The Work of Christ

Planting the heavens

The Lord God of Heaven, the Father, has determined to remove all sin and rebellion from the heavens and the earth.

Sin is a spiritual force, not a physical force. Sin originated in the spirit realm, not in the garden of Eden.

One of the present-day assumptions is that after we die and pass into the realm of spirits we can sin no longer. We are looking for physical death to accomplish what we have not allowed the Lord Jesus to do for us during our lifetime on the earth. We are regarding physical death as our redeemer from sin.

There are religions and movements that regard matter as evil and spirit as good. The proponents of these religions do all they can to leave the body and live in the spirit realm while they yet are physically alive on the earth. They are seeking peace, power, and assistance from the realm of spirits. Hindus stream into their temples at night, hoping to obtain assistance from the spirits.

When such worshipers die they will discover to their dismay that the spirit realm is filled with personages of all types, not all of whom are friendly. Some of the inhabitants of the spirit realm are incredibly lovely and filled with the love, joy, and peace that humans desire. Others are unbelievably hideous and filled with murder, violence, misery, and raging unrest. The worst nightmares of humans have to do with being trapped by horrible demons and fallen angels.

Since this is true, it is not enough just to leave the physical and live in the spirit realm. We must insure that we will enter the area inhabited by the holy angels who do God’s will. The only guarantee we will be received by the desirable angels is that we are pleasing to Christ. He is in control of all.

Dying does not of itself bring us peace or make us holy. Only the Lord Jesus can sanctify us.

It has been said that Satan originally was one of the two cherubim who overshadowed the Throne of God with their wings. If that were the case, sin and rebellion originated around the Throne of God in Heaven and will not be overcome simply by our dying and going to Heaven. Sin originated in the realm of spirits and will not be removed just because we have entered the realm of spirits.

Sin came to us from the heavens, and our redemption also comes from "heavenly things." The Lord Jesus had to sprinkle His own blood upon us and also before the Presence of God in Heaven (Hebrews 9:12,23). Even the heavens have been defiled.

It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. (Hebrews 9:23)
The heavenly things had to be purified with the blood of the Lord Jesus.

God always creates the heavens before the earth. The work of Christ over the past two thousand years has been that of developing righteousness in our spiritual nature, which is at the right hand of the Lord. We already have come to the heavenly Zion. This is the location of the spirits of righteous people made perfect (Hebrews 12:23).

God’s entire plan of redemption depends on the creation of a company of sons who, through Christ, are made righteous in spirit. They have struggled ceaselessly against wicked angels of high rank, against evil, unclean lords in the heavenlies. They have conquered them through the blood of the Lamb, through the word of their testimony, and by loving not their lives to the death.

The heavens are being planted by Christ who is creating His love of righteousness and hatred of sin and rebellion in the members of His Body. The resistance to sin being formed in the overcomers is the wall of the new Jerusalem. It is Zion—the fortress that protects Jerusalem.

This is the area of the greater David (the Lord Jesus) and His mighty men—mighty in righteousness and spiritual warfare.

It is impossible to overemphasize the importance of the creation of righteous, holy, and obedient conduct in the saint, in the Christian believer. This is the first work of Christ. Apart from righteousness of personality and behavior the will of God has not been accomplished in the believer and cannot be accomplished through the believer. Redemption has not taken place.

The Christian redemption is vastly more than forgiveness of sins. It is total transformation of personality.

By stressing imputed (ascribed) righteousness and neglecting the necessity for righteous character and behavior many present-day Christian preachers and teachers are destroying the work of God in the earth. The heavens cannot be planted with people who are righteous only by legally assigned righteousness. The members of the Kingdom of God are not righteous only by ascribed righteousness. The new Jerusalem is not holy by ascribed righteousness.

The Scriptures do not teach that dying and passing into the spirit realm will accomplish our sanctification. It is not death that makes us holy, it is life—the Divine Life in Christ.

Jesus has commanded us to put to death, through the Spirit, our sins and rebellions. He has warned us that if we do not do this we will die spiritually (Romans 8:13).

The Lord Jesus sends fiery trials on us in order to purify us from our sins (I Peter 4:1). The members of the Body of Christ are learning to not practice sin.

Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him. (I John 3:6)

Heaven, the new Jerusalem that is above, is being planted with Divine righteousness. The righteousness of God in Christ is being created in the members of the Body of Christ. This is the first work of Christ.

Nothing can be done about the restoration of our environment until the spiritual life of the Body of Christ has been established in righteousness of personality and behavior at the right hand of God in Heaven. We humans desire to enter the Paradise of God. God is interested primarily in our being transformed into His moral image and in our being sternly obedient to Him in every instance.

The spirits of the righteous must be made perfect before the work of restoration can proceed. If we hope to participate in the work of Christ, in the glory of the first resurrection, we must follow the Lord Jesus in every point in which He is putting to death our first personality and raising us into newness of life in Him. The rewards go to the conquerors.

The Work of Christ

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Planting the heavens