Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His
abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance
incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in
heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for
salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 1 Peter 1:3-5
A
friend posted my Augustine article on Facebook. In the discussion,
someone with whom he is conversant raised a question concerning my
statement that nowhere does the New Testament connect "salvation" with a
place called heaven to which we go after we die. The brother asked,
"What about 1 Peter 1:4?"I operate under the assumption that I am deceived. I realize that is an unusual assumption to hold; but we must hold it because it is true. How do I know that I am deceived? Simple. I look around me and see cruelty and death sitting upon this planet. I look in the New Testament and see the glorious liberty of the sons of God. I look at myself and see that the Christ who fills me with His glory is not noticed by that cruelty and death.
The mind that is separate from God, that lives in the tree of the knowledge of GOOD (and evil), demands definitions, it demands ideas about God, black and white, neatly tucked in. But the mind of Christ, that lives in the tree of life, knows God, but doesn't know anything about God except by the Word made flesh, by the always speaking of God always flowing through.
It's a simple equation. There is one difference only between the manifest sons of God setting all creation free from the bondage of corruption and you and me. They believe what God says; we do not. We are not bothered by that reality. We know that God's seasons and times concerning us are perfect, and that the Daystar is arising in our hearts.
Nevertheless, if we don't KNOW that we are deceived; we will imagine that the manner in which we view all things right now is accurate - that is, exactly the same way we will see all things after creation is set free. If we don't KNOW that we are blind, we will imagine that we see. If we don't KNOW that we are ignorant, we will imagine that we know God to the fullest extent that a created being can know Him.
It's a given. When we are in the act of setting creation free, when we witness with our eyes rivers of living water flowing out of our bellies, healing and bringing life to this planet, when we participate in the removal of every demon spirit from the experience of man, when the Lord Jesus stands side by side with us, His hand on our shoulder, His words, "This one is Mine; He is My glory," in that moment, we will see all things a good bit differently than we see them right now.
What will have changed? Will all creation and God Himself as they really are change? If we see all things accurately now, nothing could be different in that day. Or - for us to see all things differently then, God and heaven and Christ and creation will all have to change. What a presumption!
Or will it be that our own eyes open, that our own ignorance ceases, and that we have left deception behind forever?
The mind that is separate from God, that lives in the tree of the knowledge of GOOD (and evil), demands definitions, it demands ideas about God, black and white, neatly tucked in. But the mind of Christ, that lives in the tree of life, knows God, but doesn't know anything about God except by the Word made flesh, by the always speaking of God always flowing through.
That Word is always saying, "I am meek and lowly of heart. I have come to take the lowest place." How can you take such a continual speaking and turn it into some definition of God that fits the way in which we "see" things now?
What human definition of God would discover the reality that the throne John saw in Revelation 4 IS literally and only the hearts of those who believe in Jesus? My heart and yours? Only those who see the unseen could see such a thing.
God is so different from what we think. And SO IS heaven.
Peter used the word "heaven" in verse 4, then he used the word "salvation" in verse 5.
Here's what I am attempting to do all through what I write. There is an utterly false, un-Biblical definition of, especially, these two things, salvation and heaven, that is forced on the words of Scripture by the carnal religious mind that lives separately from the Word always flowing through them. People grow up with these definitions firmly ground into their brain, like an iron skull. They read the words of the New Testament and all they can see are the iron skull definitions tentacled all through every synapse connection of their grey cells.
It is impossible for anyone to see what Peter is actually saying with that iron skull fixed firmly on their minds and hearts. Paul calls it a "veil." It is darkness.
Let me explain further.
There are a number of things in Scripture that are stated as absolutes. These statements rule over everything else God says. Every way in which we approach everything else we find, both in the Bible and in creation, must be guided and governed by these statements of absolute truth.
Here is one of the most important. "And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." John 17:3
Eternal life, the life of the age to come, ZOE Aeonian, is one thing and one thing alone. That one thing has two distinct parts. The first part is to KNOW God; the second part is to KNOW Jesus Christ whom God is always sending.
Eternal life is not anything else. It has nothing to do with "eternity" or "living forever" or "going to heaven." In fact "eternal" and "eternity" are not Biblical words, the early church did not know those terms. They are Latin and darkness - when used to rule over Christ.
Knowing God is two things. It is knowing our complete and utter union with Him, intimate heart with heart, and it is the knowing of a God who is always flowing through us to reveal HIMSELF as He is to His creation as we are. That is, Jesus Christ, whom God sends.
Any definition of "God" that is not immersed in this knowing of intimate and complete union and of sending and release has nothing to do with God, it is simply a definition of how Lucifer wants to see himself.
"And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." John 17:3
This is why I refuse to depart from the words God speaks when seeking to know Him. The moment we create words that sound good to our ears because they satisfy the mind that lives separately from God, we no longer know God, we now know the imagination of a serpent who likes to pretend.
1 Peter 1:3-5 (and all of chapter 1) is one of the most glorious declarations of the revelation of Jesus Christ in the Bible. It says the very opposite of what many who might ask, "What about 1 Peter 1:4," hold in their mind.
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time."
There are three primary words that Peter uses here that relate directly to the question we are discussing. Those words are: inheritance - heaven - and salvation.
Let's start with "inheritance." The New Testament is very specific on what, exactly, our inheritance is. Our inheritance is expressed in these statements, bold and underlined. Read all the words first, then go back through and read ONLY what is bold and underlined, skipping all other words.
The meek shall inherit the earth.
And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that (the Spirit of truth) may abide with you forever . . . and shall be in you.
That where I am, there you may be also - At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.
If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.
He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son.
You can see that 99.99 percent of our inheritance is stated by Jesus in John 14. Our inheritance is God Himself, the Son of God and the Spirit of God in intimate and utter union with us, we in Him and He in us - God making His home in us.
This 99.99 percent of our inheritance has nothing to do with where we are, whether in heaven or on earth.
When Paul said "Absent from the body and present with the Lord," he was speaking into the confinements of babes in Christ. Inside of Paul's words there in 2 Corinthians 5 he says this: "We walk by faith, not by sight."
It is by sight only that it appears to us that we are "absent" from the Lord while walking in our present bodies upon this earth. But you and I do not walk by sight; we know that such a thing is impossible. How can we be absent from the Lord when He lives in our hearts?
When immature believers lose their physical bodies, they lose the thing that has kept them blind and thus "absent from the Lord" in their limited understanding of reality.
But what is the other .01 percent of our inheritance? All things. That is, all created things, both heaven and earth, that is, all creation belongs to us, it is our property, to do with as we please. But inside of "all things," the Lord Jesus delineated specifically that this EARTH is also a significant part of our inheritance.
And that is what 1 Peter 1:3-5 is all about.
The second word Peter uses is "heaven." We must have an accurate definition of heaven. Heaven is the realm of spirit. Peter uses the Greek word ouranios which means "the heavens" or "the realms of spirit." Heaven is all around us; we live and walk in heaven, that is, in the Spirit, all the time. I cannot "go to heaven." No one has ever or will ever "go to heaven." Such a thing is outside of reality, it is a fantasy drummed up by minds that live separate from God.
Heaven and earth are two sides of the same thing. You cannot have one without the other; they never exist separately. Neither is there a "third" place called "hell." Hades, the place of the dead, is part of the heavens, that is, it exists in the realms of spirit. Everything that is in heaven finds its counterpart in the earth; everything that is in the earth is an extension of what is in the heavens.
My spirit right now lives fully and totally in heaven. I will never be in heaven more than I am right now. The problem I labor under is that, because there is still sin in my physical body, and because of sin, death, I am blind. I cannot see the obvious. People who "die" do not "go to" heaven. All that happens is they lose half of themselves. They are dead. They lose their physical body and thus cannot be seen in the earth, nor interact directly with physical things anymore. They are still alive because their spirits continue in heaven as they always were. But they are only half there, they are only half human, and that is why the New Testament says they are COMING BACK. They want their bodies back. They want to be fully human again.
God specifically and deliberately caused Jesus' physical body to ascend before the eyes of His disciples. They watched that same physical body that they had touched physically just moments before, a resurrected incorruptible physical body, flesh and bone, ascend up until it was no longer visible to their eyes. God did it that way for a definite purpose.
God wanted us to know that Jesus, the Son of God, in His eternal state, is a MAN, that He is always God manifest in the FLESH. God in the earth is the Word made flesh.
When God created us in His image, He made us exactly like Jesus, the Son of God. He is the first One of our kind. (It is only minds who live separately from God and do not know Him that would imagine I might be claiming that Jesus "began" at a certain point in "time.")
God is always speaking: Jesus, the Word made flesh, is always appearing to creation. God is always now. Time is nothing other than the eternal showing up in the earth.
And that IS what Peter says about salvation in 1 Peter 1.
Here is where we get excited.
Peter said, "Salvation ready to be revealed in the last TIME."
Salvation is all about GOD showing up in the earth and in time.
You see, when we understand reality as it is, that is, as God actually says in the New Testament, stripped of all the fantasy definitions of powerful, separated-from-God intellects from 2000 years of the serpent planting lies in the church, then my next statement makes perfect sense.
It is earth that knows salvation first, not heaven. Heaven will know salvation only as it comes to heaven from earth. Those who are in heaven are not saved, that is, they are not yet in the fullness of what salvation is.
Now, those who insist on an un-Biblical definition of the word "saved," cannot comprehend such a statement.
But how can someone who is missing half of himself call himself whole? More than that, the writer of Hebrews said that they without us cannot be made perfect. Those who are dead and in heaven do not yet know the full salvation that all creation is groaning for.
Angels were created to live in heaven only. When they show up in the earth, they have to force themselves down into a lower frequency, it is not their true being. Animals were created to live in the earth only. When they die, their spirit vanishes into the earth, they retain no heavenly form. Man was created specifically to reveal God in both heaven and earth all the time and forever.
The earth is my inheritance. It is impossible for me or any believer who knows the Lord in heaven or on earth to be content while the earth is ravaged by darkness and cruelty.
Carnality sees salvation as earthians "going to" heaven. We see the opposite.
We are heavenlians manifesting God in the earth. We are sent by our Father to reveal salvation now, inside of time and on this earth.
Now, reckon with what Peter is saying. His words are momentous. He says the same thing a few verses later about grace.
Peter is claiming here that there is both a salvation and a grace that we who are born again, we who are filled with the Holy Ghost, we who possess a heavenly (spirit) inheritance, DO NOT KNOW.
Peter was an apostle of Jesus Christ living fully in the Church age. Jesus birthed His church on the day of Pentecost through Peter's voice box!
But this apostle of Christ who walked in union with His Savior said that there is coming a SALVATION that we do not now know. Now, the words he uses to define this salvation are very specific. (This is why I so abhor "the Bible says," throwing around Bible verses without stopping for a moment to see what God actually says.)
First, Peter said, "Apokalyphthēnai." That is the "to be" verb form of the word "apocalypse," to take off the cover. And then specifically in the last time. The Greek words mean "last" and "time," but specifically "the right moment" or "the suitable time."
We know that Peter is referring specifically to this definition of salvation because he says, "to take the cover off." In other words, we know now, by faith, that Christ is our life, but we do not "see" it with our eyes - only because we are blind.
The apocalypse is nothing more than the moment God takes the cover, the scabs, the blindness off our eyes so that we can, for the first time, see the obvious.
The moment we see the obvious, we walk forth in the liberty of the sons of God, setting all creation free. And that IS the salvation ready to be revealed in the opportune TIME.
Time is an earth word; time is not a heaven word. Time is heaven showing up in earth.
Salvation. Full and complete salvation. The Lord Jesus revealed in all of His glory through us is seen in the earth first before it is seen anywhere else. We know that heaven has to wait until the next age before they can begin to comprehend the salvation that we know.
Salvation. This salvation ready and willing and waiting to be revealed in the opportune time is not for us. It is not "our getting saved." Christ is our life right now. We are utterly in Him and He fills every part of us RIGHT NOW absolutely and totally. Our present ignorance defines nothing.
This great salvation Peter is setting our eyes upon IS US invading earth. We are the Salvation of God, Christ in us and as us and through us, bursting upon the present scene, in this most opportune of times, the "last" time of this present age.
We are the sending of God. We are about our Father's business. We are heaven invading earth. We are the full and final salvation of God now being revealed upon this earth.
Let's get our eyes fixed on the real nature of reality.
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Romans 8:18-22
"The glory which shall be revealed in us" IS the exact same thing as Peter's "salvation ready to be revealed in the last time."
Now, let's fix our understanding on the nature of reality. All creation, heaven as much as earth, is right now groaning and laboring in birth pangs. Heaven as well as earth has set its hope eagerly, eagerly, eagerly in great agony of travail, in a heavy labor under great bondage and darkness - all creation, Heaven and Earth - filled with a desperate, desperate looking and hoping towards WHAT?
Salvation.
Which is?
The glorious liberty flowing out of the bellies of you and me, the sons of God, the rivers of living water.
This is reality. Everything other than this salvation that poses and struts inside of broken, fallen "Christianity" is nothing more than the fantastic imaginings of very powerful and very dark minds.
This is not a game we are in. "Go, go, go to heaven." Paul said, "Don't ever say that."
Why? Because Christ, Salvation, Reality, is inside of you, in your mouth and in your heart - right now.
And Salvation is the moment when He is revealed through us IN the earth, first, and then to heaven, after. "Until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts."
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Out with the old paradigm of a hierarchy set up much like...See more