first verse in the Bible that talks about “seed” and see what it reveals to us by the law of first mention:
Gen 1:11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
What we discover is a basic principle of the nature of seeds. A seed is something that when planted produces something else. But it only produces, based upon the law of Genesis “after his kind“. In other words apple seeds produce apple trees and not orange trees. Now here is the really important part of the verse, it says that the “seed is in itself”. In other words you cannot separate the seed from the tree or the fruit; they are considered to be one. An apple tree will produce apples, that have seeds that when planted will cause there to be more apple trees that produce more apples, that have more seeds that go on and on. These are the basic Bible laws surrounding seeds. If you do not understand them you can go read my blog series on “Understanding Seeds”. The principles of seeds are quite simple but the implications are vast and complex. If Genesis 3:15 is talking about the seed of the serpent, you have to go back to Genesis 1 and apply the seed law principles and see that they are considered to be one in the same. The seed of the serpent is in himself. The serpent is representative of a spiritual tree that has fruit with seeds in it. These seeds can be planted and will cause to multiply and grow and become greater in number. Yet this multiplication system still demands that no matter how many that are produced from it, they all originated from the one. If you have never studied the Bible on the subject of “seed” you should because it is a wealth of information. Most everything that God does is based upon a seed principle. Jesus told us a parable of a man sowing seeds and said if you don’t understand this one you will not understand any other.
So let’s go a little further with what a seed is in the relationship to a woman. If you search the Bible you will find some very interesting statements. I’ve heard preachers get up and declare that the “seed of the woman” is Jesus of Nazareth. That would mean that the woman in Genesis 3:15 would have to be Mary. Mary was the physical mother of natural Jesus, yes? Did God ever put enmity between Mary and Satan? I think you are smart enough to see that this does not fit the scriptures that we can read. Then you could say that “the seed of the woman” is Jesus Christ who was raised from the dead and called the firstborn from the dead (Col 1:18). That would mean the woman in Genesis 3:15 is the “Heavenly Jerusalem” who we are told is the spiritual mother of Jesus Christ and the church (Gal 4:26) and I hope you can see that this doesn’t work either. God never put enmity between this woman and Satan. So the seed of the woman cannot be Jesus just from thinking logically along these lines. Before we go any further let me show you a verse in Genesis that I think is the first actual reference to a woman having seed. This will at least establish that a woman can have seed. I’ve heard many ministers say that a woman cannot have seed and that only a man or male has seed and they are thinking of sperm as being the only type of seed there is in the Bible. What people don’t realize is there are many different types of things in the Bible all called seeds. Here is just one of them:
Gen 4:25 And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.
Hopefully you can see from this verse of scripture a principle being established. A child that is born of a woman is called her seed. Eve is called the mother of all living human beings since she was the first woman. Given modern DNA research, most have concluded that every human being has originated from this one woman they called “Eve”. This is a basic implementation of the seed principle from Genesis 1. But of course it is more complex than that. Adam and Eve were one flesh, meaning they were one body in the eyes of God. Adam’s sperm or male seed was implanted into his wife, she bore him a child and this child was also their seed. This seed has the potential to reproduce after the original pattern and produce more seed; it is an endless perpetual self-sustaining model of life on this planet. But we know that no matter how many seed are produced, they are still considered to be one with the original model from whom they originated from. Whatever Adam did everyone he produced did, it is a very extensive spiritual and physical law. The sum of the whole is always equal to one. All of the separate and individual parts are still one in the same in the eyes of God. You can learn this principle in the N.T. by reading 1 Corinthians 15:22, where God says “For as in Adam ALL die…”. Did you notice that verse said you were “IN” Adam? That is the powerful concept of the seed being in itself. That means whatever Adam did you also did and that is why death passed upon all humanity by the acts of just one man. This is God’s definition of the natural seed always being within itself, whatever your father did, you did principle. Let me give you another N.T. example of this spiritual and physical seed law:
Heb 7:9 And as I may so say, Levi also, who receiveth tithes, payed tithes in Abraham.
Did you notice that Levi was in Abraham? Whatever Abraham did was what his future descendant Levi, also did. So when did Levi come into the earth? You should look at the genealogies given to us in the Bible and see that Levi was generations away from Abraham, yet Abraham paid tithes and therefore Levi paid tithes. We can confirm this by reading the next verse in Hebrews:
Heb 7:10 For he was yet in the loins of his father, when Melchisedec met him.
Hopefully you understand the principle of seeds a little bit better now. Levi is said to have paid tithes because his great grandfather paid tithes to Melchisedec. Levi a future descendant was in Abraham and therefore whatever Abraham did, Levi did. That is one of the most important things that you can learn from our lesson today and it is certainly indirectly related to our primary subject of who the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent is in Genesis 3:15.
So let’s approach the subject of the seed of the woman as being Jesus Christ but, from a different perspective. If the seed of the woman is Jesus Christ then who is the seed of the serpent? We know the serpent is Satan, but who is the seed of the serpent? You see you cannot say one type of seed is an individual male child without saying the other is also an individual male child. You must be consistent in your interpretations and not try to make one noun a specific object type and then try to change the definition of the other identical noun to make it to be something else entirely new, do you get it? So if Jesus Christ is the seed of the woman in Genesis 3:15 as many preachers have said, then who can the seed of the serpent be? I do hope you see the logic behind that question. What the Bible says matters, every word and every detail matters and then how you interpret the Bible also matters. If you are not being consistent and treating every word the same, then you are being selective in what you teach and therefore getting it wrong by default. So pay very close attention to every detail; then ask questions. When you read across a detail that you do not understand, start to formulate questions and make notes on them. You never know when you will be reading a verse in the Bible and suddenly realize that you just read the answer to your question you had a few days or weeks ago. So I hope you can see logically that the seed of the woman cannot be Jesus Christ, because we have not named the “seed of the serpent”. Here is another difficulty that I have with saying that Jesus is the seed of the woman, I have not found any verses in the Bible that says that Jesus bruised the head of the serpent. Can you find one? What I discovered in studying the Bible, is that it says Jesus sat down at the right hand of God waiting for His enemies to be made His footstool (Hebrews 10:13). What we learn from this one verse is that Satan (God’s enemy) is not yet completely under the feet of Jesus. Do you get it? So what is God waiting for? So let me ask you again who is the seed of the serpent? Is this Satan’s physical child? I don’t think so. But you have to be consistent, if one seed is a man child you have to make the other seed the same. This is just a basic law of correct Bible interpretation, be consistent and apply what you do equally across the board to each occurrence of the word. If a word occurs twice in one verse interpret them equally.
Getting back to the problem with this KJV translation of Genesis 3:15 I alluded to the fact that two nouns “it” and “his” were mistranslated because some translators thought they were speaking about Jesus Christ and this idea crept into the translation. The word “it” in this verse is a Hebrew feminine word that is actually translated as “her” or “she” many times in the Bible. You can see that in Genesis 3:12 when Adam says “the woman that you gave me, SHE gave me of the tree”. This “SHE” is the same Hebrew word, so SHE is a valid translation for this word. Search your Bible and see it for yourself. Then the term “his heel” does not have an actual Hebrew word associated with it that tells you the actual gender of the owner of the heel. In other words “her heel” would work for this verse equally as well and I believe it could be a much better translation. It totally depends on whose heel we are talking about doesn’t it? Look at your Bible and see if these are true. Is there a Hebrew word for “his” that has a Strong’s definition? I couldn’t find one! So I am convinced based upon other scriptures in the Bible which I haven’t given you here that this verse in Genesis 3:15 should end like this: “she shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise her heel“.
If you need more scriptures I’ll give you a quick synopsis of more evidence from the Bible of who this woman is. In Luke 10:19 Jesus told his church “I give you power to tread upon serpents…“. Reading that verse you have all of the key elements and nouns repeated from Genesis 3:15. You have a woman, who is the church, you have the mention of the serpent who is Satan, and you then have the action verb of stepping on the serpent with your feet. This is just the exact same stuff that we read in Gen 3:15, using different words. I hope you can see it. Then there is another verse that is very critical to understand found in Romans 16:20, “The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly…“. Again we have a verse of scripture written to a woman (the Church) whose feet are to be used by God to bruise the head of Satan (the serpent).” You see, these two verses alone tell me that Jesus Christ did not accomplish this already and they confirm to me who is directly prophesied by God to complete this bruising of the serpent’s head. The Church is a spiritual woman, in covenant with Jesus Christ. Here is another perspective to consider, the church is called the “Body of Christ”. Jesus Christ is said to be the Head and the church is said to be His body (Eph 5). Where exactly are the feet located? Are your feet located on your head or on your body? So if God is going to use anyone to bruise the head of the serpent, would He not use His body? It’s not rocket science you just have to read and see what it says.
I have already blogged on most of the rest of this information when I gave you information about the woman in Revelation 12. Maybe I should rehash it again so that you can see it more clearly. You see the Bible in Revelation 12 speaks about a woman and since we are talking about a woman in Genesis 3:15 we should approach this woman as a potential candidate for the prophecy that God has given to us. You do not know it is not this woman do you? What I found absolutely fascinating was all of the clues given to us in Revelation 12 that fit the pattern of the prophecy in Genesis 3:15. First God is talking to the serpent when He prophecies in Gen 3. God actually reveals to us the true identity of the serpent in Revelation 12:9. Knowing this fact alone should give you some clues that God is revealing something that is much bigger in that Genesis 3 and Revelation 12 are related. You should be able to see that Genesis 3 and Revelation 12 are closely related if you study both chapters very closely. In Revelation 12 we have two primary nouns being repeated. These two nouns are the woman and Satan (the ancient serpent). The dragon we are told in Revelation 12:9 is definitely the “old serpent” so we can now see that the woman certainly could be the same woman being prophesied about in Gen 3. Now skip down to the last verse in Revelation 12 and notice another direct mention that is certainly not a coincidence.
Rev 12:17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.
So now we have some information that the dragon hates the woman. The dragon is said to be at war with the woman and that makes him and her enemies. What did God say in Genesis 3:15? God said that he would put “enmity” between you (the serpent) and the woman. Again we see some amazing parallels being spoken of. Then here is the real kicker, did you notice that verse in Revelation 12 spoke of the “seed of the woman” again? Satan was at war with the woman’s seed. Do you understand that statement? It certainly sounds like this is the prophesied woman in Genesis 3:15. If you do not understand how the heel and the head of the serpent come into play you need to stop here and go and read my blog on “The True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12“. Once you realize that the woman in Revelation 12 is standing on the moon with her feet you will begin to understand this is the woman that God spoke of way back in the beginning. I know this is different than anything you have ever heard before, but yet if you can read with your eyes open you will see that it is all true. I pray that this has been a blessing to you and that you will pass it along to someone who can learn from it also. God Bless.
If you would like to continue to read in this series concerning the spiritual subjects hidden in Genesis 3 please go to “Part 10“.
Key To Understanding! In the Mouth of 2 or 3 Witnesses!
(Ver 1.4) We can certainly learn many things by observing our judicial court system, legal court proceedings and jury trial systems. Our court system, while not perfect is based upon some significant established Biblical principles. God has implemented a legal system in the Old Testament that is relevant to today’s topic of correct Bible Interpretation. In the Old Testament law God said that if anyone was guilty of breaking the law they were to be tried in a legal court. One of the requirements found in the O.T. was that any prosecution of a human must be accomplished using 2 or 3 witnesses to the offense and that all of these witnesses must agree with each other. It is a concept that can be found in our modern courts today. If you read God’s original Law in the Old Testament you will find this principle given to us by God. For example, in Numbers 35:30, God speaks of the trial of a murderer and He requires more than one witness in order to put the accused murderer to death. This is just a very common sense approach that keeps a single person from getting mad at another to accuse them of murder and then they are put to death when they actually never committed the crime. If there is only one witness, then it is essentially one man’s word against another. In those cases it is practically impossible to determine who is telling the truth and who is not. This law is repeated by God in Deuteronomy 17:6 that further states and confirms the need for 2 or 3 witnesses for anybody to be put to death.
Here is one of the basic foundational laws of Bible interpretation that is absolutely critical to understanding the Bible correctly. God built in a self-protection system that is very important for every Bible student to follow. If you have ever listened to a variety of preachers and teachers of the Bible, you probably noticed that very few of them actually agree on anything. In fact it is actually very easy to make the Bible say whatever you want it to say. You can pull things out of context and you can easily make the Bible say something that it doesn’t say. Ignorant people, churches, denominations and even intellectual theologians have all proved this reality. But here is what God says about that, in the mouth of two or three witnesses let every word be established (2 Cor 13:1). This means you can’t take a single verse or a part of the verse and say that is what the Bible says. You are required to provide the collaborating, cooperating and corresponding testimony of at the least a second witness. Here is an example of what I’m talking about. There has been a group of individuals that call themselves Christians, that have read a Bible verse from Mark that they say instructs them to handle snakes in their church services. As a result many have been bitten and some have even died. That is a prime example of taking one verse out of context and attempting to make it a crazy doctrine. Don’t be stupid and fall into similar traps and pitfalls. Learn to correctly divide the Word of God before you start following someone’s stupidity. Snakes are widely spoken of in the Bible and many times they are a symbolic reference to a spiritual evil force that we cannot see. So people have taken a single verse literally and as a result have fallen into error. I’m sorry but that is dumb.
So the goal to correct Bible interpretation is to find at least two scriptures that say the same thing, even though they might say it using different words. Sometimes you can find a scripture from the Old Testament that is quoted in the New Testament. That certainly qualifies as two witnesses. That is the easiest way to confirm a truth in the mouth of 2 or 3 witnesses. But, you sometimes don’t have the luxury of a direct quote however, and you have to be smart enough to recognize when a verse with a little bit different wording conveys the same thought or idea on the subject in discussion. Here is a prime example of what I’m talking about. In the book of Revelation chapter 12 there is a symbolic woman clothed with a symbolic sun. In order to figure out who the woman is you have to first figure out who or what the sun is. You see the identity of one is totally dependent on the identity of the other. Does that make sense? Logically the Bible is organized into subjects that can be easily identified because they use the exact same Hebrew or Greek word to covey the subject. However, sometimes it becomes more difficult and this is another technique that God has used to conceal the truth in the Bible and this is to refer to the same object or noun using different names, terms, titles, descriptions, symbols or characteristics. It is still the same object, just called something totally different. Let me briefly enlighten you on the identity of the sun in Revelation 12. I would have to write a huge book to go into this in as much depth as it really needs to be explored, but I will not attempt to include everything I know right here. I’ve actually already written several blogs on the subject that contain more details. The sun is representative of Jesus Christ. How do I now that? If as I discussed in earlier blogs that the Bible interprets itself, then we should be able to find the identity of the sun in other scriptures in the Bible. Well in Malachi 4:2 the Bible speaks of the “Sun of Righteousness” rising with healing in his wings. Who do you think that is? This is of course just another symbolic reference, but this time in an Old Testament minor prophetic book that refers to Jesus Christ. This would be the first and most direct witness to this truth. But we still need at least one more witness. So now it become more challenging. But since I’ve already done the research and figured it out, I’ll take you to the next witness. There is a verse in Revelation 22:16 that further confirms the subject in the mouth of two witnesses that names Jesus Christ as the bright and “morning star”. What is “the Morning Star”? Some think that it is a nearby planet reference, but of course it is the Sun, our closest star to our planet that seems to rise every morning. Morning Star is the Sun using a different name. A totally different way to name the exact same thing, yet they both refer directly to the same physical object. For a third witness of the identity of the Sun we can find it in 2 Peter 1:19 “…until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts.” That was just the end of the verse, but it speaks about Jesus who is the Sun of Righteousness. You see the name “Day Star” is still another term for the Sun. The sun is our closest star and usually the only one we are able to see during the daylight hours. We can easliy conclude that the Day Star would represent a reference to our Sun. I hope you get the point and understand this valuable concept, if you are searching the Bible for a truth make sure that you find at the minimum two confirming witnesses to help you interpret the meaning correctly, otherwise throw it out. Whatever someone teaches from the Bible, if they do not follow this important rule, refuse to accept what they teach. This one thing will help you more than anything else that I know to correctly divide the Word of God. Follow God’s spiritual protection system for correct Bible interpretation and you will never be on shakey ground. If you want to understand the Bible correctly, then you must follow the rules that God has given to us or you will remain lost in your ignorance. Learn that there are rules to correct Bible interpretation, learn what these rules are and then live by them and you will benefit tremendously in learning about God and the truth. God Bless you and thanks of reading my Bible lesson on correct Bible Interpretation.
Gen 3:22-24 Guarding The Way To The Tree of Life!
(Ver 1.5) This is Part 6 of the Bible lesson series on Understanding Genesis 3. I am going to take this subject out of sequence and teach a 2 part Bible Study series on the Tree of Life first mentioned in Genesis 2. From reaching in this 3rd chapter of Genesis we discover the story of how Eve was deceived by the serpent into eating from the spiritual tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam then listened to his wife’s voice and he also ate from the same tree. The Bible says Adam was not deceived (1 Tim 2:14) so whatever he did was an intentional rebellious act of disobedience to commit sin. If you have ever studied the Bible, you know that God shows up on the scene and places curses on each party involved in Genesis 3 and I have not taught on these subjects yet. However, we know from scripture (1 Jn 4:12) that no man has ever seen God. This fact would include Adam or 1 John 4:12 is not a true statement from God. So how did God curse everyone without making himself visible to them? That is an interesting point to consider, but since it is not my subject today, I’ll leave it alone for your consideration. Now after Adam’s sin, we have the man and woman in covenant with Satan, the symbolic serpent of old. We can now get to today’s subject from Genesis, guarding the way to the tree of life. Who was God trying to keep from eating from the tree of life? You can make the logical conclusion that if God wanted to guard the way to the tree of life, there must have been someone who was greatly interested in it. You don’t place guards on your garbage piles so it must have been something of great value to someone. So, who was after this tree of life? What exactly is this tree of life? Why is it important to keep it safely out of the hands of someone? So many questions to consider? Let’ start with the 22nd verse of Genesis 3 and see what God says to us:
Gen 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
I’ve already addressed the 1st part of this verse in another blog so I will not rehash that part of the verse. It is just important to note that God says the man has become like Him, in covenant with good and evil. That is some very powerful information, and it helps give us some foundational information for why God came in the flesh. If you need more information, please go back and read the Blog on “Gen 3:5 You Shall Be As God Knowing Good and Evil!“. Now pay attention to how God ends that verse. God says “because the man might also eat from the tree of life and live forever…”. Then God abruptly stops talking. This is one of the only places in the Bible that I know of where God doesn’t finish His sentence or His thought. God stops talking and leaves us wondering what was He going to say? Based upon the creation account in Genesis 1, we can see that whatever God says happens, so I would venture to guess that God did not want what He was thinking to come to pass so He shut His mouth and stopped talking about it. But that is just my opinion on the verse. But, I do think that is a powerful lesson for us all to learn from.
Let’s briefly address whether this is a physical tree or a spiritual tree. If it was just a physical tree why couldn’t God have just cursed the tree like Jesus did with the fig tree in Mark and bam the tree would not be a problem anymore. You see I do not believe it is a physical tree, with physical fruit. In this verse God says that the man could have “put forth his hand” and taken from the tree. What does that reference invoke in your mind? Most would think that it is speaking of Adam’s physical hand reaching out and picking a natural apple from a natural fruit tree. But I do not believe this is what God is saying. The term “hand” is a reference to power and ability. Adam had the power and ability to eat from the tree even after they had eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The word hand is a very popular word in the Old Testament. It occurs over 1400 times. Many times it is used in reference to a individual’s power and ability. Here is just one example of this found in the book of Job. Satan is in conversation with God about Job and he makes this statement to God:
Job 1:11 But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.
You can see the reference here to God putting forth his hand. This is clearly the same terminology used in Genesis 3. Satan was telling God if he used his power to “touch” all that Job had, Satan thought that Job would curse God. Without getting into the story of Job, I will tell you that God did not take anything from Job. God did not hearken to the voice of his wife and do the wrong thing, like Adam did. What I want you to see is the reference that God has a hand that can be stretched forth. If the Spirit of God has a hand it must be spiritual. Just understand the difference between a spiritual hand and a physical hand and both are called a hand. This is one of the trickiest ways God has used to conceal information in the Bible. Speak of spiritual things in natural terms and then challenge your reader to figure it out.
Apparently, Adam had power and ability and was still capable of eating from the tree of life and living forever even after God said he would surely die. Obviously Adam did not understand what had happened, much less how to eat from the tree of life. We know from Genesis 2, that God had commanded the man not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But God never said anything about not eating from the tree of life. There appears to be an assumption that eating from the tree of life is good. But now that Adam was in covenant with Satan, what does God do? Who is God attempting to keep from the tree of life?
Gen 3:23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
We can see from this verse that the man and his wife are sent out of the garden of Eden. They are returned to the ground from where he was originally created. Exactly where was that? Where was Adam created in relation to the Garden of Eden? The Bible tells us if you look for it and pay close attention. Let’s go back to Genesis 2 and read:
Gen 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
You can clearly see that this is the creation account of the body of Adam. Adam’s body was formed from the dust of the ground. So where was Adam when this occurred? All you have to do is read the next verse and pay attention to the compass directions given.
Gen 2:8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
If the garden of Eden is located to the East of where Adam’s physical body was formed, what direction was Adam and Eve returned to after they had sinned? If you guessed back to the West, you would be correct. Why is east and west and these direction so significant? We can begin to ascertain the importance only after reading the last verse in Genesis 3.
Gen 3:24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
So God drives the man out of the Garden and then it says God places a Cherubim at the east of the garden holding a flaming sword to keep the way of the tree of life. Are you beginning to see the paradox? Where did God drive Adam? God put the man and his wife back to the ground where they were created and this was West of the Garden of Eden. So where was the guarding Cherubim placed? They were placed to the East of the Garden. It is so fascinating when you see things correctly, isn’t it? God is obviously not attempting to keep the man away from the tree of life, if he was he would have placed the Cherubim on the West side where the man was.
(North)
(West) Adam ——-> Garden of Eden ——> Cherubim (East)
(South)
I wrote an earlier blog about the differences between the east and the west. I will not rehash all of that, but if you study the earth from the context that Israel is the middle of the world, then east of Israel towards Asia you would see that the religions of the world become increasingly darker and in some countries non-existent. Generally speaking if you move west from Israel you see the majority of the Christian nations in the world being to the West of Israel. Knowing this fact alone should help you see who God is guarding from the way to the tree of life. It is not from the Christians, but it is from the enemy of the church, the devil that God is keeping from the way to the tree of life. If you didn’t realize it, Satan is still looking for a way out of judgment. Eating from the tree of life would by association mean the establishment of a new covenant relationship with those for who it is intended. If you have followed what I showed you earlier you know that by Adam eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, it established a covenant between Adam and Satan. So whoever is intended to eat from the tree of life, Satan is looking to get into covenant with to save his rear end. The tree of life is mentioned again in the last chapter of Revelation and this chapter starts with this statement:
Rev 22:1 And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.
We can see that this verse describes the throne of God and the Lamb. It declares that there is a river of water of life flowing from the throne. That of course is an interesting concept since Jesus told us in John 7:38, that out of our bellies will flow rivers of living water. Our bellies is referring to our spirits, the true inner man. This reference is about the words that we speak and them being a river of life to others in the world. So the river of life flowing from the throne of God must also be the Words of God.
Rev 22:2 In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
Revelation 22:2 now directly mentions the tree of life. But did you notice where or what this tree is? It says this tree grows in the middle of the streets around the throne of God. Who walks the streets of heaven? I personally believe this is a reference to Christians. It further says that there are more than one of these trees of life. In fact if you look closely it implies there are many, many trees of life everywhere surrounding the throne of God. If you use your brain a little bit you might be able to see that the implication is given to us, that we are the trees of life. But that might be hard for some to see. Let’s approach it from a different perspective? It says this tree is suppose to produce 12 fruits monthly. Exactly what is fruit? To the natural mid it is just apples, oranges, grapefruits, etc. But to the spiritual mind it is much different. God being a spiritual being is speaking of spiritual trees that produce spiritual fruit. So what are the fruits of the spirit? Oh, that changes everything doesn’t it?
I guess I’ll end this blog here and just leave you hanging. Maybe I have given you some new things to consider and challenged you to think on a higher dimension. God had to guard “the way” to the tree of life from Satan. Satan is still after this tree, but I don’t believe he has a shot at it. You see Jesus said “I am the Way”, so nobody can come to God except Jesus allows him access. Jesus Christ is the only legal way to this tree of life and if you belong to Him, you now have access to this tree of life to produce the fruit of the spirit. I’ll try to continue this in another blog to help expand our understanding of this deep subject.
If you would like to continue reading this series on Understanding Genesis 3 you can go to “Part 7“.
Gen 3:5 You Shall Be As God Knowing Good and Evil!
(Ver 2.2) This is Part 5 in the series about Understanding Genesis 3. The Bible has so much information in it, it is challenging just to know what to teach. Genesis 3 is about the spiritual downfall of Adam and Eve. But there are a number of other good lessons to learn from this chapter also. I am shocked sometimes at how people don’t see what the Bible really says and I think today will be another example of that. You can tell if you have read my blogs on Genesis that we are faced with a challenge by God to recognize the difference between spiritual things and natural physical things being described to us. Many times men tend to look at everything in the Bible naturally, but since the author of the Bible is a Spirit, God’s perspective is the only one that should count. Most of the time wrong interpretations of the Bible revolve around private interpretations from the natural minds of men. But, if we use the Bible to help us determine the true meanings, we are far more likely to get it right. In my last blog on Genesis I talked about spiritual fruit being different than natural fruit. I gave you several scriptures that declare that it is not what we eat physically that causes us to sin. We can therefore conclude that God did not command Adam and Eve to not eat of a natural physical fruit tree in the Garden. We can further conclude that God when He was speaking of not eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, was telling them not to eat of a spiritual tree. If you didn’t realize it, God is more concerned with spiritual things than He is with natural things. People want you to save the planet, save the trees, save the environment, save the whales, etc., but God wants us to produce spiritual fruit and become a mature Christian, to be a laborer and to help prepare for His spiritual harvest. So when we read the Bible we need to become more spiritually aware and less naturally focused. Focus only on spiritual things in context with the subject given. Recognize how God applies natural things to give us glimpses into the spirit world.
Today I want to expand on verse 5 in Genesis 3. This verse has some profound truths written in it, that I believe we need to understand. This verse is Satan, the symbolic serpent speaking to the mind of Eve. If you didn’t know the serpent was a symbolic representation for a spiritual being, then you need to read my blog, “Was There a Talking Snake in the Garden?” Many times people overlook what Satan says because he is called the father of lies and they don’t realize that Satan will use the truth, if he thinks it will work to his advantage. Satan actually knows more truth than you do, that is why he can lie so well. Here are the words of Satan spoken to the mind of Eve as a thought:
Gen 3:5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
Satan is of course very presumptuous to think that he knows what God knows. I do believe that God taught Satan everything that Satan knows, however, I do not believe that God taught him everything that God knows. I think people need to learn that lesson, if they don’t learn anything else in this blog. We then see a statement that declares that their eyes would be opened. I would hope that you could see that Satan was not speaking of their physical eyes, but Satan was referring to their spiritual understanding. Here is a scripture from the New Testament which speaks to us along these lines:
Eph 1:18 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,
Our spirits have the ability to see, perceive or as it says in this verse to understand. To see with our spirits is the ability of our spirits to understand the spiritual truths being spoken to us. The term is repeated to us in this verse “to know”. Isn’t that what Satan said to Eve? Satan told Eve that they would “know” good and evil. So what does this Hebrew word translated as “know” mean? If you have been reading my blogs you already understand the answer to that question. To “know” something is a covenant term. To know something represents an intimate sexual knowledge. God uses this same Hebrew word when He describes “Adam knew his wife and she had a son”. To “know” someone is to be in covenant with that individual. So what was Satan telling Eve? According to the wording and the underlying meaning, Satan said to Eve you will be just like God, in covenant with good and evil. I know I probably lost several readers with that statement, but if you keep reading in the chapter you will see that God did not contradict that statement, but He actually confirms it. You see if this was a lie or a deception of Satan, then God had the opportunity to confront the lie when He was talking to each of the participants after Adam had sinned. But, never do you see any confrontation or rejection of that statement in the chapter discourse. As you continue in the chapter you actually see that God confirms what Satan said to Eve in verse 22:
Gen 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
I should probably go back and address one modification that I made to the verse 5 translation before I talk about this verse 22. In verse 5 the word “gods” is the Hebrew noun “Elohiym”. This is a plural word that is often times used for one of the names of God. God being a triune being is a plural being and not a singular one. It is a complex paradox that God is directly called three personalities, but is still just one God. In contrast there are many gods, but there is one “Elohiym”, the Supreme God. In the first chapter of Genesis, this word “Elohiym” is translated as God around 26 times. So the KJV translators instead of making this word say “God” as they did the majority of other places in Genesis, they chose to make it say “gods”. But the problem with that reasoning was Adam and Eve were already gods, but they were gods that only knew good and not evil. The only thing that Adam and Eve would gain from eating this spiritual fruit was the covenant with evil and what a dumb mistake that was. So translators got the word wrong in verse 5 and focused in on the wrong noun. Instead of saying Adam and Eve were “elohiym” (gods) they should have just made it say “God”.
So why did I have to go into all of that explanation? Because if the translators would have just put these two verses, 5 and 22 together correctly they would have seen what God said in verse 22 “Look, the man has become like Me!”; in covenant with good and evil. God actually repeats exactly what Satan said would happen, so it could not have been a lie. God declares that Adam was now in covenant with evil and therefore we can determine based upon our knowledge of Bible covenants, Satan was now married to man. Whatever Adam was given was now given equally to Satan. There are many verses in the Bible that confirm this statement; I’ll give you one found in the temptation of Jesus:
Luk 4:5 And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
Here in the temptation of Jesus by Satan, Satan takes Jesus on a mental journey to the top of a very high mountain on earth. On the top of this mountain Satan shows Jesus all the kingdoms of this world. That would include every race, creed and inhabitant of the planet. There was nothing omitted or left out so that goes along with a true Bible covenant relationship between the two parties Adam and Satan. Then after showing Jesus these kingdoms, Satan makes this statement:
Luk 4:6 And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.
We can clearly see that in Luke 4:6, Satan tells Jesus all of this which I just showed you has been given to me, and I have the power to give it to whoever I want. These were all true statements and Satan thought that he was in control of the situation, but God had a different plan. Now let me give you one more example of what I am saying found in 2 Corinthians:
2Co 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
You see God shows us that one of Satan’s titles is “the god of this world” in this verse. Or actually I should say that this is the title that Satan stole from Adam and God just informs us of this. Adam when he was created was given dominion over all of the creation of God’s handy work. You can read this in the 1st chapter of Genesis as well as verses found in Psalms. God transferred complete control and responsibility over the planet to Adam and in effect made him the “god of this world system”. Adam had complete control over his own destiny and whatever he decided carried the decision for every one that descended from him. So after Adam dies, Satan becomes the “god of this world system”. Jesus gives us some very strong insight into this spiritual transaction between Adam and Satan in the book of John:
Joh 10:1 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.
You can see from this statement a very powerful spiritual truth being revealed to us. Jesus is telling us that Satan did not enter into our world legally. He took advantage of Adam and Eve and entered in the world that God had given to them by deception. Jesus is calling Satan a thief that has robbed someone of something that didn’t belong to him. Jesus was also contrasting His presence on the earth as being legitimate, while Satan’s presence on the earth as being illegal. You see God could not come to the earth the same way that Satan did and just take back everything that was given to Adam, without being called a thief and become just as guilty as Satan. So we can see a puzzle being revealed to us. Jesus says whoever enters into the world by the door is legitimate. So what is this legal door into this world? It is only being born here by a natural woman that has given birth to you, and that makes you legally here. You have to be a direct descendent of Adam and Eve to be here legally. God is so very tricky and smart. God knew that He could come into the world and pay for our salvation, if He came as a son of Adam. So we have a man that was born into this planet that was both 100% man and 100% God and this was legal. So I got off track giving you some insight into Satan’s illegal entry and God’s legal introduction into our world. So let’s go back to Genesis and look at this covenant relationship.
What are the spiritual implications given to us from what we just learned? A Bible covenant relationship represents a marriage in the eyes of God. So Adam became married to Satan. Whatever God had given to Adam now belonged to Satan. After Adam’s death, Satan had complete control of it all. A converse truth was whatever Satan had now belonged to Adam, and that was really not a good trade. Adam was originally created to know only good, the things that God had provided for him. But now whatever happens to Satan will happen to Adam and vice versa. Fortunately for us, God had a plan of salvation that would destroy the works of the devil and make a separation from all the consequences that Satan now faces in the future. As soon as the prophesied 6000 year time table of Adam’s dominion is up, Satan will be cast out along with those who are now in covenant with him. The time is very short, and Satan knows his time of reigning on this earth is almost ended and guess why he is so very angry with the church. Lucifer who was once second only to God himself will not enjoy his eternal destiny.
We can see from a previous blog a conformation given to us in these verses in Genesis 3. God is in covenant with the angelic beings. This would include the good and the evil ones. In one of my last blogs I showed you that death is a legal separation of a covenant marriage relationship. Because of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s covenant relationship with evil was terminated. Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, our salvation was confirmed. All of those who believe in Him will be saved, but all of those who do not will be damned with Satan. It is a covenant reality, you are either joined to Jesus Christ and one with Him, or you are joined with Satan and one with him. These are powerful truths and help to explain a lot of the hidden things found in the Bible.
I know I teach a lot of new things, that you have probably never heard anyone teach before. The disciples in the Bible made a statement that is very profound, they said “Silver and Gold have I not, but such as I have give I thee”. Just as the disciples could only give what they had, I can only give you what I have. This is just a simple but basic Bible truth; everyone gives from only what they have. I hope and pray you enjoyed my Bible lesson today and grasped something from it that you can hold on to. If you liked it please share it with others that can also benefit from knowing the truth. God Bless.
If you would like to continue in the lesson series on Understanding Genesis 3 please proceed to Part 6.
Key to Understanding! NOT Getting in Over Your Head!
(Ver 1.1) 
Reading and studying the Bible is like learning to swim. If you don’t know how to swim, it is a very, very good idea not to jump into waters that go over your head. Waters can be a type of the subjects found in the Bible. Some subjects are shallow and much easier to grasp. While other subjects can be very complex or more challenging to understand and these can represent the deeper waters. For example, I use to never go into the book of Revelation and try to study that book, because it was so far over my head. Over the years, I have learned a lot more. Now by using what God has taught me, I can venture into these deep waters of the book of Revelation. Does that mean I understand everything in the book of Revelation? Definitely NOT! It only means that I have learned enough to start learning more. I have heard stories of many people who say that their dad threw them into the deep end of the pool and said learn to swim or drown. Of course you would realize that if they had drown he would have gone to jail for murder. Physically speaking it is not a good idea to learn to swim in the ocean. There are too many waves, currents and tides that can cause someone to more than likely die in the attempt. In other words people are less likely to survive than to learn how to swim in the deep ocean. These are all physical truths that are related to spiritual things that we face every day in our growth with God. We can learn some very valuable lessons that will help us tremendously, if we apply these principles correctly.
Start by evaluating where you are now in your spiritual growth. Are you new in Christianity? If yes, then it is not wise to try to study advanced deep subjects found in the Bible. Most of my lessons are very advanced and very deep. I deal with many complex subjects that a lot of people don’t have a clue on what they really mean. As a result, I would strongly suggest that if you are not an advanced Bible student, that you not read my lessons. Go away and study the basics, and after a few years of studying the Bible on the basic foundational Christian concepts, then come back to the advanced stuff. I generally do not spend a lot of time trying to teach basic concepts of salvation, sin, good versus evil, just to name a few of these basic topics. I do however have a few lessons on Bible Basics. These are here for foundational spirit building and growth. If you like this website, go and read the basics first and then go into the deeper waters.
This is what God said on the subject of getting in over your head when Paul wrote to the church in Corinth:
1Co 3:1 And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ.
Paul tells the church in Corinth they were not ready for the deep spiritual things of God because he said they were just baby Christians. God relates spiritual growth to physical growth of new born babies. When a baby is newly born we can’t give them a big hotdog or a piece of corn on the cob and say here is your dinner. Enjoy it and I’ll see you in an hour. Why is that important to note? If you have had children you already know the answer. God relates some subjects in the Bible to be advanced topics that babies can’t grasp and use. These topics are not good for them in fact. Because they are not ready for the complex foods in God’s Word. Baby Christians should avoid them. Otherwise, they could spiritually choke on them and this could cause them spiritual harm instead of helping them to grow up spiritually. God goes on in the next verse to differentiate between two distinct types of spiritual food:
1Co 3:2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.
We can see that there are two contrasting views of God’s spiritual food. These are equated as being either milk or meat, or we could call them liquid food versus solid food. Just like we wouldn’t give a baby a steak off of the grill to eat, we don’t give baby Christians spiritual steak either. Steak or meat is equated to the more complex subjects found in the Bible. The milk is representative of the simple or basic subjects that we should all have intimate knowledge of to build a firm spiritual foundation upon. These are tremendously valuable lessons to learn and fully grasp. We must understand the basic subjects before we ever attempt to swallow the advanced subjects. To many times I read or listen to Bible lessons and books that we can clearly see the author doesn’t know the basics. So, how can they attempt to try to get anyone to see anything advanced. If we don’t understand the basics we will never understand the advanced topics. In fact to a baby Christian, the advanced topic is dangerous.
Learn the lesson of swimming. Before you get in over your head make sure you are familiar with the shallow basic concepts found in the Bible. The deep things of God will come much easier and you will not spiritually drown because you panicked in waters that were over your head. But, here is another aspect to consider. Most babies don’t know they are babies. Because babies don’t understand the dangers of deep waters they will many times wander into them and not be able to get out. Many children have died because they were unsupervised and fell into the water and could not get out. If you are a mature Christian or at least a maturing Christian, keep this in mind when talking to others who are new to the faith in Christ. Help to guide the new Christians into the right paths of study. That is exactly why I recommended many not read my lessons. If you are a new Christian you will be much more comfortable with someone’s ministry that is geared at your level of spiritual development. That is in fact a lesson from life, children must go through kindergarten before they go to high school or even 1st Grade. There is a progressive learning experiences that we must develop in. Most immature Christians will reject advanced spiritual topics, simply because they are not at their level of development. If a 1st grader sat in a college level Algebra class, they wouldn’t get anything out of it. So it is with Bible topics.
I’ll try to end this blog with another contrasting bit of information of how to determine your level of spiritual growth. God gives us some very specific clues to judging ourselves based upon the next scripture in 1 Corinthians:
1Co 3:3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?
God contrasts those who are focused on carnal and natural things with those who are focused on spiritual things. Baby Christians tend to be focused on natural things that occur in the world, while spiritually maturing Christians look beyond these natural things and focus in on the things of God only found in His Word. The difference is where they place their emphasis and focus. This verse in 1 Corinthians said these people were jealous of one another. They were fighting and bickering about stupid things that didn’t matter. If you read people’s blogs you can see examples of this type of behavior everywhere. Trivial stuff is promoted to a level of importance that is worthless to our spiritual growth. People fight over what they think is right and ignore what God said. Then there are naturalist who want the church to focus on saving the environment, the planet, the trees, or the whales. Too many times people are focused on less important things while God desire us to grow to see higher and greater things. For example, if people would see what God cares about, there would not be any legal abortions.
1Co 3:4 For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?
God asks a very simple question here and makes a spiritual point that is beyond many people’s understanding. We have broad examples of this verse in our world today. One says, I am a Catholic. One says I am a Baptist. Another one says I am a Methodist, or whatever. Everyone echoing the same thought process that Paul confronted in Corinth. If you think your church is the only true church and everyone else is going to hell, you are deceived into believing a lie. The church of Jesus Christ is not a denomination. There is only One Body of Christ, there is only One Bride of Christ and these two are one in the same. There are legitimate and true Christians in every division of the body, but there are also false teachers and deceivers in every denomination out there. How will you know the difference? Jesus said you will know them by their fruit. Watch their natural life over time and see if they live according to the Bible. Judge what they say and do by what you know and understand in the Bible. You must focus in on the Bible and learn it and use it and only it to control what you think and do. The Bible contains the only truth that you will ever find on this planet. As you continue in the Word of God you will grow spiritually and become more spiritually mature. As you continue to feed your spirit using God’s spiritual food you will see that many good fruits will begin to spring forth and start to dominate your life. It is time for us to grow up spiritually:
Heb 6:1 Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God,
Paul in this verse written to the church, informs them that there are many basic things that we should be moving beyond. God describes to us a process of growth as well as the goal of spiritual maturity. “Perfection” is just a word that means to become mature. Not a child anymore, not acting like a child, not dressing like a child and not doing childish things. The process of spiritual growth is patterned after natural growth. Eating properly and getting spiritual exercise will go a long way to helping us grow spiritually.
These are all valuable spiritual lessons for us to apply to our understanding of the Bible. I hope that you at least grasped the concepts and that you will continue to grow in the knowledge of the One True Living God. If you do not know Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Savior, please go to the menu and click on “Are You Saved?”. Read the verses and pray the prayer. God bless you and please leave us a comment. Share this lesson with a friend.
Understanding Bible Covenants! Part 4 Israel’s New Husband
(Ver 2.0) This is now Part 4 in a very advanced Bible study serious concerning Understanding Bible Covenants. This series is intended for spiritually mature Christians with an open mind that will commit to go and study the subject for themselves to verify if it is really true or not. Obviously by the title we have more controversial topics on covenants to discuss today. We have been discussing Bible covenants in some new terms using scriptures in the Bible that many have not seen before. I know this is a very deep subject and the complexities are vast. It is a very hard thing to accept new things when they are first revealed. I believe the natural human tendency is to reject the new, to fear the new, and to not believe the new. This is because I believe that we trust in our old understanding and beliefs so much more. The problem is that the majority of Christians do not have a clue what the Bible really says. Learning always involves growing in understanding. That implies an ever increasing and expanding knowledge process. Today’s knowledge should be building on what we learned yesterday. New truth should always fit balanced correctly with previous known truths. When it does not God is presenting us a new opportunity to come up to a higher spiritual level of thinking. Learning involves change. Being flexible and open is a key to growing with God. In my last blog I went into Old Testament verses that reveal the law of marriage and divorce. If you have not been following this series from the beginning, I would strongly suggest that you go back and start with Part 1 Covenants and Marriage.
In the last lesson we talked about Israel being divorced from God. Then we also were given several scriptures that strongly implied that Israel is now married to another spiritual being. This means that this spiritual being is now in covenant with the natural nation of Israel and God’s Law. Why was this necessary? Why would God want to get someone under the law? How would God accomplish such a task? These are all important questions to consider. But first let’s determine if this is even possible. Here are some interesting verses from the Old Testament:
Isa 28:14 Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.
We can clearly see who the next words of God in verse 15 are addressing by looking at verse 14 and seeing that God is speaking directly to the rulers of Jerusalem. This is the earthly city Jerusalem and God is speaking directly to the men that ruled that city. These were the old covenant people that God was married to. So what does this next verse say?
Isa 28:15 Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:
We can again clearly see covenant words of marriage being spoken in regards to the natural nation of Israel to someone. This time it says that these people are in covenant with death and hell. That declaration does not sound very positive or good, does it? Who does the New Testament say had the power over death when this verse was written? This verse in Hebrews should help you:
Heb 2:14 Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;
So we can see from what God reveals in Hebrews that Satan held the power of death in the Old Testament. We can therefore conclude that if Israel was in covenant with death and hell, that would mean they were in covenant with Satan. What does Jesus have to say about these Old Testament verses in Isaiah 28?
Mat 23:15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.
We can see by this statement that Jesus implies these people in Jerusalem were married to a spiritual being that made them the children of hell. This implies a covenant relationship or marriage between a husband and a wife that has produced children of hell. Are you following these statements? Parents have children, produce families, and establish households. Basic physical biology dictates that a male and a female participate in order to produce children. If Israel is the woman who can have children, that was married to God, then who is the husband and the father in this relationship? Remember that it always takes two to tango. Jesus often times asked, if you don’t understand natural things, how will you ever understand spiritual things? So apparently these natural things are patterns into spiritual things to help us understand them. Here is another statement of Jesus to the natural nation of Israel:
Joh 8:44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.
Did you see what Jesus said to the natural nation of Israel? He said that they were children of their father and that their father was the devil. This makes it almost impossible for us not to realize that in order for them to be Satan’s children, Satan must be in covenant and married to natural Israel. What we see is the identity of the male in the covenant relationship to the natural nation of Israel being the female. A simple husband and wife relationship that has produced children. These are of course spiritual and not natural children. Satan is not having natural sex with natural women like they did in Genesis 6. Satan learned that this was illegal and many of his angels were cast into chains awaiting judgement for doing this (Jude 1:6). We know that Satan like God is a spiritual being. We can conclude that because God can be married to Israel any spiritual being can be married to Israel, it is only logical common sense.
Why Was the Law Given to Israel?
Let’s change subjects a bit here and continue by asking what was the purpose of God giving Israel the law? Why was the law given to Israel in the first place? I have heard many say it was to show man how bad they were and to teach them that they were incapable of living up to God’s standard of excellence. I do agree with that and I do not deny that could be a part of the purpose of the law. But, I have found that when God does something He usually accomplishes more than one thing at a time. Many humans tend to focus on getting one thing done at a time. But I have learned from being a computer programmer, that the true demonstration of power occurs when someone is able to accomplish many tasks simultaneously. In computer terminology this is called multi-tasking and God does this everyday just listening to billions of people praying simultaneously. Here is a verse that will help to shed some light on this subject of why God gave Israel the law:
Rom 7:7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.
Here we begin to see some major clues to why God gave the law to Israel. It is a lot like our laws that our government makes for us to follow. You see there was a time when child pornography was not against the law. But did that make it right or OK to participate in? Of course not. But the government could not do anything about the people who participated in this until they passed a law. People were free to do wrong because there were no consequences for our erroneous choices and stupidity. Does that help to clear up the reason for God giving Israel the law? You see in this verse in Romans, it says we would not have known sin except that we were given the law. I sometimes wonder if people read the Bible and never think about how these words apply to other spiritual beings like Satan or Lucifer as he was named originally? Thinking and asking questions is absolutely essential when studying the Bible.
We know from Old Testament verses that sin was found in Lucifer (Eze 28:15), but according to Romans, if Lucifer didn’t know the law then he can’t face the consequences for his sin. Do you understand what I just said? God could not enforce Satan’s punishment without first getting him to know the law (be under the law). To be under the law means that you know the law and are now in covenant with that law or in covenant to those people who are in charge of keeping that the law. These are truly amazing things to consider. Here is another very important verse on our current subject of why God gave Israel the law:
Rom 3:19 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.
Wow, these are powerful words when we apply them to Lucifer (Satan). In order to stop Satan’s mouth and cause him to be found guilty he must be put under the law. Are you still following this? The implication is given unless we are under the law, we cannot be found guilty and we will not face any punishment for our sin. I know that God is a just God and is just in whatever He does, He does everything in a fair and impartial legal way. He treats everyone the same. God applies the same principles and requirements to everyone and everywhere, including Himself or He would be showing favoritism and we should know that He does not do that.
Rom 5:13 (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
God confirms the truth that declares “where there is no law there are no consequences for a sin”. Sin is still wrong, but no punishment is possible until taken to court and found guilty of violating specific law. This is divine justice and how God works. Most civil normal governments operate on this principle. Corrupt evil dictatorial controlling governments do not operate on this requirement. This verse helps us to understand why God could not convict Satan and throw him into hell the instant that sin was discovered in him. That would have been an unjust verdict since as far as I know there were no laws in heaven. Remember Lucifer was created in a state of perfection. What need is there, of any laws if everyone in your kingdom is created and acting perfectly? I believe this is what is important to know for us to understand why God created a new world with humans in Genesis 1. Then why God created a new separate nation of people called Israel born from a man named Abram in Genesis 12. Then why God gave Israel the Law in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Finally, we can better understand why it was necessary for God to come in the flesh as Jesus to die and save us from this dark Satan ruled world (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John).
I have become convinced from Bible study that one major accomplishment of God giving the law to Israel was to get Lucifer under the law. There are very strong implications given to us in the Bible that this is one major accomplishment.
Is Israel in Covenant with Satan?
We were just introduced to a basic foundation for why it was necessary to get Satan to be in covenant with the natural nation of Israel. Before that we saw Israel itself admitting they were in covenant with the realm of death and hell. Then we saw several statements that Jesus made to Israel that would imply they were in covenant with Satan. We can now continue to analyze if this is what the Bible says happened. I’ll do this by going back to some scriptures that we saw in a previous lesson. In the previous lesson we emphasized the aspects of Galatians 4 and how Israel has been cast out of God’s covenant never to return. But hopefully we will bring out some new emphasis to the information for us to see what God is saying on this subject of: “Is Israel remarried to another man”?
Gal 4:22 For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a freewoman.
If you recall this verse, you can see two women and two sons being referenced. The first woman is the bond woman and the other is said to be the free woman. This is the concept of slavery versus freedom. You may recall that slavery was a condition of being under the law. This would help us to understand that Lucifer was of the free woman. This meant Lucifer was not under any law. Abraham symbolizes a type or pattern of God the Father (Jehovah). It is essential to understand that these women represents patterns of two wives in covenant with God. I’ll say this again, these two woman represent two covenants as we will see in this next verse:
Gal 4:24 Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants (marriages); the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar.
We can see in this verse that God says these two women are allegorical and represent a far greater spiritual truth. In Biblical Allegory, God always uses a real historical natural occurrence to describe a parallel unseen spiritual reality. Most of the time if we read this story in the Old Testament we would not have a clue how it relates to any spiritual truth. However, since God gives us a specific example of how He encoded this information into the Bible in these verses in Galatians, we can begin to understand how this is possible. This is a very tricky method that God has chosen to hide these spiritual mysteries in the Bible.
Gal 4:25 For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.
The bond woman is said to be Hagar and she corresponds to the law given to Moses on Mt Sinai. Therefore, Hagar represents a woman in covenant bondage to the law. God then tells us that she gives birth to a child after the flesh. Hagar is the natural nation of Israel and is directly called the “earthly city of Jerusalem”. This is in direct contrast to Sarah, the free woman who gives birth to the promised child after Hagar as we will read in verse 26 next. Who do you think the “promise child” represents? Of course it is the risen from the dead LORD Jesus Christ. However, Hagar who represents the natural Israel, gives birth to natural child Jesus of Nazareth the man after the flesh that gave His life for us to be saved. Mary called Jesus her “firstborn” son and God called Jesus His only begotten Son. But, Jesus is also called God’s firstborn from the dead. That would imply that Jesus Christ had two different births and two different mothers, one natural and one spiritual. These are very deep truths and can be very hard to see at first, simply because they are so new.
God just revealed to us that this Hagar is a type or pattern of the Earthly Jerusalem, who is now in bondage with all of her children under the law. Israel continuously tries to keep the law and earn their salvation by their works and have not realized that they are incapable of saving themselves. Remember we just read earlier that Jesus declared that Satan was the father of these natural children of Israel. Wow, that is so important. But, let’s continue with the next verse and look at Sarah:
Gal 4:26 But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
We can see that there is clearly a new and different woman, called the free woman that is called the “Heavenly Jerusalem”. This literally means that she is not under the law. This Freewoman (Type of Sarah) is said to be the spiritual mother of Jesus Christ and the church. So what have we seen? There is a bond woman called the Earthly Jerusalem who is in bondage to the law. We then see that there is another woman called the Heavenly Jerusalem who is free, meaning she is not under the law. We know from studying the Bible that these two women were in a covenant and married to God (Type of Abraham) at an overlapping period of time. We know that Sarah (Heavenly Jerusalem) was married first to Abraham (God). Then Abraham and Sarah moved to Egypt where they bought a slave girl for Sarah named Hagar. Later after many years of being barren (Childless) Sarah (Heavenly Jerusalem) gives her husband Hagar (the Earth Jerusalem) as a wife to have a child for her. Abraham did this and had Ishmael that had twelve sons a type and pattern of Jesus and his 12 disciples.
Finally Sarah (the Heavenly Jerusalem) the much older woman and first wife came along and had the promised child and she was free along with her child. The Heavenly Jerusalem (Sarah) existed prior to the younger Earthly Jerusalem (Hagar). The younger earthly Jerusalem (Hagar) has a son that is older than the promised son of the free woman (Sarah). These are all allegorical truths to a spiritual reality that has been right before us but one that we haven’t seen until now. Now take a look at the next verse, because I want to reemphasize something very important:
Gal 4:27 For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.
Who is the barren woman? It was a type of Sarah, the Heavenly Jerusalem, the free woman. According to Hebrews 12:22 the Heavenly Jerusalem consisted of an enumerable number of angels. We know from reading Job 38:4 that all of these angels sang for joy witnessing the creation of our world. Therefore, this Heavenly Jerusalem existed a long time before any earthly Jerusalem was formed. Are we all together on the same page?
What can we see by looking at this verse in light of the story of Abraham? We can see that this heavenly Jerusalem (Sarah) was God’s wife even before the earthly Jerusalem (young Hagar) ever came into the story. We can conclude logically that this covenant between God and the Heavenly Jerusalem (Sarah) existed before there was a natural nation of Israel. God (Abraham) was in covenant with this free woman (Sarah), not under the law for a long time before the bond woman was given to Him (Abraham) to have a child with. But we can also see this verse is telling her (the free woman Sarah) to rejoice because more are the children of the desolate woman than the other woman.
The desolate woman is a descriptive term for a woman incapable of having children as Sarah was for many years. Sarah eventually got pregnant but, only after many years passed beyond her normal child bearing years. But with God all things are possible, the barren woman now has many more children than the bond woman. God promised this free woman that her children will be of a much greater number than those of the woman in bondage to the law. We can then see the punch line in the last part of that verse. This verse ends with the statement “she which hath an husband”. Since God is only talking about two women in these verses, we can very easily determine who He is speaking of. God is speaking about the Earthly Jerusalem (Hagar) in the terms that she now has a new husband. The clear implication is given to us that the Heavenly Jerusalem (Sarah) does not have a husband when these verses were written.
We already know from reading verses in Isaiah and Jeremiah that God divorced Israel and ended His covenant relationship with the Earthly Jerusalem (Hagar). We even studied scriptures in Deuteronomy 24 that said it was now illegal for God to marry this same woman again. So we know that God is not in covenant or married to natural Israel. So who is? Who is the husband of the bond woman? Who is now in bondage under the law? Who wishes that they had never crucified the Lord Jesus Christ? If we don’t know this is Satan we need to go back and reread all of this again. Who wants to destroy Israel and wipe her from the face of the planet? How could Satan get out from under the law of his wife Israel? If his wife Israel were completely dead then Satan would be free from the law. If Satan were free from the law, then punishment of his sin could not be applied to him.
CONCLUSION
I have become a firm believer that Satan did not know what would happen to him if he crucified the LORD of Glory (1 Cor 2:8). I am also convinced that this is why Satan wants to destroy the natural nation of Israel and the Church. There are a lot of people in the world being used by Satan to get this done. Many of these people call the natural nation of Israel the little Satan and the USA and Christians the Great Satan. We could go into this subject much further but this lesson is long enough.
Thank you for reading and studying the Bible with us. If you have any questions or comments please feel free to share them. I do read them and appreciate the feedback. We do pray for you and we ask you to pray for us. God bless you and keep you until the next time we get together.
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons on Bible covenants you may go to “Part 5“.
Genesis 3:1-6 – Does Eating Fruit Kill You? Pt 2
(Ver 1.3) This is Part 3 in the Understanding Genesis 3 Bible study series and the continuation of the last lesson concerning “Does Eating Fruit Kill You?” I took a break from Genesis to teach some new subjects, but today I will go back to Genesis to show you some more things found in the Bible about fruit. In my last lesson on this subject called Does Eating Fruit Kill You? Pt 1, I showed you that Jesus said that it was not what you put into your mouth and into your stomach (natural fruit) that makes you unclean (Mat 15:11). In this very important verse Jesus was teaching us that it was what comes out of our mouth, the words that we speak that causes us to sin. Jesus was contrasting the fact that spiritual fruit was significantly different than natural fruit and giving us some very important clues into hidden Genesis 3 truths. While natural fruits are a pattern or type revealing spiritual fruits, they are certainly two very different substantative things. In speaking on this subject Jesus gave us some brand new insight into the story of Adam and Eve and why what they ate could not have been fruit from a physical or natural tree. If that was the truth then this statement made by Jesus would have made Him a liar. I also showed you a scripture in Proverbs that declared death and life to reside in the power of the human tongue (Prov 18:21). This verse then spoke of the fact that those who love it will eat the “fruit” thereof. We should now be able to see that if God told Adam don’t eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or you will die, that God was saying your tongue controls your destiny. We should be able to look into this verse in the Bible to help identify what this tree that God was speaking of to Adam was; this tree must have been a spiritual tree that causes the fruit of death and not a natural fruit tree that when eaten kills like a poison. Do you understand these important concepts revealed in the Bible? We are just using the Bible to interpret the Bible. According to Proverbs it was Adam’s tongue or the words of his mouth that caused him to live or die. Our tongue, is the exact same and it also has the power to produce the fruit that causes us to live or to die. I know that these are very different concepts than most things that have been taught in your church, but I’m just reading the Bible and putting the pieces of the puzzle together the best that I can, with God’s help. So can you read? Do you see what God is saying? Here is another confirming witness to what I just said found in the New Testament:
Heb 13:15 By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.
In this verse in Hebrews we see a clear reference that it is our mouths that produces spiritual fruit unto God. This fruit in this verse must be referring to the spiritual fruit of praise which comes from the words we speak glorifying God. What is the antithesis truth to praising or blessing God? I believe that it would be to curse God with our mouth like many people in the world do everyday. Therefore, our words and our mouth can either produce words that praise (bless) God or words that curse God. Two direct different opposing types of fruit, but yet the same mouth can produce either. This is an important concept to learn for every Christian. Your words have the power to bless or to curse someone. This is not a single verse on this subject in the Bible. James wrote about this concept very clearly when he wrote “out of the same mouth proceeds blessing and cursing and this ought not to be” (James 3:10). Isn’t James saying the same things that God told Adam? Blessing and cursing shall not come from your mouth or you will surely die? I can find some amazing parallels in these scriptures. Let’s take a look at another verse found in Proverbs from the book of God’s divine wisdom:
Pro 18:20 A man’s belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth; and with the increase of his lips shall he be filled.
Here again is another verse from Proverbs that speaks of the fruit of our mouth. If you understand what I have been saying, you quickly realize that this verse is speaking again of a spiritual fruit. In this verse God again refers to our mouth as being connected to our belly. But it is not speaking of our natural stomach, but rather our inner spirit man. Did you realize that the only way your inner spirit man can affect any change in this world is by your mouth? The only contact that your spirit man has with communicating to this natural world is with your mouth. Jesus told us that the words that He spoke they were “spirit” (John 6:63). In other words the words that came from Jesus’ mouth came from His Spirit. The implication is given that we also speak the same type of spiritual words. We should be able to compreshend that one of the only accesses that God has from this physical world into your internal spirit is through your external natural ears. You ears and your mouth are the portals between the natural world and the unseen internal spiritual world. Since the majority of unsaved people do not understand that they are spirit beings they would not understand anything about what I just described to you. Let’s move on to another scripture that is certainly related:
Pro 11:30 The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise.
We can see from this verse in Proverbs more valuable information given to us concerning the trees that were said to be in the Garden of Eden by many Bible teachers. Did you notice that this verse in Proverbs is not speaking to us about a natural physical tree that produces fruit that causes us to live forever? Wow, that was a loaded question. If the tree of life was not a physical tree then the tree of death was not one either. The reference is given to us about about a different type of spiritual tree that produces spiritual fruit. This tree of life label is spoken of in the terms of those who are now called the “righteous” people. Who could this be referring to? Who are the righteous? Do you know the answer to that question? If you do then you are light years ahead of many Christians in the church. Let’s find out using the N.T. who the righteous are:
Rom 5:19 For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.
We can see in this verse in Romans, that God contrasts the two Adams. The first man’s disobedience caused many to sin, but by the faithful obedience of Jesus Christ many shall be made “righteous“. You might quickly ask the question were there really two men called Adam in the Bible? Yes, there was, but one was a natural man one was a spiritual man. The natural man caused all to die, but the spiritual man will cause all who receive His life to live. Let me show you an important verse to help confirm what I just said:
1Co 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
This of course is comparing Jesus to Adam, but Jesus is symblically called the Last Adam in this verse as opposed to the first Adam. If we back up in this chapter you can see more the context of what God is teaching us about these two opposite types of men.
1Co 15:21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
1Co 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
What is God describing here? Can you see the emphaisis to the two trees of the garden first mentioned in Genesis 2? Adam caused all men to die but Chirst came to give each of us a new choice to live to have a different result. There is a definite death and there is a resurrection from the dead that will cause us to live. These are some amazing truths to consider when studying these chapters in Genesis.
Who did Proverbs call the “tree of life”? You see we, the church have been made “righteous” by what Jesus Christ did for us and gave to us by God’s grace. We are now the ones that are expected by God to produce new spiritual fruit of life instead of death. We therefore must be these spiritual trees of God described in Proverbs. What you must see in this verse is the clear but indirect reference to two opposing trees. You have one that Adam ate from that gives us death and then you have one that Jesus ate from that gave us life after death. One spiritual man was obedient and one natural man was disobedient and the end results are dramatically different. Do you understand what Jesus did? Now do you also understand what Adam did? Adam chose the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and Jesus chose the tree of life. That is some very important information to fully grasp. There are so many verses in the Bible that speak about this subject that I just can’t include them all in my lesson today. Here are some verses that have a direct commentary given to us by Jesus Christ:
Mat 7:16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
Mat 7:17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
Mat 7:18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
Mat 7:19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
Mat 7:20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
How many of you realize that Jesus is not talking about literal physical natural fruit trees in these verses? We know that these words are directly related to Genesis because Jesus starts out talking about the subject of thorns and thistles. If you recall these two subjects were God’s words to Adam in Genesis 3:18. Do you see the parallels and the connection? Jesus is referring to men and women as being analogous to trees that produce fruit. Every tree will produce some kind of fruit, either evil or good. The evil trees will bring forth thorns and thistles, while the good trees will bring forth grapes and figs. One spiritual tree produces good spiritual fruit. While the other spiritual tree produces evil fruit. God says good can’t produce evil fruit and evil can’t produce good fruit. The evil trees will be cut down and cast into the fire of hell and the good trees will be harvested to God’s barn. So we can see that spiritual fruit corresponds to what we produce out our mouths. Whether you choose to offer the sacrifice of praise to God or produce evil things, you make the choice. It really depends upon what you let go into your spirit that determines what you get to come out of your mouth and your spirit. I learned from being a computer programmer that if you put garbage in, you will get garbage out. If you put the Word of God in you will get the Word of God to come out. It is an awesome responsibility that God has given to us.
Mat 12:34 O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
I thought I would include this verse to end this lesson on spiritual fruit. Jesus gives us the insight into how to produce good fruit. In this verse, Jesus is speaking to the religious Jews of His day. He tells them there is no way that they can produce any good fruit. How could Jesus declare this? Jesus knew that nothing good can come from a container after someone has put evil things in it. Jesus knew that if you plant evil things you will also reap evil things. Jesus declares that from the abundance of the things that you put into your heart is what you will get back out of your heart. I told you earlier that your external ears and your mouth were the portals/gates in and out of this unseen internal spiritual world. What you listen to abundantly with your ears is what you are putting/planting into your heart to produce and bring forth either good or evil fruit from your mouth. Jesus often times said “take heed to what you hear” (Mark 4:24). Why would it be important not to hear some things? Why would it be advantageous to hear other things? Jesus says that whatever you listen to abundantly will cause you to produce either good fruit or evil fruit with your mouth. No one becomes a radical Islamic extremist overnight. There are no evil men born into the world. Men become evil or good based upon what they are taught and hear. If you plant evil things continuously in your heart, you will eventually produce evil. These are the spiritual laws given to us from Genesis to Revelation.
I probably have said enough on this subject for now. I don’t want to overwhelm you with new things to think about, but sometimes I know I do. What we must do is interpret the Bible using the Bible, only. See what God says on every subject and just ignore what people think the story is about. Rightly dividing the Word of Truth involves putting the pieces of the puzzle together correctly. When you start to see what God is saying in the Bible, the Bible is much more enjoyable and eventually becomes easier to understand. You will eventually see that truth will build upon truth. So start by learning the basics and getting a solid foundation built into your life and then step up to the more advanced topics found in the Bible. God Bless!
If you would like to continue reading in this series of lessons found in Genesis 3 please go to “We are God’s Garden” (Part 4).
The True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12! Pt 7 The Book of Ruth
(Ver 1.3) This is now Part 7 in the series of advanced Bible study on the subject of the True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12. I hope and pray that you have been following it from the beginning. If not please go to the beginning and start with Part 1, before you try to read this part of the series. The message should make much more sense, if you take them in the order provided. In the last lesson we scripturally pursued evidence for if the Bible says anywhere that Jesus could be a spiritual father and have a spiritual family with spiritual children. You see if it says in the Bible anywhere that Jesus doesn’t have children or simply does not say that He can, then we would have no real foundational basis for the woman in Revelation 12 being the church covenant wife. I believe we found a few good scriptures that Jesus can and does have a spiritual family and that this spiritual family can or is implied to have spiritual children. One of these scriptures was a popular Christmas card verse about Jesus, with Him being called the “Everlasting Father” in Isaiah 9:6. This verse brought up a new good question. Why would God need to qualify the noun “father” with the type of father adjective “everlasting”? Here we have a noun (father) being limited in scope, modified or qualified using an adjective called “everlasting”. Didn’t most of us always think that God the Father, was the Everlasting Father? Everlasting means eternal or the one that lasts forever. The only logical implication from that qualification is that God the Father is not the Eternal Father, Jesus is. Is this true, or are we missing something?
This is what we will be addressing in today’s Bible lesson. Please remember that no one knows everything, except God. It is best, that we just read and study, the Bible the best that we know how. Then trust the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth as He said He would do in John 16:13. Please stay open to the Spirit of God, and if He wants to teach us something about the Bible, we do our best to listen. Therefore, try to stay open and pay close attention to every word that is written.
In the last lesson we were also focused on the existence of patterns found in the Bible. As you should recall a pattern is nothing but a model from which repeated occurrence can originate. This is truly a very significant topic used by God in the entire Bible. God writes about real historical facts that did occur in human history but then He uses them to teach us about Jesus. Remember what Jesus said to us in John 5:39, “Search the scriptures for in them you believe you have eternal life, but these are they that testify of me”. Jesus just taught us everything in the Bible is focused upon Him directly or indirectly. Jesus just claimed the Words on every page had something that would be a witness about His Life. Wow, that is an awesome concept.
INTRODUCTION
I want to take a turn and explore this subject of a woman in Revelation from a completely different and fresh angle of perspective. So many times, God when He answers prayer, He does so in a way that we were not expecting. God gives us the answer to the prayer, but usually in a new way that was different than what we would have done, or the way that we would have like it to be done. This is a lot of the time, the trouble with our Bible study techniques. Instead of studying a subject from God’s perspective we want the Bible to fit our idea of the way we think it should be. But we soon discover that God if He wanted us to know everything clearly could have written the Bible that way. However, since God wrote the Bible in a concealed manner with a hidden O.T. Jesus we must learn to work with what He has given to us. In doing this we soon learn that we need to change how we think. God is not like us, His ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not our thoughts (Isa 55:8). But that does not mean that we cannot change to learn His ways and think His thoughts. It just takes a transforming and renewing of our mind to know and understand the spiritual things of God (Romans 12:2).
I will start this lesson by saying that the child in Revelation 12 is God as we learned in Part 5 of the series. Every male child in the spiritual family of God is always God. Every female in the spiritual family of God is always the people in covenant with God. So, if a spiritual woman has a spiritual male child it can only be God. I just gave you some very basic concepts of spiritual things that are very important. If you do not understand these, that does not mean they are not true, it only means you may need to learn something that you do not yet know. If you keep reading the lessons, we will eventually all get to a united knowledge of the truth, but it will take time and commitment for us all.
PATTERNS OF JESUS FROM THE BOOK OF RUTH
In this lesson we need to explore the Book of Ruth. There is a Bible series on this subject that has more detail, but we will go through an overview to see how it applies to the woman in Revelation 12. The book of Ruth in the Old Testament has some absolutely fascinating information given to us in it. If you have never read this book perhaps you should do that now, before you continue with my blog. It is a short book, only 4 chapters so it will not take long to read through it and to gain a quick overview of it. To those who have read it and think they know what it is about, let me briefly recap. The primary subject of the book is a woman named Ruth. This woman is a gentile woman, not in covenant with God, not born into or of the nation of Israel. Ruth was a gentile woman not in covenant relationship with God or the Law. This is very important to understand.
The book of Ruth starts with the story of one family that came from Bethlehem. Already we can see some parallels being developed. Where was physical Jesus born? Jesus was of course born in Bethlehem. The story of Ruth starts with this family from Bethlehem leaving their home because of a famine. Famine is a state of or the absence of natural food to eat. Natural food parallels spiritual food and gives us insight into a greater spiritual problem, but I won’t go there right now. Any way this family consisted of the following family members:
- Elimelech, the father
- Naomi, the mother
- Mahlon, a son
- Chilon, a son
This family of four members, rises up and moves to a place called Moab to live because of a severe famine in Israel. There in that land the father Elimelech dies, and the two sons marry gentile women, but they also die. Now we have a family that consists of nothing but three women who were left as widows. These three women were one Jewish mother-in-law with two daughters-in-law. One of the daughters-in-laws leaves and goes back to her gentile family, but the other daughter-in-law made a much wiser choice. This woman was named Ruth, and she said to her Jewish mother-in-law, where you go, I will go, where you live, I will live, and your people shall be my people and your God will be my God. Ruth made a great choice and God honored her decision tremendously, by allowing her to become a great-great-grandmother of King David. Please notice that there are only 4 women directly mentioned by name in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1 and Ruth is one of them. God bestowed a great honor upon this gentile woman named Ruth for her faith in trusting in Him and His Word.
We can see a great story unfolding of a gentile woman not in covenant with God, speaking covenant words to be joined into the family of God. These words spoken are a pattern of another future spiritual woman that was to come. In fact, all of these characters in this story I believe represent an allegory of a much higher spiritual reality. God is giving us a look into the spiritual realm by analyzing this story. This story is primarily about a gentile woman named Ruth and this woman is a model, type or pattern of the church.
Her mother-in-law Naomi is a type or pattern of the Nation of Israel. Her Father-in-law is a type or pattern of God. Earlier I told you that males in a covenant family normally always represent God, and the females represent women in covenant with God. In this story of Ruth, we see that the father as well as the sons all die. When Jesus died on the cross who really knew what this meant? Obviously, Satan didn’t know (1 Cor 2:8). I believe that when Ruth’s first husband died that this was a type of physical Jesus’ death on the cross. Now as we read in Romans 7 her husband’s death allows us to legally be remarried without being called an adulteress. But we have been introduced to this topic previously.
Now let me go into what the Book of Ruth is primarily about. You see everything that God said up until this point is just the introduction to the main subject found in the book of Ruth. The primary story line concerns God’s law of the “kinsman redeemer”. If you read chapter one of Ruth, you saw Naomi make a statement to Ruth that she was too old to have children for Ruth to wait around and marry. You see in Jewish families if a son married a wife and died without children it was the responsibility of the nearest relative, a brother to marry the widow to raise up heirs for his dead brother. This is the foundational basis of the story of Ruth.
What hope does Ruth have by hanging around her mother-in-law? Where does Ruth place her trust in for her destiny and future? Ruth is placing all of her trust in the law of God. God’s Word declared that a near relative was responsible to come into the picture and marry the widow to have children. Notice what God just said? The reason for the marriage was to have children for their dead relative. This is so significant that we cannot even begin to imagine what it all means. Ruth the widowed wife is a type of the church. Boaz is the kinsman redeemer, and he is a type or pattern of Jesus Christ, our near kinsman redeemer. This of course is the risen firstborn from the dead Son of God. It is very interesting typology to see how and where Ruth meets her Redeemer. If you read the story, you know she meets him in a harvest field. Jesus taught a lot about grains and harvests in the Gospels. Jesus even teaches us to pray the Lord of the Harvest to send out laborers into the harvest field. Wow, that is not a coincidence.
Boaz takes Ruth the gentile woman to be his wife with a covenant of marriage for the purpose of having children, and they become the great-great-grand-parents to King David. This is amazing stuff if you are understanding the implications. All of these pattern concepts are found in the law, in the book of Numbers and if you read through them closely you should begin to understand some of the spiritual implications to these words:
Num 27:6 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Num 27:7 The daughters of Zelophehad speak right: thou shalt surely give them a possession of an inheritance among their father’s brethren; and thou shalt cause the inheritance of their father to pass unto them.
Num 27:8 And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a man die, and have no son, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter.
Num 27:9 And if he have no daughter, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his brethren.
Num 27:10 And if he have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his father’s brethren.
Num 27:11 And if his father have no brethren, then ye shall give his inheritance unto his kinsman that is next to him of his family, and he shall possess it: and it shall be unto the children of Israel a statute of judgment, as the LORD commanded Moses.
You can see how God goes through a long discourse of how to distribute the inheritance of a family when the father dies. Who is our spiritual Father? Oh well I am sure I will have some say God the Father cannot die and I will not argue with you. You either see it or reject it, you choose. Any way in the law, if the father dies the inheritance begins to go to the children starting with the firstborn. Then if there are no children it is interesting to note that we start with the nearest relatives, uncles and then cousins. We can see a hierarchical order of inheritance being established. God is establishing a law of precedence in the natural realm to demonstrate how He will do something later in the spirit realm. I would like to ask those skeptics out there this question. Did you ever notice in the New Testament that we, in the church are called the joint heirs with Christ? What is an heir? An heir is someone who inherits after someone else died. Get it? Uh oh? Who died to leave us an inheritance? What was it, that we inherited? How did this inheritance follow the law in Numbers that we just read? There are just so many questions to think about, isn’t there?
So, the story of Ruth is a natural pattern to a much greater spiritual truth. We can see Ruth, who is the pattern of the church, marries the redeemer named Boaz a pattern of Messiah. She does this in order to raise up children for her dead husband and his father’s name should not vanish from the face of the earth. Let me briefly give you some scriptures in Ruth that may help you to understand this story better:
Rth 4:3 And he said unto the kinsman, Naomi, that is come again out of the country of Moab, selleth a parcel of land, which was our brother Elimelech’s:
Rth 4:4 And I thought to advertise thee, saying, Buy it before the inhabitants, and before the elders of my people. If thou wilt redeem it, redeem it: but if thou wilt not redeem it, then tell me, that I may know: for there is none to redeem it beside thee; and I am after thee. And he said, I will redeem it.
It was the responsibility of the nearest relative to buy back the land that belonged to and in their family name. In this verse, Boaz approaches a nearer relative first to ask him to buy the land of their brother Elimelech. But as you read down you find this nearer relative refuses, because it would mean that it would ruin his inheritance. You can see in verse 4 that Boaz tells this other relative that if he didn’t buy the land that he would do it, because there are no other relatives that can legally do it. But did you notice the term “redeem”. “Redemption” is a New Testament term and one of the key works of Jesus Christ.
Rth 4:5 Then said Boaz, What day thou buyest the field of the hand of Naomi, thou must buy it also of Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of the dead, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance.
You can see in this verse of Ruth the problem that the other relative is faced with. In order to redeem the land of Naomi, he must marry the gentile woman widow named Ruth and have an heir for his dead relative. This is the law of God given to the nation of Israel and it is very significant to the story of Jesus and the church.
So how does all of this relate to other scriptures in the Bible? I’ll end this lesson with this related reference found in the New Testament:
Rom 7:1 Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?
Rom 7:2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband.
Rom 7:3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man.
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.
Here we have a passage related to God’s law of marriage. These verses have widespread spiritual implications written all over them. Did you notice who they were written to? Paul writes these verses to those under the law. He actually says those that “know” the law (Rom 7:1). To “know” something is a statement related to a covenant relationship. I’ll try to do a lesson in the future explaining that statement in more depth. We can see that Paul is writing these verses to his natural brothers of the nation of Israel. So, while the book of Romans was written to the church, these verses pertain only to the natural Jews. It is very important to see this.
The law stated that a woman who was married could not be married to another man as long as the first husband was alive, or she would be called an adulteress. But the woman whose husband is dead is free to marry another (Rom 7:3). So what does God say to those who were under and in covenant with the law? God told them that they are now free to marry another, and this one that they should marry is the one that God raised from the dead, Jesus Christ. Are you following the reasoning and logic of these statements? Because Jesus Christ was crucified, these verses claim that their former husband was killed or died. That is what Romans 7:4 is telling them.
The crucifixion of Jesus has now freed them from the law to be in covenant with the risen from the dead man Jesus Christ, the Son of God. A marriage to the Son, and not the Father. We can clearly see that these verses do not apply to gentile believers because they were never under the law, or in covenant with God. The gentiles were never in or under the law and therefore were free to be married to whomever they choose. However, the natural nation of Israel was given the law on Mt Sinai through Moses and this law established many boundaries that they are forced to abide with as long as they refuse to accept their Messiah. Let me briefly go back to the book of Ruth and tell you about a statement that Ruth makes that reveals to us the principal of these statements in Romans 7:
Rth 1:17 Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.
Ruth makes a statement of truth that has widespread implications. You can see from the statement that death represents a dividing line. Death causes a separation of one connected person from another person. Only death can separate us, Ruth said. This is an incredible revelation if you apply it correctly and understand it fully. Ruth gives us a secret to how God will separate himself from Satan. Only by Husband’s death will the wife be freed from the law of her husband. Death represents a division between two connected in covenant individuals. Through death a legal and permanent separation occurs between two people who were in an eternal marriage covenant. It is important to know that God does all things in a legal, orderly and just manner.
There is so much more that we could discuss about these verses, but I wanted to show you another set of verses that speak about God experiencing death for us. The death of Jesus has so much more meaning than we have ever imagined. That means we have an inheritance that must be distributed according to the law. Ruth is a story that has so many great truths in it, that I did not get to them all in this lesson. Hopefully you will continue to study the book and see the other details that God reveals to us. For example, Boaz must go to a closer relative and ask him if he wants to marry the gentile woman. The closer relative refuses to marry Ruth because it will mess up his inheritance, so he thinks. Who is this closer relative representative in the spiritual realm? How does this pattern fit into the redemptive work of Christ? Then there is this fact found again in the genealogy of Jesus. I told you earlier this list only contains the names of 3 or 4 women, and they all have significance and meaning to Jesus. Boaz was a type of Jesus. Who is Boaz’s mother? Boaz is the son of Rahab the harlot. That is also very significant in the typology analysis. Who was Jesus born of? Jesus was born of the natural seed named Mary, that came from the tribe of Judah of Israel. The nation of Israel is also called a harlot in Old Testament books like Hosea. There are so many more things to consider. If you dig really deep you can find so many valuable truths.
CONCLUSION
So, I have attempted to give you scriptures that show why the woman in Revelation 12 is pregnant, and who this child is and why He must be delivered. The child in Revelation 12 has widely been taught to be Jesus Christ, but the typology and symbolism found in the Old Testament, and in the rest of the chapter 12 does not fit the natural birth of the Messiah. So, we have to look for spiritual truths and spiritual reasons to identify the male child and hopefully I have pointed you in the right direction. We have discovered is that the reason for every covenant marriage between a husband and wife is for the purpose to have an heir. This heir is the person that will continue the family’s named. God commanded this in Genesis 1 when He told them to be “fruitful and multiply”. This too was a divinely designed pattern of creation.
I know I did not cover everything in its entirety, and I know there is absolutely no way that I could do that even if I wanted to. Only God knows everything, and we only see things through a glass darkly and only truly understand what God wants us to understand, when He wants us to understand it. I believe that we have so much more to learn. Thank you for reading this series of lessons and studying the Bible with us. I appreciate your prayers and your diligent Bible study faithfulness. God Bless you.
If you would like to continue in this study series, please go to PART 8 now.
The True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12! Pt 6
(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.
The True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12! Pt 5
(Ver 3.1) This is “Part 5” in an advanced Bible study series concerning the subject of the True Identity of the Woman found in Revelation chapter 12. This Bible study is intended for spiritually mature Christians only. Please understand this before continuing with your reading. Also, if you have not read this series from the beginning, it is highly recommended that you and start with Part 1. In the last lesson we went into verses found in Revelation 12 that described dependent qualities and features of the woman. A dependent quality or description is simply one that must be found true and be present in the primary object in order for the identity to be known or to be true. These dependent descriptive terms spoke of 1) those that overcame with the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, 2) those that kept the commandments of God and 3) those who possessed the testimony of Jesus Christ. I provided a number of verses that demonstrated these qualities are describing the church. I hope and pray that you have read all of the lessons because these dependent facts of truth only point us to one possible identity of the woman in Revelation 12. I believe she is the church. Today I would like to begin the challenging process of identifying the man child that this woman in Revelation 12 is stated to be pregnant with to deliver in verse 5. I do not think that I will be able to go into everything that I would like to today, but with the LORD’s help we will get there eventually.
PERSECUTION BECAUSE SATAN KNOWS HIS TIME IS SHORT
First, why is Satan persecuting the woman in Revelation 12? This is just another basic who, what, when, where and why question, that we need to ask about for the woman in Revelation 12. I want to briefly answer this difficult question without going into a lot of the complex details about the subject of persecution. In more than one verse of chapter 12 we can clearly see that whoever this woman represents, she is heavily persecuted by Satan (for example, Rev 12:13). We can further read that a hatred and anger is directed at the woman by Satan for some reason that is not directly stated. Satan is said to be literally at war with this woman (Rev 12:17).
Let’s begin this part of the lesson with the definition of “persecution” (G1377). The Greek word G1377 translated as “persecuted” in Revelation 12:13 is defined by Strong as “to pursue”. This Greek word is akin to the Hebrew word H7291 that is defined by Strong as “to run after with hostile intent”. Obviously, this is Satan chasing after this woman for an evil purpose (John 10:10). I personally believe that this purpose was to attempt to eliminate this woman and her seed. We can read about the kind of persecution being done by Satan in Revelation 20:4. Here we are told that John was given a future vision of the “souls that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus Christ”. This Greek word G3141 translated as “witness” in Revelation 20:4 is the same word that was translated as “testimony” in Revelation 12:17. I do not believe that this is a coincidence. In fact, I call it a divine clue to the woman’s identity, and she speaks like a Christian in the Church.
However, I believe these statements of being pursued by evil can and do apply to both the natural Jewish people in the nation of Israel as well as the Church. This persecution is one major reason why many Christians have assumed that this woman in Revelation 12 must be natural Israel. Anyone living in modern history of the last 100 years has seen the Jewish persecution increase firsthand. It happens frequently even today. But, during World War II, persecution of the Jews occurred on a scale that is staggering. It is very obvious to me that Satan filled the heart of Hitler with his desire to wipe Jews off the planet earth. This same spirit is now working in the middle east to drive out Israel from their land into the sea. Therefore, natural Israel more than qualifies to be this woman in Revelation 12 on this single point of persecution. But this one truth is not the only truth that we need to identify our suspect.
For example, someone might say they just saw a man with a blue shirt and jeans rob the bank. Could the policeman go and arrest the first man that they saw fitting this narrow description? Would they feel confident that this man was their suspect bank robber? Obviously, I do not believe they could. There could be thousands of men on the street wearing those items that match closely and all of these can’t be the one alleged bank robber. Therefore, we still need a more complete confirmation by examining all of the evidence and facts given to us.
Let’s get back to answering the question “why is this woman persecuted”. I believe the Lord has shown me that there are two completely different reasons why Satan is persecuting these two possible named Bible women (Natural Israel and the Church). However, both of these reasons are motivated by Satan’s desire and need for self-preservation and survival. Going deeper, I believe that this desire for self-preservation is rooted in Satan’s fear. Let’s read what one demon cried out to Jesus in fear:
Mat 8:29 And, behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time?
If you haven’t figured it out, Satan knows that he has a specific time limit to legally be here on the earth. When we read Matthew 8:29, we learn how the devil that being cast out by Jesus was crying “Have you come to torment us before the time?”. What time does this evil spiritual being understand, that is coming before he can be legally tormented? The Greek word G928 translated as “torment” literally means to “torture” and cause “pain”. Therefore, the devil has a great fear-based concern that this time of pain was coming too fast and too soon. He implies to Jesus “has the time been shortened and is now about to happen to us?” This is great wisdom to learn from. Devils do not understand everything about the timing of events that are prophesied to be coming.
But, we later read and learn in Revelation 12 that Satan discovers and understands the time is now very, very short. This occurs after he is thrown out of heaven during the first half of the 7-year tribulation (Rev 12:12). From all of this information we learn there is a specific time of pain and torture punishment coming for evil spiritual beings. We also learn that it has not yet occurred. Just as no one knows the exact timing of the rapture, no one knows the exact time the tribulation will occur after the rapture. Therefore, Satan is living in constant fear awaiting the clock to tick down.
We do know from reading Romans 11:25 that there appears to be a limit to God’s patience in the church age. I still believe that this is approximately 2000 years. But in this verse God declares that there is a “fulness of the Gentiles” that must occur before He returns to get us. The Greek word G4138 that was translated as “fulness” literally means to fill up a container like a cup to overflowing. In other words, when the cup is full the time of the end of the church age is now complete. Satan is definitely not looking forward to this coming fulness.
Satan is doing everything that he can, in his power to try to stop the planned design of God and save himself from being cast into hell. I could go into this in much more depth, but I believe I will save that for possibly a future Bible study topic. Just keep in mind that both women named 1) natural Israel and 2) the Church Bride are being persecuted by Satan to try to stop the plan of God. Therefore, both partially qualify based upon that truth to be the woman suspect in Revelation 12.
But, as we have learned from verses in this chapter, there are other dependent truths that must line up in order to conclude the true identity of the woman. We can’t just take a few parts of the chapter, ignoring the rest and to say this is why I believe the woman is Mary, or Israel or the Church, etc. Any conclusion of identity must be based upon an complete factual list of all known parts. We must not ignore or omit any fact that we don’t like or don’t understand. Doing this provides a legal basis of reasonable doubt to possibly exclude any woman from being our suspect. In legal terms this is called “exculpatory” evidence. If a prosecutor knows facts that will exclude the defendant from prosecution and they do not present them to the defense or the judge, that prosecutor is evil and unjust. That is the reason we are going through as many facts as we can to determine the identity of this woman. We will now continue to explore the subject of why and how the woman is pregnant?
INTRODUCTION TO THE MALE CHILD
This of course will be something new and challenging. As if nothing that has been said in this series has not been something new and challenging. Because of our previous human bias and prejudices that came from our past teachings of the Bible, some can tune out what may be new or different too easily and fast. This part of the lesson about the male child in Revelation 12, is the part of the lesson that most people believe they are so sure who this baby represents. This causes a stronghold of resistance and for a lot of baby Christians a hatred to what is being given to them to help them grow. This is exactly what Paul said in Galatians 4:16, “I have become your enemy because I tell you the truth”. Please do not be like others that refuse to at least taste what is presented to see if it is good before you spit it out (Psalm 34:8).
We can begin our search for the identity of the child by looking into our Bibles for qualifying descriptions found in Revelation 12:5. Let’s read the important verses in question. Hopefully, we will see what is stated because this is what has been used by many Bible teachers to select their definition and identity of the woman and the child:
Rev 12:2 And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered.
Rev 12:5 And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.
We can read about a man child that is brought forth after the woman was crying out in travail in birth pains in verse 2. Then in verse 5, it should be very clear, that whoever this child represents, that we are told by God that he is “to rule all nations with a rod of iron“. Who can this be? Almost everyone teaches that this is only speaking of Jesus. That certainly sounds true. But is that the complete truth? But what do we find if we search our entire Bible for the phrase “rod of iron“? We will find only 4 verses that contain this phrase.
First, this statement of a “rod of iron” was given to us by God in Psalm 2:9 as a prophecy. This verse prophecy must be Jesus based upon the contextual content. But then we discover the next time this phrase occurs is when the Lord Jesus himself quotes from Psalm 2:9 in His letter written to Thyatira in Revelation 2:26-27. In these verses spoken to the “Church” of Thyatira, it is amazing what Jesus says. Jesus said to them, “that whoever overcomes and continues His works to the end, they will be given power over nations to rule with a rod of iron“. Wow, that appears to change the perspective and the possible inclusions of who the prophecy is speaking of dramatically. Here we literally have the LORD Jesus (who most believes this rod of iron is speaking of), and He was speaking to the church and transferring this authority and responsibility to the church that overcomes. What we have just observed is a prophecy and Jesus teaching us about it by quoting it about the church. I believe that is VERY IMPORTANT new information to use to interpret and understand Revelation 12.
Finally, we can see the fourth and last reference to someone “ruling with a rod of iron” in Revelation 19:15. This is when Jesus is returning to earth riding a white horse, with a double-edged sword coming out of His mouth. It now appears from this verse the focus has shifted again back to Jesus ruling with a rod of iron. However, it is very interesting to back up in Revelation 19:14, to read about the church coming back with Him to rule. These people must represent the church that overcame their enemy back in Revelation 2:27.
This is very interesting information to consider. We have two verses about subjects “ruling with a rod of iron” that appear to be in apparent direct contradiction. When this occurs, it is usually our ignorance that causes the only conflict. God always has an answer in the Bible for every apparent contradiction. The Bible never contradicts itself. God never contradicts Himself. God and alol of His Word are faithfully in harmony. It is only our human lack of understanding of what was said that causes any confusion.
We can begin to resolve the conflict when we apply the light of the Church being called Body of Christ in verses like Romans 12:5, and 1 Corinthians 12:12. It would appear logically that if Jesus the Head of the church body rules with “a rod of iron“, then His body must also rule with Him, the same way. How can the main part “head” of the complete body rule and all of the other parts of His body be excluded? If my head goes to the restaurant for dinner, my feet usually must take me there in order to feed my stomach. I believe this is what is being taught to us in these passages. Please keep this in mind as we study this child ruling with a rod of iron over all nations.
POSSIBLE CHILD SUSPECTS
Please allow me to continue by giving you a list of possible candidates for the identity of the male child in Revelation 12. One of these candidates you have all heard of before but the others maybe you have not given them much thought:
- The physical male child named Jesus born in Bethlehem brought forth from the virgin Mary.
- The Risen Savior Jesus Christ, the “first born” from the dead.
- The Holy Spirit of God also known as the Spirit of Christ that indwells believers.
As you can tell by my short list of possible male child candidates, I believe that the child can only be the omnipotent God in some manifested form. I am convinced that the child cannot be anyone else, but 1) God in the flesh or 2) Jesus risen from the dead, or 3) God in the Spirit. So let us do some logical analysis of the verse in Revelation 12 that speak about this birth of this male child using other truths that are given to help us understand the concepts of birth. We will begin this discussion with a basic law of birth given to us directly by Jesus.
Joh 3:6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Please see what this verse says and apply it to the woman and her child in Revelation 12. If the symbolic woman is a spiritual reality (being like the church body), then the child MUST also be a divine spiritual child and cannot be a physical or natural child named Jesus. Therefore, the church cannot give birth to physical Jesus. Also, if the woman is a natural human being (like Mary), then the child must also be natural baby child. That is just basic logic based upon law and it is what the Word of God says. Therefore only Mary could have given birth to a male child named baby Jesus.
Jesus himself, taught us “that which is born of flesh is flesh and that which is born of spirit is spirit”. Taking what Jesus said literally we can learn that there are ONLY two kinds or types of female birthing dimensions that are possible. One is natural and the other is spiritual. This would agree with Jesus other major lesson in John 3 when He taught us, “You must be born again to see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). Jesus explained to a natural man that he could be born again spiritually.
Therefore, this woman in Revelation 12 must either be one natural physical woman with a naturally birthed physical male child or one spiritual woman with a spiritually birthed male child. Notice that Jesus claims that these two types can’t be mixed up. If there was an attempt to change the natural and supernatural in any other way, it would violate God’s Word! Therefore, there can’t be a spiritual woman that gives birth to a physical child. Nor can there be a natural woman giving birth to a spiritual child. I pray that we all agree with the Word of God so far.
Now let’s go through the women and child possibilities, one at a time to see who might fit this Revelation 12 pattern. This will help us determine or at the least narrow who the child could be. We will begin with the Virgin Mary.
CAN THE CHILD BE THE ONLYBEGOTTEN SON OF GOD?
So, what is the best way to describe the physical Jesus born to natural Mary in Bethlehem found in Matthew 1 and Luke 2? There are actually two different descriptions used by God to describe “Jesus”. We should already know that Jesus was born naturally through a literal physical woman named Mary who experienced all the normal natural pains of childbirth. All of her natural travail physically produced a male child in a Bethlehem manger. One description of Jesus is found in Matthew 1:25. This title teaches us that Jesus was the first child that Mary, she ever birthed. It also implies by the description of “first” that she birthed other children. But notice the title “the First Born” of Mary.
Now let us review a verse that we should all have memorized. John 3:16 informs us “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son…”. The Greek word G3439 that was translated as “only begotten” literally means “only born”. This description contradicts with the Matthew 1:25 title of firstborn. The terms “Only” and “First” cannot agree to both be true simultaneously unless there is a greater hidden meaning that needs to be revealed. Therefore, we can resolve this conflict by learning that the “firstborn” title could only be directed at only human Mary’s first child of many. This simply teaches us that the other children that were born from human Mary did not come from the Holy Spirit. Then we can begin to understand that the term from John 3:16 “only begotten” could only be speaking of God the Father in having just “one naturally born” Son of God. So far, we are just addressing the physical birth process of Jesus and one potential conflict.
But there is a new conflict that arises from other scripture verses. For example, the term “only begotten” Son found in John 3:16 would conflict with Romans 8:29 where Jesus is called the “firstborn” (G4416) of many brothers”. Here we have the same type of conflict that God was using to describe Mary’s child being her first born with God’s Son being His “Only naturally born” child. We resolved this conflict by understanding “first” naturally born child was only speaking of Mary’s son and “only” naturally born Son was speaking of God’s child born though Mary. Same child but from two different perspectives.
Can we understand the new conflict being presented to us in the scripture? One verse claimed that Jesus was the “only born” Son of God (John 3:16) and the other claimed Jesus to be the “first born” Son of many others. The word “only” means there are no others and the verse with “first born” means or implies there can be many others (Romans 8:29). The only resolution for this conflict is what God calls rightly dividing the Word of Truth. “Only Begotten” has to be defined as a “natural birth” (flesh) and “First Born/Begotten” has to be defined as a “spiritual birth” within the Spiritual realm. I do not believe many Christians have been taught that Jesus was born twice, once naturally through Mary and once spiritually through a currently unknown spiritual mother. But that is what the Bible is teaching us. This knowledge also establishes a pattern of truth that it is possible for God to do whatever He pleases to accomplish His plan and will. I know that this is a very deep subject, and I pray that no one is drowning in the depths.
Please just remember that Jesus (God in the flesh) was the only begotten son of God birthed naturally from the natural physical woman named Mary. Let’s quickly establish the proof that Jesus was 100% deity being God as well as Jesus being 100% a man simultaneously. That blows the mind of a lot of religious people. But nothing is impossible with God. We learn His deity by knowing that Jesus was the Word of God (Rev 19:13). Then we combine that knowledge with the Word was God who created everything (John 1:1-3). Then later in the same chapter God says the Word (God) was made to be flesh and lived among us (John 1:14). Therefore, Jesus was God and God was Jesus, but He entered legally into the world being born in the flesh as a natural human male child (John 10:1). We also learn in Matthew 1:23 that Jesus was given the name Emmanuel meaning “God With US”. So, baby Jesus was a physical male child born of the flesh, even though He was still the Son of God. If anyone does not understand the virgin birth, I would recommend that you go and study this subject on this website. I do not have the time to teach that again here.
Now the humanity of Jesus must be confirmed. Jesus always made a major point when walking the face of the earth in the flesh. He called himself the “son of Adam” also known as the “son of Man” repeatedly. I believe He did this to prove to Satan He was legally here on the earth. I counted 81 verses in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John with this phrase “Son of Man”. If you have read my other Bible lessons, you already know that “Adam” and “man” are the same Hebrew word (H120). Jesus was declaring His humanity by calling himself the son of Adam. Many Bible teachers have declared that this child born in Revelation 12 is this Bethlehem only naturally born male child named Jesus. Therefore, the woman in Revelation 12 MUST be Mary His natural physical mother.
Remember by Jesus’ own mouth “that which is born of flesh (Mary) is flesh (baby Jesus)”. But also remember what we read in lesson 1 of the series. We answered the question “When did these Revelation 12 events occur?” According to Revelation 4:1, everything that happens after this verse is a future tense prophetical statement. That means it had not occurred at the time this book was written by John. That statement alone still makes it impossible for this child being birthed to be the natural baby Jesus. Uh, oh? Who then can it be? Could this Son in Revelation 12 be the “first born” Son of God that we just learned about Romans 8:29? It is entirely possible that this is what God could be revealing to us. There will be more scriptures coming to help you see this as a very real possibility for the identity of the male child in Revelation 12.
I need to conclude this Virgin Mary suspect study. I believe that what we should take away from this discussion is this; if this child in Rev 12 is baby Jesus the only begotten natural male child of God that was born to die on a cross, then he had to be born of a natural woman named Mary. This means the woman cannot represent natural Israel as many other teachers have claimed. We would also need to look at every other verse in chapter 12 of Revelation and determine how natural Mary could fit in with those given dependent facts. I believe that we can immediately see that Mary does not fit with any of the other detailed descriptive qualities of the woman in Revelation 12, other than being a woman and being pregnant with a natural male child and that is just a small part of the whole picture.
CAN THE CHILD BE THE FIRSTBORN SON OF GOD?
Next, we have to determine if the child is the risen from the dead Lord Jesus. The Bible teaches us that Jesus was born from above after He was raised from the dead. Jesus is called the firstborn from the dead (Col 1:18, Romans 8:29). Jesus himself taught that a man must be born again in order to see the kingdom of God (John 3:3). Knowing that Jesus was the only naturally born Son of God now, He must have included Himself into that John 3:3 requirement statement. If Jesus did not include himself into that statement, he would be denying his physical humanity quality as being a natural Son of Adam.
Jesus being God in the flesh is therefore, committed to abide by His own statement of truth since it is impossible for God to lie. Jesus said a man must be born again or He cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. We all know that Jesus died on a cross, and his natural body was buried in a tomb for 3 days and 3 nights. We also should know that Jesus gave up His Spirit on the cross when He died (John 19:30). But what happened to His Spirit while His body was in the tomb? Jesus answered this question in Matthew 12:40. He said, “As Jonah was 3 days in the belly of the fish, the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth for 3 days and 3 nights”. That was my paraphrase, but the concept was accurately stated. Therefore, the Spirit of Jesus had to go to hell. Now ask the question how did the Spirit of Jesus come out of this underworld dimension of the dead? According to what we are learning Jesus became the “first born” to be taken out of that separated spiritual dimension of the dead. Therefore, we have to conclude that Jesus was the very first spiritual birth to be the first spirit that was born again from the dead.
I believe that this is a Bible fact. That any man in heaven must have been spiritually born again, in order to get into heaven and out of going to hell. What this does is amazing. This was God’s way of eliminating entrance into heaven for those that did not meet His new requirement for Kingdom entrance, including Satan. Colossians 1:18 gives us the reason why Jesus was spiritually born again FIRST. God says this occurred “in order to give Him (Jesus) preeminence over ALL other spirit beings” This made Him the “Head” of a new spiritual family. We in the church then become His body, and the bride of His new family. Every spiritual being has become secondary beneath Him. Preeminence is the Greek word G4409 that means “first in rank or order”. The firstborn throughout the Bible was given a special place of inheritance in a family but this is a different subject that cannot be fully taught today.
I know this is a difficult new subject, but I believe that it is one that has great spiritual significance if we can see it. If the child is a spiritual child in Revelation 12, like I believe he is, then the woman giving birth has to be a spiritual mother and a spiritual wife. The Bible is complicated and there are many potential interpretations, but still only one truth. Let us therefore strive to understand the truth.
So, can a spiritual woman have spiritual children? Of course, she can and Jesus claimed she could. Here is a scriptural precedence for that statement:
Rev 1:5 And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,
Jesus in this verse is again called the first born (begotten) from the dead. This was obviously a spiritual birth and not His natural birth, yes? Notice that this verse implies that this birth occurred at His resurrection from the dead. Who then was His spiritual mother that gave birth to the Head of the Church? If Jesus was the first spiritually re-born man, then that demands by logical deduction, the pre-existence of a mature spiritual mother. That which is born of spirit is spirit, Jesus taught us! Some have tried to conclude that the woman in Revelation is the Spirit of God. But I have bad news for these people, God is not a female woman in the Bible. Nor, have I found in the Bible where God gives birth as a female? I believe that as the Bible states the woman originates from the side of a male and she is the one that gives birth to children. We find this pattern in Adam and Eve in Genesis 2 as well as Jesus on the cross when stabbed in His side to pour out His blood on the ground for His church bride.
There is a very strong implication when thinking about Jesus being the firstborn from the dead. As I have stated there must be a spiritual woman that existed, prior to His resurrection in order to provide this spiritual birth from the dead. This also reveals to us that this same spiritual woman must have existed prior to the new birth of the church another spiritual bride. This implied spiritual woman must be mature enough to give birth to spiritual children. Are we following this logic? These are all awesome statements of truth. So, who is this spiritual woman that is mature enough to give birth to a risen Lord Jesus Christ? Here is another verse that God gives us in Romans that sheds more light on the subject. I mentioned this verse earlier and we should have already read it, but we will go over it again for more study:
Rom 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Again, we see Jesus called the firstborn, but this time it says very clearly that there is an implied second born, a third born and on and on we go. God actually claims in this verse that Jesus has many spiritual brothers and sisters. What we see is another implied reference to a spiritual woman that gives birth to these spiritual siblings. This is such an important concept to fully grasp and understand. Now let us figure out who this mature spiritual woman is that gave birth to all of these newborn spiritual babies and children:
Gal 4:26 But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.
This of course is a scripture that has been bypassed and overlooked for lack of understanding for a very long time. We can see that this verse was written to and is speaking about the church directly. Therefore, we can conclude that the church are the inferred children in this verse that must be the many brothers of Christ. It also indirectly implies that the same mother that birthed the church must have birthed Jesus our Big Brother! I pray that we understand, that when we were born again it was a spiritual birth and not another natural birth process. Jesus addressed this topic very clearly in John 3 when a natural man asks Him how to go back into his natural mother’s womb to be born again. If we apply the logic that only spirit beings can have spiritual babies, then the woman mentioned here in Galatians 4, this Jerusalem Above has to be a mature existing spiritual woman, that gives birth to only new spirits.
We can also see the location of this woman as being somewhere above. Meaning she is not the earthly Jerusalem or any other physical natural location on our planet. The Greek word translated as “above” is G503 and means “on top” or “above”. It is the exact same word used by Jesus to describe where He was from in John 8:23. In this verse Jesus speaking to the Jewish leaders said, “You are from beneath but, I am from above” and then he continued by saying “you are from this world, I am not from this world”. This would clearly define this “above” to be the third heaven where God’s throne is located.
Now some might try to conclude that this “above” is the New Jerusalem, but it cannot be. You see I haven’t taught you directly yet, but I believe the church is the New Jerusalem. By using basic logic, a mother has to exist prior to having her children. And a woman does not give birth to herself. If Jesus was the firstborn from the dead, His spiritual mother had to exist prior to any new spiritual births. If the church is the New Jerusalem like I believe she is, then there is no way she could be the mother of Jesus and herself. Also, I do not believe that the New Jerusalem existed until the New Covenant came into being. Also, remember that this woman New Jerusalem is said to be the covenant wife of the LAMB (Jesus) in Revelation 21:2. This also must align with the truth that this Lamb was slain and is now risen/born from the dead. That describes this wife to be the church and the church did not exist in marriage covenant with Jesus before Jesus was raised from the dead.
I recommend that you go and read the entire chapter of Galatians 4. When we do this, we begin to see that there are two different Jerusalems being contrasted and compared. One is said to be a type of Hagar and she is called the “earthly Jerusalem” or the “Jerusalem that now is (physically on the earth)”. The Jerusalem that now is on the earth could also be called the “Jerusalem that is beneath” using the understanding of John 8:23. Beneath can further be implied by the opposite term of “above” also. This is just a basic law of interpretation that is called the “Law of Antithesis Truth”. If there is an above, there must be an unstated or implied “below or beneath”. It is also very important to remember that this other “Jerusalem from above” was called a type of Sarah. Both of these women were Abraham’s wives, and I don’t have time to explain that in depth. But we will continue with an overview of the Genesis account written for us by God.
The earthly Jerusalem, we are told is Israel and the Old Covenant (Gal 4:24) is represented by “Hagar” the Egyptian (Gen 25:12) bond slave. God informs us in Genesis 16:3 that Hagar is the much younger woman and a new wife given to Abraham by Sarah his much older barren wife. God gives us a very important confirming connection to this Egyptian Hagar being Earthly Jerusalem in Revelation 11:8 where He informs us this “great city” is spiritually called “Egypt”. Wow, I don’t have time to teach that either. Abraham was 86 years old when Hagar gave birth to Ishmael. This was 14 years before Sarah conceived and gave birth to Isaac. That is important to understand. Remember Jacob contracted with his father-in-law for 7 years of labor to earn his wife that he loved. But he had to work 14 years for this first love, his wife Rachel (Gen 39). His first wife Leah was given to him by trickery after his fulfillment of the 7 years. Then he had to work 7 more years for the one that he really wanted. I don’t have time to teach about that either. Just realize that 14 years, connects these stories.
Sarah represents the spiritual Jerusalem from above in Galatians 4. We are told that she is a “freewoman” not under the bondage of “law” of Jehovah. That is very important, and I do not have time to teach that either. We are taught by God in Genesis 21 that Sarah is the much older “barren woman” who eventually gives birth to Isaac when Abraham was 100 years old. In this Genesis story of Abraham, Sarah was 90 years old when she had her first child. Notice that Isaac is called the promised son in both Genesis and Galatians. That is a type and a pattern of spiritual things to come. That birth was truly a miraculous sign from God for the spiritual births that the barren woman Heavenly Jerusalem Above was going to produce after Jesus arose from the dead. Jesus we are taught is implied to be the promised spiritual birth. We can read this in Galatians 3 when we are told God did not speak to Abraham of “seeds” many but “seed” singular being Jesus Christ. Therefore, Jesus was the promised Seed to come naturally and spiritually speaking.
We can understand that Ishmael was around 14 years old when Isaac was born. Sarah (the type of the Jerusalem Above) is the mature woman that has been alive for much longer than Hagar. Therefore, Sarah was in Covenant marriage longer with Abraham (a type of God) than Hagar (the Earthly Jerusalem) was with Abraham (a type of God) (Jer 31:32). These are all valid allegorical types and patterns that I know are difficult to grasp at first.
God calls this real Genesis account of Abraham, Sarah and Hagar an allegorical story according to Galatians 4:24. An allegory is nothing but a true natural story of real people doing real things. But these natural story truths teach us far greater parallel spiritual truths that cannot be seen or observed with physical senses or natural reasoning. In fact, if God had not told us that this Genesis story was an allegory in Galatians 4, I do not believe that anyone would have understood it to teach anything greater than what historically occurred in the natural. In fact, I believe Jesus literally gave Paul this allegory personally in a vision, otherwise Paul would not have been able to write about it.
In a real allegory the events stay the same in the identical order and the characters in the story are repeated as similar characters, but the names of the participants change in the spiritual realm. In Galatians 4 we are given the natural women’s names Hagar and Sarah to be the spiritual names “Earthly Jerusalem” and “Jerusalem Above” respectfully. We are not directly informed in Galatians but the husband in these two covenants was Abraham, and he must represent the Father God in Heaven for these two women. We know this because we are told in Galatians 4:24 that this allegorical information represents the descriptions of two covenants. A covenant is a marriage, and a marriage is a covenant by God’s design (Mal 2:14).
Wow, two covenants is where God gets us even deeper. Most Christians assume and are wrong that these covenants are the Old Covenant and the New Covenant because that is the only two covenants that they have ever heard of. But that is impossible because it would fail the allegory litmus test description. Hagar is the younger wife, and she represents the second marriage covenant with Abraham. Therefore, Sarah the older barren wife had to be the first covenant with Abraham. Sarah could not be the New Covenant because the word “new”, dictates a more recent covenant than the old! Right?
We also need to realize that the New Covenant is with the risen from the dead Lord Jesus (first born again) and not with Father God that natural Israel was in. Here in Galatians God is speaking of these two covenants as being between Him as Jehovah God and 2 women. We learn from reading Romans 7:4 that natural Jews are legally freed from their covenant marriage with Jehovah because Jesus died on the cross. Then God says they (those Old Covenant People) are now legally freed from legal bondage under the law, to be legally remarried in the New Covenant with the risen from the dead, Lord Jesus. Notice this New Covenant marriage relationship is with the riser Son and not Jehovah the Father God. Wow, I don’t have time to teach that fully either.
We are getting so very deep here, but please understand this is important. This Heavenly Jerusalem (Sarah) represents a covenant that pre-existed with the angels being in covenant with God the Father (Jehovah) prior to the covenant that God (Jehovah) made with natural Israel (Egypt). Not a lot of people understand it yet, but the angels were created a long time before humans. We are not informed exactly how long before, but we know from reading Job 38:7 that the angels sang for joy at the creation events described in Genesis 1 for our current world.
I guess I will throw you another deep subject curve to consider since I already mentioned it. In Genesis 39 we read about Jacob (a type of God and Jesus) working 7 years for a wife that he did not want. He then was forced to work another 7 years for the wife that his heart was set on having. Well, I believe the second wife in this story is an allegorical type for God working for His desired church bride. I believe that God first worked 7000 years for the first wife Leah who was a type of the Jerusalem Above containing all of the angels. But, when sin was found in His covenanted wife, Lucifer and 1/3 of the angles that fell with him, that presented God with a major problem. God of course already had the solution by working just 7000 more years for us in the church. We are going to be a people called His wife that will be so eternally glad to be saved from going to hell that we will never desire to be like Satan and try to exalt ourselves above anyone. Ok, that was more new Bible information that is profound. It also explains creation more clearly. I believe in the Gap Theory of Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 being a major catastrophic destruction of a previous world ruled by Lucifer. I don’t have time to teach this truth either. But you can read more about it in the series of lessons called “The World that Was”.
What am I teaching? I would recommend that you go and read the series of lessons on this website called “Understanding the Spiritual Family of God”. What God reveals in the Bible is a truth that there are 3 stated divine covenants. The first “God to creation covenant” was between Him being in a relation with His angels. We already have learned that this wife had no LAWs or rules to be in bondage to. This was revealed in the type of Abraham with Sarah (Gal 4). The second “God to creation covenant” was a covenant between God and natural Israel being a type of Abraham with Hagar. We already know from Galatians 4 that His 2nd wife was in bondage to the LAW. That is very important. And the third “God to creation covenant” that we call the “New Covenant” was the covenant between NOT Jehovah but the risen firstborn from the dead the LORD Jesus Christ to the church. Remember that Jesus is in covenant with the New Jerusalem which is His Church.
Let’s study this Jerusalem that is above a little more to confirm what has been said. Read this verse in Hebrews carefully and we can see another reference to this identical spiritual woman in Hebrews that was given to be a type of Sarah in the Genesis allegory of Galatians 4:
Heb 12:22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,
We can clearly see that this city Jerusalem is said to be the city of the living God whois a Spirit (John 4:24). I believe that this is the current location of heaven where God has His spiritual throne. This city as it says in this verse is comprised of an innumerable company of angels. These were the only spiritual beings in the city prior to Jesus’ resurrection.
I want to also say that I believe this verse could have been translated more accurately. The Greek word G4334 that was translated as “come unto” could have been translated “came from”. It is translated as “came” more than any other word in the N.T. This translation would be more in line with what we read in Galatians 4 as her being our mother. When a child is born to a woman, it should be obvious that the child came from her body, even though the child was not her body. The same can be said about us being born from this spiritual city above. We would have “come from” the Heavenly Jerusalem being spiritually reborn from there.
Notice the reference to Mount Zion in this verse. Then back up in the context of this verse to read in verse 18 concerning another mountain not named. This mountain is implied to be Mt Sinai that we read about in Galatians 4:24. In Hebrews 12:18 God says Mt Sinai can be touched physically but it is implied that the Mt Zion in Hebrews 12:22 is not touchable using our current physical body or senses. I think this is all amazing information to learn. What we see are patterns being given to us of a spiritual mountain to a spiritual city, being contrasted with a natural mountain to a natural city. This spiritual location we are told is a place with a lot of angels in it. It is beginning to make sense to us I hope and pray.
Think about where the angels were in Job 38 when they sang for joy witnessing what I believe was the re-creation of our physical world. If the earth was un-inhabitable as Genesis 1:2 states, then all of the beings that were there on earth previously have now been taken up into heaven and are now singing for joy to see their previous earth being restored. Like I said before I believe that this is the first wife that God did not really want. I believe that it is this heavenly city that full of angels that is called the spiritual mother of Jesus and the church. She had to be barren like Sarah was with no children for literally thousands of years. Wow, this is so very deep.
From the information that is presented, we understand that this heavenly woman existed a long time before the earthly Jerusalem ever existed. At Jesus’ physical only begotten birth in Bethlehem, the New Jerusalem could not exist so we know that this woman in Revelation 12 cannot be either of these two Jerusalem’s. Here again are the cities that we have just furthered identified and confirmed:
- The Earthly Jerusalem (Gal 4:25)
- The Heavenly Jerusalem (Gal 4:26, Heb 12:22)
- The New Jerusalem (Rev 3:12, Rev 21:2)
So, what we have is the clear reference in the Bible to three completely different cities, all named Jerusalem and all three in a covenant relationship with God at some point in time. I know this is complicated and totally new to most of you, but you don’t know everything that you need to yet and I can’t teach you everything that I know all at once. What we need to realize is that there is a spiritual woman called the heavenly Jerusalem that has given birth to a spiritual Son named the Riser LORD JESUS and His sibling and wife a daughter called the New Jerusalem, and both of these women are not related to the earthly Jerusalem covenant.
The next thing that we should realize is that, if one spiritual woman (the Heavenly Jerusalem) can have children, then another spiritual woman (New Jerusalem) can also have children. This is in fact a very significant statement to consider. If the woman in Revelation 12 gives birth to a spiritual child, she has to be a spiritual woman. The natural nation of Israel (Earthly Jerusalem) is a natural woman and not a spiritual woman and cannot give birth spiritually. However, I believe that the natural nation of Israel represents a natural pattern for the church a spiritual woman in a New Covenant with the risen Jesus Christ. I know I need to discuss my third suspect possibility for the child next. This child in Revelation 12 could still be the Spirit of God, but why would it be necessary for the Holy Spirit of God to be born from a new spiritual mother? That is a very interesting question to consider.
IS THE CHILD THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST BEING BIRTHED?
Here we go again with a potentially brand new and never heard of revelation from the LORD for many Christians. I have recently updated this Bible lesson to include this section because it was not addressed previously. This information will probably be some of the most important information in the entire series. I do request that you please pray to allow the Holy Spirit to open your spiritual eyes to see the truth and receive it. But receive it only if the Holy Spirit on the inside of you confirms it to be the truth. Let’s go back to Revelation 12:2 and learn more of what we have missed:
Rev 12:2 And she being with child cried, travailing in birth (G5605), and pained to be delivered.
We talked about this verse earlier in the lesson. But it is now time to go into it in greater detail. I would like to say that this verse describes natural childbirth very well. I was present when my son was born. What my wife went though was certainly not a pleasant experience. Anyone that has experienced giving birth, should know it is a painful process without receiving any drugs to block the pain. This process was a resulting part of the curse placed upon the woman in Genesis 3:16 for sin entering into the world. This curse caused every woman to experience great pain during childbirth. I believe this physical birthing pain is symbolically representative of the spiritual birthing process, as we will very soon observe.
The Greek word G5605 translated as “travailing in birth” literally means to experience the pains of giving birth. It is only found in two chapters in the entire New Testament and that makes it very special to our study. I believe that God specifically chose to limit the scope usage of this Greek word in the text, to provide us clues to the identity of the mother and the child. Does that make sense? If God used the word 1000 times and it described 100 different women, then that does not help us very much solve our mystery. But a narrowed usage is a gift that just keeps giving by God’s design. Where is the only other time this Greek word is used in the N.T.? If we search, we will find it is only used in Galatians chapter 4. Wow, we have been in this chapter before, haven’t we? Do you believe that this is a coincidence? I definitely do not believe in God rolling dice. Everything in the Bible is there by design for a purpose to teach us. Let’s read the first occurrence:
Gal 4:19 My little children, of whom I travail in birth (G5605) again until Christ be formed in you,
This is truly amazing information to consider in the light of our discussion of the pregnant woman in chapter 12 of Revelation. Here we have a spiritual woman being inferred, a spiritual pregnancy, a spiritual birth experience as well as a spiritual child being brought forth. I mean WOW! Can this be true? Who wrote this book? We should know that it was the Holy Spirit using the Apostle Paul. Now, who was he writing it to? We should know it was the people in the Galatians church. Now, who is having the similar birth pain experience described again in Revelation 12? It is clearly the Apostle Paul. Who is the Apostle Paul? He is clearly one of the foundational leaders in the Christian Church. He can also be referred to as being a member in the larger Body of Christ also called the Bride of Christ. Ok, it appears that we are being led somewhere by the Holy Spirit.
Who is identified to be the child that the Man of God, is birthing inside of the people in Galatia? We are given a very specific named child called “Christ”. Who is Christ? Christ is the Greek word for Messiah in the Old Testament. Who is the Messiah? We should all know this is Jesus (Matthew 1:16). It appears that God is teaching us something that is very profound.
God is teaching us that Christ is being birthed inside of every believer. But this Christ is NOT the physical Jesus. Is it? No, that does not fit or make sense. Therefore, this reference to “Christ” must be His “Holy Spirit”. WOW! Let us confirm this with a verse:
Romans 8:9 – But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.
The Christ that is the child in Galatians is referred to as the Holy Spirit according to Paul in Roman 8:9. In this verse the Holy Spirit is called by 2 direct names. The first name being the “Spirit of God” and second name being the “Spirit of Christ”. We are also taught that both are the same Spirit that must be living on the inside of us. Wow, is this the Omnipotent Spirit of God? Can the Holy Spirit of CHrist be birthed inside someone through another human in the church travailing with great birth pains? According to Galatians 4:9 anyone in the Church can and do this.
I personally believe that this birthing pain and travailing is the Church’s work of prayer and intercession for someone that is lost or not able to receive the truth on their own ability to receive the truth. I believe this based upon Romans 8:26 where Paul says when we do not know how to pray as we should, the Spirit helps our weakness by interceding through us with our inarticulate groanings. Any woman that has given birth naturally has experienced at minimum groanings. I believe the spiritual birthing process for some individuals can be very similar. But that is another subject for another lesson. Let’s move to another key part of the child study by returning to a previous verse:
Rev 12:5 – And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne.
We have already discussed ruling with a rod of iron and that quick study led us to join the church to be the body of Jesus Christ that could potentially rule the nations with Him. This is my belief based upon what we have read. Since the Spirit of Christ appears to be birthed inside of every Christian. Therefore, if He rules with a rod of iron then He on the inside of us rules and we rule with Him. Remember the Spirit of Christ we learned that He was called the “Firstborn” from the dead and this makes Him the Head with preeminence over us all.
The LORD willing we will talk more about this child in a future lesson. But notice from the list of our three possible male children, there is only one that could fit with what we have learned in the Word of God.
CONCLUSION
We will stop this lesson here for now. I have given you a lot of new spiritual meaty spiritual concepts to chew on and consider. We have learned a significant amount of new information to consider. We should remember what Jesus said in John 3, “that which is born of spirit is spirit, and that which is born of flesh is flesh”. These were two radically different types of births. Being born upon the earth in the flesh is the first birth and being born from above in the spirit is the second.
Based upon this divine law, we know that only one mother and child example can match what we are seeing in Revelation 12. How do we know this? The pregnant woman in Revelation 12:1, suddenly appears in heaven, and therefore her child must also be a “Spirit”, to make Jesus’ words truthful. Mary never appeared in heaven pregnant. Nor has the natural nation of Israel ever appear in heaven to give birth to Christ. Please give this significant thought before you reject it, or try to explain it away.
Thank you very much for taking the time to read and study the Bible with us. We are very humble that we can be a blessing to so many people in the world. We love you all very much. Please study to show yourself approved a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth. Be a Berean type of Acts 17;11 Christian that is a more noble Christ follower. This church received new things with an open mind and then studied their Bibles daily to see if what was taught was what the Word of God actually said. This study effort will probably take reading this series many times and picking it apart into smaller chunks. This lesson series is certainly not an exhaustive complete word for word study. I am still learning new things everyday so these lessons may be changed to add this new information in the future. Please come back and study this again to check for updates. The version numbers at the top of each lesson show if they are updated. God Bless you richly until the next lesson.
If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons, please continue to “Part 6“.
The True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12! Pt 3
(Ver 3.2) This is now the third part in an advanced series of Bible lessons on the subject of discovering the “True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12”. These lessons are intended for spiritually mature Christians with an open mind and a willing heart to dig deep, study and learn from the Bible. It is not for anyone with a closed mind believing they already understand the subject found in Revelation 12 fully. I love one quote that a man named Will Rogers said “We are all ignorant, just about different things”. This means that none of us knows everything, especially me. But, it is my desire and goal to learn and know more today, than I knew about God and His Word yesterday. I pray that this is your goal also. If you have not been reading this series from the beginning I would highly recommend that you go back and start with “Part 1“. We have covered a tremendous amount of new revelation that has been hidden by God in the Bible. We will not be able to repeat the previous lessons in today’s.
INTRODUCTION AND REVIEW
OK, in the last lesson, we talked about the identity of the symbolic moon found in Revelation 12 as being Satan. I believe this information was encoded (hidden) in the Bible by God’s design using some very intelligent techniques. One of these techniques for hiding information that has been used by God is the method of calling one person or spiritual entity by many different names, titles, symbols and descriptions. If you have ever studied the Bible you know that Satan is referred to as the serpent, the great dragon, the devil, Lucifer, Beelzebub, the father of lies, the ruler of darkness, the prince of darkness, the god of this world, the deceiver, the tempter, the thief, the accuser of the brethren, etc., and as we learned in the last Bible lesson the symbolic “moon”. That of course was not a complete list of Satan identifiers, but just an example of what is being taught. If you would like to see a more complete list of “Names, Titles, Symbols and Descriptions for Satan” you can click on that link and go there.
There are many reasons why I believe that God has concealed information in the Bible, but one of the main reasons is to allow Him to reveal the true meaning at the appointed time. Another great reason is to keep the information hidden from His enemy Satan. If God told Satan everything He had planned in a straightforward plain way of speaking it would allow Satan the ability to narrow his attempts to stop God’s plan on the earth. But, hiding the information provides us the blessing of finding it and Satan the opportunity to be surprised by him not knowing what to expect next from God.
For example, the Old Testament was full of the prophecies of the coming Messiah, but yet Satan didn’t understand them and neither did any of the Jews who kept the scrolls. Jesus went through the scriptures and began to reveal Himself in the O.T. to His disciples and to the apostle Paul only after He was risen from the dead (Luke 24:32, 45, Romans 16:25) . There are many reasons for this hiding of information. It also establishes a pattern of how God works with humans. It gives us notice that if He did it once, He can do it again if He so chooses. You might call this a part of God’s modus operandi.
God has given to us a huge book of divine information, which contains a countless number of prophetic scriptures and God can reveal them to us even now and I believe that is exactly what He is doing (Dan 12:4). I have quoted this verse in this series at least two times but it represents one of the foundational principles of truth that applies to us understanding the woman in Revelation 12 that is clothed with the sun, standing on the moon with a crown of 12 stars. This would be a good verse to memorize and perhaps that is God’s goal for repeating it:
Rom 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
I would like to review this verse from Romans again to place new emphasis on what it reveals to us. What we can see in this verse is a very powerful spiritual truth being revealed to us about God’s visible and perceivable creation. This verse proves there was intelligent design contained within all of the physical components of our universe. Nothing came into being by random chance or accident.
Every created natural entity has a design and a purpose to reveal something that is not yet understood by most humans. This verse claims that God created all these natural things in our visible world to reveal greater spiritual things that we need to understand to help us know about Him. By knowing these, God informs us that we will be able to understand even parts of His awesome omnipotent power and His divinely gracious Godhead. That is why it is important to note how created things like the sun, the moon and the stars fit by His design into the greater spiritual picture. By understanding these naturally created things God is revealing some very powerful spiritual truths to us. I just can’t say that enough.
In Revelation 12:1 we have been studying a descriptive picture or a symbolic woman with a specific purpose and design. For emphasis I believe that I should review these featured symbolic elements and what we have learned so far. This woman is said to have the following distinctive characteristics and features:
- A Woman (an unnamed female)
- Her head covered by a crown of 12 stars (emblem of victory in a contest)
- Her body clothed with the Sun (the Greater Light, Jesus Christ)
- Her feet standing on the moon (the lesser light, Satan)
- The location of the woman is said to be heaven
- Finally from Rev 4:1 we learned Rev 12 is a prophetical future view into events being described.
These are basic statements of revealed facts. They are all so very significant. We have discovered though study that the head of the woman is crowned with a symbol of victory from winning a contest like an Olympic event. We have discovered by study that the body (the church) is clothed with Jesus Christ who is the revealed symbolic Sun. We have discovered by study that the woman’s feet are standing on the ruler of the darkness, the moon, who is revealed to be Satan. We have discovered by study that this event occurs in the future during the coming soon tribulation period of 7 years of time. We have read numerous scriptures to back these explicit and implicit asserted truths that we cannot repeat here. Knowing this revelation and understanding it will now help us to clearly identify the woman. However, we will now go over some new verses that are recorded by God to confirm this information:
Psa 136:7 To him that made great lights: for his mercy endureth for ever:
Psa 136:8 The sun to rule by day: for his mercy endureth for ever:
Psa 136:9 The moon and stars to rule by night: for his mercy endureth for ever.
We can see that the Genesis 1 day 4 account of day 4 of creation is being repeated as a second witness of confirming truth here in the book of Psalms. This information verifies what we have already learned and provides greater emphasis to the importance of the information. The Sun rules the kingdom of the “day” and we are told that the moon and the stars rules the kingdom of the “night”. I like to provide at least two or three witnesses to every Bible truth so that you will know that I am not taking things out of context or just making stuff up as I go.
UNDERSTANDING WHAT IT MEANS
FOR SOMEONE TO BE UNDER HER FEET
Today, we need to explore this subject using a much deeper application to its position to the woman to help confirm the identity of the symbolic moon in Revelation 12 we know is called the ruler of darkness. We will do this from a different perspective to determine if we can establish precedence from the scripture for Satan to be declared under the feet of any woman? We will do this specifically by studying these women suspect candidates that could represent the woman in Revelation 12:
- The Church (the body and bride of Christ)
- Israel (the Old Covenant Wife of Jehovah)
- Mary (the virgin natural mother of Jesus).
We all know that the woman in Revelation 12 is said to have the moon under her feet. It must have been important to God to specifically mention these two symbols in this relationship. Technically we should know that by standing on the moon this is synonymous to the moon being under her feet? Let’s start by asking God what does it mean in your Word to have something or someone under your feet? Is there a figurative meaning to this expression that is important for our correct interpretation. I believe the answer is YES! I believe that any good Bible student has seen this in the Bible before and can probably teach this section of the lesson..
From my Bible research and study I believe that anything or anyone that is stated to be under someone’s feet in the Bible is a symbolic reference to them being lowered in position of order, power, rank or authority. Someone being under foot is a figurative sign or symbol of their defeat by the person that is standing in triumphant victory over the one underfoot. The person underfoot is certainly the implied enemy of the one standing upon them being conquered. For example, God told Joshua in the Old Testament, everywhere the sole of your foot shall tread, I have given to you (Joshua 1:3). To “tread on” literally means to walk over something or someone with your feet to be given their possessions.
We learn from this established Joshua principle that whatever God has already given to humans, they are required to fight and to possess including overcoming the enemies holding that land. This is an established spiritual law of faith. These were God’s ways of demonstrating to Joshua that he was going to be victorious over his enemies. It is clear to me that the natural nation of Israel had many natural enemies. This Old Covenant between Israel and Jehovah was a physical battle between natural physical forces being backed by opposing spiritual powers. It is also clear from reading just Joshua that natural Israel won their victories over most of their enemies by being led and obeying the voice of Jehovah. I believe this was a type and pattern for the church in the coming spiritual warfare in the New Covenant.
The spiritual enemy to the church is of course, Satan and I won’t go into every scripture that we could use to verify this. I believe that what God spoke to Joshua was a prophetic utterance that further applies to a pattern for us in the spiritual church to follow. What I will do now is give you some Biblical backing for “treading” on an enemy.
Psa 44:5 Through thee will we push down our enemies: through thy name will we tread them under that rise up against us.
Here we see a powerful prophetic principle given to us. This is a statement that can clearly be taken either naturally or spiritually. Symbolically speaking, God is referring to the enemies of the church being under our feet. It definitely also applies to the natural nation of Israel. I cannot see any application of this verse to Mary. If we can find this principle in the Bible, it will make the task of identifying the woman in Revelation 12 easier to confirm. Here is another interesting Old Testament scripture that must be related to Revelation 12:
Psa 91:13 Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet.
Did you notice the references to an “adder” and a “dragon”? Do you see the symbolic parallels related to Revelation chapter 12? I don’t think there are very many dragons in the Bible directly named and said to be under someone’s feet. I believe that this verse is directly related scripture that further points us to the identity of the “moon” under her feet, as being the defeated Satan, also defined as the dragon and the old serpent in Revelation 12:9 and 20:2. As I ran references in the Bible looking for the principle of treading down I ran into verses like this one:
Job 40:12 Look on every one that is proud, and bring him low; and tread down the wicked in their place.
Maybe you recall how Satan was lifted up in pride in the Old Testament (Eze 28:7, Isa 14) and some of the statements that he is said to have made. God makes a prophetic declaration in these verses in Isaiah 14:11. God informs Satan that “His pomp will be brought down to the grave… and worms will be under and over him. That sounds like someone in a natural grave that humans walk over all the time. Notice the similarities found here in Job when God says that everyone that is proud will be brought low. Then it also speaks of the wicked being tread down (walked upon). I think these references apply to Satan.
It is interesting to note what God told Adam in Genesis 1. God gave Adam some specific instructions and here is one that is very relevant to our discussion:
Gen 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
We understand from this verse that God created the man to look like Him. God then turned His control of the earth over to His creation. God specifically says man has been given “dominion” over all the earth, and everything that moves on the earth. That is a very powerful bit of information for us to understand. It is also important that we know the Hebrew word translated as “dominion” has the following definition in the Strong’s:
H7287
A primitive root; to tread down, that is, subjugate; specifically to crumble off: – (come to, make to) have dominion, prevail against, reign, (bear, make to) rule, (-r, over), take.
Uh, oh! This Hebrew word has far reaching implications attached to it. It declares that man was intended to rule the earth. But, did you notice the word literally means “to tread down”. That is an active command for Adam to walk with his feet on every enemy to demonstrate their defeat. This Hebrew word clearly means to “prevail against” an enemy.
We must realize that God intentionally and prophetically declares the end from the beginning in this statement (Isa 46:10). God is saying in Isaiah that the end will be like I intended it to be from the beginning. I believe that is why we are learning about this woman in Revelation standing on the defeated moon object.
Adam was given charge over the earth and the instructions to defeat every enemy that came against him. God knew there was coning an enemy to defeat. But, instead Adam let Satan into our world and Satan became the god of our world system (2 Cor 4:4).
If we look at verse 28 in Genesis 1 God repeats His instructions to the man, but this time the man is told to “subdue”. This Hebrew word again means to “tread down”. In other words walk on. The word literally means to conquer and to bring into subjection every enemy. By placing someone underfoot they have been clearly defeated. These are all historical and prophetic words of a warfare that should have occurred 6000 years ago but is waiting to be fulfilled.
I believe that the church will be used by God to demonstrate Satan’s defeat. You see the man was created on the last part of the 6th day of creation. If you understand how the days of creation are prophetic this would indicate that man will again become spiritually mature at the end of the 6th day or near the end of the 6000 year time period that God has given humans to have dominion. This would also mean that what God intended for the man to do this on Day 1 but since the first Adam failed, God introduced the second Adam and I believe will use His bride to soon make this happen. This must occur very soon before the end of the 6000 years (Day 6).
I believe we are this phase of God’s plan now with it occurring at the end of the Church age. God speaks of this by declaring us to be the victorious one (1 Cor 15:57). Victory was the way that God intended it to be in the beginning and this is the way that it will be at the end of human history. I believe that the church will go out victorious with Satan under our feet. But, let us look for and confirm all of this in the Bible.
Let us continue now by looking at what Jesus says to the church right before He ascends into heaven. At this point and time Jesus was already crucified, and after 3 days arose to live forever more. Here in Luke we see some instructions being given to someone. We must ask this question “were these instructions given to us, the church or just the natural Jew?” In the book of Luke Jesus makes this amazing statement:
Luk 10:19 Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
In this verse, I believe that God is talking to the future saved church who began with all Jewish men about their spiritual enemy. I know the statement is made to the group of Jewish men that were sent out in pairs to cast out devils and healed the sick. But if you read the context of this statement you will find clues that indicate we in the church are also included in this promise. For example, in verse 20 Jesus said “don’t rejoice because spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” Wow that has to be saved Christians. We know this from studying the Book of Revelation and reading the scriptures about the book of life in heaven (Rev 3:5, Rev 17:8, Rev 20:17). This book of life contains all of the living and those whose names are not found written are forever declared dead and this is the second death. Wow!
Jesus is referring to a spiritual enemy and not a fleshly, carnal or natural enemy. We know this very clearly because Jesus said “spirits are subject to them”.. In this verse, Jesus clearly delegates His authority from His victory on the cross to the church. But, did you also notice the referenced connection to an enemy symbolically called a “serpent”?
Please understand that this serpent is defined to be Satan in our study chapter of Revelation 12. Three times in Revelation 12 Satan is called by the name of the serpent. This Greek word G3789 is translated as “serpent” in 14 New Testament verses including Luke and Revelation. That makes them related by God’s choice. Where was “the serpent” suppose to be according to Jesus our Lord and Savior? We are informed that this symbolic evil being is intended to be under the feet of the church, yes? Tread on means to put under your feet and walk on just as God instructed Joshua and commanded Adam to do.
This is a descriptive symbolic representation of where Satan (the serpent Rev 12:9) is to be in relation to where the church is suppose to be. It is not coincidental or by accident that the identity of the serpent is clearly given to us in Revelation 12:9. But, where does this statement and concept first originate in the Bible? The “serpent” is found in the Bible for the very first direct reference in Genesis chapter 3 verse 1 before Adam and Eve sinned. Satan deceives the woman. Uh oh, here we go with a woman. Could this be another divine connection of prophecy being made? After Adam and Eve sinned God comes on the scene of the garden and speaks the following words directly to the serpent, who we know from Revelation 12:9 is Satan:
Gen 3:15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
I am going to challenged here, because the translators made a huge mistake. But I’ll attempt to explain it and hopefully you will understand it. God is speaking to Satan, the ancient serpent. Therefore, we know who at least one of the primary subjects or nouns in the verse represents. God says to Satan “I will put enmity between thee…” and let me stop right there. What is enmity? It means hatred, it is an emotional status between two enemies! It seems to indicate an implied confrontation or even an assumed warfare.
How is this going so far? Now God reveals the other primary subject or noun in the verse and He calls this one “the woman”. Let’s stop there again and figure out which woman. Since there was only one physical woman on the planet, was it Eve or was this woman a prophetic statement of a different spiritual woman to come? Since at no time in scriptures do we ever see that the physical Eve crushed the head of Satan, I feel we can rule out this natural woman Eve as being the woman that God is referring to.
Many have tried to claim that this woman is Israel who gives birth to Jesus and that is certainly one possibility for interpretation. But we really need scriptural evidence to confirm this interpretation. Since we are studying a woman in Revelation 12 and there are verses that we have not learned yet, I have eliminated this prophesied woman to be Israel. Therefore, I am convinced that this Genesis 3 woman is a prophetic statement concerning the church and I will tell you why soon.
Then God seems to change the subject focus off of the woman and Satan in Genesis 3, and He says “between your (Satan) seed and her (a woman’s) seed”. Here we have the first reference in the Bible to “the seed of the woman“. This of course is an interesting and complex concept. But, what we need to determine is, according to the Bible, what is a “seed”? If you would like to read the series on this subject in depth you can go to “Understanding Seeds“.
There are many different definition of seed given to us in the Bible, from natural seeds found in fruits and vegetables that you plant into the ground, all the way to the sperm in a male. Then, children are also called seeds in the Bible. These are all examples, of natural seeds. But, there are also spiritual seeds in the Bible and if this is a prophetic reference to a spiritual woman, I would logically claim that “her seed” is a spiritual reference also.
So what are spiritual seeds? Jesus tells us in the Gospels that the sower, sows the word of God (Mk 4:14). We can learn from this statement that the seeds that the sower was sowing were God’s Words. These are spiritual seeds that are planted into the hearts of men (Mat 13:19). These seeds are either fruitful or they die or get eaten by birds (symbolic devils) or choked out by the enemy’s seeds (weeds which are symbolic words from Satan) because the hearer did not understand them.
There are multiple parables in the gospels about seeds, gardens and harvests that all apply to the spiritual realities that I am referring to and I will not attempt to include these in order to keep this lesson as short as possible. If nothing else you should have learned that there are many possibilities for what the seed of the woman could be and we could apply the principle of Satan’s seed being his words that are attempting to overrule God’s Word to eliminate spiritual fruit and salvation from humans. That is at least one valid and good interpretation for what we are studying in Revelation 12 and Genesis 3. But, maybe you are like me and have heard it taught for years that the “seed of the woman” is Jesus Christ and He is the one to bruise the head of the serpent on the cross. That is a common misinterpretation of God’s word and I will attempt to explain why I say this.
So here is where I may lose some readers, the next statement in Genesis 3:15 is the part of the prophecy that I believe was mistranslated by two little words. This is what the King James Bible says “it shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. The first word is the word “it” and this is a Hebrew word that is often times translated as “she” or “her”. In fact if you look back at Genesis 3:12, Adam’s response to God’s question is for him to call his wife by this word and it is translated as “she”. In this verse it is translated “the woman that you gave me, she (H1931) did give me of the tree and I did eat…” For some reason the translation was changed to the word “it” instead of the word “her” for verse 15.
Now the last part of verse 15 says “and you shall bruise his heel”. That is very interesting because a male child is never referenced in this verse anywhere. However I believe that in verse 15 the translators thought (assumed) God was talking about a prophetic statement of Jesus Christ so they changed the verse to reflect the male gender of Jesus to be the one whose heel was to be bruised. This reflected in the term “his heel”. From what I could see by studying, there was no Hebrew word for “his” included in the verse so it was also added for the assumed clarity by the translators. However, if we change the verse to what I consider to be a more correct translation it would read like this:
Gen 3:15 And I will put enmity between thee (Satan) and the woman (Church), and between thy seed (words) and her seed (words); she (H1931) shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise her heel.
Right now this is just a minor technicality, but I believe based upon more scriptures that I will show you it will become very significant. Remember this, Jesus told His church to walk on serpents. Jesus knowing Genesis 3 very well selected the symbolic name for Satan (serpent) to give them the “authority” to tread on him. Therefore, Jesus knows and understand who Satan represents. Right there ought to tell us plainly that Jesus did not already do it! Jesus would have never delegated something that He had already accomplished and completed.
Notice in Luke 10:19 how God has give to us all of the same nouns and verbs directly and indirectly that were found in Genesis 3:15. I believe there is an implied “enmity” between two opposing parties. One is the person (implied woman called the church) that is to conquer her enemy Satan and his demons. Therefore we have the serpent, the church’s feet, and Jesus’ instruction (words) given to her (the church) to walk with her feet (including her heels) on Satan. I know some of these are indirect references yet they are there if you can see them. Let me give you another valuable scripture found in the New Testament that will shed significant additional light on the subject. In the book Romans, God makes this statement that is truly another outstanding prophecy:
Rom 16:20 And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen.
Again we have the primary subjects and nouns including verbs found in Genesis 3:15 and Luke 10:19, but using slightly different terminology and perspectives. We see God speaking to the Church, the bride of Christ a spiritual woman saying to her that He (God) will bruise Satan (the serpent) under her (our) feet (heel) very soon. You see there is a major problem if Jesus has already put Satan under His feet. Why would God still need to crush Satan’s head again using the church’s feet later in the future tense?
God gave Paul the book of Roman’s many years after the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ and at the time of this writing, according to the inspired Word of God the bruising of the serpent’s head had not yet occurred. Did you also notice the very parallel specific term “bruise” in Romans 15:20? Isn’t that exactly what God said would happen to the serpent in Genesis 3:15? Again, we can see a spiritual woman, her feet and Satan the serpent being bruised. All of this is mentioned in relation to a pending future action that was to soon occur. We can see in God’s timetable that the time of this crushing of the serpent’s head has to occur very soon. From prophetic words that we studied in Genesis 1, we can see that the church age only lasts two days, or 2000 years. So if it is going to happen it has to happen very, very soon. Here is one more verse that I will end this lesson with. In this verse we again see the pending status of God’s enemies:
Heb 1:13 But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool?
Here we have another verse that states Satan, the enemy of God is not yet completely under the feet of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is now seated at the right of the Father and He waits for His enemy to be made His footstool. A footstool is a place you rest your feet, yes? If the church is the body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27), where are Jesus’ feet right now? I believe that we are the feet of Jesus walking on the earth and Jesus is now seated in heaven waiting for the God of Peace to bruise Satan under our feet.
How is the church supposed to do this? Read Ephesians 6:13-18 for God’s clue to how this bruising will soon occur. We will find in these verses God’s command to the church to be clothed with the whole armor of God. What was included in this armor? There are two main parts of the armor that I believe are the most important parts for our current study.
The first armor necessary for victory over Satan is found in Ephesians 6:15 where the church’s feet should be shod with preparation of the gospel of peace. Wow, isn’t that interesting? Wasn’t it the God of Peace that was going to bruise Satan under our feet shortly? Then notice and learn the Greek word G5265 translated as “shod”. This word literally means to bind on sandals under your feet. Wow again. Can we put on and tie God’s sandals on our feet so that we can walk on Satan? It appears to me that we can.
The next armor piece that I want focus upon and include here is the Sword of the Spirit found in verse 17. We are told that this is the Word of God. Wow again. Isn’t that the Seed of God? Doesn’t that sound familiar between our two enemies found in Genesis 3:15? God said I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between her seed and your seed. Now in Revelation 12 we have a woman clothed with the Sun (the armor of light) with the moon (Satan) under her feet. Remember what God said in Romans 13:12? God said to cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Wow, wow, wow!
CONCLUSION
I believe it is time to demonstrate the defeat of Satan under the feet of the spiritual woman. So what I have attempted to do today is to demonstrate scriptural precedence that establishes a woman that has Satan under her feet. By establishing this in the Bible it helps us to better understand the woman in Revelation 12. The woman is clothed with Jesus Christ and has Satan defeated under her feet. Who else can it be? I have not found any witnesses to these truths being Mary or the natural nation of Israel. So far it appears to only fit the church accurately.
Thanks for taking the time to study the Word of God. If you would like to continue reading this series of lessons you can continue with “Part 4“.
The True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12! Pt 2
(Ver 2.9) This is Part 2 in a series of advanced Bible lessons on the essential subject of knowing and understanding “The True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12”. In the last lesson on this subject, we were introduced to several potentially new Biblical ideas and concepts. One was the revelation of God’s usage of “dependent truths” in the Bible This is where understanding one truth is completely dependent upon understanding one or more associated truths. This could also be viewed as a type of parent truth related to their child truths. Without first understanding the identity of the parent truth the children truth is not easily found or understood. We learned this was a type of inherited or passed down association of attributes from one generation to the next. I believe in the concept of finding truth as learning from a paradigm of increasing layers of building blocks of truth. The foundational layer of truth are the basic fundamental blocks that must be acquired and laid down, in order to build (grow) higher layers of more complex truths. We will never understand the top layers of complex (meat) truths without first building up the essential elementary (milk) layers first. That is what is meant by the label “Dependent Truth Relationships”. The definition of the word “dependent” simply means something that is “determined”, “influenced” or controlled by something else. Hopefully that brings us clarity to why there are so many different theories to who the woman in Revelation 12 represents.
A common error of many interpretations of the identity of the “Woman” in Revelation 12 is based upon a lack of first identifying the basic fundamental truths that are necessary for us to understand the identity of the higher level dependent truths. These basics greatly change and influence our way of thinking to see things we had never seen before. By not first understanding the very basic symbolic truths of what she is wearing, why she is wearing this, what she is standing upon, why she is standing upon it, what she is crowned with and what she is doing we will not understand correctly her identified name. However, by understanding the correct meanings of these symbols, we can easily eliminate who she cannot represent which is helpful to change our focus upon who she actually must be.
Therefore we used this concept to begin to learn listing the main featured symbols associated with the woman. We then began our search for these symbols using the crown of 12 stars from three perspectives. These were the the number 12, the stars and the crown. We then moved on to the most important symbol to identify the symbolic “Sun” as being the Lord Jesus Christ. We learned the physical sun as being the closest star to our planet earth as well as the primary natural source of warmth, light and life. We then used these natural qualities relate to spiritual Jesus. There are an overwhelming number of confirming verses in both the Old Testament and the New Testament that called and described Jesus to be our spiritual Sun. Sometimes He was called “the Sun of Righteousness”, the “Day Star”, “the Bright Morning Star”, the “Light” of the world and other similar descriptions, but all of these were synonymous terms for the sun.
The first lesson ended with verses confirming how we (the Church) are instructed by God to be clothed with “Christ Jesus”. There are other verses that we did not go over that further this claim. For example, without this spiritual clothing of Jesus we are spiritually uncovered and naked and could be viewed in an open state of shame (sin). One great verse like this is found in 2 Corinthians 5:3. I recommend that you go and study this part of the discussion for yourself. What is essential to know beyond the identity of the Sun, is to next understand why the woman must be clothed with this symbol. God could have selected and described the Sun’s relationship to the woman to be many things. But, He chose to select Him to be clothing.
Let us reverse two of the main symbols. How would the viewpoint meaning change if the woman was standing on the sun and clothed with the moon? As we gather knowledge on this subject we will begin to see how that change would cause the woman to be a completely different person. In fact I believe Satan would love this woman and not be in a war with her if she was standing upon the Sun. Remember what Lucifer said in Isaiah 14:13? He said “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God”. This statement contains many of the same elements found in Revelation 12:1. For example, the mention of a throne implies a crown. The mention of stars is a direct comparison and we know our sun is just the closest star. The location in heaven is the exact same place where this woman in Revelation 12 appears in verse 1. Finally the term “above” is the identical concept of “standing on”. We know the woman in Revelation 12 is “above” the moon. Therefore, it was Lucifer’s desire to be standing on all of God’s stars with their position being under him. Wow, this is not how it is going to turn out as we will soon discover in Revelation 12.
If you have read through the first lesson you already know where we are going next in the dependent symbolic truth relationships. I realize that there are new readers constantly to this website. Therefore if you have not read the first lesson in this series, I would strongly recommend that you go back and start with “Part 1“. We will not be able to repeat that entire lesson again today. So you need to understand foundational basic things from the beginning to better understand the new things that will be discussed today.
GOD’S SYMBOLIC MOON IDENTITY
The next focus will be to ask God to reveal to us who the identity of the symbolic moon in Revelation 12:1 represents. We will also ask Him what it means to have this object under her feet. We do this by allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us into the Bible to define and interpret itself on this subject. This approach eliminates extra-Biblical bias, assumptions and prejudicial interpretations. But before we dig deep into the Bible to explore the moon’s identity, let’s begin to understand this subject with a general overview of our naturally created moon. God teaches us in Romans verse 20 that the invisible qualities of God can be known by observing things that were created, even these declare His eternal power and Godhead. Therefore by understanding naturally created realities we should be able to learn of hidden spiritual characteristics and truths. This is true of the sun, the moon and the stars. For example, notice the photograph in this paragraph of the moon. This photograph shows us the ever changing phases of the moon. The fact that the moon can be in a full visible phase and a completely invisible phase with varying stages in between is profound. According to Malachi 3:6 God says “that He is the LORD and He does not ever change”. Therefore the moon cannot represent a symbol of God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit. The moon also has a dark side that is never seen from earth regardless of the phase revealed to our view. These are just some of the basic natural facts concerning the moon.
Another basic fact is that the moon has NO light or life of its own production. This is also very revealing to us. This knowledge further confirms that the moon cannot represent God who is LIGHT (1 Jn 1:5) and LIFE (Jn 14:6). We have just learn from features given to us by natural observation that it is impossible for the “moon” to be a symbol of God. Therefore, we have eliminated one main Bible possibility.
I have heard more than one preacher claim that the moon represents the church in Bible symbolism. They attempt to say a Christian in of themselves has no “light or life” apart from Jesus who represents the Sun. Therefore, as long as a Christian stays in the light of Jesus they will be the Light within the Dark unsaved world. While that logic could be viewed as partially correct, I do not believe we understand what it means for a woman to be standing on the “church” means. If the moon is a symbol of the church, we are in serious trouble in Revelation 12. We will find out more about it means to be “under foot” later to clear up and learn that the moon cannot be the representation of the church.
The fact that the moon primarily revolves around the earth monthly can also be a clue. If the earth is a symbol of humans, God could never revolve around us. The earth is a symbolic type of the human condition as we learned about in lesson 1. If the earth represents humans we can turn towards God and allow Him to get brighter or by the same choice turn away from God to live apart from Him, on a daily basis. When we turn away from God we are departing from the light and moving back into a realm of darkness where God is not seen. When a Christians realizes their drifting away from God they can choose to repent and turn away from darkness and then move back towards the Light (Jesus). Christians are the ones that must focus on Him (Jesus, our Sun, Light & Life). These are just further confirmations to who the moon cannot represent.
The fact that the moon is normally only viewable at night is also an important fact of truth. This is just another applicable fact that informs us the moon cannot represent God because God is Light and in Him is no darkness. Also we learn from reading 1 John 2:8 that as long as a Christian remains in Him and Him in us we are in the True Light and the darkness has past. Wow, that is an amazing conditional promise, but it is a daily choice to remain in Him and permit Him to be Lord in Us. By us discovering who the moon is not this can greatly help us determine who the moon really represents.
SUN, MOON & STARS – LAW OF FIRST MENTION
Where in the Bible are the sun, the moon and the stars first mentioned? This will help establish by God’s design what is needed to understand the subject of the sun, the moon and the stars found in Revelation 12:1. God consistently reveals fundamental truths and definitions the first time a subject is mentioned in the Bible. Many Bible teachers searched their Bibles and found the sun, moon and stars mentioned in Genesis 37:9.
This verse teaches us about a divinely inspired dream that was given to Joseph. We were introduced to this dream in lesson 1. In this dream many teachers believe that this verse in Genesis 37 proves and confirms that the woman in Revelation 12 must represent the natural nation of Israel using the 12 sons of Jacob. This dream contains a symbolic sun, a symbolic moon and 11 symbolic stars that bow down to Joseph (the 12th Star of the family). However, this interpretation is in error and does not fit the remaining patterns of descriptions for what the woman in Revelation 12 is doing with these objects on and around her body. We have already seen several problems with this application. There are only 11 stars bowing with the moon and the sun. Jacob interpreted the dream and informed us that the sun represented him, the moon Joseph’s mother and the stars were Joseph’s brothers. As we saw before, wearing Jacob, standing on Rachel and a missing star are three of the most profound conflicts.
However, this is one of the main reasons why Bible teachers believe the woman in Revelation 12 represents the natural nation of “Israel”. Many people believe this way. But before you pick up stones to cast at me for being a false teacher, realize that this dream to Joseph is NOT the first mention of the sun, moon and stars in one verse in the Bible and that disqualifies it for usage from the law of first mention interpretation rule. Let’s explore the actual first mention of the sun, moon and stars and learn what God teaches us from it.
The very first mention from God of these created objects is found In the book of Genesis chapter 1 verses 13 through 18. This is the account that describes the 4th day of creation. We can learn some very important applicable truths to Revelation 12:1 by applying the interpretation law of first mention using Genesis 1 and not the assumed Genesis 37 reference. When we do this we will discover that God gives us very specific information and clues to the spiritual identities of the symbolic sun, moon and stars. Of course the first challenge is to realize that these heavenly objects are not called by the obvious names “sun” or “moon” like they are in Revelation chapter 12. This fact has been the reason why so many Bible teachers, students and commentators have not seen these relationships before now.
In Genesis 1 the sun and the moon are hidden, by God by labeling them with alternative names of “the greater light” and “the lesser light”. This was an intentionally designed method of God to conceal them and to reveal them to when He desired us to connect them to Revelation 12. In Genesis 1:16 God declares the existence of two great lights. The first He called the “Greater Light” and the second He called the “lesser light”.
We can all understand that the “greater light” represents another name for the sun and the lesser light represents another name for the moon because they are used with the direct named “stars” that are also heavenly created bodies. But, through God’s usage of “greater” and “lesser” lights we get a direct comparison to hidden spiritual truths of the greater light is described as being much more significant and powerful than the other. We can easily understand how this is found in the natural descriptions of the sun versus the moon. The natural sun is a huge ball of consuming fire and the moon is a smaller object than the earth and is a pile of dead rocks. Wow, that description should turn several lights on inside of our minds.
I believe this Greater and lesser light descriptions correspond to a verse of information given to us by God in 1 John 4:4. This verse is where God says to the church “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world”. This is another major corresponding parallel comparison of one spiritual person being on the inside of us that is called “greater” than another “lesser” spiritual being that is in the world. That should begin to turn more lights on in our minds to see things that we may have never read in the Bible before from this perspective.
I am a firm believer that the Greater Light represents Jesus Christ as we learned in the first lesson. As 1 John 4:4 teaches us this One that is called Greater is in a Christian. However, there is someone else implied as the lesser light that we are told is in all the people in the world. Wow, isn’t that amazing that this lesser light could be on the inside of someone? This is definitely a New Covenant spiritual reality that must be understood.
Since we already have learned that the “Greater Light” = the “Sun” and these symbols represent “Jesus” who was, and is, and is to come (Rev 1:8). Ask yourself “who is greater than Jesus”? The obvious answer is no one except God the Father. Therefore, we have not narrowed the scope of the possible identity of the moon the lesser light, in the least. Unless we know who God is speaking of in 1 John 4:4. We learn this from reading the contextual verses. There are two opposing spirits being described in verses 1 through 3. One is the Spirit of Christ and the other is the spirit of “antichrist”. These are opposites like the spirit of Christ whois Good and God and the spirit of antichrist is evil and the devil. What we should begin to see is that the moon (lesser light) appears to represent Satan based upon 1 John 4:4. But, let’s continue to study the rest of this subject in Genesis 1 to confirm these truths.
Remember that Genesis chapters 1 through 3 are vastly connected to the book of Revelation. I like to call them the Book Ends of the entire Bible. What God initiates in Genesis, He completes in Revelation. Let us look at a Genesis 1 quick overview. On Day 1 of creation God creates light to shine on the earth and establishes two separations or divisions of natural and spiritual opposition. One He called “day” and the other He called “night”. These are opposites just as we learned from 1 John 4. We could call this “Day” and anti-day.
We can understand from this statement in Genesis 1:3-5 that the sun and moon must have already existed on Day 1 for any of these days and nights on earth to exist. Think about this statement from God logically, the earth rotates completely every 24 hours to fulfill a one day cycle, that cycle consists of both daylight and darkness. It takes approximately 365 of these revolutions to complete one complete cycle of the earth around the sun. This completed cycle causes the fulfillment of one year. Without the sun’s presence providing light and gravitational pull upon the earth it could not participate in a single day cycle. Again it is the earth’s consistent rotation around the sun that causes each night and day to occur.
Therefore, the sun, moon and stars must have been created in Genesis 1:1 when God’s Word said “In the beginning the A-Z God created the heavens and the earth”. The beginning represents the realm of created matter, space, and time. It is very interesting to see what I just quoted from Genesis, that you may have missed. Did you notice that I said the “A-Z” God created? That is what the original Hebrew literally says using the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. When we go and read Revelation 1:8 we will find Jesus saying I am the Alpha and the Omega (A-Z) again. God used the first and last Hebrew letters in Genesis and the first and last Greek letters in Revelation about the same person that we call Creator. Again we discover more parallels within the bookends.
I also read in Genesis 1:5 “that there was evening and morning the first day”. The fact that God specifically describes a dusk evening event occurrence and a dawn morning event occurrence proves the sun’s existence. Without a physical sun with a turning earth evenings do not occur nor do sunrises in the morning . There are other Bible lessons that are found on this website to learn more reasons from the Bible for why we should believe this way.
Now continue by reading Day 4 of creation and Genesis 1:16. We can see that God introduces a new concept of “ruling” with two “rulers”. In this verse God says that the created sun (the greater light) will rule the Day division and the created moon (the lesser light) will rule the night division that were previously established on Day 1 of creation. It is very interesting to note that these two divisions can be further divided into 12 unique measurements of time commonly called hours. I believe that it is not by accident or coincidence that God has done this. I believe that this is a purposeful, intentional act of God that reveals some new hidden spiritual things to us.
In the last lesson on this subject I introduced you to a potential new controversial Bible topic division with there being the natural nation of Israel and the spiritual nation Israel (James 1:1, 1 Peter 2:9). Each of these two nations also consist of twelve distinct divisions like day and night. These 12 divisions or sub-divisions are called tribes (Gen 49:28, James 1:1). There were 12 tribes which originated from the man Jacob renamed Israel and there were 12 apostles chosen by the man Jesus a type of Jacob. These are all prophetical patterns of night (darkness) and day (light). Two nations one natural, and one spiritual with both having 12 divisions. Adding them together we get 24, the total hours in one day which consists of the dark and light periods of a day. Do you see how this might apply to the church? Do you remember what Jesus said to the Jewish leaders of natural Israel? He said “Search your scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life but these are they that testify of me”. Wow, Jesus was informing them He was on every page of their scriptures but they could not see Him because they were in darkness. But, we in the church if we have the Light of Jesus on the inside of us can find Him everywhere if we are looking in the same verses. This is probably something new to think about and where we go from here may be even a greater challenge for many to receive.
Day and night are natural symbolic references that present spiritual realities revealed to us in the New Testament. Both of these conditions represent the spiritual state of the hearts of men and women on the earth. Day and Night are two distinct and unique kingdom divisions, one of light and one of darkness. The church is said to be in the day and the light and the rest of the world is said to be in darkness. If you use your Bible search program you will find many references to these facts in both the Old and New Testaments. Search for key words like night, day, light and darkness to start with. I also have an entire Bible series on this specific subject called “Understanding Night and Day“. I would highly recommend that you read and study this subject series to better understand the spiritual truths of the existence of two separate spiritual kingdom realities. When you do this you will find that Jesus came into the dark world as a light to be the spiritual ruler of the spiritual day (Kingdom of Light) and Satan became the ruler of the night (kingdom of darkness) after Adam sinned.
There are two spiritual kingdoms and by default all humans are born in the darkness until the Light of God shines in their hearts. Humans can’t be in both kingdoms at the same time. By default we are all born into Satan’s kingdom of darkness until we receive Jesus to be our Lord and then we are translated and reborn spiritually into the Kingdom of Light (Col 1:13). I will try to give you some of the key verses for those that want an overview or review of the subject:
1Th 5:5 Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
God informs the church that we are now of the Day and of the Light. The church is actually called children of the Light. We learned and should now know from other verses in the Bible that God is Light and in Him is no darkness (1 Jn 1:5). Therefore, the saved members of the church are called the spiritual children of God. Here in 1 Thes. 5:5 is a very clear reference that anyone that is not spiritually reborn into the church (not a child of God) is in the night and in the darkness. We also can see that since God has no darkness in Him, these unsaved people in the darkness are completely separated from God. Wow, by default we are not in God and God is not in us. That should concern us if we have never invited Jesus into our heart.
So again we see two parallel truths, one natural truth and one spiritual. These truths represent divisions and separations. Again we should call these divisions “two kingdoms”, one called day and one called night. We also should learn that kingdoms normally have sovereign rulers. Who are the rulers of day and night? We know from studying the Bible that Night and Day are symbolic representations of the conditions of the hearts of men and women on the earth. Therefore, who the ruler of the kingdom within our hearts is either the ruler of Light or the ruler of darkness depending upon who we allow in our heart. But by default it is Satan when no choice has been made. Let’s go through the Genesis 1 day 4 account of creation and determine how this information fits into God’s spiritual pattern found within created natural truths of day and night:
Gen 1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
Gen 1:15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
Did you notice God said that there were lights, plural that were going to divide the day from the night? What did Day and Night represent? Day and night are symbolic states of the spiritual condition (kingdom) of the hearts of humans. These lights were created to provide humans light and life upon the earth. Earth (soil) represents symbolically the spiritual hearts of men and women. Earth is where the sun shines to cause plants, trees and fruit to grow. The church is instructed to produce fruit (John 15). Where does spiritual fruit grow in man and what causes it?
Here is a quick overview of the process taught by Jesus in the Parable of the sower. Jesus taught us that spiritual fruit comes from spiritual trees and spiritual plants that grow in the spiritual ground (the hearts of mankind) by receiving spiritual Seed which is defined to be the Word of God (Mk 4, Lk 8). I could spend a lot of time familiarizing us with these basic Bible concepts, but hopefully we understand them. If not, please go read the Bible series dedicated to the subject of Understanding the Parable of the Sower. Let us continue in Genesis and see what else God says about these two different dominate lights:
Gen 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
We can clearly see that God declares two lights to be the rulers of these two divisions called day and night. These represent exact times of personal choice. Either day or night, there is no third option or realm of existence. If you are saved you are in the Day and if you reject Jesus not believing in Him you are automatically walking in the blindness of darkness.
The Hebrew word translated as “rule” is H4475 is defined to be someone who is in a state of powerful dominion to rule over a kingdom or a government. This cannot be talking about created planetary bodies in the sky. This is so important to understand the parallels being taught to us by the Holy Spirit. These two ruling lights are representative and symbolical patterns of a much greater hidden spiritual truth.
Here again we can observe one of God’s methods of hiding truth being utilized. In this verse God refers to the “sun” by a completely new and different name, called the “greater light” and the moon, He calls the “lesser light“. This verse contains all of the essential elements found describing the symbolic woman in Revelation 12:1. We can see the Sun, the moon and the stars all being mentioned for the very first time in the Bible. Since it is the first time these celestial objects are all mentioned in the Bible, these verses will help us to understand what these objects represent in Revelation 12. This spiritual law is called the law of first mention and is a common practice that God uses to establish and reveal truth to us. So who rules the day, we found out in lesson 1 that it is Jesus Christ the Sun of Righteousness.
SATAN THE MOON/LESSER LIGHT RULER OF THE DARKNESS
We are now going to begin to search and find scriptures in the Bible related to the ruler of the kingdom of darkness. God chose to conceal Satan as the moon ruler using different techniques in the Bible. But, even if these do not use the literal name or title of the “moon” or “lesser light” that does not mean that we will be unable to see that this is what God is speaking of using different references both direct and indirect. For example, here is a good scripture that is certainly related to our current moon subject indirectly using unstated antithesis truth laws:
1 Jn 2:8 Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.
John writing to the church tells them that the “true light” is now shining in them. They have come out of the darkness and the night because they have seen the True Light (Jesus) in the internal spiritual realm. But by the law of inverse truth, if there is a true light, then there is also an antithesis unstated “false light” truth. This is an interesting consideration to ponder. You see the moon who rules the darkness does not produce any light of itself or have any ability to shine light without the existence of the greater light called the sun. The sun as we now know is Jesus Christ and we are beginning to learn the moon is the symbol of Satan the ruler of the spiritual darkness (a kingdom without God). The moon is a false light and a lesser light and the Sun is the True Light and the Greater One. Satan must be the ruler of the darkness; Satan must be the ruler of the night by inference. The concepts of a True Light and a false light is very similar to the saying of the Christ and an antichrist. Jesus is the Christ and Satan is the antichrist. These are just basic Bible patterns and principles of opposites being demonstrated to us. Jesus is good and Satan is evil. But, let us confirm all of this in the Bible:
Eph 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
What we see in this verse directed to the church is a fact that declares our enemy to be the rulers of the darkness of this world. Remember that darkness is a spiritual condition of the hearts of unsaved people that are in the spiritual state of night without light (God). This can only be Satan and his demonic cohorts. Just note the direct reference to someone ruling and where they are said to be the ruler of; this of course is the darkness. Also remember that darkness is simply the nonexistence of light (No God). If we take light (God) away, people will be living in darkness.
It is very important to remember that darkness is a synonymous term for night. If Jesus is the spiritual Light of the world, then those who do not know Christ are people that are in a state of spiritual darkness (night). We should also consider the fact that night is the normal time for good people to rest and evil people to do evil. According to Ephesian 6:12 Satan is the ruler of those individuals without Christ living in darkness. If you noticed in Ephesians 6:12, it said the enemy of the church was a spiritual force that consisted of “principalities” and “powers”. If we again go back to Genesis 1:16 and review the Hebrew word H4475 translated as “rule”, it means to govern and have power over. So we can see that God has given Satan the legal right to seize power over everyone still living in his realm of the darkness. But, then we could also say that for those who belong to Christ, they are now ruled by Jesus, the Light of Day and Satan does not have any legal power or authority over us unless we give it back to him and sometimes we do too easily. Let’s look at another New Testament verse about Satan:
1Co 2:6 Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought:
This verse is again speaking about Satan being called the “prince” of this world. The Greek word translated as “prince” means “ruler”, the one that is above the rest. This is not speaking of a natural or physical kingdom in this verse, but it is speaking of the order within the spiritual realm of darkness. This world is a hidden reference to the spiritual dark world that we do not perceive with our 5 natural physical senses. What we realize from this verse is that this present world is ruled by an unseen spiritual force that will come to nothing eventually. So let’s expand our knowledge with another verse:
Eph 2:2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
Again we see a very clear reference to a “prince” as being a spiritual ruler of the dark world system. Paul writes that we who are now in the church use to obey this prince, but now we should not. The implication is given that we (the church) are now and should remain on the outside from under the control of this dark ruler of the dark world, even though he still is working in those who are not Christians. This Greek word translated as “prince” or “ruler” is clearly stated to be a spiritual being that we cannot perceive with our 5 senses. There is a clear division being stated between two groups of people; one group in the light and one group in the darkness. Here is another witness to exactly what we need to learn today:
Col 1:13 Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:
We can again clearly see a distinction and division being stated between two groups of people. These are clearly stated to be two distinct and different kingdoms and the rulers of the kingdoms are stated to us indirectly and directly. You can clearly see that it directly names Jesus the Son of God to be the ruler of the kingdom that the church now exists within. Indirectly we have to make the association that the “power of darkness” is a reversed and opposite ruler to Jesus (True Light) and he must be the “false light” of the moon. This indirect ruler with power reference can only be Satan the moon we learned in Genesis 1.
We need to understand a new quality of the moon light called deception. The true light of the sun, is so intensely bright that we can see no other lights in the sky normally. But at night the moon can be in any phase or totally dark. This represents the concept of deception. Since we can clearly see the moon at night and it does reflect a light that is not its own, that makes it a type of a deceiver. We learn from reading Revelation 12:9 that Satan is described to be the one that has deceived the whole world. How does he accomplish this? He does it by presenting deceptive thoughts, ideas and suggestions into the human’s mind and if we believe them he has taken us captive. We may talk more about this later.
So we have seen several good Bible references for Satan being called the prince, ruler and power of this present spiritual world of darkness. But, we will see another related scripture found in 2 Corinthians:
2Co 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
Both an explicit and an implied truth is given to us in this verse. We should be able to see that Jesus Christ is recognized to be the spiritual (implied Sun) light, that is trying to shine into the darkened hearts of men and women who believe not the truth. We can logically deduce from this verse that those who believe, are those who the Light of Christ has risen within their spirits and those who are not saved are those that don’t believe in the Light thus still remaining in darkness. This verse implies that those who do not see the light (Jesus) of truth do not see either by 1) their own choice or 2) they have been blocked from seeing the light by Satan’s choice. This inability to see the light can be caused by Satan due to an implied cloud like situation, shadow or other type of blockage within the human mind that causes Jesus (The Word) not to be received internally. These unseeing people are literally spiritually blinded by their own carnal thoughts, ideas or mental distractions. There is an implied spiritual reality that must be casting a shadow internally so that they are unable to see His glorious light. This verse is describing two contrasting spiritual kingdom views between those who are in the darkness versus those that can begin to see daylight.
God also reveals who is blinding those who do no believe in Christ and he is called the “god of this world”, who is again Satan. It is Satan that has blinded their minds so that they cannot see (which literally means to perceive or understand) the light (Word of God) Jesus Christ. Physical blindness is the inability to see natural light clearly, spiritual blindness is the inability to see and understand the spiritual Word of God internally. Blindness can be external or internal according to this verse. Remember Satan who rules the night is said to be the one that keeps the light from shinning into their hearts and he uses thoughts placed in their mind to defeat them.
We are learning that Satan is the symbolic moon who rules those in the darkness and keeps men and women from seeing the True Light through a concept of blocking the light. Because some people see a little false light named Satan (moon) they believe his lies, tricks and deceptions. Our physical moon in the night sky has no life or light in itself. So it is analogous to Satan who is a deceiver with no life or light in him. But do not forget about the natural concept of eclipses that do occur in our natural realm. When this happens the sun’s light can be partially or completely covered or blocked by the moon. This causes humans not to be able to see the true light of the sun for a duration. This happens even though the moon is significantly smaller than the sun. But, since the moon is so much closer to the earth it does not take an object as great as the sun to block the sun. We can learn this by holding up our hand in front of our eyes while looking at the sun. The light from the sun can by blocked by our hand the same as the much larger moon. I hope and pray that you understand these simple natural truths and are transferring this information into the parallels and patterns of the spiritual realm correctly. It would be very helpful to read these lesson more than once.
CONCLUSION
Gen 1:18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
You see in Genesis 1:17 and 18 the reiteration of the truth of God’s word, the sun will rule the day and the moon will rule the night. God prophesies that He will cause two separate spiritual divisions to manifest and one will be called the kingdom of light and the other will be called the kingdom of darkness. Within these kingdoms they will be ruled by two different rulers, one significantly greater than the other. We know that God is light and in Him is no darkness. Therefore we know that God is of the day and that is where the true church now is also, because He is inside of us. These are very powerful spiritual truths that every Christian needs to thoroughly understand and I hope I have helped you to see them.
I’ll leave you in this lesson, with this final bit of information. The fourth day of creation was a prophetic event within human history. God declares that a day with the LORD is as a 1000 years and a 1000 years are even as one day (2 Peter 3:8). If you do the math you will find that Jesus was born 4000 years after Adam was created. In other words Jesus came to the earth on the 4th day of creation as foretold by Genesis 1:16 to bring a spiritual Light to rule men and women and to provide an option out of Satan’s kingdom of darkness. When Jesus came into the dark world as a light He established a spiritual division of rulership that God called Day, meaning He left Satan out in the darkness. This is why the Bible says if Satan would have known what was going to happen, he would not have crucified the LORD of Glory.
Now we have established the identity of two of the major key dependent symbols in the book of Revelation and we should now be able to see clearer the identity of the woman suspect being described causing the other women suspects to move further away from clear focused possibility.
Rev 12:1 And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman (????) clothed with the sun (Jesus Christ), and the moon (Satan) under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:
Are you becoming a great detective and seeing the clues provided by God? So far I have just filled in two of the main dependent symbolic clues and already we have a greatly reduced set of possible suspect candidates for the true identity of the woman in Revelation12. In fact in my mind she can only be one woman in the list of suspect candidates. But, we will continue the study of the identity of the woman in Revelation 12 and hopefully we can all be united and all come to the same conclusion after viewing all of the facts of evidence provided by the Word of God. In my next lesson I will explore further evidence in the Bible for who the moon represents and we will hopefully begin to understand why the woman in Revelation 12 is standing on this moon symbol. We will learn that this is a major clue establishing the moon’s (Satan’s) prophesied position to be under the feet of the Church.
If you want to continue reading this series go to Part 3.
The True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12! Pt 1
(Ver 3.8) This is the Part 1 of a series of extremely advanced spiritual Bible lessons that will reveal and help us to understand the “True Identity of the Woman in Revelation 12“. It is intended for spiritually mature Christians that are not easily offended at learning things that they have not seen before in the Bible. There are many opinions on who this woman is in Revelation 12. Is she a natural physical woman or a spiritual symbolic woman describing someone else? We can go and search the internet and find various approaches to the interpretation of this chapter. However, the vast majority of these interpretations that I found are based upon limited scriptures and more on significant human reasoning and personal opinion of the subject. These sound like they are private types of invalid interpretations of the scripture based upon 2 Peter 1:20. In 2 Peter we are told very clearly that no scripture is of a “private interpretation”. What we learn from Peter is that the Bible will interpret itself. In other words the Author God will explain the passage somewhere else in the Bible! Otherwise, the interpretations is just an opinion which is always trumped by a known fact of truth. A factual truth will always take precedence over any opinion. Which is always overruled by God’s Truth. Therefore we must seek to learn what God says on the subject. That is our goal in this Bible study series!.
INTRODUCTION
Let us recognize a basic law of solid Bible interpretation. What God has declared in His Word about a subject will always take precedence over any natural fact, theory, or opinion that is known and believed to be true by a human. So in this lesson series we are going to focus primarily on what does God say in His Word about this woman. In doing this we will also search the Bible for God’s definitions of the words and symbols used in chapter 12 of Revelation.
We will also analyze some predominate theories that have been widely taught in the church about this woman to either confirm or show them to be less than truthful using the Bible only. Following this Biblical approach to interpretation by allowing the Bible to interpret itself, we will ultimately conclude our beliefs to be based upon the best scriptural evidence that we are able to find with the Holy Spirit’s guidance. While doing this we must ultimately put aside human doctrines, traditions, opinions, biases, prejudices and presumptions to allow the Word of God to overrule.
Finally, if you are a true believer and have been born again, you have the same Holy Spirit inside of you that the Apostle John, Peter, Paul, etc. had in them. You are in the same church that every writer of the Bible was in and this included Paul. Often times I think that we forget this, or don’t know this or just ignore this fact. The same author of the Bible that was on the inside of the writers is on the inside of us to help us to understand the words. But because we may not know this we may not realize that what God did for all the Bible writers, including Paul, He will do for us also. The Bible clearly says that God is no respecter of persons (Act 10:34). Therefore, if He does not do what He did for someone else He has become unjust. However, please understand we must do the things of those that received this ability or we would fail to qualify to receive. This is what Paul said about what he taught:
Gal 1:12 For I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ.
So where did Paul claim to get the information that he was teaching? Apparently it was not from any seminary, synagogue temple or human teacher on this earth. Neither did he attempt to privately interpret the Old Testament with his own individual effort of reasoning. Therefore, this information that he has written for us did not originate on the earth, but rather came directly from the O.T. author, God.
So when I read through some of the lessons on the subject of the identity of the woman in Revelation 12, I was very surprised to see how many quoted sources that came from some external Bible human reference or commentary. Many of the lessons simply said “I think this woman is __________. What do you think?” Few could provide significant Biblical proof or evidence for the identity to the woman, and much of what was taught was based upon ignorance, human reasoning, presumption or speculation. I do not believe that is a valid approach to the interpretation of the Bible.
I cannot emphasize enough the complexity of the Bible and the infinite knowledge of the Holy Spirit Author. He has written the Bible in a fashion that conceals vast amounts of spiritual information, making it very challenging for natural thinking humans to understand. However, we should begin to learn to see and think in spiritual terms as He thinks. We can begin to do this by learning the methods and techniques that God has used in writing the Bible to conceal information in plain sight. As we continue to grow spiritually, we will soon begin to understand much more of the Bible. If you would like to study some of the techniques that God uses for “Hiding the Truth in Plain Sight” then please read that first.
Finally, I would like to reemphasize one key to understanding any part of the Bible is to first learn that the Bible ALWAYS interprets itself. Knowing this we must then learn that there are divinely designed spiritual laws of interpretations that must be known and applied with the Holy Spirit’s help in order to begin to understand any subject. The woman in Revelation 12 is no exception. Please, let us keep this in our minds as we study this subject. Also ask questions while we read the chapter and then look for the answers to the questions in the Bible and I believe the Holy Spirit will lead us to the truth (John 16:13).
STUDY STRATEGY
ASKING GOOD QUESTIONS AND FINDING GOD’S ANSWERS
In this lesson we will be going over several key subjects found in the chapter. These topics will lay the foundation for all of the lessons that will follow. We will address numerous described descriptions and issues that will be key to understanding this woman and her true identity. Here are the sections that will be covered in today’s lesson:
- WHO CAN THE REVELATION 12 WOMAN POSSIBLY BE?
- WHEN DOES THE EVENTS IN REVELATION 12 OCCURR?
- WHAT ARE THE SYMBOLS RELATED TO THE WOMAN?
- WHAT DO THE GIVEN SYMBOLS MEAN TO GOD?
- WHAT IS THE CROWN OF 12 STARS? – “THE NUMBER 12”
- WHAT IS THE CROWN OF 12 STARS? – “THE STARS”
- WHAT IS THE CROWN OF 12 STARS? – “THE CROWN”
- WHO IS THE SYMBOLIC SUN?
- WHO IN THE BIBLE IS TOLD TO WEAR THE SUN?
This will be a lot of questions to answer and new information to learn. I would recommend that you break this lesson into sections and take one at a time. Read what is written and revealed by the Holy Spirit and then go look up all the scriptures in your own Bible to verify that this is what the Holy Spirit inside of you says (Acts 17:11). Let’s get started.
WHO CAN THE REVELATION 12 WOMAN POSSIBLY BE?
Let us start with an identification of the possible candidates for the identity of the woman in Revelation 12. I would strongly suggest that you go find your Bible and open it and read the entire chapter 12 of Revelation. There are only 17 verses in the entire chapter and we will find it begins with the woman’s description and it ends with radically new descriptions of the same exact woman. However, there appears to be a paradox given to us. The woman in verse 1 appears in Heaven and the woman at the end of the chapter is clearly on the earth. That is a very important fact to remember and who this woman must be able to conform with being in two dimensions simultaneously, one being the natural earth and the other being the spiritual heaven.
Everything in chapter 12 between verse 1 and verse 17 is a description of a warfare that is taking place between the woman and Satan. Write down all of the symbols and descriptions in a list to help you organize your thoughts. There is only one woman listed in this chapter and she is our focused priority. However, there are many other symbols and descriptions that are used by God to describe her and all of these are very important.
What does “identity” means? Here is one definition that I found; “the fact of being who or what a person or thing is”. Ok, when a crime is committed in modern times a video camera usually captures images of a suspect. The police detective is charged with the assignment of evaluating the images to determine the “identity” of that suspect. In other words, the suspect is initially labeled as “unknown” and this is how the woman in Revelation 12 should be classified to begin our study. Please do not bring any preconceived bias into this process of identifying the woman. These types of biases will normally only hinder us from finding the truth.
Many times the police detective will use facial recognition software to compare the images with other known criminals from the past. If that does not give them an answer, then sometimes I have seen them post the picture on the news to allow others to call in and help identify the suspect. Well that is a similar paradigm for us to follow in determining the identity of the woman in Revelation 12. We will become Bible detectives charged with discovering her identity by examining previous Bible suspected women.
Like the detective of a crime the suspect woman in Revelation 12 might be a brand new never identified woman or she is more likely a known woman that has been described before in the Bible. I am a believer that this woman in Revelation 12, is someone who occurs in the Bible and has been previously identified using another name or description we could call her alias or really her true identity. Therefore, I will start by providing a list of possible suspect women that I have found in the Bible.
However, it is a good time to ask another logical question to begin our search. We should ask “Is this woman in Revelation 12 a literal previously named or unnamed physical Bible woman or is she a symbolic representation for a known or unknown spiritual woman?” These are the only two categories of valid types of women I have found in the Bible. We all know that God is a Spirit (Jn 4:24) and He created the natural realm (Gen 1). Therefore, this woman could be a single spiritual female being (Zec 5:9), or a physical naturally created female (Gen 2:22), or she could be a symbolic woman for a group of people either natural (Jer 31:32) or spiritual (2 Cor 11:2).
Hopefully you have already read chapter 12 of Revelation and can see as I do that this woman being described must be a symbolic woman representing a larger group of individuals either natural or spiritual. However, there are people who believe this woman is the single physical virgin woman named “Mary” that gave birth to Jesus in Bethlehem. Therefore, we will at least consider her as one of our suspects.
From everything that I have studied so far in the Bible, here are the possibilities with the greatest probability to be a suspect in our attempt to find the identity of the woman in Revelation 12:
- The Earthly Jerusalem, the natural nation of Israel, the Old Testament Covenant Wife of God Jehovah (Gal 4:25, Jer 31:32). This would be a symbolic woman that represents a completely natural nation of people named Israel in the O.T.
- The Heavenly Jerusalem (Heb 12:22), the spiritual mother of Jesus, the church (Gal 4:26) and all those born from the dead (Col 1:15-18, Rom 8:29). This would be a symbolic woman that is a representation for a completely spiritual group of beings.
- The New Jerusalem, the Church, the Bride, the New Covenant Wife of Jesus Christ and the Lamb (Rev 21:2). This would be a woman that represents a new spiritual nation of believers in Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:9).
- Finally, the physical natural woman named Mary, the natural virgin mother of the naturally born Son of God/Son of Man named Jesus (Mat 1:16). This would represent a woman that is an individual created female.
No doubt there will be many that will read this list of 4 possible suspect candidates and not understand it. Possibly you have other women in the Bible that you can think of that this woman in Revelation 12 could possibly fit the suspect profile for. If you would like to leave a comment and share her with us, I will read what you think. I would however, ask that you please give us Bible verses that help to confirm what you are saying.
Perhaps you noticed from the list of suspects, three symbolic women were all named “Jerusalem“. However, they were made to be individual and separate by the qualifiers, “earthly”, “heavenly” and “new”. I believe that if we study the Bible very carefully to observe what is said, we will discover that there are 3 completely different covenant cities in the Bible which are all called by the exact same name Jerusalem. This is just one technique that God used to conceal truth from us in the Bible (Prov 25:2). God calls multiple separate things by the exact same name and this causes us to ask which one is He referring to in every occurrence of the singular name “Jerusalem” with no qualifier.
We should already realize that there are natural things and spiritual realities that can and do co-exist simultaneously and these can be called by the same name, title or description. I’ll give you a very important example from the book of Hebrews. In Hebrews 8:4-5 God writes to teach us the difference between earthly priests and the temple and the spiritual same. God very clearly says that Moses was given “patterns” of things that pre-existed in the heavenly temple to build here on earth. This is tremendous knowledge to learn from and has vast implications attached to it. This implies the Heavenly Temple had a Heavenly High Priest and that what was made on temporary earth for the natural nation of Israel was made in the image of the existing spiritual reality.
In other words Heaven exist first, then came the natural later. Who could this Heavenly Priest been before Jesus came into the world? I believe it was Satan. Remember Satan is described having a breastplate like a High Priest in Ezekiel 28:13. We do know from reading Hebrews 8 that Jesus is our High Priest in the New Covenant. Wow, do you see the repeated patterns being transitioned from the Heavenly to the Earthly and then back to the Heavenly in the New? This is one reason why I believe in 3 cities named “Jerusalem”.
I believe every one of these cities named Jerusalem (Heavenly, Earthly and New) represents a symbolic female (nation of individuals) in a separate covenant relationship with God. I know this is brand new information to most of my new readers. But please do not discard it very quickly without studying it in full. Something new does not mean it is something untrue.
Also, I have found verses that all four of these suspect women in my list are described in the Bible as having children and being mothers. For example, the Heavenly Jerusalem is called a spiritual mother of the church in Galatians 4:26. The virgin Mary is obviously called a mother in Matthew 1 and Luke 1. The natural nation of Israel which is also called Earthly Jerusalem is called a mother in Matthew 23:37 and Galatians 4:25. We will hopefully get to the verses about the New Jerusalem being a mother later in the series as we learn. But, any of these suspected women could fit the pattern description of being the pregnant woman in Rev 12. I do not have the time to completely explain all of this in one lesson, so please go and study it for yourself or be patient to see what else will come next. I also have multiple other Bible lessons on this website that will help you.
WHEN DO THE EVENTS IN REVELATION 12 OCCUR?
There are 5 basic “W” questions to ask when studying any Bible subject. This is for us to ask God “who”, “what”, “when”, “where” and “why”. I would like us to address these questions in this Bible study series. We will start this lesson on Revelation 12 with the basic and very important question “when does these chapter 12 events of Revelation occur?” I believe that when we understand the timing given to the events being described we can better understand which suspected women can be eliminated because of their potential alibies of being at some other place at some other time with some other people. Ha ha! It should be obvious that Revelation 12 is either:
1) a past historical event,
2) a present day current event or
3) a future coming event.
This may be a very new approach for many Bible students. I have never seen anyone attempt to explain this woman in this way before. We also will begin this study from a very different scripture than what you might expect. Since we are studying about chapter 12 of Revelation, I would like for us to back up and begin reading with Revelation chapter 1 and verse 19.
Rev 1:19 Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter;
Notice how Jesus gives John the outline for the entire book of Revelation here in this verse. Jesus instructs John to write about things that he has seen in the past first. Then write about things he is seeing currently now in the present tense. And finally, to write about things that will happen in the future tense LAST! Wow, that sounds important to know. Jesus certainly understood what was going to be written. Therefore, we just learned how the information should flow and be organized.
Now we need to read chapter 4 to learn something very important that God says concerning the timing of the events in Revelation 12. Determining the correct timing will help us tremendously to understand which interpretation is applicable and valid and which interpretations are easily excused or dismissed as suspects. I pray so sincerely that this is understood? Let us read Revelation 4:1 to find out the timing of the Revelation 12 events:
Rev 4:1 After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.
Some obviously read scriptures and just ignore them, don’t understand them or fail to apply them later. With any o these we are going to fall short in our understanding of the Bible. Here in this verse we have God in Heaven telling the apostle John “after this” to “come up” to heaven so that He can be shown the things that will occur after what was previously discussed and written about. What was previously written in chapters 2 and 3? We should all know that these were the 7 letters to the 7 churches. We may or may not know that these represent 2 perspectives.
First, the 7 letters to the 7 churches were literal physical churches that existed at the time this book of the Bible existed in 90 A.D. Second these 7 churches represent 7 periods of time within the entire 2000 year time of the church age. If these churches were not listed in this specific order and described in these specific ways, there would not be an accurate ability to apply them to this time period. What is my point? The point is Revelation 4:1 begins with “After this” and this can be used to inform us that what is happening next in the Book of Revelation is after the church age has ended.
This would mean that from this point in time forward of Revelation 4:1 everything is after the church has been raptured into heaven. We know this by studying the Greek word “metah-taupah” that was translated as the English word “after this” and “hereafter” in Revelation 4:1. This is the exact same word that used in Revelation 1:19 where Jesus gave us the outline of the book of Revelation to John saying “write what you have seen (Past Tense), the things that are (Present Tense) and the things that will come hereafter (Future Tense) “metah-taupah”. Revelation chapter 1 is the past tense division of the book. Revelation chapters 2 and 3 were the present tense division of the book being applicable to the church age. Then beginning in Revelation 4 and following these are ALL the things that had not occurred during the church age and are a designated division of future tense events.
Therefore, we should realize that from chapter 4 forward, whatever was written by John, God says has NOT occurred at the exact time of the words being written down. If you disagree with this please just leave a kind comment and explain why. Otherwise, let us all please take the Bible literally at every opportunity that is permissible. One good law of basic Bible interpretation is that “when the plain sense makes good sense, apply no other sense, or we can stumble into nonsense”. That would be different than takin the woman in Revelation 12 literally as she is described to be wearing the Sun, while standing on the moon. That makes no plain sense, therefore we must apply the new sense of symbolism to understand what is being communicated.
I think what potentially confuses some, is the fact that God uses future symbolism in Revelation which describes previous scriptural people, events, things and individuals. All of these new symbols existed prior to this writing of Revelation and were written about in other books using different names, titles or descriptions. Therefore, some of these future symbols will reflect historical and existing spiritual and physical realities like Jesus, Satan, angels, the church, the nation of Israel, and other spiritual entities that must already pre-exist before Revelation 4:1. We can see and learn this very clearly by reading Revelation 12:9. We are introduced to a key figure in Revelation 12 called the dragon and God defines who this symbol represent in verse 9 very clearly. Here God says the “dragon” represents the “old serpent” called the “Devil” and “Satan”. Wow, that is a major revelation of how God defines symbols in the Book of Revelation and chapter 12 specifically.
Therefore, what is prophesied to happen to these historical or existing entities in the future could be easily confused with past event occurrences that have already occurred because of the similarities and patterns that are given to us in these future descriptions of new events that happen to existing spiritual beings like Satan. God makes it so clear by calling the “dragon” the ancient serpent from Genesis 3:1. He then connects these two symbols, the serpent and the dragon to be one named spirit being named “Satan”. This information is vital to learn and know and it teaches us so much about interpreting the woman in Revelation 12 also.
Please understand there is a difference between something that is prophesied to happen to someone that already exists and something that has already happened to someone a longtime before. The first conforms with the declaration of Revelation 4:1 about future events and the second is , is a major conflict and a problem. We must change our perspective to say the prophesied birth of the woman’s child has not occurred when the book of Revelation was written. Because that would violate the definition of a prophecy and conflict with the scripture we just read in Revelation 4:1 where God says everything that is stated from this point forward has NOT yet occurred. I pray that this brings us clarity and agreement.
What we are going to soon discover is that there are statements found in Revelation 12 that will cause most people to gravitate to a specific pre-drawn conclusion of the identity of the woman in Revelation 12 because she is described to be 1) pregnant, 2) her child after birth is said to be caught up (raptured) to heaven and 3) because her child is said to rule with a rod of iron. Therefore, we all have automatically been drawn to and concluded without studying or taking into account Revelation 4:1 that the child must be the birth of the naturally born Jesus described in Matthew 1 and Luke 1, born in the town of Bethlehem. I use to think this way. But, I learned this thinking forces the woman in Revelation 12 to either be 1) the one physical woman Mary or 2) the collective symbolic woman of the natural nation of Israel (aka Earthly Jerusalem).
However, I believe that this rapid jump into a premature conclusion interpretation that potentially causes God’s Word to appear to be confused. God would seem to be someone that does not know the truth. I do not personally believe that God is confused or that this event of the child’s birth has already occurred as we know from Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels! Therefore, we should begin to understand that this interpretation of the child in Revelation 12 being naturally born Jesus causes a major conflict with scriptures. We would have to ignore Revelation 4:1 or explain it away to mean something it does not say.
This type of pre-drawn fast conclusion in Bible study would be like a police detective assuming a suspect’s identity without first examining all of the evidence that has been found at the crime scene. Because a few facts point us to one assumed main suspect that is easily remembered does not produce evidence beyond a reasonable doubt for a conviction. This is often times called “circumstantial evidence”. The circumstances being described to us in Revelation 12 appear to be only 1 suspect that does not make it the truth. Like I said before maybe this person has an alibi and this would cause an injustice to be initiated for our suspected woman’s identity.
Let me try to say this a different way. Just because one man fits a partial description of someone we think is Jesus Christ does not mean the suspected mother identity should should be arrested and found guilty without examining all of the rest of the substantial proof and evidence of every known truth in the rest of the chapter.
What if our suspect candidate that was arrested had an unknown twin sister and she committed the crime? What if that twin that did not commit the crime became the identified and assumed suspect and got arrested, tried and convicted based upon just the video camera recordings? Is that fair to her? Why then is it fair to this woman in Revelation to claim that she is the virgin Mary or natural nation of Israel when all of the evidence has not been found or analyzed?
Clearly in Revelation 12 God is now revealing new information to John a long time AFTER the physical birth, death, resurrection and the ascension of Jesus into heaven. I also would like to point out that Revelation 12 says the “child” is “caught up” and that does not match the description of the ascension given in Acts 1 of the man Jesus rising slowly into heaven. Also, Jesus was a full grown mature man of at least 33 1/2 years of age and Revelation 12 says her son that is caught up as a child. We also need to know that this word translated as “caught up” in Revelation 12, is G726 (harpazo) and it literally means to “seize suddenly by force”. The ascension of the man Jesus in Acts 1 uses a different Greek word G1869 (epairo) and this does not match the type or method of Jess going up. The evidence is just not in complete alignment and agreement for this child to be Jesus, even though there are some similarities. I think we are getting off of our main line of thought so let’s wrap this part of the lesson up and move on to the next topic.
What I believe is that God is trying to get us to see, is the fact that the prophecies going forward from Revelation 4 are all about coming future events and not about historical past events that have already occurred. We can easily disagree with God, if we would like to but that is probably why our Bible interpretations seem to conflict with other scriptures.
Forgive me for saying this again, but if God says that He will show us things to come in Revelation 4:1, we know that chapter 12 comes after chapter 4 and must have not occurred. If this is true there is a major problem with the majority of interpretations of the woman in Revelation 12 that I have heard and read being the natural nation of Israel.
I believe that too many teachers have jumped to a quick conclusion that the child born must describe the birth of the physical natural child named Jesus in Bethlehem and therefore the woman must be the natural nation of Israel or the physical woman Mary. And we know they teach this way even though this birth of physical Jesus took place even before the church age began. This is ignoring critical scriptural evidence that must be applied in this lesson series to help us understand that she must be a different pregnant woman suspect than the obvious one that everyone believes.
Maybe this will help us to ask this, when did John write this book? Was it after Jesus was born or before Jesus was born? Most Bible scholars will agree that the book of Revelation was written a long time after the birth of Jesus and could have been written somewhere around the year 90 to 96 AD. Obviously it should be clear in our minds that Revelation was written well after the physical birth of Jesus. Therefore, we must conclude that the baby described in Revelation 12 can NOT be physical Jesus using this information, and logical application of the factual truths of Revelation 1:19 and 4:1.
I know that this may upset a great number of readers that have already predetermined who the woman and her child represents. But yet we are just reading and studying the Bible and seeing what God says. If God would have said in Rev 4:1 come up here and I will show you the things that have already happened and the things that will come hereafter, then that changes our prospective view of the possible interpretations significantly. Since that is not the case, what we must conclude based upon the Word of God is that the pregnancy of the woman and the birth of the child in Revelation 12 are both future events that will happen after the minimum of 90 AD.
I personally believe that God says what He means and means what He says. Therefore, let us continue to study and move forward asking more questions so that the Holy Spirit on the inside can help us resolve these conflicts that we are seeing in the scriptures. We have spent enough time trying to answer the “when” question. But, I could spend a lot more time on this topic but I will conclude this section with asking you when do the other events of Revelation 4 through 22 occur? Please go study and read them and ask have any of these other events occurred yet? Has the anti-Christ been revealed? Has the judgments of God been initiated? Are there two witnesses standing in the city of Jerusalem preaching to the nations? Are there a 144000 with 12,000 from each of the tribes of Israel being used by God yet? Has the whore Babylon been destroyed? Has the star wormwood hit the earth and turned a lot of water to an undrinkable condition? On and on we could go. I know that some say that these have already occurred but they are clearly wrong. Don’t be deceived to believe these events have occurred already. They are ALL about to happen in a very short time from now. Amen.
WHAT ARE THE SYMBOLS RELATED TO THE WOMAN?
In order to identify the woman in Revelation 12 correctly, I found that it was critical to accurately identify the woman’s associated symbolic characteristics and descriptions first. This is us asking some of the “what” questions about the woman. What is she wearing, what is she standing on, what is she doing? What does it mean to be wearing a crown? What does it mean to be clothed with the Sun? What does it mean to be standing on the moon?
What we will discover when we study to find the answers to these question concerning the given symbolic descriptions of the woman’s features, these clearly point us to ONLY one possible valid truthful identity in our suspect list. It is what I call “dependent truth relationships”. Until we identify the “parent” truths, we will never understand the “child” truths. I am not really sure if you understand this concept that I just introduced you to. But, please give me a chance to explain and please be patient to learn.
This concept of truth dependency is found in the Bible, and naturally created patterns like computer programming and other paradigms. For example we view this truth in the natural world when speaking of children born from their parents. But, in object oriented computer programming languages this feature can be called “inheritance”. This is where one computer object (class) inherits or takes on the qualities and features from another pre-defined dependent object (class) that existed prior to the creation of the new object. We can not fully understand the new child’s object capabilities without first fully understanding the source of inherited parent’s object characteristics. If you do know anything about object oriented computer programming you still may be struggling with this concept applying to the Bible. So I’ll try to apply this concept by teaching about the parent symbols found in Revelation 12 to help us understand the woman’s dependent characteristic identities and this will help us narrow the woman’s identity eliminating everyone else that she can’t be.. Most of these dependent parent symbol truths start with information found in Revelation 12:1:
Rev 12:1 And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars:
We can see immediately in verse 1 that this referenced woman is “clothed” with a very significant object referred to as a symbolic “sun”. Then we are informed that she is “standing with her feet” upon another very significant specific object named to be a symbolic “moon”. Finally on her head she is “crowned” with another symbolic item of a crown containing “12 stars”. What we should start with, is to realize that this information dictates facts of truth that this described woman MUST be a symbolic representation of a greater spiritual truth because of the nature of the symbolic descriptions selected and their placements on her physical body which are used by God to describe her.
Normally God gives us symbolic information using natural objects that we can understand to help represent spiritual truths that we have never seen or understood. Jesus used this technique numerous times in the form of parables like the Parable of the Sower, the Parable of the Wheat and Tares, etc. By us understanding these natural object identities we can then transfer this knowledge into understanding the dependent unstated and unseen spiritual truth dimension. What are the given key symbols from Revelation 12:1?
- A Woman
- Clothed with Sun
- Standing on the Moon
- Crowned with 12 Stars
The most important things to take away from what we have read so far is to understand that there is a woman, the sun, the moon and the 12 stars and these must ALL be symbolic references using naturally created God objects pointing us to much greater hidden spiritual truths. We know this fact of truth because it is impossible to physically wear the literal “sun” as clothing. We could place a picture representation of the sun on our shirt, pants, robe or whatever we were wearing but that is not what God said. God literally says she is wearing the sun not a picture. Therefore, this is a word description and association containing a hidden definition that God must provide their meanings to us somewhere in His Word.
I’ll try to go further with the objected oriented programming concepts because this does apply to understanding the Bible and our specific subject. If you are not a computer programmer you may want to jump to the next paragraph. But in computer programming any named object (class) can possess pre-defined data members and member function methods. These can be inherited by a new dependent object type of a similar kind with new or modified data and feature methods. Let’s go a bit deeper. For example, the Sun can synonymously also be called a Star. Therefore, the Sun object could inherit specific characteristics from the more generic (general) Star object. But the Sun implementation can contain new specific data, information and methods that pertain only to our closest star object we call our sun. If you are struggling with this concept, I understand.
Maybe this will be more understandable for non-programmers if we view it in the terms of a new child born to any human woman. This new child will obviously inherit DNA characteristics from the contributing parents (mother and father). These DNA characteristics will include possible hair color, nose shape and size, eye color and shape, height, weight and on and on we could go. I know people when they looked at my son, they knew I was his father because of the passed down resemblance of his characteristics and features. This is called a type of inheritance. My son inherited features from me and my wife. Hopefully, this knowledge will help us as we continue to study because it is taught relates to what we are seeing in the Bible about Revelation 12.
I’ll give you a quick Bible reference to inheritance in the beginning of the Bible to assist us how this applies. For example, go and read Genesis 1:26 when God said “Let us make man in our image and after our likeness…”. The Hebrew word translated as “image” means a “resemblance” or “a representative example”. This would be like a model of a car or an airplane. The small model is not the real airplane but viewing the model we can discover the real’s main characteristics and features.
Believe it or not that describes the Object Oriented programming type of inheritance also. We can look at the Originating God Creator (class/object) and begin to understand the created model man (class/object) because of man’s similar inherited features, abilities, etc. I hope and pray that this knowledge does not complicate your ability to understand this study. If you are struggling, that is OK. Just keep reading and it will come into focus as we continue. Let’s move on to explore the dependent symbols given to us by God.
These symbols of the woman clothed with the sun, standing on the moon and crowned with 12 stars are six of the most important dependent parent to child truths that I was referring to earlier. These 6 must be understood accurately in order to correctly identify the dependent woman in Revelation 12 with confidence. In other words, if we understand these symbolic object in detail, we will be more assured of who the woman truly represents.
This is where many Bible teachers and students have started to miss it in their interpretations. Many have focused in on the woman and her child predominately and only 3 of her dependent object relationships, while ignoring the other 3 key symbols given to us by God that are very significant. They usually focus only on the existence of a sun, a moon and the stars and do not attempt to explain what wearing the sun means, standing on the moon means or to be crowned with 12 stars means. Uh oh, that sounds like a very significant problem of partiality or fact and truth omission. This would be like taking 3 facts that you believe you understand and ignoring the other 3 because you don’t understand them.
I will briefly teach concerning the predominate reasoning given by the majority of Bible teachers for the identity of the woman in Revelation 12. The majority of modern Bible teachers believe the woman is Israel because these 3 objects (sun, moon & stars) were found in Genesis 37 given to Joseph by God in the dream. In this dream Joseph was shown that the sun, the moon and 11 stars bowed down to him. Therefore, these teachers have concluded that this dream is close enough to be used to claim these objects collectively represent only the nation of Israel. The key word is “ONLY” in that last sentence. Joseph’s father Jacob interprets the dream and he informs us the sun is him, the moon is Joseph’s mother and the 11 stars are Joseph’s brothers. But, let us ask this question, is that all these objects represent and is this the first time they are mentioned in the Bible? The correct answers to both of these questions is essential to understanding the truth of Revelation 12.
So let me ask you how do we resolve these apparent conflicts? Did you see the conflicts between applying this dream and our application to the woman in Revelation 12 her associated symbol placements? One set of symbols are bowing uniformly in the dream and the other corresponding symbols in Revelation are spread out all over her body from head to toe. Then there is the problem there are only 11 stars and not 12. To this the common answer is Joseph is the 12th star and 11 is close enough to the number 12.
So how do we apply Jacob’s interpretation to Revelation 12? If we did this the woman (Israel) would be clothed with Jacob, standing on Rachel and being crowned with Rueben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph and Benjamin. Does any of these placement make any common or plain sense to you? The most significant problem of conflict would be for the nation of Israel to be standing on Rachel, Jacob’s beloved wife. Being stood upon is not a position of respect or honor. I believe this is a very major fact that is being completely misunderstood or ignored by modern Bible teachers. We will look at this subject in more depth later in this series, but for now let us continue forward to complete this section of our lesson.
Our approach in studying these symbol subjects will be radically different that the approach to other good Bible teachers. We will examine the woman and the child with less focused priority to begin with and shift to focus in on these other three object symbols first. Specifically we will attempt to discover the meanings of how these 3 objects are mentioned by God with their direct functions of being clothed, standing on and crowned with. I believe that when we do this, we will obtain the keys to unlock the identity of this woman in Revelation 12 more precisely. I believe that this is a transformational departure from natural human logic and reasoning. We will soon discover how this new approach will benefit us tremendously in our understanding of truth, while eliminating other women suspects that do not fit with this method of study.
WHAT DO THE GIVEN SYMBOLS MEAN TO GOD?
What does the sun, the moon and the stars all have in common? 
They are ALL heavenly created bodies that can be seen and observed from the earth. That information right there ought to start us thinking in a different way. What does the earth represent in other symbols given to us in the scriptures? Jesus taught us in the parable of the sower that earth represented the hearts of men. I believe that is very relevant to know so keep that in mind. Then consider this, these objects exist in varying distances from the earth. Also know that the earth revolves around one main object called the sun. Second, the moon revolves around the earth primarily and the sun secondarily and this is very important to understand. Third, the stars are just very distant suns that are too innumerable to count in the heaven. This is just basic cosmological information that we can gather on the internet. But, I believe very sincerely that all of these natural objects have much greater spiritual significance by God’s divine wisdom and design. I believe this based upon Roman 1:20 where God informs us His invisible qualities can be seen being found in the things that He has created in our world. I believe this included the sun, moon and stars.
Let us begin our detail symbol analysis of these objects individually by digging into the crown of 12 stars first and then we will move to the sun clothing next and finally her position of standing on the moon object last.
WHAT IS THE CROWN OF 12 STARS? – THE NUMBER 12
Let’s start briefly with the crown of 12 stars and the number 12. I believe that many Bible teachers focus with too much emphasis of the woman’s identity without noticing the significance of the number 12. We should know from Bible study that the number 12 has a lot of significance throughout the entire book from Genesis to Revelation. This number could apply to the natural nation from the man God named Israel who progenerated his 12 sons (Gen 35:22) to produce the 12 tribes of Israel. But the number 12 could also apply to the spiritual church (a spiritual Israel according to Galatians 6:16, 1 Peter 2:9 and others) that also produced 12 spiritual tribes (James 1:1) that originated from the 12 called apostles of the Lamb (Mat 10:2). There are also other twelves in the Bible that I find very interesting. For example, did you know that Ishmael the first son of Abram by Hagar had 12 sons (Gen 25:16)? I wonder why God put that in the Bible? There appears to be a connection to Hagar and the Earthly Jerusalem from reading Galatians 4. However, that is a new problem for a different Bible study. Did you know that the Levite High Priest wore a breastplate with 12 stones with the names of the 12 tribes on them? Did you know that Satan’s breastplate only had 9 stones with one row missing from the Israel Hight Priest breastplate? That too is another problem for another lesson. Did you know that the foundation of the New Jerusalem had 12 layers of similar stones like the High Priest and will contain the names of the 12 Apostles of the Lamb (Rev 21:14)? Did you know that the Tree of Life at the end of Revelation produced 12 kinds of fruit 12 months of every year? There are just a lot of patterns that are in parallel. Did you know that there are 12 gates into the city New Jerusalem? Also in the New Jerusalem we find it is 144 cubits tall which is twelve multiplied by twelve as well as being 12,000 furlongs square? We could go on and on with the number 12 study.
The Number 12 in Biblical numerological terms typically represents a perfected governmental foundation. For example, a jury in a court of Law normally is comprised of 12 Jurors in the U.S. There are over 180 references in the Bible to the number 12. There are 22 references found in the book of Revelation alone. We could spend days on this study of the number 12. It is also important to note that the number 12 is very specifically related by God to be a descriptive quantifier for the number of the “stars” on her head and does not specifically address or identify the woman directly. Even though this number 12 does appear important it is not specific enough to anyone that I have found in the Bible as to establish one possible candidate suspect individually.
What I am trying to teach in this section is that the number 12 is; in and of itself not sufficient evidence to determine which possible candidate could be selected. However, it may be sufficient to exclude or eliminate at least 1 possible candidate. Using this number “12” information alone we could interpret that the woman is potentially either 1). natural Israel or 2). the spiritual church because of the 12 tribe son association. Currently I do not know of any Bible number of 12 that God has associated with the physical natural woman Mary. Therefore, based upon this information we can almost guarantee that the woman is not the physical virgin Mary. However, if you search the internet you will find many people that believe this woman is Mary and they have created pictures of a woman that they call Mary wearing a crown of 12 stars. Personally, I do not agree with them because of what we will learn very soon. But we will explore Mary more as we continue our search and confirmation.
WHAT IS THE CROWN OF 12 STARS? – THE STARS
Let’s now go through a brief discussion of the Bible subject of the “stars”. From my study I have found that there are many references in the Bible that directly or indirectly identify stars to be symbolic references to angels. We can see one very important example of this directly in this chapter 12 of Revelation in verse 4. In verse 4 God describes the tail of the dragon sweeping 1/3 of the stars down to the earth from heaven. Most Bible scholars believe this is a clear reference to the number of angels that fell with Lucifer in time past. I do agree with that interpretation completely.
The Greek word G792 translated as “star” is the word that we are currently discovering. This is the Greek word found in Revelation 12:1 and 4. It is used by God in the New Testament 24 times in 21 verses. Wow, 12 + 12 = 24 and there are 12 stars on her head. I wonder if that is significant? Revelation chapter 1 verses 16 and 20 also provides some very relevant star information and definition. In verse 16 of Revelation 1, Jesus is described to have seven stars in His hand. Then in verse 20 Jesus Himself defines what this symbol means by saying the 7 stars are the 7 angels of the 7 churches.
Now we are really getting much deeper into this star subject than I really wanted to, but we will continue. The Greek word G32 is this word translated as angel widely in the New Testament. However, God does occasionally use this word to mean a “messenger” and even a “pastor”. We know heavenly angels are widely used as messengers for God, sent to people on the earth. We can find this in the Old and New Testament several times. In the KJV Bible, translators chose to translate G32 as “messenger” in 7 verses. For example, it is used this way in Matthew, Mark and Luke to describe John the Baptist and his disciples. It is translated as “messenger of Satan” in 2 Corinthians 12:7 in reference to the thorn in Paul’s side that he prayed for God to take from him three times. Finally, in the book of James it is written and used to describe the two spies that were sent into Jericho for Rahab the harlot’s salvation.
Ok, this word translated as angel, angels, messenger or messengers is also used in the seven letters written to the 7 churches in Revelation chapters 2 and 3. Remember Jesus said in Revelation 1 the 7 stars in His right hand were the 7 angels. But, I believe that these references should also be messengers or more specifically “pastors”. You see Jesus said in the letters “Unto the angel of the church of ….”. Why would Jesus write a letter to an heavenly angel when He can simply call them over and talk to that angel in heaven at anytime He wants. That just doesn’t logically make sense to me.
No, I believe these 7 angels in Revelation 2 and 3 should be referred to as the 7 pastors that bring the message of God to His people in the church. Jesus is bringing us information for the benefit, edification, correction and warning to church people here on the earth. These 7 letters were written for all of our benefit. We in the church are the ones that require the help that is offered.
What I have concluded is that the 12 stars on the head of the woman in Revelation 12 represents the 12 Apostles of the Lamb who were shepherds (aka Pastors) to spread the good news of Jesus to others in the world. Through them this good news spread and the church grew. On the Day of Pentecost there were 120 that were filled with the Holy Spirit (12 times 10 equals 120 an interesting 12 relationship). While the number of 12 Stars does not specifically confirm the church it certainly does not eliminate the church either to be the woman. I can see how some could believe the 12 stars could possibly represent the 12 tribes of Israel. However, why they are found on a crown should raise a lot of new questions If you are able to see things differently you are welcome to share your verses with me. Let us move the study to that of the “crown” found on her head. This symbolism represents greater priority based upon its direct contact and physical positioning. Which woman does the Bible claim is to be crowned?
WHAT IS THE CROWN OF 12 STARS? – THE CROWN
I will now go over the specific “Crown” symbol to determine who can qualify Biblically to be this crowned woman in Revelation 12. We are going to do this by studying the Greek word G4735 that was translated as “crown”. This Greek word is defined as an “intertwined or woven wreath worn on the head as a symbol of royalty, or as a symbol for the prize for winning the victory in the public games, or as a symbol of honor. I think all of these are great descriptions and helps to narrow the focused candidates very significantly. Think about the definition and then think what else we know of the Bible. If nothing comes in your mind immediately I’ll give you a few important things to consider.
The Greek word translated as “crown” (G4735) is used by the Holy Spirit in 18 N.T. verses. That is a fairly narrow number to study them all but I will be selective to limit the size of the lesson. I would suggest that you go and read them all when you have the time. We will begin with an overview of the Gospels first.
In the Gospels, this Greek word is found 4 times in association with the crucifixion of Jesus. However, in this example it was not used as a crown of victory, honor or royalty but rather as a crown of mockery because it was made of “thorns”. It caused Jesus great pain and great humiliation and caused His head to bleed. Roman’s used this symbol as a mockery to laugh at him crying “Hail the King of the Jews”. Wow, that is the opposite of how the woman in Revelation is described.
Ok, next is the letters to the church and the first time this Greek word is mentioned is in 1 Corinthians 9:24-25. Here we have a very applicable description for the church obtaining this crown. Verse 24 speaks of people running a race and in verse 25 Paul wrote of them seeking for a “corruptible crown”. A corruptible crown is one that will not last, in other words it represents a temporary honor given from a temporary victory. You see in these types of games they never end. It is like the Olympics where runners run every 4 years to compete for the same prize. Someone will obtain the victor’s crown for that race but they know that there will soon be another contest that may be won by another faster, stronger, and younger competitor. It is a very fleeting recognition and victory.
Now Paul by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit compares this temporary crown to a crown that the church is seeking to obtain. This crown he called an “incorruptible crown”. This is a lasting type of honor rewarded from a victorious ending from a life-time of victories. Incorruptible means this crown will not decay or fade to nothing. It will be one that endures eternally. This is a spiritual reward from a spiritual contest. You see the church is told to “Fight the Good Fight” (1 Tim 6:12). The Church is told “Run the Race” (1 Cor 9:24). The church is told “we wrestle not with flesh and blood….” (Eph 6:12). All of these admonitions are types of Olympic events and contests to whom the winner gets the reward. Wow, I think that is amazing. This crown of victory worn by the woman in Revelation 12 sure sounds like the description of a victorious church and we will learn a lot more about who this victory is over very soon in this lesson series.
I am not going to go over any more verses, because of the amount of information, space and time it would take to write about it in full and the time increase required for you to read about it. I will recommend again that you go and search your New Testament for the Greek word G4735 and study them all. I believe you will find overwhelming evidence that this woman in Revelation 12 is only confirmed to be the church based upon this symbol. I have not found a direct reference to it being anyone else using this divinely chosen Greek word. If you know of any verses that describe natural Israel to be a woman with a crown please shared them. I will tell you that there is another woman in Revelation 17 called the “Mystery Babylon the Whore” that claims that she is a queen in Rev 18:7. This certainly does appear to indicate she has or had a crown at one time or the other on her head. She is also called a mother in Rev 17. Wow, we can’t go any deeper in this lesson about this woman, but it is noteworthy to mention.
I will end this section on the crown with 1 Peter 5:4 “When the Chief Shepherd (Jesus) shall appear you will receive a crown (G4735) of glory that will not fade away”. Wow, Wow and Wow. Praise the LORD! Let’ change subjects and learn the most important dependent subject, the Sun.
WHO IS THE SYMBOLIC SUN?
What we need to do now is to address the easiest and most profound symbol concerning the identity of the woman in Revelation 12, the “Sun”. There are literally more confirmations in scripture to the identify the Sun symbol than any other Revelation 12 symbol topic. It is also essential to understand that this woman is said to be “clothed” with the sun and this means that she is literally “wearing” this object. We understand that like any natural clothing this sun must have been “put on” in order for it to be worn. This demonstrates a voluntary act of freewill choice. In other words, a woman goes to her closet and chooses which garment to place on her body on purpose. Therefore, this “sun” clothing is a highly dependent qualifier that MUST be understood in order to determine her identity correctly. Also what it means to be selected as clothing is another major dependent qualifier for determining identity. There are just so many questions that should come to mind if given any thought. For example:
- Who or what is this sun? Is the sun literal or symbolic?
- Why is she wearing the sun?
- What purpose or benefit would it be to be clothed with this object?
- Why is this object described as clothing and not some other relationship?
- What does a woman do with clothing?
- How does a woman choose her clothing?
- If she is wearing the sun, she is wearing light. Who should be a light in the world today?
There are so many questions that could be asked with the need to be understood and answered using the Bible. Let’s get started learning about the “sun”.
The Greek word translated as “sun” in Revelation 12:1 is G2246. This word is used by God in 30 N.T. verses. Strong’s definition is the “sun” as in “a ray”. Thayer says this word means “sun”, “rays of the sun” and “the light of day”. These are just basic facts, but they may not directly help us in understanding God’s symbolic definition of this object enough to identify the object. However, I believe the object’s characteristics will become very relevant, very soon. It is recommended that you go and read every verse where this verse is found, but for time sake we will not list or study these all in this lesson.
The Greek word translated as “clothed” is G4016 and it means “to put on” or to “invest with clothing”. This is an absolutely fascinating concept. The sun is very bright, very warm and hot, the source of life and light for our planet earth. Without the sun’s exact distance from the earth our planet earth would be as all the other planets without life. The sun is also the closest star to our planet and the center of our solar system that everything else in this system revolves around. These physical attributes actually give us parallels into the spiritual realm and help us to identify who this symbolic spiritual sun is. Let us list the physical qualities of the sun again for any that may have missed them. The Sun is:
- The Source of Natural Day Light
- The only Bright Light of Day
- One Major Source for Life on Earth
- The Source of Natural Heat and Warmth
- Only Visible during the Day when we normally work
- Not Visible at Night when we normally sleep
These might seem very obvious, but yet we still may not understand the significance to what they could mean. We just read 6 descriptive characteristics of the natural sun that the woman is clothed with. In knowing these we could describe that this woman is wearing, life, light, brightness, warmth and the day. Her clothing is described in these very specific terms. Keep these in mind as we go forward with this study because they are all very important. Also begin to ask yourself who should be clothed with these types of features in the Bible?
So what or who does this symbolic sun represent? I will not keep you in suspense any longer because the “Sun” according to many verses found in the Bible is one of the key symbols for “the Lord Jesus Christ”. It is always good to just search the entire Bible for the word “sun”. Then read all of the verses. I did this to find the word 160 times in the KJV Bible in 152 verses. The vast majority of verses God is speaking of the literal created sun object in the sky. But there are a number of verses where God uses the term in a figurative or symbolic way to describe a greater spiritual truth. We do not have the time to address every verse, but, I found one quickly that literally should shake our internal spirit being. After I read this verse I knew in my spirit that must apply to our subject search. Let us read a direct verse reference example of a figurative “sun” found in the book of Malachi:
Mal 4:2 But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.
Here we see a verse that God speaks directly about Jesus Christ, but without using His direct name. God in this verse does not call Jesus His “SON of Righteousness”, but rather He names Him the “SUN of Righteousness”. God says “Sun” not “Son”. If this was me speaking it could have been a typo, because I am human and have done that kind of mistake before. But, because it is God speaking, I believe He said what He meant and meant what He said. Surely everyone can see this and understand who God is talking about? If not, take note of the fact that something or someone is named as the Sun and that he or it will be rising somewhere to bring healing to someone through the gift of righteousness. Also, note that God says this sun rises and this must be a symbolic spiritual prophecy of someone or something that will bring healing.
Finally note the beginning statement from this prophecy that claims this is ONLY for them that “fear His name”! Who can that be? That is one of our first major clues because we should all claim to be “IN” that classification. Please pay attention to what I just said using the word “IN”. Could this a factor for identifying who is wearing the sun in Revelation 12? Isn’t being clothed with something the same as saying she is “IN” it? Could these people be those that possess the “fear” (honor, respect, and awe) of God’s name? Now with all that in mind, let’s research, find and confirm who this Sun of Righteousness represents:
2Pe 1:19 We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts:
In this verse we can see some amazing parallels to what we just read in Malachi 4:2. Here we can see another reference to Jesus being a light that rises and shines in the hearts of us believers. We can also clearly see that He is called the “Day Star“. This is just another way to describe the closest star to our planet that shines during the daylight hours and is normally called our “Sun”. Do you get it? Remember when we learned that the “Sun” object could inherit from the parent “star” object to contain additional new features with specific new data types, methods and descriptions. God created the sun as a “day star” and it is usually the only object that is visible until the sun sets. The other stars are not normally visible until the darkness of night. These are very important created facts that teach us things in the unseen spiritual dimension of truth that we may have never learned.
Calling and describing the exact same object by different symbols, names, titles and descriptions is a very wise method that God uses to hide the meaning of the sun. Using these differing symbols, names, titles and descriptions permits Him to conceal it while simultaneously placing it in plain sight. This methodology of composition makes the information more challenging to search and find. But, it also gives us new descriptive qualities to learn about in every different example.
Jesus is clearly again called the spiritual Sun (Star Shinning during the Day) that rises in the human heart. The reference to dawn is a description of sunrise when light first breaks in the morning and the darkness has to vanish. Notice how the earth is the one that turns and not the sun. Notice how this turning of the earth reflects symbolically a position of repentance moving out of the darkness and into the light of day! God’s wisdom seen in the creation of these natural objects is amazing.
These are all spiritual truths reflected using natural symbolism. Who in this verse is God referring to that the “Day Star” should arise within? Again, this should be those people that have repented to turn into the “Light” of Jesus Christ. I claim to be guilty of receiving this light of life and I pray you are also one in this group.
But, wait, We are not done yet. For those who still may be skeptical we will continue to go through more spiritual witnesses to the truth to see the TRUE identity of the symbolic Sun. This time our witness will be the LORD Jesus himself talking:
Rev 22:16 I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.
Here we have the same implemented method that is used by God, of calling the Sun by still another new name. This time Jesus claims that He is the Sun being called the “Bright Morning Star“. This is another reference to the “dawn” when the Sun rises. We understand this through God’s usage of the term “morning”. We can easily understand that Jesus is claiming to be the spiritual “Sun” that rises in the hearts of Christians to bring us light into our previously very darkened spirits. If this is not understandable this might be a great time to ask Him to come into your heart and save you. After you do this He will rise up on the inside of you to help you to see things like this to be true. Just stop and pray ask saying “LORD Jesus I repent and turn to you, please be my LORD and bring me light to see you and your truth, Amen”.
Have you ever looked into the physical sun accidently and noticed how bright it is? The woman in Revelation 12 who is clothed with the sun would also be called to be this bright. This verse in Revelation 12:1 is referring to this bright star (Sun) that rises in the morning of human hearts that have turned. These are radical new and different terms and ways of thinking. But these should be helping us to understand who this woman in Revelation 12 could only represent.
The reason some people have not seen this reference before, is because they think this morning star is a reference to a planet like Venus. But, that interpretation ignores the fact that God says this is a “star” and not a planet. Venus is clearly not a star. These are also the words of Jesus telling us personally who He is, Jesus is not a dead planet, but rather He is the life giving star of our planet (hearts). Let us continue to go to another new title for the same Sun. This time it is in the prophecy of John the Baptist’s father when speaking of Jesus:
Luk 1:78 Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us,
So Jesus is prophesied to be the “Dayspring”. If you look up the definition of this Greek word G395 in the Strong’s it means “a rising light”. Isn’t this what the sun does every day? You can also see that this is the same synonymous meaning of “dawn” when the sun rises in the east. What we can see is another clear reference to the coming of Jesus into the world as being liken to the rising of Sun to bring light to those that were in darkness. When Jesus was born into the world He brought the light from heaven with Him. Remember what or who light is in the Bible? Read 1 John 1:5 where we are clearly informed “God is Light and in Him is NO darkness”. Uh oh, that sounds very important to me. Remember what Jesus said in John 9:5 “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world”. Jesus was claiming to be a spiritual sun and not a natural light. Jesus did not walk around glowing in the dark. Let us go to another reference for the identity of the Sun from the mouth of Jesus. We will stay in the book of John and read from chapter 8 and verse 12:
Joh 8:12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
WOW! You do understand the source of the light and life for our planet, yes? The natural sun produces the light on our planet and is the primary source of life also. In this verse in John, Jesus reveals himself to be the spiritual light of the world and the source of spiritual life. This is a direct parallel to the physical nature of the sun light of our world. We can clearly see that Jesus informs us if we continue to follow Him, that we would NOT walk in darkness. Wow, can we see the message? If we were walking IN darkness that is a very similar concept to being clothed in this substance of darkness. But, if we choose to walk IN the light this appears to say we could be be clothed with His “light” (the Sun). Wow, we are getting ahead in the next section of the lesson. But that should have just produced some new light in our hearts.
Jesus is referring to the heart of man in this verse and tells us that He will light us internally, or spiritually by us believing in Him. Since the physical sun is one key for the source of natural life on this planet, we can understand that the spiritual Sun of Righteousness is the spiritual source for our spiritual eternal life. What we have is a natural pattern being given to us for a far greater and much more significant spiritual reality. We can see the same physical qualities being described of the natural sun to be found in Jesus. Jesus is calling himself the “Light of Life”, these are clearly types of the symbolic sun. Jesus is calling himself the light of the world, that again is by nature the sun. Jesus says we will not walk in darkness or the night, because again we have or choose to be IN Him the source of our life as our personal Sun.
There are many verses in the Bible that we could include in this lesson to illustrate the truth of the identity of the symbolic “Sun” clothing being Jesus Christ. We will only go with one more that repeats some of the basics that we have already learned from other verses. Here is a verse written directly to the church about the church and our Savior:
2Co 4:6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
This verse is very informative. It first confirms that the Genesis 1 account contains hidden spiritual prophetic statements within it. God who on day 1 of creation, commanded the light to be, declares that this was a prophesied future spiritual event that would occur when Jesus came to manifest on te earth. The location of this shining or enlightenment is clearly given to be the hearts of mankind. This is the inward spiritual location of our eternal spirit being. Then the verse ends with how this occurs. It is through knowing Christ. Finally, there is a reference given to the “face” of Jesus Christ. I found that this is fascinating and informative also. We can see this concept in the book of Revelation describing the “face” of Jesus:
Rev 1:16 And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.
You see in this verse of Revelation, God is describing some spiritual qualities of Jesus Christ. I’ll skip the first two and go directly to the last part of that verse that says “his countenance was as the sun shining in his strength”. Isn’t that an interesting way to describe Jesus? The word “countenance” can be translated as “face”. So the “face” of Jesus is said to be symbolically shining like the sun at noonday. This I believe is highly significant and just further confirms that Jesus Christ is the symbolic Sun found in Revelation 12. Here is a list of scriptures that all refer to Jesus Christ in terms describing Him to be the Sun. Some of these I have given you already and some are new:
- The Sun of Righteousness (Mal 4:2)
- The Greater Light that Rules the Day (Gen 1:16)
- The Day Star (2 Peter 1:19)
- The Bright and Morning Star (Rev 22:16)
- The Morning Star (Rev 2:28)
- The Dayspring (Luke 1:78)
- The True Light (John 1:9, 1 John 2:8)
- The Light of the World (John 8:12, John 9:5)
- The Light of Life (John 8:12)
- The Sun (Rev 1:16, Rev 12:1)
This should be overwhelming evidence that Jesus Christ is the Sun. Therefore, I have concluded from all of these verses that the Bible informs us this symbolic sun in Revelation 12 must be the LORD Jesus Christ and not Jacob. Now we must confirm who is instructed or commanded to wear this symbol in the Bible? We have already seen some great clues in this section that should have raised our expectation level. This is where we will go next. Afer you expecting to receive anything else new? I hope so.
WHO IN THE BIBLE IS TO WEAR THE SUN?
Let us now approach this subject from a different angle to give us some additional perspectives on this topic for determining the identity of the Sun in relation to the identity of the woman. I want to specifically focus on any commandment in the Bible given by God for anyone to be clothed with Jesus. Is the church ever told to wear this symbolic sun? As you recall, the woman in Revelation 12 is said to be clothed with the Sun. Of course the church must be commanded to wear the Sun in order to be qualified to be the woman in Revelation 12. But realize that this command may not just be in so many direct obvious words as we have already learned. This again is one way that God hides the truth for a given time to reveal it. We have to look for it, study it and allow the Holy Spirit to show us. We started this discovery by allowing the Holy Spirit to bring us through a process for understanding who the spiritual Sun represents. By now I believe that you can see that the spiritual Sun is Jesus Christ. Now let us direct our focus upon verses applying the new knowledge of who the Bible says is the symbolic Sun looking for verses that instructs someone to wear Jesus Christ directly (Jesus, Lord, Christ, etc.) or indirectly (light, sun, etc.). Here is one verse that found that is amazing:
Rom 13:14 But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.
The Greek word G1746 that was translated as “put on” here means to “invest with clothing” or to “be clothed” with. Interesting, is it not? Isn’t this what God was talking about, to be clothed with the Sun in Revelation 12? If Jesus Christ is the Sun, and we have clearly seen that He is, then the church is instructed to wear this Sun like clothing in this verse. This verse in Romans tells us to wear Jesus Christ like a physical garment, robe or a coat. If Jesus is the Light and the Sun, then we would be wearing the correct symbol describing the woman in Revelation 12, right? Please relate only this news with being a Christian.
What does it mean to “put on ” Christ? We know that God is Light. Therefore, if we are required as Christians to put on Christ’s Light this should cause Him to become visible outwardly as we live our our lives on the earth before those that are still walking in darkness. I believe people need to be able to see Christ’s light in our actions, our morals, in our choices and life styles long before they hear our words about Jesus. Remember what we learned about when Jesus spoke to us in John? He said “as long as I am in the world I am the light of the world”. He is not physically here on the earth now, but we are. Therefore, Jesus said this in Matthew 5:14 “You are the light of the world, a city on a hill that cannot be hid”. Wow what an amazing choice of words. If we lived as if were clothed with His righteousness and feared His name would this cause us to live Holy in the world so that they could not do anything but notice how different we were from them?
This is God’s major participating power that is being used in developing the identity of the woman that appears in heaven in Revelation 12. Can you as a Christian see yourself clothed in His light? Can others in the world see this light? Here is another witness to this revelation:
Gal 3:27 For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
Again we clearly see a new synonymous reference of the church being clothed when we were baptized into Christ. To be naturally baptized represents a complete immersion and the covering of the body by water. This is clearly a symbolic type of reference for a person wearing something like a robe. The parallels of jumping into water completely is very analogous to jumping into a piece of clothing.
In this verse we are wearing symbolic water and in Revelation 12 we are wearing the Light of the World (the Sun). We must understand that water and light are both key elements of the source of natural life on our planet. Without either of these life would not exist. But we must also understand that Water is a symbol of the Word of God (Eph 5:26). Then can further confirm this connection because Jesus is called by the title of the “Word of God” in Revelation 19:13. Therefore, we can logically conclude that if we are told that we were baptized into Christ this means were clothed with His Word. I know this is all different than what we may have been taught and very new deep revelations. But, this is what God is teaching us from the Bible.
Now if that is true then according to this verse we also have “put on” Christ. Put on again means to “be clothed” with Christ. The church should be going around wearing the garment of Jesus Christ, right here, right now. Let’s look at a new verse:
1Co 15:49 And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
In this verse it compares two opposing states of human existence. One is in the physical with the other one being in the spiritual. The words “borne” and “bear” are the same Greek word that means to “wear”. God is telling us that we (our spirits) previously wore only our flesh bodies, but now we have been circumcised to remove this flesh nature (Rom 2:29, Col 2:11) and to be re-clothed with a heavenly new nature of the Spirit. This is what is means to put on Christ and we are required to turn from our previous state of behavior in the darkness.
This will become very obvious to what God is talking about as we continue to learn and grow in knowing Him. I hope and pray that everyone is beginning to see this. When the Light comes in, the darkness will no longer have the ability to blind us from seeing the truth. Let us briefly go over an Old Testament prophecy that goes into a bit of relevant information on this topic of wearing the “Sun”.
Dan 12:3 And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.
So as we read this prophecy in Daniel it should be self evident that it is talking about the church. The church is the only group that is attempting to turn anyone from their darkness into the righteousness of Jesus Christ. But, notice the terms that are used. It declares that we will “shine” with a “brightness”. The firmament is another word for the sky. This is the earth’s atmosphere when it is lit by the sun and it can be very intensely bright. This is a clear reference to the “day”. This could describe someone that is wearing the sun? This chapter in Daniel is an end time prophetic message. It describes many things that are occurring right now. In context with that we see the righteous being hailed as light bearers. Jesus made several statements in regard to this also. In calling Himself the light of the world in John, He also said “ye are the light of the world” in Matthew as we looked at earlier. How can the church and Jesus both be the same light object? It is only possible and makes sense if we have put Christ on and wear Him around for others to see. This is the same revelation of letting Jesus be seen on the outside in the visible world that we have on the inside of us. Too many Christians want to keep Jesus on the inside and never let Him be seen outside of a physical church building. This is not what the Bible says to do. We are to wear Jesus Christ like a garment so that everyone can clearly see Him. Here is another very relevant scripture on the subject of wearing the Sun.
Isa 61:10 I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels.
God has clothed the church with the garment of Salvation first and then the robe of Righteousness second. After we believe in Jesus we are saved an then we were reborn in the Spirit to be made His righteousness. Remember who the Sun of Righteousness was. It is Jesus Christ. So we have very clear evidence that the church is to be clothed with the Spiritual Sun of Jesus Christ our Redeemer. So the primary clothing in Bible days were not jeans and t-shirts, but were then robes. So we can understand that to be clothed with the Robe of Righteousness means everyday clothing and not just a special one time wedding garment.
The Hebrew word translated as righteousness is the exact same word found in Malachi 4:2 describing Jesus as the Sun of Righteousness. So Isaiah 61:10 describing the church clothed in the Robe of Righteousness is definitely related to the verse in Malachi 4:2 describing our Savior the Sun of Righteousness. This is not an accident nor was it placed in the Bible by chance. This is God’s designed plan to reveal this information at the right time of the end of the church age. I’ll end this Bible lesson with just one more reference since this has become a long Part 1 lesson.
Rom 13:12 The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.
So we can see another very similar word association being made by God the author. This time the church is told to put on the “armor of light” by first taking off the works of darkness. Since it does not take a rocket scientist or a doctorate degree to figure out where we get our daylight from we can see the connections being made very easily, I think it is clear that we are being told to put on the Sun as our protection against our enemy Satan. This clothing that we are commanded to put on, is now described in a military design as the “armor of light”. Armor is what a soldier would wear for protection against an enemy in battle. Modern body armor is common place for Police, law enforcement and military personnel. These are all people that have enemies of evil trying to kill them. We will soon learn from the meaning of other symbols given in Revelation 12 that this is true for Christians and this symbolic woman. This “light” armor should have the same protecting affect for us as Christians. By a Christian wearing light we are walking in the light and we should never be found in the darkness again. The clear reference in this verse is to the spiritual day versus the spiritual night condition of our hearts.
Notice that in putting on this armor we are commanded to remove the works of darkness. That is amazing confirmation that us wearing the sun means for us to act as though Jesus was walking on the earth in the flesh in front us, on the side of us and behind us watching over everything we do. By doing this we will present His thoughts, His Words and His actions to everyone living in the night where we use to be.
So there are many verses that instruct the church to shine and put on Christ removing the influence of past darkness. I’ll end with the words of Jesus himself that also speak prophetically about the church at the end of the world:
Mat 13:43 Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.
The Words of God, from the mouth of the True and Faithful One declares the righteous will be the ones that will shine forth as the sun at the end of the world. Doesn’t that testify and witness to your heart that the righteous church will be the woman wearing the “Sun of God”? It sure does to my heart.
CONCLUSION
We have been going over numerous topics concerning the woman in Revelation 12. We analyzed the symbols in verse 1 and made a list to study. We then went though the three items associated with the crown. These were the number 12, the stars and the crown itself and the meanings of each. It would appear that this evidence pointed us to the identity of the woman in Revelation 12 pointed us to the suspect of the Church or Israel with more evidence leaning towards the Church.
We then moved to the most significant symbol called the “sun”. This symbol was and is the easiest to identify because He is the central figure and theme of the entire Bible. We were provided numerous key scriptures that pointed us to the identity of the symbolic Sun as being Jesus Christ. This was us, allowing God to interpret His own symbols.
We were then able to allow God to reveal several other verses that either instruct, prophesy or declare the church to be clothed with this Sun Light. We can learn and confirm this truth further in many other verses in the Bible that were not covered yet, but we will end now with this question:
What woman in the Bible must be clothed with Jesus Christ (the SUN of RIGHTEOUSNESS) in order to enter into the Kingdom of God?
We can certainly eliminate a lot of the 4 potential suspect candidates for this woman in Revelation 12. I do not know of any other woman in the Bible that can be clothed with His Righteousness. She cannot be natural Israel also known as the Earthly Jerusalem because God says the righteous that is of the law will not or cannot be saved (Rom 9:31).
This woman cannot be the heavenly Jerusalem because this woman is called a widow not being in covenant with God anymore in Isaiah 54:4. We know this woman in this verse represents the barren allegorical Sarah by reading back up in Isaiah 54:1 to know and understand that this verse about the rejoicing barren woman is quoted in Galatians 4:27. And in Galatians 4:26 we discover this woman is the Jerusalem that is Above in the heavenly realm and she is the mother of all that will be born again unto salvation. Wow, we did not cover any of this in today’s lesson because that would take a lot of revelation and explanation. But, that is a taste of things that should be coming to eliminate this woman as being the one mentioned in Revelation 12. I would recommend that you do some reading and digging on your own and ask the Holy Spirit to show you why this city in heaven is called as “widow” and what that means in the subject of covenants. Never forget Hebrews 12:22 where God defines the Jerusalem Above to be called the “Heavenly Jerusalem” that is comprised of an enumerable company of spiritual beings called angels. This had to consist of Lucifer, Michael, Gabriel and the rest of the heavenly host. We learn from our chapter study of Revelation 12 that 1/3 of these beings were swept down to earth having fallen by the tail of the dragon (Satan). Wow, that is enough of a taste of what should be talked about in subsequent lessons.
This woman in Revelation 12 cannot even be natural woman Mary because she needed salvation to enter into the Kingdom of God the same as everyone else that will believe. Just figuring out the identity of the single dependent symbolic “Sun” and how and who can be clothed with Him, changes the meaning of the woman in chapter 12 of Revelation dramatically.
This lesson number 1 has only introduced us to the subject and yet we still have a lot more to learn. In the next lesson the Lord willing we will talk more about the other key symbols, especially the moon, who it represents and what it means to stand on this object. This should help us better understand this woman’s true identity. I believe the second most important symbol in this dependent truth relationship is the “moon” under her feet. God Bless you and I pray that you have the spiritual eyes and vision to see and to understand GOD’S HOLY WORD WHOLY.
If you want to continue to Part 2 of this series, click HERE!
Genesis 3:1-6 – Does Eating Fruit Kill You? Pt 1
(Ver 2.3) This is Part 1 in the series of Bible lessons on “Does Eating Fruit Kill You”. But this is also Part 2 in the series of Bible lessons on the subject of “Understanding Genesis 3” If you would like to start reading the Genesis 3 series with “Part 1” you may click the link and start there. Two of the primary themes found in the 3rd chapter of Genesis are man’s response to God’s instructions and the temptation of man to ignore God’s instructions. If you have been reading my lessons, you probably noticed that I do not stray from controversy and today will be more of the same. The book of Genesis is full of complex subjects, symbolism and many hidden spiritual truths that challenges us to figure out what is literal and what is symbolic of a much higher spiritual truth. Differentiating between the physical and natural things found in Genesis from the spiritual and supernatural things found there is one of the greatest challenges that God has given to us in reading and understanding the Bible. Over and over I have heard Bible teachers teach that the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were literal physical fruit trees in the middle of a natural garden; real physical trees, producing real physical fruit. It is a fascinating idea or concept, but one that I believe does not hold water when analyzed by other scriptures found in the Bible. Too many times people teach the Bible in isolation, ignoring what the rest of the Bible says on the subjects that they are studying. This of course results in private interpretations based upon very limited information and leads us into confusion. In order to correctly interpret the Bible we must always follow God’s rules of Bible Interpretation. If you do not know that God has given us rules to interpret the Bible then you should probably go find out what these are before you do any more study of the Bible.
Well in my last Bible lesson on Genesis 3:1 I feel confident that I proved scripturally that the serpent being described to us was not a literal physical talking snake and that it had to be a symbolic named representation for Satan speaking to the mind of the woman. You can go back to this Genesis 3:1 blog and reread this article to review that information “Was there a Talking Snake in the Garden?” lesson or just read it for the first time if you missed it to understand the concepts. So based upon that information, what else in this 3rd chapter is literal and what is symbolic? We should be able to logically conclude that Adam and Eve were literal spiritual beings in real physical human bodies, but that they were confronted by another liteal spiritual being named Satan that they could not see with their natural eyes. So we automatically see that God combines physical and spiritual realities in the same story and this makes the information more difficult to understand correctly. Let’s look at verse 1 again:
Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD god had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
So we see Satan speaking a thought in the mind of Eve, questioning the command of God. Or was it a question? It appears to me to be a statement of fact. So many times we want to look at Satan as the father of lies and think that is all he is capable of speaking, but that is definitely not true. Satan will always use the truth if he thinks it will work to his advantage. Satan is very tricky and many times he will start with the truth and then twist it or misapply it to get you off of what was originally intended. You see the truth was that God did make that statement and told Adam that “every tree in the garden was available to him for food”.
Genesis 2:16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
Reading this verse in Genesis 2:16, I immediately saw something that the LORD God had taught me about Genesis 3:1. The term “Every” is another ALL INCLUSIVE statement that omits none. Again we can see a group association being established. A set of related items can be associated together by a common name to form a well-known and clearly defined grouping of common items. We can clearly see that in this grouping by God’s definition is included EVERY TREE that was designed to produce ANY food to be physically eaten. If the tree did not produce any natural food to eat then it was not in the defined group. Every fruit tree, every nut tree, every tree that produced any kind of edible food substance must have been included in this one group set. If it was not on the list in the set then it did not have food on it. If God said you can eat from EVERY tree that has food on it, then you can certainly see the major conflict and the problem being stated. Since most Bible teach that the fruit that caused Adam to sin was something like an apple, that interpretation would directly conflict with what God has just spoken to Adam. Was God a liar or are we not understanding what is being taught to us here? I’ll vote that we do not fully understand the interpretation that the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” was a physical fruit tree? Let’s look at the next verse in Genesis 2:
Genesis 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
You can see the apparent contradiction to the previous statement of God or possibly just a fact that has been missed by most casual Bible readers in that God must have just changed the subject and we missed it. Instead of talking about natural physical food for the body, God is now speaking about a spiritual food and its impact on Adam’s life span on this planet. In Genesis 2:17 God is not talking about natural food trees anywhere but changes subjects to symbolic spiritual trees. I’m sure that you’ve seen the painting of Adam and Eve with the serpent wrapped around a tree and Eve holding an apple. Do understand the contradiction and the problem we have just discovered? If it is a literal fruit tree with physical natural food that is good to eat then God LIED! Since most of you know that it is impossible for God to lie, we must have misunderstood the meaning of God’s statements. What we can say is that in Genesis 2:16, God is speaking of natural physical food and told Adam that they could eat of every tree that has food on it. But in verse 17, God changes the subject and most have just automatically assumed He was talking about the same things. It is a very tricky technique used to conceal the truth in the Bible. Mix spiritual things with natural things and dare people to figure out the difference. God said don’t eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or you will die. This could not have been a natural physical tree for many reasons. First, where is this tree today? Does it still exist? Did it suddenly vanish from the planet? Then there is this, in the book of Proverbs it reveals some very strong information about this tree:
Proverbs 18:21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it will eat the fruit thereof.
Uh oh? We can clearly see another paradox of Biblical proportions. God tells us how we live and how we die and it is a result of the power of our tongue. What God is doing is showing you the difference that your spoken words can make in your life. The human mouth is a uniquely designed opening in the human body. The mouth takes physical food in, but it also speaks spiritual words out of it. This is why God connects both kinds of trees together in Genesis 2. Adam didn’t die by physically eating anything. It is fascinating that it also speaks of this process as being related to eating fruit, but, this is spiritual fruit and not physical fruit. Is this a coincidence or is God trying to teach us something about the connection of natural fruit to spiritual fruit. Isn’t fruit what Eve and Adam are said to have eaten?
Genesis 3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her and he did eat.
This has to be a spiritual tree for several reasons. First, God said that every natural tree that was good for food to eat was permitted to eat from. Then Eve saw the tree in her mind and it was a tree that could make one wise. Does eating natural fruit make you wiser? If you think it does you are deceived. Nothing you eat physically makes you smarter. This spiritual tree is an interesting concept; Eve could see it and understood that it would make her wise. Science for a long time has tried to claim certain foods make you smarter, but that is not what this is talking about. There is a dramatic difference between being smart and being wise. A lot of people know things, but have no common sense. I guess I won’t go there today though. I want to shift focus and show you some other related verses in the Bible that are very relevant to our current subject. This is what Jesus said about what we eat physically:
Matthew 15:17 Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out at into the draught.
Here are words directly from God about natural food. He asks us a simple question; “don’t you understand the difference between natural things and spiritual things”? He tells us that whatever we put into our mouths goes to our stomachs and is then flushed down the toilet. He is declaring a very simple truth that this is not what killed Adam. God says that this is not what makes a man unclean. If you continue reading in the chapter Jesus says that it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles a man, because these are the things from his spirit. This is what kills a man physically.
Matthew 15:18 But those things which proceed out f the mouth come forth from the heart (spirit) and they defile the man.
It is so fascinating when you put things together correctly in the Bible. You can see that Jesus tells us what killed Adam and we didn’t even know it until now. Too many times we try to interpret the Bible with our natural minds and we just need to figure out what God says about the subject to really understand it. God’s perspective is so much better than ours. Don’t you think? What we have seen is information found in the Bible that tells us that a spiritual reality is more important to see than a natural one that is not true. So people, who teach that there was a physical apple tree that Eve picked fruit from and ate it to kill them, do not understand many things about what God wants to teach them in the Bible. I hope if nothing else that I have challenged you to think differently today and not to try to understand the Bible story of Adam and Eve in isolation from the other related verses found in the Bible.
If you want to continue reading this series you can continue to “Part 2”.
The Agapegeek Blog 