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The Father’s Vision: Sonship


For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things
and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons
to glory, to make the captain of their salvation
perfect through sufferings. For both He who
sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are
all one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call
them brethren (Hebrews 2:10-11).

In the beginning God purposed to bring forth many


sons to glory. God’s desire is that all of creation,
visible and invisible, may witness the manifestation
of the fullness of the Godhead bodily in His sons.
The manifestation of the sons of God is the
manifestation of the Son of God in the sons of God
to the measure of the stature of the fullness of
Christ. The Father wants to be visible in His
sons. The Father is the delight of His sons and His
sons are the delight of the Father. It is not
independent works and deeds that bring fulfillment
to the Father’s heart but the substance you have
become in your relationship with Him that minister
joy and fulfillment.

Everything in heaven and on earth revolves around


God and His family. For whoever does the will of My
Father in heaven is My brother and sister and
mother (Matthew 12:50, emphasis added). The will
of God is only being done in an intimate
relationship with Him. When the will of God is
being done on earth as it is in heaven the Father’s
glory is revealed and His kingdom has come to
men. The will of God being done in your life is
when your faith in God gives substance to
your hope to have a Father-son relationship
with Him, which is the evidence of this
unseen reality. Enoch and Elijah believed it to its
full measure and they were transformed and they
did not to see death.

As a result of God’s passion for sons, He created


Adam, His son (Luke 3:38), according to His image
and likeness. Adam was God’s godly seed. God
created him a living soul (Greek: psuchë; 1
Corinthians 15:45), which means he responded to
God and all other things predominantly from his
soul and not so much with his spirit. Adam’s spirit
was alive to God and his soul was filled with the
dazzling light of God’s presence and his body was
immortal and incorruptible. God gave Adam
dominion over all things in the psychic and material
(mineral, plant and animal domains) realms
because he was a living soul. Creation in the
realm of spirit, where angels, cherubim, seraphim,
etc. dwell, is under Christ’s domain because the
Lord Jesus Christ is of a higher order, a life-giving
Spirit. Adam is from the earth but the Lord Jesus
Christ is from heaven. God blessed Adam and Eve
to be fruitful and to multiply and to fill the earth
with sons of God. And God said, “Let the earth
bring forth the living creature according to its kind
[species]…” (Genesis 1:24a). If Adam had not
sinned, he as son of God would have brought forth
offspring after his own kind, sons of God (living
souls).

Prior to sin Adam was alive to God in his spirit, soul


and body meaning that he was in Christ his
Creator where he could sense God with his bodily,
soulish and spiritual senses because he was
created perfect in Christ totally alive to God. His
triune nature was absolutely one even as the Holy
Trinity is one.

Adam had no need to pray, meditating on the word,


waiting on God or practicing the presence of the
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Lord. Adam’s heart was perpetually enlightened
with Divine knowledge, wisdom and insight by the
dazzling light of God’s glory abiding in his virtues
soul. Faith or hope was foreign to him because his
life was total fulfillment in God. Adam suffered no
limitation or knew no lack. He was so full of life that
he lived 930 years after sin entered him and the
discord of sin entered his soul. Though he was
perfect he considered his divine calling an ordinary
thing through disobedience. He put on hold his
destiny to grow up and change from a living soul
into a quickening spirit in Christ, to become co-heir
with Christ also of things in the Spirit. All life in
creation lost its power when Adam ceased to abide
in Christ, his Creator. Man had to wait 4 000 years
until the Lord Jesus Christ came to redeem fallen
creation and start to restore it according to Divine
purpose.

When Adam sinned he died to God. Adam’s


immortal body put on mortality, meaning that his
body died to God because of sin. “…the body is
dead because of sin” (Romans 8:10, emphasis
added). His soul (carnal mind, emotions and the
human will) that lives in the blood of his body that
once knew no darkness, but was filled with the light
of God, became enmity against God. The heart is
deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked;
who can know it (Jeremiah 17:9). Death entered
into his spirit because he founded himself outside
of Christ his Creator. Adam’s light went out and he
entered into death, darkness and deception
because he was no longer in the Fountain of life,
Source of all light; Beginning and End of all
truth. God forsook Adam for his sin just as He
forsook Christ because of our sin.

God’s original purpose for man was to grow up, in


Jesus Christ, from a living soul into a life-giving
spirit that he may also become co-heir with Jesus
Christ of creation in the Spirit. Because of sin man
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chose the difficult road to become a life-giving
spirit. In the world you will have tribulation;
but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world
(John 17:33b, emphasis added). Adam made a
thoughtless choice. He knew not that his
commitment to sin would have caused millions to
suffer the horrors of hell for all eternity. However,
God so much loved the world that He charged His
Son, Jesus Christ, with the sin of Adam and his seed
that whosoever believe in Him shall not perish but
have everlasting life. God’s eternal life graciously
empowers man to grow up into all aspects of the
Son of God, who is a life-giving spirit.

Before the fall all realms existed in the one world of


Christ where God and all of His creation lived
together in harmony. There was only one kingdom,
the kingdom of our God and of His Christ. The
number one, the one realm, denotes divine
primacy. There is one body and one Spirit, just as
you were called in one hope of your calling; one
Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father
of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you
all (Ephesians 4:4-6, emphasis added). The number
one excludes all differences, for there was no
second with which it could either harmonize or
enter into conflict.

Through sin, Adam divided the one realm of the


universe into two realms, into the spiritual and the
natural realms (psychic and material realms). The
number two denotes there is a second who is in
conflict with God’s holiness and righteousness. The
Lord will not share his glorious dwelling with sinful
flesh and blood, which is dead to Him and divorced
from His person. Thus God casted Adam out of the
garden to till the ground from which he was taken.
God placed Adam and creation under his domain
(psychic and material realms) into the lower realm
of the natural, the sphere of conflict. God occupied
supremely the upper sphere of His Spirit which is
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filled with His joy, peace and righteousness. Adam
took the psychic and material realms down with
him into the pit of death and imperfection. Creation
in the natural realm was no longer in God. The
natural realm was independent from God, the
Source of eternal life, and therefore subjected to
futility which is death. With time, because of
division, the earth was divided into the many
kingdoms of men.

In Adam, we all died to God. We all came into the


world separated from God, dead to Him. We are
born in sin and shaped in iniquity that is manifested
in unrighteousness that rules the members of our
body. Independence from God is death because the
flow of eternal life has ceased when the branch was
severed from the Vine. Adam, the godly seed, died
to God because he and his seed were no longer in
God. He cancelled the birthright of his offspring to
have God as their Father and to relate to Him as His
sons. Then God needed a new godly seed to
perpetuate His dream for a harvest of sons. Only
when Christ, the Seed of God, was made
manifested in the flesh He revealed God as Father
to man and in power demonstrated to the earth the
truth about the Father-son relationship.

God will always shift life’s emphasis to His family,


which finds its expression in the Father-son
relationship in Jesus Christ. The family of God,
which is God’s kingdom and business, can
only be found in Jesus Christ, the second
person of the Godhead, creation’s one and
only Creator, Maintainer, Redeemer and
Restorer; the Lord of all the earth.

Because of man’s transgression the whole creation


started to groan and labor with birth pangs to be
delivered from the bondage of corruption into the
glorious liberty of the children of God that they
once knew. Men began to call on the name of the
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Lord as they remembered the promise God made to
Eve that the Godly Seed will bruise Satan’s head
and they within themselves, eagerly begin to wait
for the adoption, the redemption of their body. Paul
groan by saying, “That I may know Him and the
power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His
sufferings, being conformed to His death, if by
any means, I may attain to the resurrection
from the dead. Not that I have already attained,
or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may
lay hold of that which Christ Jesus has also laid hold
of me” (Philippians 3:10-12, emphasis added). This
is the message of the cross, to conform to His
death and resurrection; the message that needs
to be restored to the Church of Jesus Christ. I am
convinced that if God did not willed for Paul (under
grace) to die for his name sake he would have
attained to the resurrection from the dead just like
Enoch (without the law) and Elijah (under the law)
because he manifested the same manner of faith in
God as these two prophets. Paul was under a much
better covenant, the covenant of grace, than these
two Old Testament faith heroes. Enoch yearned for
what Adam had lost in the garden. He discovered
the Fountain of life and through faith walked with
God and God took him to heaven. Enoch is a
prophecy of glories to be revealed in the end time.

God never changed His original purpose to bring


forth many sons to glory. God, at first established a
covenant of works with His people Israel. Through
this covenant God established a certain relationship
between Him and Israel. Through the works of the
Law God’s people had to justify themselves. If Israel
would diligently obey the voice of the Lord to
observe carefully all His commandments then the
Lord will bless them. If they do not keep all His
commandments and statutes, curses will come
upon them and overtake them because God is the
Righteous Judge (Deuteronomy 28). But showing
mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and
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keep My commandments (Exodus 20:6). The
responsibility was with Israel to fulfill the Law of
Moses. This was a covenant between God and
Israel. Those outside of Israel had no part in
this covenant. Because the Law is spiritual,
imperfect man could not fulfill its requirements in
the flesh. Thus, the old covenant failed to
produce sons of God.

Then God took away the first covenant, the


ministration of condemnation that He could
established the second, which is the ministry of
reconciliation of all people on the face of the
earth, to Himself in His Son. Though the first
covenant came in glory that even the skin of
Moses’ face shone, the New Covenant was brought
in much greater glory, even in the glory of God’s
only begotten Son. It was only appropriate for the
Creator and Maintainer of all things to become
Redeemer and Restorer of His own creation.

The Father entered into a covenant with His Son, on


behalf of mankind, where He gave Him a people for
His own possession. Jesus, for the Father’s sake,
had to fulfill all the requirements of the Law and
made it honorable and for the people’s sake borne
the wrath of God against their transgressions. Then
the Father will forgive, once and for all, their
transgressions, change their natures by writing His
laws in their hearts and sanctify and make them
perfect. For them to be partakers of this covenant
they have to believe in God and Jesus Christ whom
He sent. Then they will be joined to Christ
becoming one Spirit with Him and God will place
them in the body of His Son. God will call them His
people. The relationship between God and man has
changed again, by God becoming Father to the
believers, and the believers are becoming sons to
God. It is not having your own relationship with the
Father but sharing Christ’s relationship with the
Father. Christ as purchased for you His relation with
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the Father, and all other relationships and things,
through His cross. All things from the flesh are dead
to God including your “own fleshly” relationship
with Him. What is born of the flesh is flesh and what
is born of God is spirit and life. Those outside of
Christ have no part in this covenant.

The Son of God fulfilled His part of the covenant on


the cross. Mercy and grace are granted to all that
believe and those that will still come to the faith in
God and Jesus Christ. This is a covenant of pure
mercy and grace. The just shall live by faith. In
Christ alone and nobody else is salvation. Christ
alone is the way to bring forth many sons to glory.
His vision was to see His seed (Isaiah 53:10). When
Christ was made manifested in the flesh He
revealed to the redeemed God as Father and in
power was also demonstrating sonship by being
God’s Son.

Christ has fulfilled His side of the covenant 2 000


years ago. As the covenant stands now, it is a one-
sided covenant of pure grace and nothing else but
grace. In terms of the New Covenant made in the
blood of God’s Son the Father is under obligation to
keep His side of the covenant of undeserved favor
forever. Undeserved favor means grace. Favor
manifested to the miserable is known as mercy;
favor manifested to the poor is known as pity; favor
manifested to the suffering is known as
compassion; favor manifested to the obstinate is
known as patience, and favor manifested to the
unworthy is known as grace!

Christ’s redemption plan is a provision. In a


nutshell, Christ quickened your entire being (spirit,
soul and body) to God according to the measure
that you have appropriated the resurrected Jesus
Christ. He had reconciled all things in Himself to
God into the one and only kingdom of our Lord and
of His Christ.
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Though Christ completed His work on the cross, you
do not yet experience your whole person restored
alive to God. What do you experience right now?
When you have accepted Christ as your Lord and
Savior you are joined to Him and you become one
spirit with Him and God has placed you in the body
of His Son. You are now alive in your spirit to God
because of Christ’s righteousness in you. Salvation
is your spirit made alive to God; the first step
of God restoring you to perfection in Christ.
However, your body is still mortal, void of
perfection of immortality and is corruptible,
meaning that it is dead to God because of sin
(Romans 8:10). Your soul who is in the blood of
your body is enmity against God, for it is not
subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be
(Romans 8:7). The soul is part of your fleshly nature
because it lives in the blood of your body of death.
If you die now your body will turn to dust from
which it was taken and your soul will sleep. Your
spirit will go to God if your name is written in the
Lamb’s book of life. If not, your spirit will depart to
hell where you will suffer the torments of hell for all
eternity. God’s righteous judgments will have been
established and His justice being served as far as
you are concerned - whatever your destiny.

Presently, as a born-again believer because your


soul is enmity against God it is still severed from
the Vine. The members of your body of death are
still the unrighteous slaves of your wicked soul.

Though your spirit is alive to God, restoration


(being made alive to God) will also come to
your soul and body at the last trumpet
because the Spirit that raised Christ from the
dead will quicken your mortal body and your
soul that dwells in your blood will be made
perfect as the light of God will displace all
darkness in your wicked heart. We will be alive
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to God as a whole man when the Spirit of God
(Father) dwells in us (Romans 8:9). Christ’s bodily
resurrection is the guarantee that we will be bodily
clothed with immortality and incorruption and that
our soul that lives in our blood will be made perfect.
Then the groaning in our spirit will cease as we will
experience total fulfillment in our entire being; we
will experience in full measure what is Life, Light
and Truth; what Jesus is experiencing right now.
The corruptible body of those who died in Christ
shall put on incorruptibility and those mortals who
are alive when Christ appears will put on
immortality. Then it will come to pass as it is
written, “Death is swallowed up in victory.” It
means those with glorified bodies will be alive to
God in their spirit, soul and body. This is the first
resurrection and the partakers thereof will reign
with Christ for a thousand years. And I saw thrones,
and they sat on them, and judgment was
committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those
who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus
and for the word of God, who had not worship the
beast or his image, and had not received his mark
on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived
and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. But
the rest of the dead did not live again until the
thousand years were finished. This is the first
resurrection. Blessed and holy is he who has part in
the first resurrection. Over such the second
death has no power, but they shall be priests of
God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a
thousand years (Revelation 20:4-6, emphasis
added).

The universe is still divided into the higher realm of


God’s Spirit and the lower realms of the soul
(psychic) and the material. Many lords still have
dominion over the earth. Those kingdoms are not
yet the one and only kingdom of our Lord and of His
Christ. These lower natural realms are not yet
subjected to Christ into the one realm of His glory.
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We still labor in the sweat of our brow to mainly
satisfy the needs and desires of our body of death.
The whole creation still groans and labors with birth
pangs until now to be delivered from the bondage
of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children
of God. Creation will be fully restored into the
liberty of the sons of God at the time of
Christ’s Jubilee at the end of the age.

The above proves that God’s redemption plan and


restoration plan is not synonymous. Christ’s
redemption plan is the provision and His restoration
plan is the fulfillment of His promises through faith
in God and Jesus Christ. The completion of God’s
redemption plan was the setting in motion of His
restoration plan.

If Christ’s redemption and restoration plans were


synonymous He would have brought all things into
fulfillment when He died and was raised from the
dead; it would have been the end of the world. Only
the Old Testament saints and those who were
Christ’s at His resurrection would have been saved
and would have been taken into glory at the time
when the graves were opened. The Holy Spirit
would not have been poured out and the Church of
our Lord Jesus Christ would not have been born. All
the nations of the earth with their billions of people
would not have been born and the gospel of the
kingdom would not have reached the ends of the
earth. God’s doing is marked by His wisdom. The
manifestation of His kingdom can only come about
as the body of Christ reaches into it through faith.
When the Son of Man comes shall he find faith on
the earth? (Luke 8:18).

The restoration plan of Christ reveals another side


of God’s overwhelming love. The lack that we are
still experiencing because of unfulfilled promises of
restoration reveals another side of God’s
overpowering love. God made us to be co-creators
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in Christ Jesus that through a flow of hope and faith
we may with Him restore all things. Firstly, we need
to learn to trust Him that He will finish the work
that He has started in us and creation; that He will
bring to pass what He has promised. He could have
restored the universe without our faith. But how
does He restore our relationship with Him without
involving our faith, without making us robots, which
is not His image and likeness? A relationship comes
from two sides. He will not restore creation that
was under Adam’s domain without us. He is using
our faith, hope and love to restore all things of
which our relationship with Him eclipses in glory all
other things put together. He will not restore
anything apart from our relationship with Him.

One can only relate to God through faith, hope and


love (1 Corinthians 13:13). Thoughts, attitudes,
words and deeds void of faith are sin. Without
visions of hope people perish. Thoughts, attitudes,
words and deeds without love counts for nothing
even if you give your body up to be burned for
Christ’s sake.

Our hope in Christ is that we will be alive to God, in


spirit (already alive if we are born-again), soul and
body when the Spirit of Him (Father) who raised
Jesus from the dead will quicken our mortal body
(Romans 8:11). To be alive to God as a whole man
is to experience what Jesus presently experience as
the risen Son of God exalted to God’s right hand.
Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself,
just as He is pure.

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