The Fullness of God tr

A mark, a goal, has been placed before us. It is to acquire the fullness of God in our personality. When this takes place we will think, speak, and act in a godly manner, a manner acceptable to God our Father.

No progress can be made toward this third form of righteousness until we first have received imputed righteousness and then have lived according to the commandments of Christ and His Apostles. The first two forms of righteousness are steps toward the third form. If the third form is not attained, then the program of Divine righteousness has been aborted. The first two forms have failed in their mission.

The third form of righteousness, the fullness of God in Christ, can be seen in three areas:

Christ is formed in us

The Father and the Son dwell in the new creation

The physical body is raised and clothed with the robe from Heaven

Christ is formed in us

My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, (Galatians 4:19—NIV)

It is clear from the text of Galatians that the people being addressed were both saved and baptized with the Holy Spirit.

But Christ had not been formed in them. Or if He had, He had been diminished in some manner.

To be saved is to receive the authority through the blood of the cross to press through to the fullness of God.

To be baptized with the Holy Spirit is to receive the Presence of the Holy Spirit so we have the wisdom and power to press through to the fullness of God.

But now we have come to a third dimension of salvation—the forming of Christ in us.

When we are speaking of having Christ formed in us we are not referring to the coming of Christ from Heaven to dwell in us. That is another matter. Rather we are pointing toward the integration of the Substance and Virtue of Christ, His Divine Nature, into our personality in such a manner that old things pass away and our personality becomes new in Christ.

The adamic nature must die. The Christ Nature must be formed in us. Death, and life. Death, and life. Death, and life. Order on order, rule on rule. A little here, a little there so we will go, fall backward, and be injured, snared, and captured. This is the rest of God and the Holy Spirit operates the procedure.

What comes forth in our personality is a new creation. The new creation is not us. The new creation is not Christ. It is a new person formed from us and Christ.

We have lost our individuality, our ability to be separate from God. But our unique identity has been enhanced.

How does such a new creation come into existence? Through the travail of the ministries and gifts of the Body of Christ. They labor that we might come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man, to maturity as measured by the stature of the fullness of Christ.

Christ is built up in us by that which every member of the Body supplies. The Body builds itself up in love.

The new man is built up as we keep the commandments of Christ and His Apostles, as the Spirit helps us. When we do not keep the Word of Christ, He is not formed in us. It is as simple and straightforward as that. This is why so many Christians remain spiritual infants. And they want to be caught up into the Presence of Christ in a "rapture" in their present state? Let us hope better things than this for our brothers and sisters.

The problem to a great extent is incorrect doctrine. We need to start teaching the doctrines of Christ and His Apostles in place of the current Christian myths.

The Father and the Son dwell in the new creation

Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. (John 14:23—NIV)

When Christ has been formed in us, that is, the Substance and Virtue of Christ have permeated our personality such that the old has gone and the new has entered, the Father and the Son will come to us and make Their eternal home with us.

Notice carefully in the above verse that the coming of the Father and the Son into us in this manner is based on our obeying the teachings of Christ. "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching." If we do not obey the teachings of Christ, then the program that leads to Divine righteousness is aborted.

The Father loves us when we obey the teachings of Christ and His Apostles.

Our initial salvation made Christ real to us.

The baptism with the Holy Spirit made the Spirit of God real to us.

Obeying the teachings of Jesus Christ makes the Father real to us.

Up to this point we Christians have accepted the ancient Athanasian Creed as an explanation of the Trinity, the Godhead. This was the clearest understanding we had and it has served us to the present hour. However, the Athanasian Creed was not the product of the Spirit of wisdom and revelation but of human reasoning.

Now, as we are moving past the spiritual fulfillment of the Jewish feast of Pentecost and are entering the feast of Tabernacles, the Father and the Son are becoming more real to us, as Jesus prophesied in the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of John.

"In that day," in the day when the Lord alone is exalted in our personality, in that day, the Day of the Lord, we will know that we are in the Father and the Son. Our Father will become much more real to us than He is now. We will know the Lord Jesus as our elder Brother and together with Him will sing praises to our Father.

No one knows the Father except the Son and the person to whom the Son will reveal the Father. Jesus came to bring us to the Father. Our Lord is the Firstborn from the dead, although having existed from eternity. We also are part of the new creation and have become the brothers of Christ. The Lord and we have the same Father.

Pentecost is the rain from Heaven. Tabernacles is the forming of the Throne of God in the human personality so that the Spirit comes as from a well within us. In that day God will be our Strength, our Joy, our Peace, our Song. He will not just give us these things as we have need, He Himself will become all this and more to us.

No longer will we be playing volleyball with God. "I do this and God does that." Now we are on the same side of the net with God.

This is the fullness of God.

Christ has been formed in us. The Father and the Son have come and made Their eternal mansion in the new man that has been formed in us. Only one aspect of the fullness of God remains to be experienced.

The physical body will be raised and clothed with the robe from Heaven.

And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you. (Romans 8:11—NIV)

Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, Because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. (II Corinthians 5:2,3—NIV)

If we are faithfully following Jesus Christ, obeying His Spirit, putting to death the deeds of our body, then, when the Lord returns, our body will pass from death to life. If we have died but were living in Christ at the time of our decease, if we truly died "in Christ," then we will return with the Lord. Our flesh and bones will be raised from the dead at that time so we, along with the living saints, are standing on the earth once again.

Our robe, or house from Heaven will clothe our resurrected (or changed) flesh and bones. The house from Heaven, the robe of righteousness, is formed as we have been crucified with Christ and then have been raised to walk with Him in newness of life, just as was true of the Apostle Paul.

The making alive of our physical body and the clothing of our body with the heavenly robe is the first resurrection from the dead, the resurrection of the royal priesthood.

Christ has been formed in us. God and Christ have made Their eternal home in us. Our physical body has been made alive by the Spirit of God. Our physical body has been clothed with a robe fashioned in Heaven from our behavior on the earth, from our response to the Spirit of God as the Spirit has enabled us to keep the commandments of Christ and His Apostles.

Now we have attained the fullness of righteousness. God Himself has become our righteousness, not merely in an imputed sense but in the actual sense of God being formed in us and dwelling in us.

First imputed righteousness. Then righteous behavior produced as a joint effort of our adamic nature cooperating with the Holy Spirit of God.

Finally Christ formed in us, the Father and the Son living in the new creation that has been formed in us, and the whole clothed with flesh and bones which themselves have been clothed with a spiritual body created before the Throne of God in Heaven, a spiritual body produced from our faithful, diligent discipleship.

This is the Kingdom of God. This is why he who is least in the Kingdom is greater than any of the prophets.

This is the mark, the heavenly calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Now we are able to serve God in His Kingdom throughout eternity.

What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ And be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. (Philippians 3:8,9—NIV)

Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The LORD, the LORD, is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation." With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation. In that day you will say: "Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim that his name is exalted. (Isaiah 12:2-4—NIV)

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