Victory over Death ~ Daniel Yordy

The defeat of death in the physical body is the third level, the third feast, the fulfillment of the Covenant, the culmination of the Gospel.

 24. Victory over Death  (Daniel's series numbering)  
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The culmination of the Kingdom, the culmination of the Gospel, the culmination of the Covenant, the proving point upon which all of it hangs and through which all that God speaks MUST pass is

- the Defeat of Death.

By death, I mean the demise of the physical body.

The Greek word 'thanatos,' usually translated 'death' in the English Bible, has at least five completely distinct and different meanings as I shared in "Christ Planted in Death." Let me list these five definitions here, you can peruse the other article for references and explanations.

1. The physical death of the human body.
2. The mind that lives separate from God in ignorance.
3. The fallen human spirit, called the 'old man,' which is (was for us) a body of death.
4. The total elimination of that fallen human spirit at the moment we were born again.
5. The death of the atonement, which is not death at all, but glorious life, yet it is a 'death' in a very peculiar and different way, completely other than the first four definitions of 'thanatos.'

NOTE: The relationship between Thanatos and Hades in the gospel is very, very different from the illusions conjured up in Christianity.

Thanatos is not Hades and Hades is not Thanatos. Hades is the first realm of heaven where those who are Thanatos have their being, devoid of both physical body and spirit-body, vague whispering souls, ghosts in the darkness.

Thanatos, really, has three parts. It is the darkening of the spirit body upon Adam's sin, the loss of the physical body at death, and the ignorance of the mind in-between.

Both Thanatos and Hades are cast into the Lake of Fire at the end of the next age, that is, they are swallowed up completely in the Love and Light of God.

Death is not real separation from God. There is no such thing. In the end, death is imaginary only. When I say that, I do NOT mean it in a 'Christian Science' way. Sin really drives a wedge between a created being and God. God does not know sin. And Death really intends to kill you. But the Atonement of Jesus has already swallowed up every sin before it was ever committed. And any created being can turn by the Atonement and in one moment be swallowed up in it. God hardens the hearts of many for His purposes for a season. But the testimony of the gospel is overwhelmingly clear and not to be annulled even by those who hold to the Roman darkness and to Jerome's hideous sin. All creation returns to the Father as Jesus brings all things into submission to Himself.

Death is defeated. Death is swallowed up in victory.

People can spiritualize death all they want, considering themselves to be 'deeper truth' Christians. People can shout "Love, love," and "Grace, grace," till they are blue in the face. People can preach "no condemnation" until they are leaping to the sky.

Physical death laughs in their face, thinks nothing of all their theology and words, and takes them out. They are then only in the heavens and not in the earth, missing half of themselves, DEAD in Christ, waiting in all hope for salvation.

Physical death IS the condemnation. There is no other condemnation. Norman Grubb died by condemnation. Sam Fife died by condemnation. The Apostle Paul died by condemnation. Yes, they died in faith, but they died by condemnation. You and I will die by condemnation - EXCEPT death be defeated in our bodies.

God has made it so.

God has focused ALL the PROOF of His Word on one thing alone - the defeat of death in the physical body.

That's the only Christ there is; there is no other Christ. John calls that other so-called 'Christ,' anti-Christ.

God is never revealed either to heaven or to earth apart from FLESH. The only God creation can know is God manifest in the Flesh.

The Holy Spirit fails utterly, as any sort of guarantee, apart from the defeat of death in the physical body.

Jesus, the Word God speaks from the beginning, falls into ruin and nothingness apart from the defeat of death in the physical body.

God the Father will never be seen, never be known as He is, apart from the defeat of death in the physical body.

God HAS MADE IT SO.

It is the resurrection, out of all the steps of the Atonement, that most specifically shows us the Father.

Everything that comes before finds its meaning and purpose ONLY in the defeat of death in the physical body. Everything that is to come, comes ONLY out of the defeat of death in the physical body.

ALL the Desire of all the ages, both those that have been, and those that will yet be, is found ONLY in the defeat of death in the physical body.

It is here and here alone that God proves Himself true, that His Word fulfills the purpose for which it was sent and thus returns to the Father complete. It is here and here alone that the guarantee called 'the gift of the Holy Spirit' turns into the full inheritance.

The defeat of death in the physical body is the third level, the third feast, the fulfillment of the Covenant, the culmination of the Gospel.

Now, all this is clear and written openly on the pages of the New Testament. Yet the veil of unbelief has sat upon the minds and hearts of almost all Christians until today, and they have willfully refused to believe what God so clearly says.

They have willfully refused to believe, but instead have bent the gospel and the covenant and the words of the New Testament to bow in homage to that 'undefeated' master, Death - triumphant, evil-filled, and sick.

Christians proclaim openly the victory of Death over the saints (heaven is our home), having turned that horrific lie into the very gospel itself. What a perversion! "Death is that wonderful friend who takes you to heaven and to Jesus." What a demonic deceit.

Gross unbelief and in-your-face accusation against all that is holy and God.

I do not read, I do not listen to anyone who pushes the big lie. They may say many things that are true and Christ, but when push comes to shove, they reject the victory of Christ made personal inside of them and bow themselves and the gospel before the fountain of all wickedness and opposition to God - Death.

They will not stand against the giants, but run into the grave before the whips of sin and death. Their proclamation of Christ ceases when death enters the equation, and they bow before that giant and call it 'God.'

David had enough trouble with his brethren sitting in fear of Goliath. But at least he did not have to contend with an Israel on their face before Goliath, having renamed him 'YHWH' in the way we must deal with.  

Saul had no problem recognizing that Goliath was not YHWH; Christians do.

Christians call death, 'God.' Can you believe that? They fight death tooth and nail in all the power of the flesh, running to the doctors, knowing it is evil, yet the moment it defeats their neighbor in a gory paroxysm of agony, they call it 'God'!

Understand that I am NOT speaking in any way against those who are carried through that dark passage in utter trust in Jesus and in incomprehensible peace. My own mother went in just that way recently.

JESUS CARRIES US and there is nothing else for us. We walk utterly by faith, disregarding ALL that we "see" or "feel," including physical death should our times include it.

Yet death stands as the enemy of God, and God intends to prove Himself in our bodies by the defeat of death, entirely together with us.

There is no resurrection apart from faith; there is no resurrection apart from us.

"By man death, by man also the resurrection of the dead."

Look at that line in 1 Corinthians 15. If you have the right Bible, you will see that the word 'came' was not in the original, but forced in by the unbelief that filled the hearts of the King James translators. (I am planning an article on "The King James Destruction" in my series on The Covenant.)

"For this mortal must put on immortality."

So, Yordy, just exactly how do you plan to defeat death?

I have no idea.

But I do know the God who fills me, that He is life.

Knowing God is a much bigger deal than defeating death. Defeating death is a normal and natural outcome of knowing God.

How do I know God? That beyond wonderful gift, I can explain, step by step, so let me simply replace how I know God with how to defeat death. Then, I will tell you more plainly out from my resurrected body; then, I will take you by the hand and show you.

But for now, I will speak figuratively, just as Jesus did.

All things begin with a word spoken by God. The defeat of death in the physical body begins by a word spoken by God. Before we continue, let's assemble that Word. NOTHING exists except God speak it.

The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear shall live.

He that lives and believes in me shall never die. Martha, do you believe this?

But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

We groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for the adoption, the redemption of the body.

For since by man death, by man also the resurrection of the dead.

For this corruptible must put on incorruptibility, and this mortal must put on immortality.

Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory (the defeat of death) through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Not that we should be unclothed, but further clothed, that death should be swallowed up by life.   

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. 

The Lord Jesus Christ will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself. 

Jesus has destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

Just AS it is given unto man once to die, SO Christ was offered ONCE to bear the sins of many.

Do not be afraid, I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive for the ages, and I have the keys of Thanatos and of Hades.

Of all these verses, each powerful and important, I think that the most important for us is 1 Corinthians 15:57, "Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

The act, the moment, the power, the reality of the defeat of death is a gift from God given to us. It is our possession. Then, 2 Corinthians 5 tells us that the Holy Spirit is the guarantee to us that this experience of our victory over death MUST BE ours, that our dying physical body be swallowed up by life. 

NOW - most preachers and teachers of the Bible will then say, and I have heard it in many different ways.

"Sure, Yordy, we know God says all these things, we can read them in our Bibles as well. But whatever they mean, none of it exists until AFTER Jesus returns. And what makes you think, Yordy, that these verses refer directly to you? And WHAT MAKES YOU THINK that these verses apply to you NOW? Everybody dies. Paul died; all kinds of people down through the centuries shouted about all these verses and they are all DEAD! Who do you think you are?"

 The PROVING TEST standing before every man, woman, and child on this planet is what do you do with the word God speaks. 

There is only one way by which we honor that Word. Anything else we might do with it is to spit upon it.

More than that, I am well aware that almost all Christians who might read my letters or hear me share would think and say very similar things, each in their own way, against my presumption and against what I teach.

Let me share my present response to this challenge. Remember, the word God speaks is Jesus, and Jesus is the only life I know.

I feel the pain of this challenge pressing into my brow, I feel its whips slashing across my back, I feel its spit sliding down my cheek. I stumble under its pressure and I give thanks for my inability. I see my precious brethren, so blinded by the tree of knowledge about God and my heart, the heart I share with my Father, swallows them up into the God who carries me. "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing to the Son of Your love."

To dishonor the word God speaks by shoving it out into the cold, far, far away from us right here and right now is to spit in God's face.

God is such a peculiar Fellow; He allows anyone to do anything they want against the Word that He speaks, against His Son, against Himself. He even allows His own to put that very Word to death in all shamefulness. And even as they mock Him, spitting upon the Word that He speaks, He carries them, inside Himself, all the way into life.

What a God it is that fills us full!

God is in me, reconciling all these who spit upon His word to Himself.

Let's start with the bottom line, with the in-your-face finger of God. What is it that YOU do with the word God speaks? You have two choices; there is no third choice. You can honor that word or you can spit on it. If you do not honor it, you do spit on it and drive it from you with whips.

Two things are essential to honoring the word God speaks. I make it personal to me and I make it right now, in the only moment that IS. 

The most adventurous possibility standing before our God right now is for Him to take out death inside the weakness of the human frame through hearts who simply dance and sing for joy in believing all that He says.

God is infinite and God is eternal. Now, I just heard someone prophecy with these words, "I, who live in eternity, speak to you . . ." And instantly I felt the God in me being shoved out into the cold, shoved far, far away from us.

Christianity has always given the words "infinite" and "eternal" the very opposite definition of what they actually mean. (Of course, neither word does God ever use, but they are still useful to us when we know that.) Christianity has always defined these words as a Being who is far far away from us finite and temporal lowly worms. That is the opposite of what those words mean.

Eternal means right now all the time. Infinite means right here, personal and real.

Faith deals with God NOW. Faith deals with God HERE. There is no other God. An eternal God is always NOW; an infinite God is always HERE, personal in me.

God spoke to me the other day, "Son, because you honor My Word, I will honor you." Since that moment I walk in His honor of me, I will never know anything else.

The PROVING TEST standing before every man, woman, and child on this planet is what do you do with the word God speaks. There is only one way by which we honor that Word. Anything else we might do with it is to spit upon it.

God, you mean PERSONAL in ME! God, you mean RIGHT NOW, this moment!

God IS in no other way.

And then we pay no attention whatsoever to what our blindness does not see or what our ignorance does not know.

We believe what God says, all that He says, as He says it. We believe.

When we believe what God says, personal and now inside of us, we honor the Son of His Love. And when we honor the Son of His Love, God Himself, the Father, shows up inside of us. And when God shows up inside of us, suddenly, for the first time in our lives, we know Him. That knowing of God never ends. It never ends because we simply do not believe our "eyes" or our "feelings"; we believe only the knowing of God.

This God, then, who fills us with ALL of Himself is Love and Light and Life. He is also incredibly adventurous, and adventure, to be fully satisfying, requires risk.

My son, when, at age 4, he discovered that two wheels beneath him meant wind-in-the-hair and sailing through space faster than he had ever known, could not be contained. We discovered later that he snuck out at one in the morning to sail down the street and to know the glory of adventure, a glory he could not stay away from. My son is like that because God made him just like Himself.

God simply loves to prove His stuff; He likes to hear us say, "God, You are just something awesome."

God loves adventure.

The most adventurous possibility standing before our God right now is for Him to take out death inside the weakness of the human frame through hearts who simply dance and sing for joy in believing all that He says.

It's quite risky to defeat death through dying. There is no story if the Hero cannot lose. We're talking about supreme adventure. 

God speaks His word into weakness that His word might prove God true. Our part is two things: we give thanks for all our weakness, knowing that God has made us so, and we rejoice in absolute confidence in the expectation of God. That is the faith through which the Word passes as He proves His Father true.

My body CANNOT stay dead. What an absolute impossibility!

People can disbelieve God all they want, but tell me, how on earth can they prevent or even slow down His exuberant joy as He reveals Himself through hearts who simply honor Him?

I see the defeat of death.

I see God.

I see the celebration of my 1000^th birthday right here on this earth.

I see God.

"The thief comes to steal, to kill, and to destroy. But I am come that you might have LIFE and that you might have it in ALL ABUNDANCE." Jesus, the Word God is always speaking.

Now, I am running into a problem as I write. I keep starting new letters before I finish the ones I have already started. I wrote the first 4+ pages of this letter while at Upsala, a Christian community in Canada. Since I wrote these pages, I wrote another unexpected letter, and now I have already started an additional one this morning. Thus my perspective continues to increase and the glory of God gets all mixed up from one letter to the next.

My children get their love of adventure honestly; I am made the same way. God will always be taking my breath away.

God is birthing a universe of LIFE through us. He has granted to us the awesome privilege of shaping that universe together with Him out from our shared heart, the same heart we share with one another and with Him.

That's what it means to be granted to eat of the tree of Life.

Now, there is another startling thing, one of many, many, that we discover as we know that God shows Himself as He really is only through the path of the Atonement. And forgive me for capitalizing so many words; the God who fills us full is just too exuberant to contain or to restrain. He is poking out in every direction all the time; we simply are out of breath.

The life of God that fills us full is a particular kind of life. God-life, as it really is, revealed for us to know, is an Out-From-the-Dead Life. God is not just Life, He is Resurrection Life.

Now, in the present creation, as things work as we presently know them, if you want to build a new building on the site of the old, you must demolish the old and clear the site before you can begin building the new. This is not how God births the new.

God is the God who is always arising out of death into life. If Jesus arose from the dead in a moment of time, then He is simply showing us for real the eternal, the infinite, the always nature and being of God. But just hours before, this same Jesus, this same God, entered into death, carrying all of His creation inside Himself. Thus, as He is always arising into life, creation is always arising anew inside of Him.

Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection . . . Romans 6:4-5

Now, let me restate this in the way I suspect God meant it.

Therefore we ARE buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ is raised from the dead by the glory, the being, the Person, of the Father, even so we also are always walking in newness of life. For as we ARE united together in the likeness of His death, certainly, we ARE also in His resurrection.

Now we see the incredible importance to us and to God of Romans 8:11.

But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

Again, it need not be translated "will give," but "gives." God is not "future," He is always now.

These words are the showing, the proving, the demonstration of God to all creation.

Thus God does not eliminate one thing before creating the next. No, He births the new, and then, through the new, He swallows up the old into Himself, arising into life and we in Him.

Thus the life of God is always resurrection life; it is always a "swallowing-up" life. It is always a becoming life, a carrying life, an arising life.

So you see, it is not "how to defeat death" that we must know, but rather, God. When we know God, it is absolutely impossible for us to keep Him from swallowing up the death in our physical bodies and transforming them in a moment to a body just like His glorious body. It is not something God does, it is who He is.

What we must do is to stop treating God in the cold and hurtful way we have treated Him in the past. To say, "After Jesus returns" or "after we 'go to heaven'" in the separated way most people treat God, is to kick Him where it hurts most, right at His Word.

On the other hand, when we say, "Here am I, God, I belong to You, let every single Word You speak - Christ Jesus - be fulfilled in all fullness personally in me right here and right now," we honor Him in the highest way any created being could ever honor Him.

Then look out, cause there ain't no way of stopping this Fellow. He is always doing far, far more than we could ever think or even imagine. And all that He is, He does with open exuberance and unrestrained joy.

All who say, "Not me, not here, not now," in any possible way concerning any word God speaks, including and especially the visible defeat of death in our physical bodies, place a hard, cold, iron barrier of separation between themselves and any knowing of the God who carries them.

God knows all about this barrier, and He is most excellent at the business of melting it. Yet He always begins with a seed, a firstfruits, His elect, chosen by Him without regard to human ability. Then, when death is visibly defeated and on the run, many, many, many who were once fearful and unbelieving come rushing in, their swords swinging, sharing in the victory of the God who fills us full.

Death is no more.

A universe, both heaven and earth, in which death is no more, is a universe no created being has ever known or contemplated.

That universe is birthed right now in our hearts and comes flowing right out of our bellies.

Believe in Jesus!

Christ Planted in Death by Daniel Yordy

Christ Our Life from http://www.blogger.com/www.dyordy.com


From: Daniel Yordy October 3, 2010

Note:
This is the seventh letter of a series I am writing entitled "The Unveiling of Jesus Christ." This series is the third of three in which I hope, somehow, to impart a measure of my present understanding of The Great Story of God.

I do not have the time today to place this article on my website or to create a PDF version of it. I will do that, hopefully next time I send an article.






Christ Planted in Death




The cross stands front and center in the fulfillment of the word God speaks - the unveiling of Jesus Christ. But we have never understood the cross. Our past understanding of the cross, whatever it might have been, was sufficient for God to draw us onward to Himself. The cross is absolute and it does its work for God whether we comprehend it or not. In other words, God is able to fulfill the purpose of the cross in our lives even if our understanding of the cross is limited or even incorrect.




But we are in an exciting time in the fulfillment of all that God speaks and as a result the lights are turning on. We are seeing, still dimly, yes, still through a glass darkly, but our realization of what we are looking at grows daily. We continue to be astonished and amazed at the profound depths of what both the cross and the resurrection of Jesus Christ mean inside of us.




And so I write, not because I know what I'm talking about, but because writing helps me to see more clearly. By writing, I discover wonderful things about what God actually says. So I write for myself in a sense, and it is my joy to share my ramblings with you.




But rather than the cross, per se, I want to know what God actually says, and what He means by what He says, when He talks about this thing called "death."





"You just need to die, brother," was offered to me as God's solution through many years of difficult and trying circumstances. I never had any idea what they were talking about. I did not know how to die, nor that anyone ever could "die," as they said. It made no sense to me. I believed it, yes, because I thought God said something along those lines. The problem was I would always wake up the next morning, and it was still me getting out of bed.




In a letter awhile back, I was talking about God speaking to me, and I received a reply stating, "I've got news for you, brother, you're a dead man walking." He meant, I assume, that since I am "dead" in Christ, there is no point in my talking about God doing this or that with me, since "I" was no longer around. But all this is just confusing nonsense. People throw these words around because it makes them feel religious. That's okay; Jesus inside of us takes care of all our mess.





[More than that, I just watched briefly a portion of "The Green Mile" with Tom Hanks. A convicted murderer was being led into the prison in chains while the guard escorting him was declaring loudly, "Here is a dead man walking." Christians who repeat these things are living under darkness. I am NOT an accused going to my execution. My God, that is the very opposite of the gospel! My death is behind me, on the cross two thousand years ago, and I - I am alive, born again, and looking towards a future of ever increasing glory and wonder.]



[Also - I am not contradicting the wonderful truth that we must discover - that we are truly dead, already. And that we do not need ever again to worry about ourselves. There is a plumb line dividing truth from error, even when they are worded almost exactly the same.]





The Greek word, "thanatos," in all of its forms, is found 132 times in the New Testament. It is always translated "death" in one of its forms (deadly, put to death, etc.).




But it is normal in human language for one word to have many different definitions. From one generation to the next, new definitions are tacked onto a particular word and older definitions fall into disuse. Sometimes it's as if you are dealing with two different words that are just spelled and pronounced the same. Try the South is north of Cuba, but Cuba is south of the South.




The word in English with the largest number of different definitions, 150 and counting, is the word "run." A motor runs quietly, a road runs up the hill, a jogger runs down the street, a lady has a run in her nylons, a card player has a run of bad luck. And that's only five. If I translate a passage from English into another language about a motor running poorly, and I use the word in that language for a "run" in a pair of nylons, I bring only confusion to my readers.





Translating from one language to another is not a simple thing. There is no such thing as one Greek word always being translated into only one English word. Language just doesn't work like that, at all. (The transliterate Bible tries to do that out of an ignorance of human language.) Greek words are just as capable of having several completely different meanings as are English words, and there is no rational matching between the differing sets of meanings. As with all words, meaning can be obtained only from the context. What did the author mean by that word when he used it in that context in the general language of his generation?




The Greek word "thanatos" is translated into the English word "death," but it is clear from the contexts that the word "thanatos-death" has very different meanings in different verses. If we tried to give one definition only to the word "death" as it appears in the New Testament, we would only keep ourselves out of the truth God is speaking.




Let's start with a first meaning of "death." (First to look at.)




"And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience . . . But God, . . . even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ . . ." Ephesians 2:1-5




Notice we were "dead" in what we used "to live." The difference between "were dead" to "alive with Christ" is known clearly in experience by every believer in Jesus.




Here are several more meanings of "death" all tacked together into one passage. Notice that it is clear that the word "death" is being used to refer to some very different things.




"For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death (the expiring of the physical body + death to sin), certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. For he who has died (this is the putting to death of our fallen human spirit, the old man, when we are born again) has been freed from sin. Now if we died (obviously not physical death here) with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more (both are clearly the physical death of the body). Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin (clearly not the death of the physical body (only), but rather, death to sin) once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead (the same death to sin, not physical death at all, nor the death of the old man) indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 6: 5-11




So far, we have four completely different meanings for the word "death." The most obvious is the physical expiration of the human body - death. But then also it is a way of "life" that is, living by the anointing of the spirit of this world. It is also the ending of the fallen human spirit when we are born again. And finally, it is the nature of being "dead to sin," which is the nature in which we presently walk.




There are other meanings as well, though it is not the purpose of this present letter to expand on all the meanings of the word "death" as found in the New Testament. I want to point out one thing, however, before I get to Christ planted in death.




"Dead to sin" is the nature of God; it is another way to say "incorruptible." God by His nature is "dead to sin," that is, sin is irrelevant as far as God is concerned, He is neither drawn by it, nor does He regard it. I am "dead to sin" in exactly the same way. But the only way I am dead to sin is by the incorruptible nature of God in me by which I am born from above. No created being can be dead to sin, even the angels who have not fallen; it is a quality enjoyed only by God and those who are born of God.




My present human task is to "reckon," that is "put to my account," that is, "speak with all joy," that I am dead to sin, that is, that I possess the quality and nature of incorruptibility that belongs only to God because I am filled with God. This is a quality that we do not "see" with our natural eyes, but that we are commanded to confess by faith.




However, I want to focus in on, to see dimly, to set our eyes upon in some way by God's help, the most incredible definition of the word "death" that there is. We are looking, here, at something so holy, so profound, so incredibly God; we have never seen or known such a deep and overwhelmingly meaningful thing, nor has creation, nor all the realms of heaven.




"Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain." John 12:24




This word is found in a context, yes, and that context has meaning. But we have never known what Jesus meant, here, and all explanation of the context in the past has only served to sidetrack us away from this incredible and profound revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ inside of us.




This use of the word "dies" here is entirely different from all other uses of the word "death." We know that a seed does not die in the normal sense of the word, that is, the life that is in it does not cease. If that happens there is no plant and no fruit. Rather, that seed takes upon itself the appearance of death by being "planted in the earth."




This death is not "death to sin," it is not physical death, it is not the old way of living, and it is not the cessation of the old fallen human spirit that used to govern our lives.




And it is not the death of the cross. Jesus was not referring to the instance and circumstances of April 14-17, AD 29 - the week leading up to the Passover and His physical death and resurrection.





It is something far different from all of those other definitions of "death"; it is something incredibly profound and holy. Yet it is also a "death." Jesus was referring to something that would begin on June 5, AD 29, something angels cannot see or comprehend, something for which men will attempt to put us to death, if they discover we believe it to be true.




On June 5, AD 29, the Lord Jesus Christ, the risen Savior, the glorious and triumphant King of heaven, became a mess. On June 5, the Day of Pentecost, the day the church was birthed out of His side, Jesus entered into the earth and was planted in death as a seed.




Jesus became you, and Jesus became me. The Lord Jesus Christ is all of our messiness.




But let's build some points of understanding before we come back to consider this most impossible to grasp truth of the purpose and determination of Almighty God.




First is a simple comprehension of the metaphor Jesus used. This is something we have all heard and understood to some degree. A seed is planted into the garden soil; beans grow well in my backyard, so let's call it a bean seed.




I plant a bean seed into the dirt. It sits there, alone and in the darkness. It is surrounded entirely by dirt. Then, water seeping through the dirt begins a slow work on the outer shell of that seed. It softens it and penetrates into the inner core.





Before going further, a seed has three parts. First, there is the germ in the core of the seed that contains the DNA of the plant that will grow and the many more seeds that it will produce. Then, surrounding that germ of life is a substance containing food for the new little plant during the time before it can produce its own food. Finally, surrounding the food and the germ of life is a hard shell that serves to protect the life that is in it.




The water softens that shell and penetrates it.




We are not talking, here, about the redemption of man. We are talking about the Lord Jesus Christ planted in the earth. He is the germ of life, He is the food, He is the outer shell. You and I provide the dirt, though we are more than the dirt. We are also the air towards which part of the little plant grows.





A seed can sprout without dirt, but it cannot survive long. Seeds are made for dirt.





The human frame in all of its weakness is 100% compatible to the Lord Jesus Christ. He "became" flesh, yet He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Is Jesus human in His eternal existence with the Father? Is man created in the likeness of God?




So the germ of life inside the seed is also softened by the water which dissolves the elements inside of it, bringing oxygen to the molecules of the seed. The germ begins to grow, but it grows in two different directions, both at the same time. It grows down into the dirt, and it grows up towards the sky and the sun.




The plant looks nothing like the seed. It is not the same body!





When I look at the bean vine growing up the string, and the bean seed in my hand, they are not the same thing by almost any definition - except one. They share the same genetic code. All that the plant is in all of its form was inside that seed in pattern form, in genetic code, in a written language.




But that plant has two very large parts of equal size. It has the leaf half that grows in the heavens and draws into itself light from the sun and minerals from the air and is seen by those who walk in the heavens. And it has the root half that grows into the earth and draws into itself water and minerals from the earth and is seen by the denizens of the soil.




Both halves are part of the plant and both are essential to its life. In fact, the part of the plant that lives in the heavens is made up in part of stuff drawn from the earth. And the part of the plant that lives in the earth is made up in part of stuff drawn from the heavens. There is no dividing line. The roots in the earth are as much a part of the plant as the branches in the heavens.





However, the plant is an in-between state. It does not exist for itself. Yes, parts of it are eaten and bring life and blessing to others. And we eat both root and leaf from different plants. But the purpose of a plant is neither root nor leaf; its purpose is to produce many more bean seeds, identical in every way to that seed that was originally planted in the dirt.




And those new seeds are 100% of heaven, and they are 100% of earth.





Christ is the union of heaven and earth. Without the earth, there is no Christ. But the purpose of Christ being planted in our earth is to reproduce Himself in us.





Then, every single one of those brand new seeds is capable of being planted again in the earth, they are capable of growing up into a plant, just like the first plant that bore them, and they are capable of each producing from themselves many more bean seeds just like the original seed out of which they came.




The plant is the in-between state between seed and seeds.




In our lives and experience right now, Christ is in the form of the plant. The fullness of the new seed is shown to us in Revelation 12:5: "And the woman brought forth a male child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron, and her child was caught up to God and to His throne." We could just as easily say, "And the plant, the Lord Jesus Christ in us as us, brought forth many seeds that contain in themselves the life of the original seed, Christ, the One who reveals the Father, and the Gardener harvested the seeds and found them good for planting anew."




I want to bring in two other verses here. The first is found twice in Isaiah, this reference is in Chapter 59.




Then the LORD saw it, and it displeased Him
That there was no justice.
16 He saw that there was no man,
And wondered that there was no intercessor;
Therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him;
And His own righteousness, it sustained Him.
17 For He put on righteousness as a breastplate,
And a helmet of salvation on His head;
He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing,
And was clad with zeal as a cloak.




And then, "For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life." Romans 5:10




We are not saved by the death of Jesus on the cross. All Christians are reconciled to God through the sacrifice of Jesus (actually all men are.) But no Christian is yet saved. Salvation and redemption are two totally different things. Redemption puts Christ in us as a plant. Salvation is the fully mature seed harvested from the plant.




We are saved by His life inside of us. His life separate from me cannot save me. Jesus - back then, up there, some day - cannot save me. Christ in me is the only hope I have of knowing salvation, which is glory; that is, becoming all that God has appointed me to be.




So let's look back at the dilemma God faces in Isaiah.




Salvation is entirely beyond man. There is no man who is even inclined to seek after God. Even our redemption apart from His life in us doesn't change that reality.





Some Christians have the idea that we are "able" to keep some requirements of God that will satisfy Him. They have not yet faced their utter failure. They will never please God. They cannot. No matter how much devotion, how much dedication, how much obedience they are able to exhibit, they will still fail to measure up. They will not "make it." They may bluster and pretend that they don't know that and put on a good outward show, but deep in their hearts they know the truth. They do not and will never measure up.





So God said, "My own arm will bring salvation."




When Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, He was facing obedience to God's request that He Himself become that salvation. Jesus was not struggling over the outward physical events of the cross; neither was He sweating drops of blood over the issue of becoming the offering for sin for all mankind. He was struggling with the reality of becoming salvation. He was wrestling over the day of Pentecost.




Jesus was sweating it out over becoming His church, over being planted into the earth for 2000 years - and being raised again at the dawning of the third day.





When Jesus said, "Not My will, but Thine be done," He had yielded to the reality of spending the next two thousand years being all the foolishness and weakness, all the sinfulness and clamor, all the deceit and offense that is His church. He agreed to become you, and He agreed to become me.




Salvation can come no other way. We can be redeemed, yes. We can be reconciled to God, yes. We can even be happy in heaven, yes. But we can never be saved; we can never be what God created us to be, unless Jesus becomes us.




It is His life that saves us.




It is an amazing thing. We Christians find it easy to accept the idea that Jesus bore our sins in Himself upon the cross 2000 years ago. But we imagine the idea that Jesus becomes us right now in our present state of weakness to be heretical, blasphemous, and impossible to accept.




It is God's own arm inside of us that alone fulfills all salvation for us. We can work out only what God is (continuously) working in.






The death of Jesus upon the cross brought an end to everything in me that was not of God. My earth is of God. My humanity is of God. The plant of Christ growing up as me MUST draw from all of my humanity and it must draw from all of His divinity to be the plant that is Christ. But the whole purpose of that plant is to produce the new seed that is identical in every way to the original seed that was planted in my earth.




"We shall be just like Him, for we shall see Him as He is."




"We are just like Him, for we see Him as He is.




The whole purpose of Christ in us and as us is the unveiling of Jesus Christ; it is the birthing of the manchild; it is the manifestation of the sons of God.




"Then Jesus said to them, 'Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me.'" John 6: 53-57




I, me, Daniel Yordy, I am His flesh. Paul said that I am in Ephesians chapter 5. No one can rob me of that most precious of truths.





I began to write these letters immediately after God showed me that I am not separate from the Lord Jesus Christ, that I am fully swallowed up in full union with Him. Before that time, I did not know what Jesus meant by these words, since that time I do. To look at every part of myself, of my humanity, of my weakness, of my earthiness, and to know that it is Jesus is to eat of His flesh; it is to drink of His blood. He is so close, this One upon whose breast I lean my head. For the first time in my life, I have no "self" to concern myself with. Every time I "feel" human and earthy, I am He. Every time I "feel" divine and heavenly, I am He. And I am both at the same time all the time regardless of what I "feel."



To eat His flesh and to drink His blood is to know Him in an intimacy and fellowship and closeness that knows no shadow of separation between Him and me.





But when Jesus said, "And I will raise him up at the last day," He was referring to a plant bearing seed. He was talking about the unveiling of Jesus Christ, the birthing of the manchild, the manifestation of the sons of God.




This is the only way it can be done. You and I will never be what we are right now before God, except that Christ Jesus is our life. To say, "I am what You are," is the purest surrender to God I have ever known. I have never known cleanness as I know it now. I have never tasted an intimacy with the Lord Jesus Christ in the way that I taste it now. And I have only begun to know Him.




There are those who would suggest that knowing Christ is to know only that which is heavenly. This cannot be true. Christ is as human as He is divine. The plant draws itself out of the earth as much as it draws itself out of the heavens. There is not one moment of my life on this earth, not one event, not one circumstance, not one element of my humanity, not one pain, not one suffering, not one tear, that is not holy and eternal, that is not the revelation of Christ in me in this earth.




There are those who would say, "Forget about the past." In the sense of forgetting about that which was wrong thinking, yes. But I will never forget one moment of my life, not in a million years. All of it is Christ and every moment of His revelation within my humanity is precious to me. If this is not true, then God is a jokester, there is no purpose for any part of life on this earth; He's playing games with us.





But we know that He is not.




And I would see Christ in every circumstance, in every painful moment, in every tear, in every dark and lonely place through which I have walked. All of it is Christ, all the earthiness, all the humanity, all the weakness! And inside of all of that is all that is heavenly, the perfect union of heaven and earth.




And when I see Christ in ME, I, in all my broken heartedness, am healed. It is He alone who has wounded me, and He is all of my healing. I magnify my Lord; with all of my heart I magnify Him in every moment of my life.





Christ is planted in my earth. And Christ growing up in me is fully human and fully divine. Fully of earth and fully of heaven.





And by this means alone, God brings salvation to Himself by His own arm.




I am saved by His life.




I become that which I am.




I am the revelation, the unveiling, the apocalypse of Jesus Christ.




As the revelation of Jesus Christ, as the salvation of God in the earth, I am sent by God to fulfill His purpose and His will. I am not being redeemed; redemption is behind me. I am here to fulfill my Father's business and to prove His will in the earth.




But Christ is a many-membered man. And as the revelation of a many-membered Christ, I myself have a portion, an appointed task, one of many, given specifically to me by God. My task is unique and different from your task, and yours is unique and different from mine. Yet they are one, and they move together as one. My task fits my heart; your task fits your heart. We were created specifically for that place and that task. It is the only thing that makes us sing.




To fulfill, to prove the will of God in the earth, is not a hardship, it is certainly not a "cross" in the way we once imagined it when we thought we were separate from Christ. It is our joy; it is what makes our hearts sing.




"Who, for the joy set before Him, endured the cross and thought nothing of the shame."




It was not a hardship for the Lord Jesus to become you and to become me, in spite of appearances in Gethsemane. It is His joy. We make Him sing, all that we are, in our spirits, in our souls, and in our bodies, it is He singing in us. Our divinity, that which is born of God, and our humanity, that which is born of Jesus, all of it is a song to Him. All of it is Christ proving the will of God in the earth.




All those who are part of the firstfruits of Christ, who are members of that manchild caught up to God and to His throne, who are among the sons of God bringing joy and liberty to this earth as well as to heaven and to all creation, all of those will know Christ as themselves in all of their humanity. They eat His flesh, and they drink His blood. They sit with all confidence and joy upon the throne, the mercy seat of God, and they show God Himself to creation as themselves, as the revelation of Jesus Christ.



Be blessed in the Lord,


Daniel Yordy