Wednesday, June 6, 2012

SEPARATE THE WATER FROM THE WATER



Genesis 1:6-8 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. NIV

It is important to understand that the works of creation we read about in the book of Genesis has nothing to do with the creation of the natural reality that we live in. If creation story is not about what we believe it to mean, what is the story in Genesis about then? To answer this question, we must make a serious examination of the statement of brother Paul in the book of Romans.  We read:

Rom 1:20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. NIV.

Apostle Paul, out of the deep spiritual understanding God gave him, has given is the key to understanding the spiritual workings of the father. From the passage above we understand that everything we can perceive with our natural senses is to serve the purpose of pointing humans to the spiritual workings of God inside men. It means God uses the natural to teach us about the spiritual. If we don’t understand this truth, we will miss the communication of God to us and always clamp our interpretation of the messages of God to us to the natural. This is a problem in the church today, because this carnal understanding of the mind of God doesn’t give life, it kills. And that is the reason there is so much carnality in the church: people don’t understand God’s messages. This is what the scripture has to say about this truth:


2 Cor. 3:6 He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant- — not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. NIV


 Having got this out of the way, we want to go on a spiritual discovery of a profound truth which will open our eyes to something that has remained a mystery to many. I trust that God, by this article, will anoint your heart of understanding to perceive and receive this spiritual ministration form heaven.


In the book of John chapter four, something dramatic of deep spiritual importance happened there. Let’s read portions of it first and then we go on to unveil the mind of the father:


John 4:3-8 When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee. 4 Now he had to go through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. 7

When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, "Will you give me a drink?"  8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) NIV

This account has it that brother Jesus withdrew from a situation the Pharisees were attempting to manipulate against him to go back to Galilee. In the forth verse it is written that, he had to go through Samaria.”

We can’t make any meaningful headway if we don’t clear a grammar issue here: the words “have to” and “must” both express obligation, but the difference between them is that, whereas “have to” expresses an obligation coming from other people, for example from the law or from some external authority or situation, “must” expresses obligation or importance coming from the speaker or the subject themselves. For instance if I am driving a good and fast car on the highway, I have to travel at 120km per hour, though I could go far faster, but I can’t because traffic law obliges me to that limit. But if I am driving down the highway in an unstable  car, and I decide I must go at 80km per hour, it’s because it is wise for me to stay at the speed limit for reason of the instability of the car and my own safety. I oblige myself to that speed limit. Our problem at issue here about Jesus’ having to go to Galilee through Samaria is not about the present obligation expression, which is easier to tell the source of the obligation, but about the past, “he had to go through Samaria.” Because both “have to” and “must” use “had to” as their past form.

In the case of Jesus, to deduce from whom the obligation is coming, seeing that Jesus could have gone to Galilee without necessarily passing through Samaria, we need to have look at a statement Jesus made very often. We read:

John 5:19 Jesus gave them this answer: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. NIV

From the passage above we understand that brother Jesus didn’t say or do things of his own will. All he did and said were reflections of a son who was at the service of his father. He acted because the father had instructed him to do so. He made utterances because the father had told him what to say. This he never denied. He never pretended that the things he said and did were his own ideas. In the light of this clarification, it is now apparent whose obligation it was that he went past Samaria to get to Galilee – the father’s, of course!


But what for? Well, the classical and most logical explanation is that he might meet the woman at the well and to save the people of the village. Much as these might be valid considerations, there is more much profound to this and it’s the father’s will for us to discover the deep spiritual truth behind this parable, as it constitutes our edification and the perfection of all those who didn’t reach the perfection of the saints today, as well as our  elevation into the spirit.


In the forth chapter of John were are examining, mention is made of the personality Jacob three times a couple of lines between each other. The first reference is in verse  5, and it reads:


John 4:5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.NIV


The second mention is in verse 6. It reads:


John 4:6 Jacob's well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour. NIV


The third reference is in verse 12. It says:


John 4:12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?" NIV


Who is Jacob? Why is he so important, generally in the bible and particularly in this chapter? Why is mention of him made three times in such a close range? You will note that elsewhere in the bible the same phenomenon surrounding this personality takes place. There too, mention of him is made three times minutes within each other. Could it be a coincidence or a deliberate act of the father’s unsearchable wisdom which he has always desired to communicate to us? Before we carry on, let’s go fishing out for Jacob elsewhere.


In the book of Exodus chapter three, a rather short chapter, we find the presence of Jacob in connection with the rest of the Patriarchs, Abraham and Isaac. Let’s find out:

Firstly in verse 6:


Ex 3:6 Then he said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." NIV

Secondly in verse 15:


Ex 3:15 God also said to Moses, "Say to the Israelites, 'The Lord, the God of your fathers — the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of


Jacob — has sent me to you.' This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation. NIV

Then in verse 16


Ex 3:16" Go, assemble the elders of Israel and say to them, 'The Lord, the God of your fathers — the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob — appeared to me and said: I have watched over you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt NIV.

The time has come to unveil the real identity of the personality Jacob, but we can’t if we do that apart from the rest of the Patriarchs. A close observation will reveal that God never told these people apart. Why?  Because, as we have already established, for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to serve as Natural teaching aids the father is using to illume us about deep spiritual truths, they’ve got to be mentioned together. So what is God communication to us about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob?


First, Abraham. He is the representation of the beginning of our faith; he represents that worldly carnal and fruitless man who divorces himself from the world, which stands for the wisdom of this age that has shaped the cultural mindset of all men. The abyss of humanity, the grave where there is no knowledge at all. But this man heard the gospel one day, the voice that thundered from the heavenly saying, “come up thither!”  And he left all.


On the way, Abraham sheds off  part of “his life,” he sheds it off, so to say, in the same way a serpent does. He puts off his humanity; he burns off his carnality that is enmity with God, that which prevents man from entering the kingdom, that which stands in this holy temple of God’s to defile it, claiming to be God himself was placed on the altar in the person of  Isaac. Why should Isaac represent Abraham? Simple. Because Isaac was the son who bore the identity of the father because the father gave birth to the son and gave him his name which denotes identity. So when Abraham gave Isaac a name, Abraham was actually giving Isaac the same identity as the father’s. As the father is, so is the son. So when Isaac died symbolically, it was Abraham dying. Deep spiritual workings of God are mind-blowing when they are revealed to our understanding.

You will remember the father saying to Abraham in the book of Genesis:

Gen 22:2 Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about. NIV

We’ve got to understand that God too has a sense of humour. Firstly, his saying to Abraham to take his son, the only son, Isaac, whom he loved, was not a complementary statement but, rather a sarcastic one. I mean the father was saying, “you think you have a son and that son is the reflection of your image and identity, thus your life? No! that is only a symbol of you humanity and human formation which has ripped you off you true identity which is spiritual. If you keep that humanity, you can’t have my divinity. Take that life to a place I will show you and there, I will cause you to give that life up in a symbolic sacrificial and burning gesture because, in reality anything that is burnt up doesn’t exist anymore, and without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin.


Well, we know how the story ends: in the process of giving up the only life Abraham thought there was to his name, the father intervenes and completes the project with a lamb – another reflection what he God himself was going to be teaching humanity later with his own life – Jesus. God doesn’t just sit up there somewhere and says things to people to do, he sets examples himself.


If we understand this deep spiritual wisdom of the father now, we will understand why the attention of Jesus is attracted to any natural satiation that reflects this truth. Let’s have a look one typical episode. We read:

Luke 7:12-15 As he approached the town gate, a dead person was being carried out — the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. And a large crowd from the town was with her. 13 When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, "Don't cry."  14 Then he went up and touched the coffin, and those carrying it stood still. He said, "Young man, I say to you, get up!"  15 The dead man sat up and began to talk, and Jesus gave him back to his mother. NIV

Why was the attention of the Lord attracted to this issue? Why did he have to be there right at the time the body of this young man was being carried out for burial? They all correspond to the providence workings of the father. He had planned and projected this events before the foundation of the world to convey deep spiritual truths to us about our own spiritual state. So if we just tell the story and perhaps dig up a few principles and natural wisdom out of them just to consolidate our natural existence, we’ve missed it all.

From the reading above, we see the father projecting a natural episode with a deep spiritual implication. This story means everything to us for the simple reason of the statement, “the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.”


Jesus was moved, firstly, because what the father had projected for him to fulfill ages before was being accomplished right before his glaring eyes many years on. Secondly, because men would not be able to comprehend the meaning of what he had been asked by the father to do with that situation. They would not understand that the meaning of the spiritual communication from the father in relation to that episode is that, “unless we let go of our “only son,” we who are spiritual widows, who lost our  husband, Christ, we would not have our Jacob resurrected to us! “ I am the resurrection and the life”!

 


Who is Jacob then?


If you have followed attentively, you will have perceived by now who Jacob is before we even got to the last line of the  statement above. If Abraham is the allegory of our spiritual beginning and Isaac is the mortality or humanity that goes up into flames, then Jacob? Who is he?


Well, Jacob, in the nutshell, is that which is born after Isaac has been burnt up! Jacob is that new life that came out of the dead “only son” of that widow of Nain! Jacob is the reward of Abraham’s after he gave up Isaac on the sacrificial altar. Unless a grain of corn falls to the ground and dies, it abides alone. Jacob is  the “Spirit.”  Jacob is the holy of holies. Jacob is the Father in heaven. Jacob is Jethro, the father of the seven daughters. Jacob is the “Prince of the kings of the earth.” Jacob is Israel, the voice of the multitude.  Jacob is the breath of life. Jacob is the “Resurrection from the dead!”


This undoubtedly explains why the reference to Jacob three times in a row both in Exodus chapter three and John chapter four. Jacob is the third person of the Patriarch of the nation of Israel, which symbolizes the third day of the resurrection of the son of God from the dead.


“THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, ISAAC AND JACOB.”


It will have been evident by now why the father kept addressing himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is for the same reason you can’t tell the father and the son and the holy Spirit apart, though at the end of the day, all are absorbed into the father only, because there is only one and that one is  God.


 It is for the same reason why you can’ tell the outer court and the holy place and the holiest of all apart and still call it the temple of God, though in the end the first two dissolve into the tabernacle – the holy place. The outer court will cease to exist, and so will the holy place, where the present church is  and is supposed to be feeding on Christ, but it’s stuck and can’t get to the tabernacle whose dividing line - the veil - has been rented, but many can’t get in because they are feeding on spiritual junk food. However, in the end, only the holy of the holiest place will stand because that is the dimension of the father. 


It is for the same  motive for which you can’t tell the spirit and soul and the body apart, even though, in the end all are absolved into the spirit, which is God. And it is the same reason for which you can’t tell faith and hope and love apart, although, at the end of the day, it is only love that lasts forever- and that is God. We can go on and on infinitely. 

So we see that, Spiritually for the believer, Jacob is the ultimate representation of  life. Search the scriptures and you will find that, whereas God promises the inheritance of Abraham to his people in a limited number of instances, which must be understood as meaning, the beginning of an upward journey, from bareness to fruitfulness and from the world towards the spiritual, because the natural riches and blessings of Abraham were merely a natural teaching aid the father is using to teach us spiritual truth, and I know many people will not agree with me on this line as their singing, “Abraham’s blessing as are mine,” refer mainly to the natural, you hardly find anywhere where mention of the inheritance of Isaac is made. Why? Simple. Isaac couldn’t have had any inheritance simply because he symbolized the fleshly aspect of all men; the carnality and humanity; the corruption and mortality; the decay that is laid on the altar, or what we know to be the cross, to burn up. The flesh has no inheritance! It doesn’t exist. The dead have no inheritance. They  can’t see God!


On the other hand,  time and over again, God promises his people the inheritance of Jacob or Israel. For the sake of our study, will cite just one of the many standing promises of the inheritance of Jacob the father has made in his word. We read:


Isa 58:13-14 "If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath


and from doing as you please on my holy day, if you call the Sabbath a delight and the Lord's holy day honorable, and if you honor it by not going your own way and not doing as you please or speaking idle words, 14 then you will find your joy in the Lord, and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob."


The mouth of the Lord has spoken. NIV


“The blessing” God talks about in the book of Psalm. we read:


Ps 133:3 It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion.


For there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.NIV


is not what many preachers make us believe it is. In fact, the last phrase says it all:  “even life forevermore.” 


So Jacob is the ultimate life that the father is giving to all men, but few have eyes to see it, ears to hear about it and heart to comprehend the nature of this Gift.


Getting back to John chapter four, we recall the conversation ensuing between Christ and the woman at the well in verse 12,  “Are you greater than our father Jacob?” they woman asked.   After all the trouble in our trying to unveil the identity of Jacob, and your patience and curiosity that have kept you pined on till this point, you can begin to answer certain questions of yours all by yourself by now. Jacob, we have established,  was the symbol


of life or the resurrection. If so, then it is understandable why Jesus was under obligation to pass through Samaria by the well of Jacob. It was to fulfill prophesy about him, the through Jacob. The Jacob of the flesh was only a shadow of the real one: “he had to go through Samaria.” He couldn’t wait to see fulfilled one of the very age-long projections of his father’s before him.


On the whole, the woman’s question, “Are you greater than our father Jacob?” was, indeed, a prophetic one, although she knew little or perhaps nothing at all about what she was saying. Jesus, on the other hand,  could have intervened right away to say, “look woman, I am the true Jacob,” but he didn’t, at least, not immediately and not that plainly.


WHO WAS THAT WOMAN AT THE WELL THEN?


The revelation of the identity of this  personality in John chapter four, who has often simply been referred to as the “woman at the well” is of profound spiritual nourishment to all believers today because she was the embodiment of mysteries that have a lot to do with us all.


To do this we need to examine certain principal elements that characterized the entire scenario.


1.      The time of the day Jesus went to the well;


2.      The number of impermanent marriages she’d been involved in;


3.      The pot of water;


4.      The well.


We read that brother Jesus got to the well around the sixth hour of the day. Note that the time element in connection with this situation can’t be taken casually because it has a remarkable implication. What does it imply then? Prophetically six is used to denoted humanity or carnality; it is used to depict human imperfections and self righteousness. It is used to represent spiritual bareness and unfruitfulness. It is used to symbolized terrestrial and earthly, not heavenly and divine. Therefore, when you hear monstrous stories told about the number 666, don’t listen to those voices, they are a fruit of the imagination of spiritually unstable and ignorant minds who are speaking from the dust realm. They don’t know the mind of the father. They can’t receive the content of the profound heavenly communication from the father. They are people who are  still walking in shadows, they haven’t been enlightened yet. These are the ones Jesus calls false prophets because they declare things they haven’t got the least understanding of. Brother Peter says these  people twist and distort  scriptures to their own destruction. Let’s look for this warning of Peter’s:


2 Peter 3:16 He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.NIV

Peter is referring to the difficulty in comprehending some of the deep revelations of Apostle Paul, saying that it takes spiritual enlightenment to understand some the writings of Paul’s and that  non-illumed minds just pick them up and enslave innocent people with them. Don’t think that this situation is a thing of the past, it is more present in the church of Christ today than it was at the time when Peter expressed his concern about it. 


However, the number 666 is indeed the mark of the beast, but what is the beast? The beast is not the so-called Satan or a future anti-Christ who will come and mark people’s forehead with the number 666 during the time of “the tribulation.” If you have any spiritual insight you will understand that the beast referred to in the bible is simply the mind of the serpent – Satan – who fed Adam’s mind in the garden and caused him to die; he cause him to fall from his spiritual state to a terrestrial state. He fed his mind with carnality, in other words, he marked his forehead with the mark of the beast, the serpent mind; carnality and humanity; death and decay; mortality and rottenness. Consequently, all men after the nature of Adam received the mark of the beast, that is the mind of Satan otherwise called the wisdom of this age. It is in this state that all people are trying to connect back to their spiritual state, by inventing religions, cultures, moralities, all kinds of doctrines, what have you. This is the world of six. 


You will remember that when the Angel appeared to Mary to announce the conception of Jesus to her, the Angel did appear in the sixth month of the year. Why? Because that was the spiritual state of the world without Jesus, including Mary. Before men receive the seed of the spirit and get impregnated with their Jesus, they merely wallow in the world of imperfection and self righteousness. This is what God calls sin, nothing else. Isn’t the meaning of Mary rebellion? Yes, it. If yes then what is the father communicating to us by choosing her as the person through whom to accomplish his divine project? God, out of his unsearchable divine wisdom, had set it all up; he had prepared a young woman by the name “Rebellion” to cause this “Rebellion” to give birth to “Obedient.” Wow! This is more than any human mind can comprehend. In effect, Mary represented humanity, because the whole of humanity is “Rebellious” and yet, God, through his grace and mercy, and by the gospel message, is calling all the “Rebellious” of the earth  to his  impregnation campaign  being carried out by the Spirit of God so that in due time they can  give birth to their “Obedient”- Jesus. This is the heart of the gospel, anything else men are promoting in whichever church or religious setup today, no matter how attractive and appetizing it might look, no matter how well settled it might be with men, is mere region. It doesn’t save!


 It should be clear by now why John the Baptist was conceived in the first month of the year. He belonged to the world of six. In fact, he was at the bottom end of that world, far away from the perfection of God. This is the reason brother Jesus said the least in the kingdom is greater than John the Baptists, in spite of what he represented.


Now, having got this out of the way, let’s turn our limelight on the woman at the well. From her own mouth, we gather that she’d had five husbands and, at the moment of her dialogue with Jesus, she was living with another man who wasn’t her husband either, making six in all! Is there any wonder why Jesus steered the conversation in that direction? No, not all!  It is apparent that it had all been divinely orchestrated. It had all been set up prophetically. Don’t you remember the bible saying; “he, Jesus,  had to go through Samaria?” Wow!  He had to direct the conversation to the issue of the husbandless of the woman to affirm and reaffirm to all men their spiritual state before he Christ comes to the scene. In fact, it doesn’t end there, there is much more to it!


That woman, like Mary,  was the natural teaching instrument that the father is using to unveil our minds and eyes to the spiritual plight of every man. From the foundation of the world we were espoused to only one husband -  Jesus Christ.  Never in any circumstances to leave our husband and marital home. God intended for us to stay in that marital union  to him eternally. Paul has insight into this spiritual marital status of  ours and so he said:


2 Cor. 11:2-3 I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. NIV.

 In that union we were expected to be fruitful and replenish the earth. Now, you are begin to understand that all this pronouncements that God made in Genesis were purely spiritual utterances concerning things in relation to his workings in us. In our adulterous state, we are closely acquainted with grief, pain, despair, exploitation desolation. Through the transgression of Adam, all of us, in our Adamic nature, abandoned our spiritual marital home and went about flirting and fornicating and committing adultery with people who are not our true husband – the wisdom of this age;  this human formation; this mark of the beast 666, which has sealed us and rotten our consciousness. We become widows, though our true husband still lives. This explains why Jesus was always attract to situations involving widows. They tell our story.


In that condition, the only life we know, the only water we know, is the water from Jacob’s terrestrial well. The water which we drink but never quenches our thirst. In that state, the only symbol of life and hope and consolation is the water pot of the woman at the well.


The thing is that there is water and there is water; there is water under and water above. But there is a separation between the water and the water. The water below is not true water, and that was not meant for us. The water, our true life, which is the eternal life of our father, our husband, our foundation is given to all men, which is the one above. Jesus testifies to this truth when he said:


John 8:23 But he continued, "You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. NIV.

If Christ is our life; if Christ is our husband; if Christ is our true Jacob and our true well from whose fountain we draw living water,  then our true water comes from above, not below. This is what the father was communication to us in the book of Genesis:

Gen 1:6-8 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." 7 So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. NIV


 Let us be aware that today the expanse that once separated the water from the water has now been removed and access to the water above have  been made available to all men.



WHAT BECAME OF THE WATER POT?


The water pot was broken! Broken? Yes, broken! You will have understood by now that that pot was the icon or symbol of the only life that woman, for that matter every man, knew. It was the representation of the water below. The pot spoke terrestrial language. It spoke with the voice from the dust realm. It represented the bread that fathers ate on the desert and died. It depicted the night time in which men sleep. The pot was figurative of the world of six – imperfection,


 But Jesus sad to her:


John 4:26  Then Jesus declared, "I who speak to you am he." NIV

This trumpet sound unplugged the woman’s spiritual ears and caused the scales to fall off her eyes so she could see and perceive Christ as he truly is. She had a flash of revelation of her true self. She got a glance of her true husband. She entered the world of seven  - celestial and divine- because Jesus is the one who adds up to our six to make it seven.


In the language of the book of Revelation, which is the revealed voice of the Alpha and the Omega concealed in the Psalms, Jesus himself promised the those who will overcome an Iron scepter which means power and authority. The purpose of this authority is to “break the nations like pottery.” What does this mean? In plain language it implies receiving the authority to teach the nations of the unbelieving world of darkness to come to Mount Zion, the dwelling place of light and life. Let’s read these scriptures together:


Ps 2:9 You will rule them with an iron scepter; you will dash them to pieces like pottery." NIV

 Rev 2:27 'He will rule them with an iron scepter; he will dash them to pieces like pottery'- just as I have received authority from my Father. NIV
This authority is meant to be used to point the world to the water above; to announce to them that the only pot they know, which symbolizes what they call life, is in reality vain and inexistent; that if they woke up to truth, they would discover that that true life is already inside of them; there is a torch inside that jar of clay, and that the jar must be handed to Christ who will break it and unveil their true torch to them. Read What brother Paul has to say about this truth in the Corinthians:


2 Cor. 5:1 Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.NIV

So we see that the calling of the father through the son is that of handing  in that which we call “our life,” so that we can receive true life. It is a calling to divorce ourselves from our numerous concubines ( the world, which talks about our humanity or the mistaken identity we have borne in our minds all this long) to reactivate our marriage with the eternal God. This is the essence of the massage God gave to Abraham when he said to him, “Leave and go…!” and again.”

If we can receive this ministration from the father above, then know that healing will take place from within, because it is the  “Sun of righteousness rising on you with healing in his wings.”



God bless you.

Jonas Opoku-Forson