Bible Believers' Newsletter #567
"We focus on the present Truth – what Jesus is doing now. . ."
ISSN 1442-8660
Christian greetings in the precious Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. We so happy you could join us in fellowship around God's unchanging Word.
Big Brother has had 31,000 London bobbies microchipped for total surveillance. Apparently those who do not take the chip cannot work or even visit the bathroom unsupervised. Photograph them and you may be imprisoned. Stateside Homeland Security may be eyeing sinners: the Magnavox TV set top digital converter is said to contain a camera and microphone, so smile, Big Brother is watching. Russia has sunk a Chinese freighter bound for Seattle allegedly bearing a stolen nuclear warhead. And the cousin of alleged 9/11 hijacker Ziad al-Jarrah has been exposed as a long standing Israeli spy in yet another startling intelligence connection between the Zionist state and the attacks on New York and Washington. The world is falling apart.
The First World was destroyed by the Moneypower which instead of serving, took over the real economy, transforming its worth from real goods and services to paper priced far above the value of assets and production. Globalization then picked the eyes out of the real economy, transferring the real wealth of capital goods and real jobs to the Third World, and NWO politicians arranged a fire sale of public utilities and hard assets offshore in exchange for fiat money created out of thin air. Since the productive economies of Western nations have largely relocated in Asia, the once-developed world is "a nation of shopkeepers" with "service industries" doing one another's washing. The share market has begun its fall, and without a manufacturing or extractive economy those nations cannot trade out of the grip of the international usurers and without consumers in the West, the Asian Tigers will strike lean times. Refinancing the banksters with counterfeit fiat money not worth the paper on which it is printed is folly. Failing banks should be allowed to fail or nationalized along with their assets and the wealth of corrupt executives and the Babylonian fractional reserve system outlawed.
Stimulating our economies by printing money will feed the cause and exacerbate the crisis. The objective should be to save, not consume on credit. Our governments are servants of Lucifer's one world government determined by all means to preserve the globalist's rapine of free enterprise and prevent protectionist measures to strengthen national independence. The many stimulus packages can only serve the international banksters to further debase the currency of nations complicit in feeding rather than excising the contagion. The objective of the planned economic collapse is to bring the world to beg for the electronic currency for which the world was wired via the false flag of Y2K; the minions of the planners are kingpins directing the Obama Administration as they collectivize and centralize the (so-called) "Free World" under the claws of Judaeo-Communism Jesus indicated by the name "Laodicea".
Then there is the climate change hoax. Vintage weatherman John Coleman says, "Al Gore and others selling carbon credits should be sued for fraud." Oh, so many BIG lies to tell, and so little time in which to tell them. But you, Christian, "Speak the truth in Christ, and lie not" (I Timothy 2:7).
This Newsletter serves those of like precious faith. Whoever will receive the truth is welcome to feed their soul from the waters of the River of Life. Everything here presented should be confirmed personally in your own Bible.
Your brother-in-Christ, Anthony Grigor-Scott
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Real Holocaust–One of Several: Dresden, February 13, 1945
There is physical and scientific proof and evidence for this holocaust. This one is not make believe and was witnessed by my own father from the outskirts of Dresden and close-up right after. Why do we not have a Dresden Holocaust Museum and Dresden Memorial Center in every major city in North America and the world—paid for by taxpayers? Dresden was not a strategic target. Why were the Jewish instigators Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt and Morganthau not executed along with Jewish Professor Lindemann (later Lord Cherwell), Jewish General Eisenhower, among others? Why are there no apologies, endless compensation and "respect for the dead"? And why can one publicly deny this holocaust which did happen—and not end up in jail!
Isn't civilization wonderful? Over a million Iraqis dead, so sorry! Afghans don't count much! The genocide of 1,400 innocent Gazans, ho hum, and no one has been prosecuted for these real war crimes. Full story: newsfromthewest.blogspot.com wintersonnenwende.com
Comment: Colonies of the City of London always fight on the wrong side in planned wars of aggression to 'front' for those "God set at enmity" with the children of the first and second Adam (Genesis 3:15). These once Christian nations, having rejected the Absolute of God's unchanging Word, parrot lying propaganda as "history" to cover atrocities devised by the 'hidden had', and incarcerate indict refuseniks. Finally, the Judaeo-Roman Catholic church has adopted the new holocaust religion essential to securing the alliance of Daniel 9:27, and will in the next few years force her US and (once) Protestant image to fulfil Revelation 13:15-18, bringing Revelation 18:24 and Matthew 23:35 into alignment.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Who was Benazir Bhutto?
Islamabad, February 12, 2009 – Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik showed evidence to the media during his news conference and said, "Some part of the [Mumbai Bombing] conspiracy has taken place in Pakistan" (mercurynews.com).
It seems people loyal to the CIA/MOSSAD are running Pakistan now—traitors selling out their country for promises of wealth. . . like Interior Minister Malik who stated a lie when saying that part of the Mumbai planning was done in Pakistan whereas all the facts indicate Mumbai was a joint MOSSAD/RSS Hindutva operation as explained in the previous post by Farzana Khan. Rehman Malik is not what he seems, opium trade, Musharraf, Two other Qadianis in charge of Pakistan: Rehman Malik and Tariq Aziz. Rehman Malik had a criminal record in Pakistan while for eight years in London he made money with the help of likes of [the Chabad-Lubavitch] Nariman House [at the heart of the false flag Mumbai bombing]. (Any doubters check his companies' work in London and Europe). He was to be Pakistan's Chalabi!!
It cannot be said with certainty but there are some reasons to assume that Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister of Pakistan, wittingly or unwittingly, played into the hands of RAW-Mossad masterminds. She appointed Rehman Malik as chief of the Federal Investigation Agency which then launched a secret war against the Islamists; amounting to a direct attack on the ISI.
War against religious extremists could have been a laudable goal but it seemed to target only those elements which could have brought a semblance of moderation to the religious swatch cutting across Pakistan society. Thus, leaving the field wide open for extremists. It seems that the Pakistani military was equally dismayed by reports of FIA contacts with the Israeli secret service, the MOSSAD, to investigate Islamist terrorists (rense.com).
"The world Zionist movement should not be neglectful of the dangers of Pakistan to it. And Pakistan now should be its first target, for this ideological State is a threat to our existence. And Pakistan, the whole of it, hates the Jews and loves the Arabs. This lover of the Arabs is more dangerous to us than the Arabs themselves. For that matter, it is most essential for the world Zionism that it should now take immediate steps against Pakistan. Whereas the inhabitants of the Indian peninsula are Hindus whose hearts have been full of hatred towards Muslims, therefore, India is the most important base for us to work therefrom against Pakistan."
"It is essential that we exploit this base and strike and crush Pakistanis, enemies of Jews and Zionism, by all disguised and secret plans" (David Ben Gurion, Jewish Chronicle, 9 August 1967). Full story: israelforum.com
Comment: MOSSAD's motto is: "By way of deception, thou shalt do war"!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Sanctions' sought in Eligibility Case
February 13, 2009 – A high-powered team of Los Angeles attorneys representing President Obama in his effort to keep his birth certificate, college records and passport documents concealed from the public has suggested there should be "monetary sanctions" against a lawyer whose clients have brought a complaint alleging Obama doesn't qualify for the Oval Office under the Constitution's demand for a "natural born" citizen in that post. . . Full story: worldnetdaily.com
Comment: A further instance wherein Truth is trounced by money, and law is without justice.
By executive order, on January 27, Obama ordered $20.3 million in urgent migration assistance to provide a free ticket with housing and food allowances to Palestinian refugees and conflict victims in Gaza who have displayed overwhelming support of Hamas in the parliamentary election of January 2006, to resettle in the United States. By executive order George II resettled 12,000 Iraqi refugees in 2008, to be increased to 19,000 in 2009. The "hot stage" of World War III, planned in 1871 between the political Zionists and political Islam, is being brought home to the colonials by the 'hidden hand' of the City of London, the Black Nobility and the Vatican. Might the internment camps persuade some to forsake Allah and take the mark of the Beast (Revelation 13:15-18)? Full story: loudobbsradio.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
31 Percent blame Jews for Financial Crisis
February 10, 2009 — The findings released by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today revealed that nearly half of the Europeans surveyed believe Jews are not loyal to their country and more than one-third believe they have "too much power" in business and finance. . . Full story: adl.org pdf file with charts.
Comment: Only half? Only one-third?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Orthodox Anglicans don't expect Unity for Long
February 10. 2009 – In an open letter addressed to Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams, who is considered the spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion, Nigerian Archbishop Peter J. Akinola expressed his discontentment with the churches in North America and their continued pro-gay actions.
"It now seems increasingly clear that without a radical change of behavior on the part of The Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada the only possible outcome of such a process is acknowledgment of a bitter truth that the differences in the words of Archbishop Idris Jones are 'irreconcilable'," Akinola wrote . . . Full story: christianpost.com
Comment: "As it was in the days of Lot" (Luke 17:28-30). Do you realize the Son of man has come?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Billy Graham Association makes 'End Times' a Focus in 2009
February 5, 2009 — This year, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association will focus on the return of Jesus Christ and help prepare believers for life in the last days, according to a recent announcement. . . Full story: christianpost.com
Comment: He has already missed it by 45 years (Daniel 12:4, 9; 10:4, 7), and he is still looking for the wrong Coming.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For Catholics, a Door to Absolution is Reopened
February 9, 2009 — According to church teaching, even after sinners are absolved in the confessional and say their Our Fathers or Hail Marys as penance, they still face punishment after death, in Purgatory, before they can enter heaven. In exchange for certain prayers, devotions or pilgrimages in special years, a Catholic can receive an indulgence, which reduces or erases that punishment instantly, with no formal ceremony or sacrament.
There are partial indulgences, which reduce purgatorial time by a certain number of days or years and plenary indulgences, which eliminate all of it, until another sin is committed. You can get one for yourself, or for someone who is dead. . . There is a limit of one plenary indulgence per sinner per day. . . Full story: nytimes.com
Comment: Martin Luther knew: "Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin" (I John 3:9)!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Controversial Bestseller shakes the Foundation of the Israeli State
January 28, 2009 — What if the Palestinian Arabs who have lived for decades under the heel of the modern Israeli state are in fact descended from the very same "children of Israel" described in the Old Testament? And what if most modern Israelis aren't descended from the ancient Israelites at all, but are actually a mix of Europeans, North Africans and others who didn't "return" to the scrap of land we now call Israel and establish a new state following the attempt to exterminate them during World War II, but came in and forcefully displaced people whose ancestors had lived there for millennia? . .
That's the explosive thesis of "When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?", a book by Tel Aviv University scholar Shlomo Zand (or Sand) that sent shockwaves across Israeli society when it was published last year. After 19 weeks on the Israeli best-seller list, the book is being translated into a dozen languages . . . Full story: alternet.org
Comment: As the Bible, Jewish encyclopedias and historians record for those not too lazy to read. this means they are not God's chosen people, which is a relief (because they are giving Him a real bad name). Were these people Judahites, Israelites or even Semites they would remember the great goodness of the Persian nation in securing Judah's freedom from Babylonian captivity, restoring the temple treasures and assisting the rebuilding of Jerusalem and its temple. Instead they are intent on killing the people of the twelve tribes who have lived for centuries in Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Egypt and Libya and will not return to modern day Israel "for fear of the [self-styled] Jews" (Genesis 27:39-41).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Mystery of the Church as the Bride of Christ
Romans 1:3-4, "Jesus Christ our Lord was made of the seed of David according to the flesh and openly declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by His resurrection from the dead." If you too are sanctified by the Spirit of holiness you have the assurance that in this last day, "Everyone will die but me".
Ephesians 5:22-33, "Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as to the Lord, because the husband is head of his wife, as Christ also is head of the Church, and is Himself the Saviour of the Body. Nevertheless as the Church is subject to Christ, so let the wives also be to their husbands in every thing.
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself up for her: that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with His Word, so that He might present it to Himself gloriously, having no spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but holy and blameless.
Thus ought husbands also to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself: for no one ever hated his own flesh; but nourishes and carefully protects it, as Christ does the Church, because we are members of His Body, being of His flesh, and of His bones. For this reason a man shall leave father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh.
This is a profound mystery, but I am speaking about Christ and the Church. Nevertheless, let each one love his own wife as Himself; and let the wife see that she reverence her husband".
Christian marriage between a man and his wife is a type of the invisible union between Christ and His Bride. The verses we are studying commence with the command to wives to submit themselves to their husband as Christians submit themselves to one another in reverence to Christ (verse 21), because the husband is head of the one body united with his wife in holy matrimony, as Christ is Head of the Body of the Church of all Ages.
Clearly, marriage as ordained by God is not a 50:50 arrangement but 100:0, for He calls and chooses his wife as the Lord calls and chooses His Bride, and the Lord is behind him as the substance which cast the shadow his life fulfils, hence her obedience is not to him as a man but as her own husband in whose person the Lord is honoured and whom the Husband must himself obey (I Corinthians 11:3-16; I Peter 3:6). He is sovereign in his calling and choosing; and the natural woman, typing your soul, is on free moral agency to accept or decline his proposal; once she has accepted, the choice is mutual and each is obligated to his word: should she break the marriage contract she must remain single so long as he lives, or she shall be an adulteress (Romans 7:3). In the Spiritual marriage, the soul united with Christ cannot divorce her Lord for God and the soul that is joined together with God is one Spirit (Matthew 19:6; I Corinthians 6:17; Ephesians 4:30).
Women are called to be "loving wives and mothers, sensible, chaste, domesticated keepers at home, good-natured and obedient to their own husbands, so that the Word of God is not discredited" (Titus 2:4-5). The husband being older and more mature than his wife not only chose her but possesses greater power and culture for civil life, and must represent his wife and the household as it was ordered by God until Satan unleashed feminism and "equal opportunity" whereby men now earn half salaries and their wives also work full time in order to maintain the home (I Corinthians 7:11). This subtle plan of Satan is an example of "the spirit of strong delusion" designed to destroy the authority of man over woman who was not in the original creation and is a byproduct taken from man to be his helpmate. Not being God's spoken Word she was deceived on the revealed Word, causing the Fall, and her father or husband is to rule over her.
The emancipation of the headstrong woman, that repulsive miscreant of iron will, destroys what is Christian and becomes an offensive caricature of womanhood. Should the husband be lacking in some of the attributes necessary to fulfill his ideal calling, the wife should not despise his social dignity but look above and beyond him to the Christ he represents. Let love be self-sacrificial with the consequence and purpose of sanctification. As Christians, Christ has sent us into the world with the same purpose for which the Father sent Him, "And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified through the Truth . . . that we might reconcile the world to God" (John 17:17-23; II Corinthians 5:19).
The natural marriage is parallel to the Spiritual marriage. As the wife is commanded in love to conduct herself towards her husband, so the Church should conduct herself toward Christ. As the husband should conduct himself towards his wife, so Christ does toward the Church. Natural and spiritual marriage is a fellowship between a head and a body in mutually dependent life and love. Thus the earthly shadow should reflect the nature and character of its pattern which is the heavenly substance. Hence Paul states, "Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as to the Lord, because the husband is head of his wife" In other words, yield to your husband that obedience which you yield to Christ, who, having chosen and won you, is your Head, and as such the husband's responsibility is to organize and manage and provide, make decisions and control "as Christ also is Head of the Church" and Husband of your soul.
"Christ Himself and no other is the Saviour of the Body," which establishes His Headship over husband and wife who are joint heirs in Him and co-equal in eternal Life and "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one [in eternal Life] in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:27-29). The natural husband cannot endue his wife with eternal Life but aside from this distinction, wives should be subject to their own husband as the Church or soul is subject to Christ the Word "in every thing" that is not contrary to God's unchanging Word (Colossians 3:17-22). A woman who does not obey her husband is out of the will of God of whom her husband is a type. He cannot sanctify the marriage with a rebellious wife, and the Lord cannot sanctify an unruly church but will spew it from His mouth. The husband should live a holy life so that his wife reverences him (Genesis 3:16; I Corinthians 14:34-35; I Timothy 2:11-12; I Peter 3:1).
A husband or a wife married to an unbeliever with whom they are otherwise pleased should remain together. However, if the unbelieving spouse insists upon ungodliness in his or her partner, such as immodest dress, shorts or slacks, cut hair and a painted face, fraternizing with ungodly people and frequenting ungodly places, or prevents them reading their Bible or attending Church, the woman is not subject, and the husband may put away such a wife. For God is ruler over the husband and the wife, and Jesus said: "He who will not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple . . . There is no one who has left house, or parents, or brothers, or wife, or children, for the sake of the kingdom God, who will not receive manifold more in this age, and in the coming age, eternal Life" (Luke 14:33; 18:29-30). But if the wife departs she must remain unmarried and celebrate so long as her husband lives. Who knows but that the believing spouse might sanctify and save their partner? Everyone should remain in the station in which he was called. But if the unbeliever chooses to separate, let them depart; the Brother or Sister in such circumstances is not bond, for God has called you to enjoy peace (I Corinthians 7:11-24).
Paul types the husband with Christ, who sanctified Himself throughout life, even unto death, by the Token on display in order that His Bride might be sanctified or made holy and glorify Him by the Token on display in her life (as cited above in John 17:17-23). Since Jesus was the Logos manifest in flesh, as attributes of the Logos His Bride was accounted in Him and constantly sanctified. She was in Him when He was falsely accused, reviled, spat upon, crucified, dead and buried. If you are a member of His Body you paid for your sins when you were crucified in Jesus on Calvary "and will not come into condemnation; but have passed from death unto Life" (II Corinthians 5:14; John 5:24). When He was restored to life and caught up into heavenly places to sit at God's right hand, you were in Him then and are right now seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 1:20-23; 2:6). The last Adam, the King of glory, is reuniting with His own glorious being: His wife is made up of the Holy Spirit taken from His side when He died on Calvary as Eve was taken from the side of her Adam in the form of flesh and blood when God put him to sleep.
In His outward stature Jesus possessed no comeliness that would attract our attention, and no beauty that we should be drawn towards Him, for His beauty was character within (Isaiah 53:2). His wife is His glory, so the members of His Bride will reflect His character. And as the husband is to reflect the Spirit of Christ he will display the Token of the Life of Christ by His devotion for and deference to the weaker vessel who is his glory (I Corinthians 11:7). Thus more is required of the husband than of the wife. While the devotion of the wife is entire, exclusive, indissoluble and ministering as the Church loves and belongs exclusively to Christ, and the husband should love His wife as Christ loved the Church in entire, exclusive, indissoluble and protecting love, it is more difficult for him to love her without egotism, and to be master of the house in true affection without any severity, than for her to submit to him in tender respect for his dignity as husband and his nature in manhood.
The objective of marriage in both the natural and Spiritual realm is the sanctification of character and mutual unity in the Spirit of holiness.
As a holy God demands a holy life: the objective of the self-sacrificing love of Christ is that He might sanctify a Bride in the likeness of His character, then renew heavens and earth. So from the holy convocation of Pentecost through Seven Church Ages to the holy convocation of this present day He has been building a holy Church, cleansing the members of His Body in each of those nine dispensations, not by the water of Scriptural baptism, but by the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ and His substitutionary sacrifice that led them to repentance and baptism (Titus 3:5; I Peter 1:18-25; 3:21) and to the baptism with the Holy Spirit or new birth by the revelation of the present Truth cleansing the heart and establishing the saint in that part of the Body Christ is building by the Word of the hour with the token of a particular virtue of the Life of Christ as explained in II Peter 1:1-12 and illustrated in this diagram (I John 1:7; I Corinthians 12:12-27). The "seven thunders" of Revelation 10 are the revelation of the Messages of the angels to the Seven Church Ages revealed in their fullness through the ministry of Brother Branham, the angel to the seventh Church Age, to restore the apostolic faith (Malachi 4:5; Matthew 17:11; Revelation 10:7). It is this fullness revealed to God's holy prophets and apostles placed in the context of Church history with an exposition of the mysteries hidden under the symbology of the Book of Revelation that quickens the Bride of Christ in this last day and brings her to maturity in the unity of the faith for the manifestation of the Sons of God and the translation.
Water baptism does not cleanse the heart of sin but is merely an outward and public testimony of the soul-cleansing inner work of revelation. In the Old Testament the sacrifice had first to be washed before it was offered, hence when John the Baptist protested, "I need to be baptized by You; why are You coming to me? Jesus replied, Permit it to be so now: for it is fitting to fulfil all righteousness [under the Law at this time]" (Matthew 3:14-15). Justification by grace through faith and Scriptural water baptism is the firstwork of Christians as we "present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is our reasonable service" (Romans 12:1; Philippians 4:17-18).
Before Israel could come into fellowship with God the nation had to be justified by faith and come under the blood of a red heifer that was never yoked to any man-made religion, a type of Christ sacrificed without the camp, its blood sprinkled toward the front of the tabernacle seven times and burnt in his sight—"her skin, and her flesh, and her blood, with her dung"—as Jesus Messiah was crucified without the camp by a priest—not the high priest who was forbidden to associate with death (Matthew 27:25; John 11:50). Those seven stripes of blood show that their kinsman Redeemer died for their sin seven Church Ages before they would receive Him (Zechariah 12:1 – 13:9).
Numbers 19:9, 11-13, "And a man who is clean shall gather up the ashes of the heifer [as a memorial of the shed blood], and deposit them in a clean place without the camp, and they shall be kept for the congregation of the Israelites for a water of separation for the removal of sin. . . He who touches the dead body of any one shall be unclean seven days. (Because death is the wages of sin, thus Israel, who murdered their Messiah, has been unclean throughout seven Church Ages of the past 2,000 years). He shall cleanse himself with water run through the ashes of the red heifer on the third day, (and we are well into that third day of a thousand years), then he shall be clean: but if he fails to purify himself then on the seventh day he shall not be clean. Every one who touches the corpse of a man who has died, and fails to purify himself has defiled the dwelling of the Lord; that soul shall be cut off from Israel: because the water of separation was not sprinkled upon him. He is unclean; his uncleanness is still upon him".
Israel and the individual Israelite who does not cleanse himself by the washing of water by the Word revealed through the Message of the two Hebrew witnesses of Zechariah 4 and Revelation 11, will be blotted from the Book of Life.
Our sins were purged or burnt in Christ on Calvary and can never more be imputed unto us (II Corinthians 5:14). Ashes are the token of a sacrifice (of the Word) that is received by God, and the washing of live or running water (signifying the Holy Spirit) through the ashes types separation from sin by a clear revelation of the Word, which exposes sin (or unbelief) and replaces it with righteousness. Only a holy or sanctified man could handle the ashes or revealed Word of God. The waters of separation cleansed the unclean but defiled the one who administered it (ibid verse 7, 21) as Christ took upon Himself the filthy robes of sinful Israel and the world when He removed them from "whomsoever will" of Adam's race and robed His elect with robes of His righteousness: not by works but by grace through faith (Zechariah 3:3-4).
In building, Christ has been constantly cleansing His glorious Church, washing unbelief and misunderstanding from souls by the revelation of the Word over 2,000 years. We can only walk in the Light as it is revealed to us; thus it is the Light of a clear understanding of the mind of Christ that washes sin from our soul by the Spirit of holiness (II Corinthians 11:2).
Throughout the Book of Revelation John types or represents Christ's end-time Bride because this Book was sealed until the time of the end when Christ revealed it to us through the Message of William Branham, the angel to the Seventh Church Age (Daniel 12:4, 9; Revelation 10:4-7). In Revelation 21:2, we see "the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared [or made ready] (Revelation 19:7-8) as a Bride adorned [with honour] for her Husband," and of course Christ's Bride is the holy city, worthy of her calling, fitted for Him to present to Himself gloriously and not to please the world or anybody else, but for His Own good pleasure "having no spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but holy and blameless." Stains and "spots" signify soiling from the world without, such as the loathsome remains of our former life without Christ. "Wrinkles" are the external evidence of internal emotions that disfigure the face over time. Such blemishes as would mar the physical beauty of an idealized Bride will be absent in the Spiritual antitype of Christ's Bride perfected by the Spirit of holiness.
Adam and Eve were one flesh and bone and Christ and His "glorious Church" are one Spirit as Jesus prayed in Gethsemane. "Thus ought husbands also to love their wives as their own bodies," for their own wife is their body, they being the head as Christ is Head of His Church. Therefore, he who loves his wife loves himself, for if he hated her he would hate his own flesh, but he strengthens and renews its life, and carefully protects and preserves her life as Christ nourishes and protects the Church "because we are members of His Body, being of His flesh, and of His bones" whence we were taken at His death in the form of the Holy Spirit (I Corinthians 6:15; 12:12, 27). When we observe the Lord's Supper we signify we are born of and therefore one with His Word and His Spirit, and if there is any disharmony or if any one has brought reproach upon the Body we all tarry until restitution is made and harmony restored (I Corinthians 11:27-34).
"For this reason a man shall leave father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall be one flesh" as Christ left the Father's bosom to woo to Himself the Church out of a lost world. And as a natural husband and wife become one flesh in procreation, so Christ, as our Head passes His Life through the Body of His Church to quicken elect souls "dead in sin and trespasses" into epistles of the present Truth—offspring read and known of all men. For He is her Head, as the husband is of the wife (Romans 6:5; I Corinthians 11:3; 15:45) and will never allow any power to sever Himself and His Bride, indissolubly joined (Matthew 19:6; John 10:28-29; Ephesians 4:30).
"This is a profound mystery, but I am speaking about Christ and the Church. Nevertheless, let each one love his own wife as Christ loves His own wife, and love his wife as being himself; and let the wife see that she reverence her husband [which is her duty]". nl567.htm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pass it on . . . please send this article to someone you know
Brother Grigor-Scott is a non-denominational minister who has ministered full-time since 1981, primarily to other ministers and their congregations in other countries. He pastors Bible Believers' tiny congregation, and is available to teach in your church.
For Further Information Contact:
Bible Believers' Church
Currabubula, NSW 2342, Australia e-mail URL
Order Bible Believers' video & web site on CD.
Subscribe to Newsletter
Unsubscribe from Newsletter
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment