Lesson 35 The Place of Departed Spirits

                             The Place of Departed Spirits

                                Luke 16 and 2 Corinthians 5:1-8

One thing man has in common is the fear of death. Until one is assured of an afterlife, one is subject to the bondage of this fear all his life (Heb.2:15). Concerning death, all is unknown. Where does one go after the death of the body? Is that the end for the person who lived in it? What if it is not? Where will the person be?

One can be freed from the bondage of this fear through knowing the truth of what God Himself purposed. In eternity past God, the Eternal Almighty God, purposed to make a creation of beings He would call “man” (Gen.1:26).

The person of being He would call “soul.” In his soul man would have intellect, a “mind” to think thoughts, and “emotions,” that he might have personal feelings. Man would be given volition. He would have a “will,” that he might make choices and carry through decisions.

God began with forming a body for man. The body would serve man as a covering for the soul. The personal soul would be clothed with the body, so to speak. Another metaphor Paul uses in 2 Corinthians 5 is a “house” or a “tent,” a dwelling place (see 2 Cor.5:1-4; also 2 Pet.1:14). The body would be the dwelling place of the personal soul.

After He had formed the body, the Lord God [Jehovah Elohim] breathed gently, blew the breath of life into the nostrils of the formed body and man became. He came into “being” a soul of life (Gen.2:7). The Hebrew word for “breath” is also used for “spirit.”  Man became a soul of spirit life - “spirit being.”

Having life, the personal being could activate the mind and think for himself. He could activate the emotions and personally feel emotions, both good and bad. In the active will the personal soul of life would make personal decisions according to what he thinks or how he feels.

Man who was not came into “being” a soul of life of spirit being. Each of the three persons of the Eternal God is a soul of spirit being (Jn.4:24; Rom.1:20; Col.2:9; see Is.48:16-17). Spirit being is the life God is. God’s life of spirit being is eternal and therefore without beginning or end (1 Tim.1:17; Is.57:15a). Man, having come into being, had a beginning. He was given life of spirit being which has no end. There is no death in spirit beings. The personal soul once come into being will always be.

A lifeless body is of no use to a soul of life. In order for the personal being to animate the body of flesh, the body also must have life, that the personal being might carry through the thoughts and intents of the heart, the inner being.

Jehovah Elohim purposely did not give life of spirit being to the body of the earth. Had He done so, there would be no end to the life of the body. The body is physical and corporeal and carries through in action the thoughts and feelings of the personal soul.

The body was given a created life system, with the life being in the blood (Gen.9:4; Lev.17:14). God created a unique respiratory, circulatory system, where blood cells are built in the bone marrow of the frame of man. Living blood cells are built and carried by the red river of life to all parts of the corporeal body. The blood builds new cells and carries off the dead cells to be eliminated.

Oxygen is necessary to the building of blood cells. Oxygen is provided from the atmosphere through man continually breathing in fresh air and breathing out poisonous gases. Should the breath be cut off in any way, the body would be left lifeless (see Ps.104:29; Eccl.12:7). Should the body lose too much blood, it would also become lifeless. Having become lifeless, the personal being can no longer animate the flesh and blood body of humanity.

The death of the flesh and blood body created for human kind was a necessity. Man, having been given freedom to exercise choices in his will, can choose to be wicked and do evil through his body. That is lawlessness. Man must not be permitted to do lawlessness and harm others. There must be a way to put an end to lawlessness.

The way that God chose to end lawlessness was through the death of the body. If the body is taken in death, the personal being who will always be and therefore can continue his evil thoughts and desires, will no longer have a way to carry them through.

God’s purpose in His creation of mankind is to have sons of God in forever living bodies - His sons forever. Therefore, provision must be made for the mortal, corporeal body to have the life of spirit being necessary for the body to live forever.

Jehovah Elohim made a Covenant with the promise of hope of life everlasting. The promise was made before the ages eternal (Tit.1:2). In the hope of life everlasting, God saved His creation of mankind from perishing in the mortal body returning to the dust of the ground (Gen.3:19; Ps.104:29; Prov.34:15; Eccl.12:7). In the Covenant is a holy calling for man to become a son of God.

The holy calling is not according to man’s works, but according to God’s own purpose and grace. It was given man in God’s Anointed Son, [Christ] Jesus, and it was given before the eternal ages (2 Tim.1:9; see Is.42:5-7; 49:1-8). All is of God Himself, all according to the promise of life which is in the Anointed Son, Jesus.

Through the gospel of the Anointed Son Jesus, whosoever will is invited to enter into union with the Covenant Son to be born again (Jn.1:12-13; 3:3-16; Ac.10:34-43). Life everlasting, the life of spirit being, is set before man in the gospel of the Anointed Son of God, who was sent from heaven to bring life everlasting for the mortal body down to man, that the mortal body might be raised up out from the dead (Jn.5:25-29; 6:38-40; 11:23-26).

The one who hears the word of God’s Anointed Son and believes the One who sent Him will pass from death to life everlasting. He will have assurance of his body being raised up out from the dead - alive forevermore (Jn.5:24). “And this is the record, that God has given to us life everlasting, and this life is in His Son. He that has the Son has life; he that does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 Jn.5:11-12).

What did Jesus say to Nicodemus? “Do not marvel that I said unto you, you must be born again.” It is absolutely imperative to be born of water and spirit (see Jn.3:1-7). “Water” is a symbol for “life everlasting,” signifying the cleansing of re-generation - again becoming (Tit.3:3-5).

The life of spirit being for the body is in the Son sent from heaven. The body of the Son birthed of a virgin is a seed coat for the incorruptible Seed, the Word of God, to reproduce after His kind; that is, bodies raised up out from the dead, deathless and glorified bodies of flesh and bone of spirit life - born from above, again alive (see Jn.12:23-24; Lk.24:39; Jn.20:19-27; 1 Cor.15:44).

The gospel of the Anointed Son of the Covenant makes clear the absolute imperative of entering into union with the Covenant Son to receive the life of spirit being for the mortal body. The flesh body born of the corruptible seed of man, human kind, will remain lifeless unless the life of spirit being, life everlasting, is received in the Covenant Son. If the body remains lifeless when the personal being stops breathing oxygen into it, it will return to the dust of the ground from which it came.

From the beginning of man, the choice of life everlasting in the Covenant Son or of the death of the physical body has been set before man in the gospel of the coming Anointed Son of God (see Jn.1:9-13; Tit.2:11; Col.1:23b; Ezek.18:19-23; Ac.10:34-43; 2 Pet.3:9).

The gospel of God’s Anointed Son is the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes and who receives the Gift of eternal life in the Anointed Son (Rom.1:16). The gospel of the Anointed Son, when believed, is the power to raise up a body of flesh and bone of spirit being out from the dead (Rom.8:9-11). In the Covenant Plan to be carried out in time, there is much to be done. It will take ages and cover many generations before the Anointed Son is sent.

Beginning with Adam and Eve, all down through the ages those in any generation, everyone believing in the righteousness of God to obey the truth are born of the incorruptible Seed, the Word of God. Each one receives the life of spirit being with power to raise the body of glory out from the dead.

Each one receives the promise of being raised up out from the dead in a resurrection of life everlasting. In the death of the body, the inner man, the personal being, will lose his covering and be left naked. No longer having an earthly body for an earthly existence, a place must be made where the unclothed souls could await the resurrection, when they would again be clothed with the new body raised up out from the dead (see 2 Cor.5:1-4).

As man makes his own decision concerning receiving the life of spirit being for the body, the life everlasting offered to him in the gospel of the Anointed Son, God would not only have the righteous souls waiting for the Resurrection of Life, He would have the unrighteous dead, who have not chosen life everlasting. Their bodies cannot be raised up out from the dead to live forever. They have not obeyed the truth to be born of the incorruptible Seed, the Word of God, which lives and abides forever (see 1 Pet.1:17-25; Jn.5:25-47; 1 Jn.5:9-13).

In the beginning when God began to form and place the space and matter which He had created, He also prepared the place for departed spirits in the very center of the earth which He had fashioned in a sphere (see Jon.2:2; Mt.12:38-40; Is.40:22). God did not make two locations of places for the departed spirits to await their final destiny. The destiny is determined in the personal choice made by each personal soul of spirit being.

In the Old Testament we see that the saints believed in the resurrection and in the place of departed spirits, but we are not given details (see Job 19:25-26; Ps.9:17-18; 16:10; 55:15; Prov.15:24; Dan.12:2; Rom.4:13-25; Heb.11:8-19). In the Hebrew, the place of departed spirits is called “Sheol.” In some references Sheol refers to “the grave.”

When Jesus came down from heaven, God in the likeness of man’s human flesh and blood mortal body, He spoke the words of God and taught His people. From Jesus’ teaching we learn the location of the place of departed spirits and that at the one location there are two compartments, one for the righteous personal beings having received the life of spirit being for the body to be raised up out from the dead and the other for the wicked who did not receive the life of spirit being offered them in the Covenant Son. As Jesus is the One who created all things that are made, let us take His word concerning the place of departed spirits.

The justified soul with redemption for the body went to the compartment of the righteous. The Jews called this compartment Abraham’s Bosom. After the deliverance from the Babylonian captivity, some Jews called it Paradise (see Lk.23:39-43). The compartment for the wicked unbelievers was simply called Sheol by the Hebrews and Hades by the Greeks. This compartment will continue to fill up until all are judged at the Great White Throne Judgment at the end of the 1,000 years of the Kingdom Age (Rev.20:11-15).

When Jesus was tabernacling among His own people while on earth in the body of His humanity, one day He greatly offended the Jews by claiming to be the Lord of the sabbath (see Mt.12:1-23). The Pharisees then accused Jesus of casting out demons by Satan, the prince ruler of demons, called Beelzebub (v24).

Jesus rebuked and corrected them with another claim to Deity. “If I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the Kingdom is come unto you.” (v28). “Then certain of the scribes and Pharisees answered Him back saying, ‘Master [Teacher] we would have a sign from you’” (v38). Ignoring the sign of healing and casting out demons, the rulers demanded of Jesus a sign of His authority of His claims.

The Pharisees had already taken counsel against Jesus, how they might destroy Him (Mt.12:14). Then they publicly accused Jesus of casting out demons by Beelzebub. Their request for a sign was malicious. They had no intention of receiving a sign. They were set on the destruction of Jesus. To use the word “Teacher” was an insult. They had continuously refused Jesus’ teaching.

Jesus therefore refused to give them the sign requested. He spoke of the future sign and of the last sign that would be given as proof of His being the Son of God sent from heaven. The sign of His being raised up out from the dead is the final sign of Jesus being the Son of God (Mt.12:38-41).

Jesus said, “An evil adulterous generation seeks after a sign.” Jesus uses the word “evil” here in the sense of “harmful” or “hurtful.” The influence of the scribes and Pharisees over God’s people was harmful and hurtful. The word “adulterous” was used in a spiritual sense, “the sin of spiritual adultery.” Jesus accused them of being unfaithful to Jehovah, the One to whom Israel had made vows. No sign shall be given such as they but the sign of the prophet Jonah (v39).

“For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart, [the very center] of the earth”(v40). When Jesus came back from the dead, raised up alive forevermore, the Jews would have their sign of Jesus having been proved to be the Son of Jehovah and proof of He and His Father being One (Rom.1:1-4; Jn.10:30; see Mt.27:62-28:15).

In the psalms David prophesied of the coming Messiah. David wrote, “I have set Jehovah always before Me: because He is at My right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore My heart is glad, and My glory rejoices: My flesh also shall rest in hope. For You will not leave My soul in Sheol, neither will You permit Your Holy One to see corruption.” This is a Messianic psalm. Here is Jesus speaking to His Father of the humanity of the body of the likeness of man which Jesus, the Word who is God, took on Himself (Ps.16:8-10).

When the Angel Gabriel came to Mary, he said, “That holy,” not seeing corruption, “born of you shall be called the Son of God” (Lk.1:35b). He spoke of the body of Jesus’ humanity, the incorruptible Seed, en-lifed by the Father, holy. Jesus went into death with absolute assurance that His Father would not leave His soul, His very Person, in Sheol. Neither would His Father allow the body in the grave, the earthly body in the likeness of man, to see corruption. Death could not hold that body. No sin had been done in that body (1 Pet.2:22; 2 Cor.5:21; 1 Jn.3:5; Heb.7:26). That body was not of the corruptible seed of man. It would not see corruption.

On the day of Pentecost, after Jesus had ascended back to His Father, Peter quoted David as having been given to foresee and prophesy of the heart peace of Jesus as He went to the cross. Peter spoke of death not having a hold on the body of Jesus and how death must loose the body to be raised up. Then as proof that David was not speaking of himself, Peter reminded the men of Israel that David slept with his fathers. David had not ascended into heaven and sat down with the Father, but Jesus had. Jesus had been exalted and received at the right hand of the Father (see Ac.2:25-36; also Phil.2:5-11).

Jesus is the one who gives us the location of the place of departed spirits as the center of the earth. As the soul of spirit being of any other son of man in the flesh body would go to the place of departed spirits when the body had become lifeless, Jesus would depart His lifeless body and His soul would wait in Hades for the third day for the body to be raised up from the dead.

The place of departed spirits is not the final destination. Sheol (Old Testament) or Hades (New Testament) is the holding place of the departed spirits of the wicked until the consummation of the things of time. As we see in Revelation 20, “Death” and “Hades” give up their captives to judgment and the final destination is the lake of fire prepared for the Devil and his angels (Rev.20:11-15; Mt.25:41).

The lake of fire is referred to as “Hell” from Jesus’ use of the word Gehenna, a reference to the valley of Hinnom where the refuse of the city of Jerusalem burned continually. The King James Version translates “Hades” as “Hell,” but the two must not be confused.

All those who face the final judgment at the Great White Throne did not choose to obey the truth to be born of the incorruptible Seed, the Word of God, to be born from above. There being no birth of spirit being for the body, their names are not written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Except a man is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God (see Jn.3:3-8). He must be shut out forever.

Jesus also gave us the only details we have of the place of departed spirits. It was given one day in story form to the Pharisees of Jesus’ day. The Pharisees were self-professed keepers of the Law of Moses. They considered themselves to be righteous, but they continually broke the tenth Commandment, “Thou shall not covet” (Ex.20:17). They were hypocrites. The Pharisees coveted the rule over the Kingdom of God.

It is from Jesus’ story in Luke 16 we understand that Hades is divided into two compartments. Between the two there is a great fixed gulf that cannot be crossed by spirit beings. Here is the power of God to keep spirit beings in their place while they are being held waiting for their resurrection. The wicked and the righteous are separated.

It was necessary to have one compartment for the spirits of mankind made righteous while they awaited the Resurrection of Life everlasting and also to have a compartment for those who did not receive the Gift of righteousness and life everlasting to await the Resurrection of Judgment.

Some term the story in Luke 16 a parable. A parable is a story with an illustration. If this story were a parable, what was being illustrated could not be stronger than the facts set forth by Jesus, who had personal knowledge of the facts of Hades. We can take the facts spoken by Jesus at face value as the knowledge of a place of which we otherwise know nothing. Jesus does not name names in His parables. In this story Jesus names two people, Lazarus, the beggar, and Abraham, who were in the righteous compartment in Hades.

This was not the first story of that day in the life of Jesus. A great multitude was with Jesus, and He turned and spoke to them of the cost of coming after Him and learning of Him to be His disciple. Then the tax collectors and sinners drew near to hear Him. And the scribes and the Pharisees in the crowd scoffed, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” And Jesus spoke a parable to them. The parable had three parts: There was a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son (see Lk.15).

After the parable, Jesus spoke to His disciples of an unjust steward who wasted his master’s goods. This parable was of trying to serve two masters, one, God, and the other mammon, money and the power and things money will buy in this world (see 1 Jn.2:15-17). Then Jesus rebuked covetousness and divorce, an abomination of God. Those were two sins practiced by the Pharisees (Lk.16:1-18).

Then Jesus told the story of the rich man and Lazarus, a story of two men who lived strongly contrasting lives on this earth. “There was a certain rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen, and faired sumptuously every day. And there was a certain beggar, named Lazarus, who was laid at his gate, and full of sores, and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sores” (Lk.16:19-21).

Two very different lives. One was rich and one lived in poverty. One lived in a mansion and one on the street. Beggars like this were common. They were homeless and lived on the streets, and they died on the street. Early every morning at dawn, men called street sweepers came through and picked up the dead beggars and carried them to the refuse heap.

Jesus just says “a certain rich man.” He does not name him. He was clothed in very costly clothing and fared sumptuously every day. The Greek word translated “sumptuously” in King James is lampos. It simply means “to radiate.” The rich man lived lavishly, showy, with a spectacular ostentatious display of his wealth and power. Even the word for his “gate” has the meaning “a gate of beauty.”

Jesus drew a vivid picture of the earthly life of a very wealthy man. He could have been any one of the Pharisees standing before Him. In contrast, there was a certain beggar. Wealthy men had their own beggars who had chosen their gate, desiring to be fed. Jesus names the beggar. Did the people who went in and out of the gate know the beggar’s name? Jesus knew.

Lazarus was in rags and full of sores. Someone laid Lazarus at the gate of the rich man every morning. Though Jesus spoke of crumbs from the rich man’s table, it was not necessarily literal. It was used in contrast to the sumptuous meal set before the rich man. A servant would bring Lazarus food. There he lay, in a diseased body, unable to work and no money for medical attention. The only comfort Lazarus had was the food left by the servants and the dogs licking his sores.

“It came to pass that the beggar died, and he was carried by the angels to Abraham’s Bosom,” carried to the place of departed spirits and placed on the side of the righteous.“The rich man also died and was buried” (Lk.16:22).

All the wealth of the rich man could not keep his body alive. Death is the common lot of all fellow men in humanity (Job 34:15; Eccl.8:8). Each one, Lazarus and the rich man, shared the death of the earthly body left lifeless to return to dust. One body was gathered by the street sweeper and cast on the refuse heap. The other, as Jesus simply said, was buried. Nothing is said of the service. That was left to the imagination.

There were those in the crowd who wondered how lavish that service must have been of the one with such a lifestyle of wealth and prestige. And the eulogies; all who knew the man would think well of him and speak well of him. There was seemingly nothing in this world of which men would condemn him, unless he could be accused of being too good to himself.

Had these two been known to any of the Pharisees or scribes, their remarks would have been something like, “Poor beggar, good thing that a wretch like that is no longer suffering.” But for the rich the remarks would have been quite different. “What a tragedy. Such a loss to the world. Wonder what he was worth after all.”

Both men died. Lazarus first and then the rich man, but that was not the end of the story. Death takes the body of all, but death does not end all. Each found himself in Hades, in the place of departed spirits. Lazarus personally carried by the angels to Abraham’s Bosom. Jesus just simply stated the rich man also died, and was buried.

Though his body was buried, the rich man is in Hades, in the place of departed spirits. He lifts up his eyes being in torment and he sees Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom (Lk.16:23). How did he recognize Abraham? Jesus did not say. The rich man also recognized Lazarus in Abraham’s Bosom.

The rich man was a Jew. Jesus is telling the story to His own people. His listeners would have expected the rich man to go to Abraham’s Bosom, as would the man himself. But it was Lazarus, who had departed his body and left it to be picked up by the street sweepers and disposed of, who was carried by the angel chariot to Abraham’s Bosom. “Abraham’s Bosom” was the term used by the Jews for “the place a Jew would go when he departed his earthly tent.”

There was the Jew, Lazarus, a true son of Abraham through Abraham’s son Jesus, the Anointed Covenant Son, the incorruptible Seed of life everlasting (see Jn.8:39-40, 57; Rom.4:1-16; Gal.3:7-9). Jesus knew Lazarus. Lazarus had believed into Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of God to become the righteousness of God through faith in the Anointed Son. Lazarus was an Israelite indeed, one who let God rule and who trusted Him with his life (see Jn.1:47-49). Lazarus was in the place of blessing. No more hunger, no more sores. Lazarus was in the place of blessing, a place of light and rest and peace.

The body of the rich man had been well taken care of but the man himself is in torments. Not in the place of a true son of Abraham, the rich man cried and said, “Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus, that he may dip his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame”(Lk.16:24).

The body of the rich man has been buried, to return to the dust of the ground from which it came, but his person, his soul of life, feels as though he is still in his body, as though he yet has a tongue which could be cooled with water. He is fully conscious. He is thinking and feeling, and desiring to be comforted. In his former life, all the comforts of his body had been cared for. Whatever he had desired was done for him.

“But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, likewise Lazarus in his lifetime received the bad things, but now he is comforted and you are suffering. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that they who would pass from here to you cannot; neither can they pass to us that would come from there” (vv25-26).

The rich man called Abraham “Father.” Abraham recognizes the rich man as his child, but not a true son of Israel. In His story Jesus did not use the word for “son,” but the word for “child,” a born one. The rich man was a child of Abraham’s after the flesh, of the dust seed, only born of the corruptible seed of man, which reproduces bodies of the earth to return to the dust of the ground from where it came (see Gen.3:19; Jn.8:33-40; Rom.9:3-8).

In his lifetime the rich man served mammon. He has his reward. “The wages of sin is death” (Rom.6:23a). Lazarus believed the God of Abraham and he has his reward, life everlasting (v23b). His body will be raised in the First Resurrection (see Gal.3:6-7; Jn.6:45-58; 11:20-27; Rev.20:4-6). Lazarus is a child of Abraham’s Seed, Christ, a son of God (Rom.4:16).

The rich man had served mammon all his lifetime. In Hades all he served is left far beyond his reach forever and he has not only lost all that for which he served, mammon, but he has lost his own soul, and he has nothing to give for it (Mt.16:24-27; Mk.8:34-37; Lk.9:23-25). And there is no way to pass to the other side of the great gulf fixed between the righteous and the wicked.

Jesus was not finished with His story. The rich man had five brothers who were in danger of losing their souls. He would have them warned. Still claiming to be a son of Abraham, as also his five brothers would claim, the rich man begged, “I pray you, father, that you send [Lazarus] to my father’s house, for I have five brothers.” Send Lazarus “that he may testify to them that they not come to this place of torment.’ Abraham said unto him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ But he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if one went to them from the dead, they will repent”’ (Lk.16:27-30).

The rich man knew from experience that his brothers would not hear Moses and the prophets. He believed that if someone returned from the dead, they could convince his brothers there is an eternal Hades of torment. And Abraham said to the rich man, “If they will not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rises from the dead” (v31).

The only way for a Jew to go to Abraham’s Bosom after he departed the lifeless body is to have heard Moses and the prophets and, having believed God, to have repented and received the righteousness of God through faith in His Anointed Son. He that has the Son has life everlasting - the life of spirit being for the body (Jn.5:25-26; 1 Jn.5:11-12).

The real issue is obedience to the truth of the gospel of the Anointed Son of God through faith in the Anointed Son and be born of the incorruptible Seed, the Word of God, and have the life of spirit being with the power to raise the body up out from the dead, deathless and glorified - a body of flesh and bone of spirit life.

Later Jesus raised another Lazarus from the dead. People came from all around to see the miracle. Did John record the rulers being persuaded? “Many of the Jews coming to mourn with Mary believed into Him” (Jn.11:45; 12:11). “But the chief priests consulted how they might also put Lazarus to death” (Jn. 12:10).

The Jews who were plotting to kill Jesus did deliver Him up and He was crucified. He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Cor.15:3-4). Did these men who served mammon then repent? What was Jesus’ point to the men to whom He was telling the story?

One’s everlasting destiny is determined in the lifetime of the mortal body. Man’s everlasting destiny is his own choice. The destiny is chosen in one’s lifetime while in his earthly body. No one knows how long that lifetime will be. The destiny chosen is fixed by the choice and it is everlasting.

All was accomplished at the cross by Jesus in the death for which He came (Jn.12:27). He came that He might lay down the life of the earthly body and take it up again glorified to live forevermore. Righteousness and life everlasting are freely offered in God’s Anointed Son Jesus, His Son born of a virgin and begotten out from the dead (Rom.1:1b-4; 1 Pet.1:18-19; Heb.9:12). All is offered freely and all must be freely received. The death of the earthly body is not the end for the soul. Jesus told us of the end for souls who have departed the lifeless body. Each soul, that of Lazarus and that of the rich man, was taken to Hades.

Jesus was speaking to His people, Jews. The Old Testament history before Abraham shows it is the same for Gentile nations. The issue is life everlasting for the mortal body. God’s Son, first known as the One coming and known to us as Jesus Christ, is the Way, the Truth, and the Life (Jn.14:6). There is no other way for a mortal body to be raised up out from the dead, again become alive with spirit being.

As has been established, from the beginning of the creation there has only been one way for a person of mankind to have life everlasting for the mortal body of flesh and blood. God has one incorruptible Seed to reproduce after His kind. God has one Son begotten out from the dead. God so loved His creation of man that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes into Him will not perish, but have life everlasting, the life of spirit being with the power to raise a body out from the dead (Jn.3:16).

The begotten Son was given in the Covenant of the hope of life everlasting and with the holy calling to become a son of God. Faith in the One who was coming with righteousness and life everlasting was counted to one for righteousness beginning with Adam and Eve. Through obedience to the truth in uniting oneself to the Covenant Son, the believing one was given life of spirit being for the body to be raised up out from the dead, born again - born from above to live forever.

As Jehovah made coats of skin for Adam and Eve, in His coming as the Seed-Grain for the body to be raised up out from the dead, so He made coats of skin for all those who will believe into Him to be united in His death, burial and resurrection. Anyone having been planted together with him in the likeness of His death, shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection (Rom.6:5). Whosoever believes will be clothed with new skin.

So it is down through the generations of Adam all through the ages, each person born of the flesh, flesh, of the same likeness Jesus, God’s Anointed, took on Himself, had a choice to become in the likeness of His resurrection - Gentiles or Jews, whosoever will of any ethnic group of mankind (see Jn.1:14; 3:6-7; Rom.6:5; 8:3; Phil.2:5-8; 3:21).

The choice of life everlasting or death for the physical tent or clothing of the inner man is for each personal being to decide. The choice determines the destiny of the personal being for all eternity. Once the mortal body has become lifeless, there is no changing of the mind. The destiny has been determined.

Down through the generations of Adam until Jesus came, the Word become flesh, each soul of spirit being having made the choice to unite with the Covenant Son and make his exodus out of Adam through being baptized into the Anointed Son went to the righteous side of the place prepared for departed spirits. Each one there is still awaiting the Resurrection of Life when they will share in the likeness of the resurrection of the Son of God and be clothed with new skin. “Skin” is the “outer layer of flesh.” In the Resurrection of Life each one will again stand upon the earth with bone of spirit life to inherit the Kingdom of the earth with their God and King, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is Heir to all things (Gen.17:1-8; Job 19:25-27; Dan.7:13-14, 27; 12:2:3-3, 13; Heb.1:2; 11:8-16).

The wicked unbelieving souls who down through the generations have rejected the only hope of life everlasting in the Gift of God’s Son who became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him remain dead in trespasses and sins. They did not receive the life of spirit being in the Son. They have no life of spirit being with power to raise up a body out from the dead. Upon departing their lifeless, mortal body each one has gone to the compartment of the unrighteous departed spirits.

So it went generation after generation through the ages until Jesus, in the fullness of time, was sent of His Father (see Gal.4:4). Jesus did die according to the Scriptures, and He was buried and raised the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Cor.15:3-5; Lk.24:13-27, 44-48).

With Jesus’ appearance on earth there then was a change. In His incarnation Jesus spoke the words of His Father and He did the works of His Father, showing Himself to be the Anointed Son of the Covenant of hope of life everlasting. With those who came to Jesus believing Him to be the Anointed Son of God, He began building a new assembly called out of the world to follow Him and become one with Him in His death, burial and resurrection.

Though Jesus came to His own people, both Jews and Gentiles were invited into the Kingdom of the Son of God’s love. Each one, Jew or Gentile, is delivered from the power of the darkness of this world and translated into the Kingdom of the Son God loves, in whom we have redemption through His blood, even forgiveness of sins.  We give thanks unto the Father, who has made us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light (see Col.1:1-23).

Moses was Jehovah’s servant over His first called-out assembly, the house of Jacob. The Anointed Son [Christ] now has His own house (see Heb.3:1-6). We of His Body, the true Church, over which He is the Head, are His household. A man builds his house with sons of his seed.

After Jesus returned to heaven, He continued to build His house of sons of God - born from above. Both Jew and Gentile are called through the gospel of the Anointed Son [Christ] to receive life everlasting and become a son of God (Eph.1:1-2:22). Each one answering the call of the gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation, has received the life of spirit being with the power to raise up a body out from the dead (Rom.1:16; 8:1-25).

As the Church Age stretches on, many have died, but they did not go to Hades. All being members of one Body and out of one Seed could go home to be with their Lord and their Father God, right into the presence of those who love them. As the apostle Paul wrote, “Absent from the body, present with the Lord” (2 Cor.5:8).

During the Church Age, those wicked souls who reject the Gift of righteousness and life everlasting in the Son do go to Hades, to the compartment of the unrighteous to await the Resurrection of Judgment.

In Christ, there is neither Jew nor Gentile. Those born of the incorruptible Seed, the Word of God, are all of one. All will bear the image of the heavenly Son of God begotten out from the dead, begotten sons of God, His house. All have been sanctified together with Him. Each one set apart to God in the one offering of the body of Jesus in sacrifice once for all (Heb.2:1; 10:10, 14).

As all are of one Seed and all members of one Body, the members must be raised up together at one gathering. Paul gave us understanding of this gathering out of the world to be with the Lord forever in his two epistles to the Thessalonians (see 1 Thess.4:13-18; 2 Thess.2:1-3).

In the book of Revelation, in the letters to the churches dictated to the apostle John by Jesus Himself, we are told that we, the Church, will be kept out from the time of trial which is to come upon the whole earth to test those that dwell upon the earth (Rev.3:10).  The test is a proving of the heart. Will they remain at enmity with God or will they repent and turn from their darkness to Him and bow the knee to the One who is the Way, the Truth and the Life to enter His Kingdom (see Mt.24:21-25:46; Rev.7:9-17; 9:20-21; 14:9-13; 20:4-6).

We of the Body of Christ have chosen to believe and obey the truth to be born of the incorruptible Seed, the Word of God. We know whom we have believed and we are persuaded that He is able to keep that [the dead body] which we have committed to Him against that day, the day of the body being raised up out from the dead (see 2 Tim.1:12b).

Revelation 3:10 gives the timing of that day as being before the trial of the Tribulation. We, the members of the Body of Christ, are “looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a people of His own, zealous of good works” (Tit.2:13-14; see also Eph.5:23-32).

On the return of their Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, to establish the Kingdom with Israel as the head nation at His Second Coming, there will be a collective regeneration of the house of Jacob, the sons of Israel (see Is.66:7-9; Jer.31:31-40; Ezek.37:11-28; Zech.12:10). During the 1,000 year reign of Christ only the truth concerning the Person and work of the Anointed Son will be taught. Those who will come into the Kingdom under the amnesty of receiving Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of God and King of the universe will be taught the truth and proved as to their obedience to the truth to be born of the incorruptible Seed, the Word of God (see Zech.14:9; Is.11:9-10). Gentiles of all ethnic groups and Jews will be born during the 1,000 year reign. Each will be taught the truth. Obedience to the truth will be the test of the eternal destiny of each.

At the end of the 1,000 years, time will be no more. All rebels will be gathered out of the Kingdom and sent to the lake of fire (Rev.20:11-15). The Lord Jesus Christ will have the sons of God who have obeyed the truth, each one in a body raised up out from the dead, deathless, in a body of bone and flesh of spirit being to live forever in the Kingdom of God. We have not been given details concerning the everlasting Kingdom of righteousness and peace, the Kingdom filled with only sons of God.

How tragic that there are those who refuse to enter the Kingdom of God through the birth offered them in the incorruptible Seed, the Word of God, when God has freely given to mankind that which man has no means of obtaining for himself.

This ends our lesson on The Place of Departed Spirits.

Lesson 34 Prepared for Ministry

                                 Prepared for Ministry

                                           Genesis 3:8-15

Continuing with our narrative, morning came “and they heard the sound of Jehovah Elohim  walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of Jehovah Elohim among the trees of the garden” (Gen.3:8). The Hebrew reads, “in the middle of the trees of the garden.”

It stands to reason that Adam and his wife would hide behind the Tree of Life. Having received eternal life, they have a refuge in Him who is become their life. It would be natural to not want to face the One who was so dear to them. He had only done them good and they had betrayed His trust and had transgressed His command to not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (Gen.2:17; 3:6).

Each one had repented, and they had made a covering to show that, with the eyes of their understanding having been opened, they had understanding concerning the Propitiation of which they had been taught as Jehovah Elohim had set forth the Propitiation to them and the atonement in the Propitiation with the redemption of the body, as seen in the stellar sign of Libra in “The Heavenly Revelation of the Son of the Covenant” (Gen.3:7; Rom.3:22-26).

Not having ever before chosen to have had their will over the will of their Creator-Redeemer, there had never before been anything between their God and them. All is unknown. They have never been in this place.

Jehovah Himself took the responsibility for the reconciliation. He had given His mankind the freedom of choice to choose to use his will to serve himself and sin against his Creator-Redeemer. His first pair had shown their repentance and their desire to reconcile.

Jehovah had come to take care of the result of the transgression. First there must be a cleansing from unrighteousness to put away the guilt. There must be a confession on the part of the guilty pair. There must be nothing between Him and His new born sons of God. Nothing must break the fellowship of their communion.

Jehovah must call Adam out of hiding. He is not angry with Adam and his wife. Allowing His first pair their transgression was necessary to the purpose of opening the eyes of the understanding to their being naked. The first pair are purposed to multiply sons of the flesh, that Jehovah Elohim might have sons of God of those in the flesh who will choose to believe into the Son of the Covenant to become the righteousness of God through faith in Him. Each one born in the flesh must hear of the eternal life offered as a Gift in the Son of the Covenant. How can one believe if he does not hear? How can he hear without a preacher?

Adam and his wife were purposed to be the first prophets of the righteousness of God through faith in the Son of the Covenant, whose glory was declared in “The Heavenly Revelation.” The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith (Rom.1:17). Adam and his wife must know - experientially know - the righteousness of God through having become the righteousness of God through faith in the Son of the Eternal Covenant - God’s Covenant.

Hearing no anger in the voice of Jehovah Elohim as He called unto Adam, and asked, “Where are you?”, Adam is assured there is nothing to fear and he came out of hiding and confessed his reason for having hidden himself. “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself” (Gen.3:9-10). In the original Hebrew, there is no verb, just “I naked.”

Adam made his own personal confession concerning his fear. He did not speak for his wife. This is between Jehovah Elohim and himself. The confession was accepted by Jehovah Elohim without rebuke or blame. Jehovah Elohim is willing for reconciliation. How easy He made it for his man to confess the sin of his transgression. Gently, kindly, Jehovah asked Adam the questions that would make his confession simple.

“‘Who told you that you were naked?” [You naked.] “Have you eaten from the tree whereof I commanded you that you should not eat?’ And the man said, ‘The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat’” (Gen.3:11-12). Here was a simple straightforward answer with the facts of what took place. In this confession Adam did include his wife. They were in the transgression together.

There is no rebuke with this confession. Jehovah Elohim did not pronounce any charges of guilt. All had been taken care of in the atonement of the One set forth as the Gift of the Propitiation. In “The Heavenly Revelation of the coming Covenant Son,” Adam and his wife had seen the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world (see Rom.3:22-26; 1 Pet.1:17-23; Rev.13:8). Adam and his wife had believed into and received the Gift of eternal life in the Son sent to them from heaven (see Rom.5:12-21).

Adam’s confession of sin having been made and accepted, Jehovah Elohim said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” (Gen.3:13a). The woman must make a personal confession of her sin, of having her own will over the will of her Creator-Redeemer.

There was more than eating of the tree in her transgression. The woman had begun with the thinking in her mind to have something of her own - a knowing for herself - a knowing apart from what Jehovah Elohim was sharing with her in “The Heavenly Revelation of the Son of the Covenant.” In her imagination the woman had permitted her own heart to deceive her into having her own will over the will of her Creator-Redeemer. That is sin. Sin is lawlessness (1 Jn.3:4). The deceit conceived brings forth the act, which ends in death (see Jas.1:14-15).

With the eyes of the understanding having been opened to see in their very being of spirit the deep things of God, the figures of “The Heavenly Revelation” having been made known to them by Jehovah Elohim Himself, began to take on reality and to have substance for Adam and his wife. They could see the ways of God.

With their need for receiving eternal life for the flesh body of humanity, and with the need of the Propitiation and reconciliation and a birth from above, would Adam and his wife not have discussed the things to which their eyes had been opened? Would they not have been excited to see “the figures” of the constellations in the light of the reality of the truth?

With each one having experienced having had his will over the will of their God and having had the heart with its deceit exposed to them, would not Adam and his wife have seen Hydra, “the serpent” in “The Heavenly Revelation of the Son of the Covenant,”as the symbol of “the sin of choosing to have one’s own will over the will of God,” the Creator and Redeemer of His mankind? Would they not have discussed the reality of what Hydra figured?

With her eyes opened to what she had done, the woman must confess that she did eat and she did transgress the command of God, but she must also confess that it was her own doing. In the imagination of her own heart, she had beguiled herself through the deceit of a conceived desire to consume on her own lust.

Using His “figure” of “the serpent,” that Jehovah Elohim might be shown her new understanding, the woman also gave a simple confession of the facts. With no elaboration, no excuses, the woman said, “The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat” (Gen.3:13b). Jehovah would have understood the woman’s meaning.

Again, with the woman’s confession, there is no rebuke, no charges of guilt. Jehovah Elohim accepted both confessions, the one of the man and the other of the woman, and forgave them their trespasses. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful (to the promises) and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn.1:9).

God forgives for the sake of His Son, who “became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor.5:21). Nothing has yet been said of the clothing of new skin, which Adam and his wife would receive in a future resurrection (see 2 Cor.5:1-4). That had been made clear in the teaching of the Propitiation.

With the confessions having been made and the forgiveness and cleansing from all unrighteousness given and received, all is cleared and Adam and his wife are prepared for further seeing of God’s ways. They have learned that the teaching must come through the mind, but the understanding is in the very spirit of the being. Understanding comes through either a desire to see or a need to see.

At first Adam and his wife came to see in the spirit of their being through a need. Through tasting, having the eyes of the understanding enlightened to see in the very being of spirit, their appetite has been whetted to desire to know more - not of what God knows, but to know as God knows to see His ways.

Having had the eyes of their understanding opened and recognizing the facts of what they were being shown in “The Heavenly Revelation of the Son of the Eternal Covenant” - are only seen in the understanding of one’s very being. As the Holy Spirit enlightens the eyes of the understanding, Adam and his wife were prepared for Jehovah Elohim to give them understanding of how He purposed to put away the sin of man choosing to serve himself rather than his Creator-Redeemer.

“And Jehovah Elohim,” also using His “figure” for “the sin of self-will,” “said unto the serpent, ‘Because you have done this, you are cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon your belly shall you go, and dust shall you eat all the days of your life’” (Gen.3:14).

Picking up on the woman having understanding of His figure of Hydra as a serpent, Jehovah Elohim speaks of the sin of the deceit of her heart having drawn her away in her own desire, and shares with Adam and his wife where choosing to serve oneself rather than his Creator-Redeemer will lead one.

A literal serpent created as a species of snake, brought forth from the earth on the sixth day of creation, goes upon its belly. It slithers along in the dust of the ground and must take in dust of the ground. Therefore “the serpent” is a perfect object to figure Hydra. In the object of the figure one “gets” the picture.

That day each person in the garden had understanding of the serpentine constellation in “The Heavenly Revelation” to be a figure of Hydra (“the abhorred”) and of Hydra being a figure of “the sin of having one’s own will above the will of the Creator-Redeemer.” What was then to be seen by Adam and his wife, who had had the eyes of their understanding opened to see in the very spirit of their being? What is the need? What are the circumstances?

Adam and his wife had been taught the truth concerning the Gift of eternal life sent down from heaven in the Son of the Covenant. The begotten Son is the Son set forth as the Propitiation to declare His righteousness for putting away sins before He actually took the likeness of man - in birth in the flesh, and grew up, and was obedient to the death of the cross, and was raised up out from the dead and declared to be the Son of God with power (Rom.1:1b-4; 3:22-26; Phil.1:5-11).

In the putting away of sins in the righteousness of the Son of the Covenant, God might be just to put away sin and be the Justifier of all who believed into the righteous Son in whom is the redemption of the body to raise it up out from the dead (Rom.3:22-26).

Until that day, Jehovah Elohim had His first man and woman set apart to Himself in the sanctuary of the garden, where they were protected and every need was cared for. They had His presence, and all had been peace and rest of heart. And purposely so. All had been conducive to learning “The Heavenly Revelation of the Son of the Covenant.”

Each one, Adam and his wife, had been taking in the truth of the facts of “The Heavenly Revelation.” The day of the opening of the eyes of the understanding had come. The time for multiplying after their kind had come. The heart of mankind had been exposed to them. Each one had seen, through personal experience, that the sin of having one’s own will over the will of his God is sourced in the imagination of the heart, in a thinking other than the truth of God (Gen.3:1-7).

Adam and his wife are soon to be put out of the garden and will be having children of the flesh in Adam’s image, of the earth, earthy. Then the sin of self-will must be dealt with. In a body of flesh, the soul of life is self-serving. The heart is deceitful above all and sin-sick and incurable (Jer.17:9-10). The first creation of man in the body of flesh must be put to death in union with the Son of the Covenant. Man must have an exodus out of a lawless creation.

All is shown in “The Heavenly Revelation of the Son of the Covenant.” All can be made known. Through hearing of the word of the Covenant Son all can be known. This is the truth of the word of the righteousness of God to be received through faith in the coming Covenant Son, the truth Adam and his wife must proclaim to make clear to the children to be born of the flesh.

“Because you have done this,” Jehovah Elohim said to the serpent. What was it the serpent, “the sin” of having one’s will over the will of the Creator-Redeemer, had done that day in the garden? “The sin” in the heart was brought into the world. “The sin” was brought into the open in the action of transgressing the command of God to not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. “The sin” was exposed and could not be denied. It must not be denied or excused. “The sin” must be dealt with.

What was the curse pronounced upon eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil? “In the day you eat of it, you shall surely die” (Gen.2:17). The heart of man was proved in their progenitor. Man would transgress a command of God. Man would have his will over the will of God. In so doing, he would come short of the glory of God. In missing the mark of his high calling to become a son of God, man would not receive the eternal life sent as a Gift in the Anointed Son of God. He would not have a deathless body of glory raised up out from the dead.

The children born of man’s seed would be born in a body of flesh of the earth. The flesh body is a seed coat for a body like unto Jesus’ body of glory. The seed coat is absent of eternal life, absent of the germ of life needed to raise up the body of glory out of the dead seed coat.

Absence of life is death. As the apostle Paul wrote to the Roman assembly, “By one man the sin came into the world, and death through the sin. Death passed through all men, for all sinned” (Rom.5:12).

All born of man’s seed are born in a body of flesh and blood. The body is dead - absent of eternal life - because of the sin (Rom.8:10a). Eternal life must be received as a Gift sent from heaven in God’s Son, the Word become flesh (Jn.1:1-14). The spirit of life in Christ Jesus - the eternal life received is life for the body - because of having become the righteousness of God through faith in God’s begotten Son (see Rom.8:2-3; 2 Cor.5:21).

Adam and his wife would have understood what Jehovah Elohim was making known to them that day that the eyes of their understanding had been opened to see their own nakedness, their own having come short of the glory of God. In Jehovah Elohim having chosen the serpent creature as the corporeal object for the figure of Hydra in “The Heavenly Revelation of the Coming Son of the Covenant,” Adam and his wife had a “figure” of “the sin of self-will,” that they might see the heart of man exemplified.

Through having experienced for themselves the sin of having had their will over the will of their God, Jehovah, each one had understanding of the consequence of Jehovah having given man freedom of choice over his will. Each one could see in the understanding of their very being that with which Jehovah Elohim must contend in His creation of man choosing to go his own way and choosing to live his life on earth in the lusts of his own flesh and of the mind. In so doing, man will suffer the curse of death passed through to all (see Rom.5:14; 1 Cor.15:21-22; Heb.9:27).

Using “the object” of the creature serpent as a “figure,” Jehovah Elohim spoke of the curse that the natural man in the flesh will suffer, but which the beasts of the field will never suffer. The beasts of the field do not have the choice of having their will over the will of God. For the animals no afterlife was intended. They are born into an earthly existence. They live out their earthly existence. They return to the dust of the ground (see Eccl.3:19-21).

As we have seen, man was brought into being for a high purpose. Each person born in the flesh has one purpose - to become a son of God through a birth from above (see Jn.1:12-13; 3:3-8). To serve that purpose, the inner man, the person, must share the life God is - spirit being - a life in which death has no part. God is life and He shared His life of spirit with His mankind. Once one has being through birth in a body of flesh, the personal being of the inner man - the soul - will always be.

The eternal life of spirit being for the corporeal body is a choice. The body will die. The life in the blood, dependent upon breath, is temporary. But man need not die. Jesus Himself said so. “I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that believes into Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever lives and believes into Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” (Jn.11:25-26).

Eternal life is shared with man as a Gift through God’s begotten Son. Whosoever believes and receives the Son will pass from death of the natural body to life. One is born a son of God (Jn.1:12-13; 5:24-26). If one does not choose to believe the word of the Anointed Son and receive the eternal life for this body, he has cursed himself to not ever having a body of flesh and bone of eternal life. He has shut himself outside the Kingdom of God forever.

When Jehovah said, “Upon your belly you shall go, and dust shall you eat all the days of your life,” He was using the serpent creature as an object to figure men of self-will, who deliberately choose to have their manner of life in the lusts of the flesh and of the mind.

In Scripture the “belly” of man is used as a figure of speech. It is a reference to the inner man, “the heart,” and the newer Bible translations use “innermost,” “inner,” “the heart,” “body,” or “appetites,” once translated “belly” in the King James Version (see Prov.18:8; 20:27-30; 26:22; Rom.16:18).  Men of self-will will think that things shared in the spirit are foolishness. These things are taught by the Spirit of God. First the “natural man” must be born from above, that the Holy Spirit can reach the understanding and enlighten the eyes of the understanding (see 1 Cor.2).

Knowing only the things of the wisdom of man, the man of self-will will get on in this world on his “belly.” He will live his life on earth according to his own way of thinking, feeding his own desires and exercising his own will in the matters of life (see Prov.13:25; Jn.6:27; Phil.3:19). He will live “minding the things of the flesh.”

What is the flesh body? Mere dust of the ground. In minding the things of the flesh, the self-willed person is feeding his soul to satisfy mere dust of the ground. The flesh body of humanity came from the dust of the ground and unto the dust of the ground it shall return. Jehovah Elohim said so (Gen.3:19).

Jehovah Elohim continued what He had to say of men of self-will - under the figure of the serpent Hydra. Adam and his wife, each one having had the eyes of the understanding opened that Jehovah Elohim might speak to them as spirit being unto spirit being, were now prepared to see the glory of God’s ways.

It is in the spirit of man that light is shined for understanding of the deep things of God. Adam and his wife had already been taught the facts of the person and work of the coming Son of the Covenant, as they are seen in “The Heavenly Revelation of the Son of the Covenant.” Each one, through personal experience of having exercised their will for self-serving, came to see that “the sin,” the lawlessness of their own heart is the enemy of man. The sin in the heart of man is his own enemy. He himself must choose to rule over “the sin” of exercising his will over the will of His Creator-Redeemer.

Through the Propitiation set forth in the Son of the Covenant in whom is righteousness and the redemption of the body, Jehovah Elohim gave man a Way of overcoming sin and death (Heb.2:9-17; 1 Jn.2:1-2; 4:9-10; Col.1:12-22). The Way is the righteousness of God through faith in His Anointed Son. It is a Way of going through the death of the mortal body of flesh and blood without seeing death. The Way is an exodus out of the creation of the flesh. In taking the exodus, one is freed from the law of sin and death. One is become the righteousness of God in the Son and has power over his own will to choose to do the righteousness of God, to be at one with God in thinking and in will.

Jehovah Elohim has given to man to be born a new creation, a son of God. The born son shares the eternal life of the Son and the righteousness of God through the Son and he becomes an heir together with the Son of the Covenant. In the end, in one Kingdom of God, all of the subjects will be born sons of God and will share together in all that God alone has done.

With the eyes of their understanding having been opened, Adam and his wife had understanding of the purpose of the Propitiation set forth. With the teaching they had the facts and they had taken the facts into their mind. Their experience having made known to them that the light of the knowledge of the glory of God must be taken into one’s very spirit of being, the facts took on reality. Through faith, the facts had substance and meaning. They understood God’s Covenant of purchase and redemption. They could see, with understanding, how the body of the Covenant Son, conceived and birthed of the virgin - the body of human flesh - would be deficient to fulfill God’s purpose for sons of God. The death of the body in the likeness of man is the ransom price to set man free from the slavery to the sin (Mt.20:28; Mk.10:45; 1 Tim.2:3-6; 1 Pet.3:18). The ransom is the death of the mortal body.

The Son of the Covenant can be delivered for the offenses of all men of the creation of human flesh. And as seen in “The Heavenly Revelation,” He would be. But that body is a seed coat to raise up the one body out from the dead. The seed coat offered in sacrifice by the One who is the Word, who is God, and who was willing to take the likeness of man, is eternal life with power to raise up a body after its kind - a body of flesh and bone of eternal life (see Lk.24:36-43; Jn.20:19-27; Rom.8:11, 28-30; 1 Cor.15:44; Phil.3:21). The body of eternal life of flesh and bone is the price which covers the deficiency of the birthed body. It is the Son begotten from the dead that is seed for the fruit of sons of God (Jn.12:23-27).

The Son of the Covenant is delivered for man’s offenses, and He is raised for man’s justification. Having become the righteousness of God through faith in the Anointed begotten Son, one is acquitted of all charges and guilt (see Rom.4:25-5:11; Col.2:9-14; 1 Pet.2:24). And having received the eternal life offered in the Anointed Son, one is born from above - a son of God. In resurrection one will have a body of eternal life of flesh and bone raised up out from the dead.

That day, with the eyes of the understanding opened to see in His light, Jehovah Elohim could share “The Heavenly Revelation” in the very being of the spirit of Adam and his wife.

Jehovah Elohim is a God of order. In “The Heavenly Revelation” Jehovah uses the same method to make Himself known as is used in the Hebrew Scriptures. In the Old Testament the primary method is for the record to take the subject to its end and then to return to the beginning to fill in details. We see this in the interweaving of the constellations of the different signs and decans. The constellations were placed in the heavens by Elohim on the fourth day of creation (Gen.1:14-19).

“To whom, then, will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare unto Him?” “It is He who sits upon the circle of the earth ... who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them out like a tent to dwell in” (Is.40:18, 22). Isaiah was making reference to the God of creation.

Stretched around the globe of the earth, the constellations form a circuit depicting the eternal Son set forth in eternity past when God said, “Let Us make man in Our image,” to His coming into time, birthed of a virgin, to His inheritance of the Kingdom of sons of God. Forming a circuit pictures the Eternal Covenant as being made in eternity past to be consummated in eternity future, an everlasting Kingdom of God.

That morning in the garden, with His first pair having received the Propitiation and, therefore, having become the righteousness of God in the Son of the Covenant, Adam and his wife were prepared to be further enlightened in understanding the Eternal Covenant seen in “The Heavenly Revelation of the Covenant Son.”

In the circuit one must choose a sign to make a beginning of learning. Having been enlightened to the Propitiation set forth, Adam and his wife had begun in the sign Libra. In the sign of Libra the Propitiation is seen as set forth in eternity past in the three persons of God making their Covenant. The sign Libra gives understanding of God’s purposes before He began time. All began in the thinking of the one God in three persons with “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth” (Gen.1:26).

In the circuit, when one makes a beginning, one has two directions one can take - clockwise around the circuit, or counterclockwise. That morning in the garden Jehovah took Adam and his wife around the circuit counterclockwise. That is not specifically said, but in what Jehovah says, it is seen.

After the sign of  Libra is the sign of Virgo. “In the fullness of time God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the Law” (Gal.4:4). Again, in the sign of Virgo, the two bodies are set forth, the body of the birthed Son, the body of the beloved Son to be offered in sacrifice and slain, and the body of the begotten Son raised up out from the dead, the body of eternal life of flesh and bone, seed for bodies of eternal flesh and bone for sons of God.

Yet speaking to the serpent as a figure of Hydra as the symbol of “the sin of man to choose to serve himself” rather than his Creator-Redeemer, and speaking of man contending with Jehovah in exercising his own will to lift himself up against the thinking of his Creator-Redeemer, Jehovah Elohim continued,“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed, He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel” (Gen.3:15).

As with the serpent, there is no explanation of who the woman is. She is not named. There was no need for an explanation that day. Adam and his wife had already been taught the facts concerning the sign of Virgo. It only remained to receive the understanding of the figures in the sign. This also was true of the sons of Israel for whom “The Book of the Law” was written. They too had been taught the facts concerning “The Heavenly Revelation of the Son of the Covenant.”

In “The Heavenly Revelation” the Son of the Covenant is seen as coming out of heaven, birthed in a body of flesh in the sign of Virgo. Then the enmity of the seed of man at enmity against God in his mind is seen in the Covenant Son running the race through the next nine stellar signs. This brings the circuit to the sign of Scorpio.

In the sign of Scorpio is the bruising of the head of the serpent. Psalm 19 is the key to “The Heavenly Revelation of the Son of the Covenant.” The Son is figured in the sun with its circuit through the signs of “The Heavenly Revelation of the Son of God” in verses 1 through 6. In verses 7 through 14 the psalmist speaks of the revelation of the Covenant Jehovah has made known in His word of the Law. Each revelation corresponds to the other: The one declared in the heavens and the other in the book written for a witness against Israel.

In Genesis 3:15 Virgo is presented merely as a woman. In “The Heavenly Revelation” the name of the sign in Hebrew is Bethulah, which means “virgin.” She is represented as a woman holding a branch in her right hand and in her left hand she has some seed corn. The Latin name Virgo connects Virgo, which means “a virgin,” and virga, which means “a branch.” Adam and his wife would have connected the woman spoken of by Jehovah with the woman in “The Heavenly Revelation of the Covenant Son.”

In the seed corn is seen the birthed body of human flesh, the body which is sufficient for the ransom, but is deficient to raise up bodies for sons of God. In the branch is the Son begotten out from the dead to rule in the Kingdom of God. We have the confirmation in the prophecy of Isaiah. “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder; and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon His Kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with justice and with righteousness from henceforth even forever. The zeal of the Jehovah of Hosts will perform this” (Is.9:6-7; see Zechariah’s prophecy in Luke 1:67-80).

In Isaiah’s prophecy it is seen that the woman who brings forth the Son of God’s Covenant is the nation of Israel. In the garden Jehovah did not name her. Adam and his wife would have seen Virgo as the people who would bring forth the coming Son of the Covenant. Israel had other confirming prophecies (Is.4:2; 42:1; Zech.3:8; 6:12).

The first decan in the sign Virgo is Coma (“the woman and child”). Coma has the meaning “desired.” Here is the Word, who is God, become flesh, the child born. Here is the first coming into the world of the Son of the Covenant. He is born of a virgin. As prophesied to Israel, “Behold, the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel (“God with us”) (see Mt.1:18-25; Lk.1:26-38).

In the second decan of the sign Virgo the Son of the Covenant is grown to manhood to fulfill the purpose of His coming. He was born King of the Jews, but He came to lay down His life for the sheep of His household and to give His life a ransom for many (Mt.2:2; 20:28; Mk.10:45; Jn.1:49; 10:1-18).

As Paul wrote to Timothy, “God, our Savior, who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time” (1 Tim.2:3b-6).

The name of the second decan in the sign Virgo is Centaurus, (“the centaur”). Here we have a figure of a man on a horse, a mighty conqueror. The  brightest star, which is located in the horse’s forefoot, has the ancient name Toliman, with the meaning, “the heretofore and the hereafter” - the Eternal Almighty God. The One “who is, and who was, and is to come” (Rev.1:8). Situated between the legs of the horse is seen the constellation of the Crux (“the cross”).

Another name for the constellation of this decan is Asmeath, which means “a sin offering.” Centaurus is the sin offering as prophesied in Isaiah 53:10. Isaiah prophesied of the coming Son of the Covenant that, when He would come, He would have no form or comeliness of beauty of a royal king that His people should desire to receive Him as the desired Messiah of Coma. Isaiah wrote, “He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised and we esteemed Him not” (Is.53:3; see Is.52:13-53:12).

When Centaurus had, by the one offering of Himself in sacrifice, conquered through putting away sin once for all and ransoming man’s soul from the power of the lawlessness of the heart, and had conquered death through the Gift of His eternal life for man’s flesh body of death, He ascended back on high and sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on High as the King-Priest after the order of Melchizedek (Heb.1:1-3; 7:1-10:23).

The third decan of the sign Virgo is also a figure of a man. The same man as Centaurus, but in a different role. The name of this decan is Bootes (“the Coming One”). Here is the Seed of the woman, the Son of the Covenant, begotten out from the dead and having ascended on high, who is returning to the earth a second time (see Mt.24:29-30; Mk.13:26). Here is the Branch of Jehovah, beautiful and glorious in His coming (Is.4:2). In that day His people will look on Him whom they have pierced and they shall mourn what they have done and they will receive Him to be their King-Priest (see Zech.12:10; Mt.24:3-4, 29-31; Mk.13:26-27).

That day in the garden, as Jehovah Elohim was reviewing the teaching of the figures of Virgo, Adam and his wife, in the understanding of their very being, in the spirit of their being, each one could see the person and work of the Son of the Covenant through the eyes of faith. Faith gave substance and reality to the figures revealing the plan and the purpose of God’s Covenant of eternal life (Heb.11:1, 6).

When Jehovah Elohim said that day, “I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her Seed,” He was speaking to the serpent, using the figure of the serpentine constellation Hydra as seen in “The Heavenly Revelation of the Son of the Covenant.”

What is it “the serpent Hydra” represents? “Sin” - the lawlessness of the heart of man to choose to exercise his God-given choice of whom he will serve.  Man will serve the sin because sin serves self and he will transgress the law of God’s commands - or - one will hear the truth and believe into the One who became sin for mankind. “You must be born again” - is an imperative (Jn.3:3-7).

One must recognize that he is a mere creation of human flesh. God has made an exodus out of sinful flesh in His Covenant Son, Jesus Christ. One must choose to obey the truth and be born of the incorruptible Seed, the Word of God, who lives and abides forever (1 Pet.1:17-23).

That morning the lawlessness was clearly seen. Adam and his wife, having transgressed God’s command, had seen the source of their action. It began in the heart with a desire. On the part of Adam’s wife, the desire deceived her into thinking something was true but, in reality, it was not true - but a lie. The thinking that the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a tree to be desired to make one wise was all imagined in her own heart.

In her own heart the woman made a choice to have her own will and satisfy her own desire to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. And she gave to her husband with her and He did eat” (Gen.3:6). The lawlessness in man’s heart came out into the world in the act of the transgression.

When Jehovah Elohim said to the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman,” how would He do that? What or who does the “woman” represent?  As has already been established, the woman seen in the figures in the sign Virgo represents the people chosen by Jehovah to bring forth the Son of the Covenant. She represents God’s chosen people - the nation He built for Himself in His Covenant established in the forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Israel was a nation shut up under the Law. The Law is the written expression of the will of Jehovah Elohim. The very Book of the Law, written by Moses, and containing this history in Genesis, was a witness against Israel (Deut.31:24-26).

Where is the enmity between the lawlessness of man choosing to have his will for himself to serve himself - rather than to serve the will of God expressed in His commands and represented in His nation?

In the thinking. Man is at enmity against God having the say over him. Therefore there is enmity between the seed of the serpent and the Seed of the woman. “Seed” can be used as a collective plural. The seed coming through one seed will be multiplied as many times as it is planted and germinates.

The “seed of the serpent” - the sin in the heart of man - the lawlessness in the heart - will be multiplied in men born of Adam’s seed, men in the flesh, who live minding the things of the flesh - at enmity against the Seed of the woman - God’s Son of the Covenant being the One Way to enter the Kingdom of God (Jn.14:6).

That day in the garden Jehovah Elohim finished His sentence on the serpent with, “He - the woman’s Seed - shall bruise your head and you shall bruise His heel.” No explanation was given. Again, no explanation was necessary. Jehovah was speaking as to the serpent, but Adam and his wife were the persons in the presence of Jehovah and they were the hearers of the end of the serpent. The head must be bruised [crushed].

Where is the source of the lawlessness? In the heart of man - the inner man. Where is the enmity? In the thinking. Where is the thinking? In the head.

The thinking sourced in the imagination of man’s heart must be crushed. It is enmity against the only One who can save man from himself. It is against the only One who can share righteousness and eternal life with His creation of man.

Jehovah Elohim did not say when the crushing would take place. Adam and his wife would have known when and how. Likely there was a lively discussion that day on what Adam and his wife had heard before but had not fully understood until the eyes of the understanding were opened to understand the ways of Jehovah Elohim.

In “The Heavenly Revelation of the Covenant” the serpentine constellation of Hydra twists from the constellation Libra through Virgo, Leo and Cancer. It is in the tabernacle of the sun that we see the timing of the work done in the Covenant carried out on earth.

The signs Libra through Cancer take the Covenant from eternity past to the Kingdom Age of the last 1,000 year reign of the Son of the Covenant. The head of Hydra is in Cancer, but not bruised. In those invited into the Kingdom of the Gentile nations, each one in the mortal body is not without sin. Also, those born into the world in the Kingdom Age will have a deceitful heart. Each one will have the freedom of choice as to his thinking and desires. Each one is free to think on what he chooses to believe and to live in the imagination of his heart. But if he carries out the lawlessness of the thoughts of the imagination of the heart, the body of flesh will be put to death and there will be no more lawlessness done in that body.

In the sign of Cancer the kingdom of this world has become of our God and His Christ (Rev.11:15). The Kingdom of God is established on earth and the New Jerusalem has come down from God as the canopy [huppa] over Jerusalem below (Rev.21:1-2; Is.4:2-6). The nations have been invited into the Kingdom (Mt.25:31-40; Rev.7:9-17). All nations and kindreds and peoples are now God’s people and He is their God.

In the Kingdom Age there will be a Shepherd rule, but the scepter is a rod of iron (Rev.2:27; 12:5; 19:15). Lawlessness will not be permitted. It defiles the righteousness of the Kingdom and disturbs the peace. The Dragon, the crooked serpent in the sea of humanity, who has a will to have the Kingdom, the one called the Devil [Deceiver] and Satan, will have been cast into the Pit of the Abyss for the 1,000 years. The purpose being, that he should not deceive the nations (see Rev.20:1-3). Any deception during that age will come from the imagine of one’s heart.

Since Jehovah introduced the subject of the bruising of the head of the serpent, would it not stand to reason that that day in the garden Jehovah would have shared the fulfillment of the prophecy in “The Heavenly Revelation” with Adam and his wife? With their eyes having been opened and their new understanding of the Propitiation set forth in the sign Libra, and their having seen the need for and the purpose of the Propitiation, each one had accepted the Gift of the Son sent from heaven. Since Jehovah had pronounced a prophetic judgment on the sin of self-will, figured in the serpent constellation Hydra, would He not have gone over the facts Adam and his wife had already been taught? With their eyes having been opened, each one would have been prepared to see in the very spirit of their being, see with understanding.

In the four stellar signs of the serpentine constellation, we see Jehovah must continue to permit man his choice of whom he will choose to serve: sin and self - or - his Creator-Redeemer during the 1,000 year reign.

In the sign of Libra, in eternity past in the doing of the Covenant, Jehovah Elohim must make provision to put away the sin of man choosing to exercise his will over the will of the Creator-Redeemer made clear in “The Heavenly Revelation of the Coming Son of the Eternal Covenant.” In His Covenant God made an exodus out of the flesh creation of man to be born from above and enter the Kingdom of God.

In Libra, the Propitiation, is seen the Gift of the Son with eternal life for the mortal body, which must be taken into death to make an exodus out of the creation of man in the flesh.

In the sign Virgo is the figure of the Son of the Covenant taking the likeness of sinful flesh through birth of a virgin, that He might take the sins of the whole world on that body and free His mankind from the law of sin and death. He became sin for us [mankind], that we  individually might become the righteousness of God through faith in the Anointed Son of the Covenant (see 2 Cor.5:14-21).

In the sign of Leo we have the other figure of the Son of the Covenant - the Branch - the Lion of the tribe of Judah ruling and reigning over the earth and mankind. In the first decan constellation Hydra (“the serpent”) is still reaching on beyond to the sign of Cancer, even though all other enemies have been destroyed. In the second decan, Crater (“the cup”), all nations have been made to drink of the wine of the cup of the Lord’s wrath. In the third and final decan Corvus, we have the birds of prey devouring the flesh of the wicked who had chosen to have their will over the will of their Creator-Redeemer. In their wicked willfulness to have the kingdom of this world for themselves, they have destroyed themselves. We see this figure also signified to the apostle John in the Revelation of Jesus Christ written on the scroll (see Rev.14:14-20; 19:17-21).

In the War of the Great Day of God Almighty all His enemies have been subdued and all other rule and authority has been put down. The great Babylon is utterly burned up and the Dragon, the serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan has been bound and cast into the Pit of the Abyss (Rev.18; 20:1-3).

In the sign of Cancer the Son of the Covenant has asked for His inheritance of the nations and received them (Ps.2). “The earth is the Lord’s [His], and the fulness thereof; the world, and they who dwell therein” (Ps.24:1; see Rev.11:15).

The scattered Jews of His nation, His elect, have been regathered from the four corners of the earth (Is.11:11-12; Mt.24:29-31). The head of Hydra, with the mind of the flesh at enmity against the Almighty God and His Anointed Covenant Son, has not yet been bruised.

Then comes the sign of Gemini (“the twins”). Here is Messiah’s peaceful reign. The marriage supper of the Lamb has taken place. The sons of Israel have married the land. Jerusalem is a crown of glory in the hand of Jehovah and a royal diadem in the hand of her God (Is.62:1-3; Ps.45; Rev.19:7-9).

Yet in the constellation of the first decan in the sign of Gemini there is an enemy, Lepus (“the hare”). In the Persian planesphere this constellation was pictured by a “serpent.” Through the Kingdom Age, men will be born of the seed of man in bodies of human flesh. Each one brought forth, birthed to be born from above a son of God. Therefore they must be permitted the freedom of choice to choose the Gift of the righteousness of God and the eternal life for the body offered in the Anointed Son of the Covenant.

Also when Christ returns to set up the Kingdom, some of the individuals of the Gentile nations offered amnesty if they will give the new King, Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God begotten out from the dead, their allegiance, will only give feigned allegiance. They will do so, that they not be put to death as an enemy of the King.

As was said, man may have deceit in his heart, but he dare not carry out any act of lawlessness in his body of flesh. In Messiah’s Kingdom all is rest and peace, as the psalmist expressed it. We see “His days” in which righteousness shall flourish, and abundance of peace as long as the moon endures (Ps.72:7).

The Hare is a small constellation of nineteen stars, all of small magnitude. The brightest star in the body in Hebrew means “the enemy of Him who comes.” Another star is “the mad,” and one, “the bound,” and another, “the deceiver.” The heart is deceitful above all. One may continue to be at enmity against God in his thinking, but it would be madness to act it out. As already stated, during the Kingdom Age the enmity of the mind is restricted to the heart of man and utterly subdued.

The next sign in the circuit of the Son of the Covenant also has to do with the Kingdom Age. This is Taurus (“the Bull”). There is the Judge of the earth, who only does right (Rev.19:11). The first decan constellation is Orion (“the coming Prince”). The mighty, glorious, triumphant Victor has His left foot over the head of the hare, ready to bring it down on anyone mad enough to act out the deceit of his heart.

The second decan constellation is Eridanus (“the river of the Judge”), the river of the sanctuary described in Ezekiel’s prophecy in verses 1through 12 of chapter 47 (see also Zech.14:8-9). Here is the water of the word to cover the earth, that all may hear the truth and obey the truth to be born from above a son of God and enter the everlasting Kingdom of sons of God (see Is.11:9-10; Hab.2:14).

The constellation of the third decan in the sign Taurus is Auriga (“the Shepherd”). The Judge is the Great Shepherd of the sheep, brought again from the dead by the blood of the Eternal Covenant (Heb.13:20).

The next sign on the circuit is Aries (“the Ram” or “Lamb”). Here is figured the reign of the One who, as man’s Substitute, died for the ungodly as the Anointed Son of the Covenant to be brought again from the dead. In the first decan we have Cassiopeia (“the enthroned woman”). Here is the woman, the nation of Israel, ruling and reigning with her Messiah as the head of all nations (see Deut.7:6; 26:18-19; 28:1, 13; Mic.4:1-8; 5:2).

In the next sign, Pisces (“the fishes”), “The Heavenly Revelation” goes back to fill in details of before the reign of Messiah to the time when the woman Israel had been set aside for having delivered up her Messiah to be crucified and the gospel net was let down into the sea of humanity to take in all kinds of fishes (Rom.11:1-36).

The next sign is the sign of Aquarius (“the water bearer”). Here is the living water, the word of God, sent forth to the ends of the earth after the Rock was struck (Jn.7:37-39; Ac.2).

The next sign is Capricornus (“the Sea Goat”). The Son of the Covenant, promised the kingdom, laid down His life that He might take it up again to redeem all men of all kindreds, nations and tongues, which brought the Son of the Covenant to the next sign of His triumph as Sagittarius (“the Archer”). Here is a figure of a mighty Conqueror riding on a horse. In His hand a bow with the arrow set.

The first decan constellation in the sign of Sagittarius is Lyra (“the harp”). The harp was used in Israel in praise of the conqueror with his victory (see 2 Chron.26:30; see also Rev.14:1-2). The second decan constellation is Ara (“the altar”). The altar, with its fire burning, is ominously upside down, pointing toward the earth (see Rev.11:15. In verse 9 of Psalm 21 we read, “You shall make them as a fiery oven in the time of Your anger; Jehovah shall swallow them up in His wrath, and the fire shall devour them” (see Is.30:27-33; Rev.8:2-7; 19:15; 18:8, 16-19).

The sign of Sagittarius is the victory over the man of sin with his global jurisdiction. He and the ten kings went to war with the Lamb. This is the War of the Great Day of God Almighty and the campaign of Armageddon where the armies of the nations destroy one another seen in “The Revelation of Jesus Christ” and signified to the apostle John through visions, which he was to record as a record for those of the Church Age (Rev.1:1-19). In a vision John saw the Victor, the Lord of lord and King of kings ride out of heaven on a white horse - the Conqueror (Rev.19:11-19).

The constellation of the third and final decan of Sagittarius, showing the Redeemer’s triumph, is Draco (“the Dragon”), that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan (Rev.12:9). To accomplish his goal to have his own will and to ascend above the heights of the clouds and be like the Most High, Lucifer became Satan, “the Adversary” of Jehovah and His Anointed Son (Is.14:12-14; Ezek.28:12b-19). He transformed himself from a created angel, a ministering spirit in the government of God (Ps.104:4) to an angel of light (2 Cor.11:14), a messenger of the light of “The Mysteries of Babylon,” the religion of the worship of the host of heaven, a perversion of “The Heavenly Revelation of the true Son of the Covenant.” The Adversary’s “light” is “darkness” (see Jn.8:34-59; 9:39-41; 2 Cor.4:4). The apostle warned the Ephesian assembly of the wiles of the Devil, the stratagems of the Deceiver, his methods of deceit (Eph.6:11).

The “serpent of old” represents Lucifer as “the deceived,” being a deceiver. The “dragon” represents him as being “a destroyer.” With his world system burned to ashes, and the kings of the earth whom he mentored destroyed and their armies slain, “the kingdom of this world has become of our Lord and His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever” (Rev.11:15).

“The Dragon, that old serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, was laid hold of, and bound for a thousand years, and cast into the Pit of the Abyss, shut up, with a seal set upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled, and after that he must be loosed a little season” (Rev.20:2-3). During the 1,000 year reign of Christ there will be no deceit. Only the truth of the Son of the Covenant will be taught - the light of the knowledge of the glory of God as seen in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor.4:6).

Between the sign of Sagittarius and Libra is the sign of Scorpio, “the Redeemer’s conflict.” As prophesied in “The Revelation of Jesus Christ,” there is seen in “The Heavenly Revelation of the Son of the Covenant” that there is to be one last conflict before the Son has His Kingdom to go into eternity and reign forever and ever. Scorpio brings the circuit back to Libra and eternity. The last 1000 years of time comes to an end.

In the sign of Scorpio is seen a giant scorpion. The Hebrew name is Akrab, which is also the name of the “scorpion,” but also means “conflict” or “war.” The Arabic name is Al Akrab, which means “the wounding of him who comes.”

The constellations of the first and second decans are Serpens (“the serpent”), which is held in the powerful grasp of Ophiuchus (“the Serpent Holder”). While holding the serpent immobile, Ophiuchus has His foot on the heart of the scorpion. The very heart of the scorpion is marked by a deep red star, Anterus (“wounding”). The wounding of the heel of the Seed of the woman is in the heart of the scorpion.

The scorpion, the serpent, and the Strong Man are all involved in a conflict. The serpent is reaching for the crown, which is just over his head. The serpent is restrained from seizing the crown by the Serpent Holder. The conflict is for dominion.

As is seen in the Gog and Magog of “The Revelation of Jesus Christ,” at the end of the 1,000 year reign of Christ Jesus, there is a “scorpion,” a multitude whose number is as the sand of the seashore whom Satan has gathered together after he has been loosed out of his prison. They are gathered to battle to have the Kingdom of the rightful Heir (Rev.20:7-9). Men of self-will at enmity in their mind toward Jesus Christ being Sovereign over them.

For 1,000 years He has only done them good. He has been and is their Protector and Provider. He has exercised the power of His authority, that all in the Kingdom might live in peace and righteousness. He dwells with them (Rev.21:3). Yet they have in their heart set their will with the old Deceiver to have the Kingdom of the Seed of the woman for themselves. What are they thinking?

The constellation of the third and last decan in the sign of Scorpio occupies a large portion of the heavens and is named Hercules, meaning, “the Mighty One.” The brightest star is in  His head and has the meaning, “the head of Him who bruises.” The star in the right elbow is called “the wounding.”

Here is the Mighty One who has destroyed all of His enemies. He is seen bending on one knee and His right heel is lifted up to come down on the neck of his enemy, so to speak, and crush his life breath and bruise his head - crush out the thinking of the heart of the scorpion.

The serpent, the figure of the sin of self-will of man acted out in his enmity toward the Son of the Covenant, has been held fast and restrained by the Serpent Holder for 1,000 years. The Dragon has been bound in the Pit of the Abyss where he cannot deceive the nations. He is loosed, but the left foot of Hercules is set directly over the head of the great Dragon, Draco.

The Serpent Holder has His right foot on the heart of the scorpion. The heart is the source of the sin of man choosing to exercise his will over the will of his Creator-Redeemer. In the final gathering of the rebels will be the bruising of the head of “the serpent” - the figure of “man in the lawlessness of his self-will.” As recorded in “The Revelation of Jesus Christ,” fire came down out of heaven and devoured them (Rev.20:7-9).

The Son of the Covenant, the Mighty One, the Son of God begotten out from the dead, will take the wounding of His so great love with the hurt and pain of the enmity of the scorpion after man, having again been loosed from the Serpent Holder, and having again been given the freedom to choose to have his will, and using his freedom of choice to follow the evil one, and to try to topple the government of the Branch, the Son of God begotten from the dead, and to take His beloved city. In their attempt to overthrow the rightful Heir to the throne, the scorpion, representing “the multitude of the final Gog and Magog,” will show the enmity of the heart. In their enmity they have caused the Seed of the woman to crush them.

The crushing of the head of the serpent will cause the wounding of the heel of the Seed of the woman. A wound of the heel is caused by a blunt trauma to the heel through striking something hard and unyielding. The thinking of the head of the serpent - the sin of man choosing to have his will for himself - is sourced in the heart hardened against the gospel of the Anointed Son with the righteousness of God and the Gift of righteousness for power over the sin and of eternal life for the body to be raised up out from the dead being the only way to enter the Kingdom of God (see Jn.3:3-21; 14:6).

The Gift man needs has been provided Him by the One he has made his enemy. Man’s only hope of eternal life is in the Son of the Covenant. To reject the Gift of the Son is to perish forever. The One who loves them and who gave Himself a ransom to free them from their slavery to having their own will would save them, but they would not and He must suffer the loss of those He loved, but could not win over with His love.

At the Great White Throne Judgment each one of His creation of man who did not choose to receive eternal life but rather chose to have his own will and go his own way, will receive a fair trial. Each one will be judged on his own works as was their earthly desire. Each one not having chosen to be born from above is dead in trespasses and sins and must be put outside the Kingdom of God in the lake of fire prepared for the Devil and his angels (Rev.20:10-15; Mt.25:41). There also must the Dragon, the serpent of old, and his angels spend eternity.

God, having fulfilled His purpose, will be done with time. He has the desire of His heart. He has an everlasting Kingdom of sons of God bearing His image. Man has gained what he never could have gained for himself. Man is what he never could have been. He is a born son of God with a body of eternal flesh and bone. He has become the righteousness of God. He will forever be righteous. He is what he never was before, nor ever could have been in himself. And so he will be forever and ever.

In Adam and his wife having had the eyes of their understanding enlightened to see the glory of God declared in “The Heavenly Revelation of the Son of the Covenant, Jehovah Elohim has prepared His first pair to be fit vessels for the good works which He had foreordained for them. They are His first prophets of righteousness to speak forth His words. They have been  sanctified and consecrated to handle the holy things of the sacrificial offering of the Son of the Covenant, who poured out His soul unto death - that each person born in the flesh of humanity might choose to save his own soul through choosing to receive the eternal life in the Son to be born from above.

That day in the garden Adam and his wife saw all is done in the Covenant. The Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, the Son of the Covenant, will carry it through in His time. He who is - has done it!

This concludes our lesson.