I am sure that the church cannot help but perceive there is something calamitous happening in this world; something unimaginable. And still, many are willfully ignoring it, even denying it, because they do not want to accept that the time has come. Political and global leaders are taking this world to a place that will look very similar to the former Soviet Union. But it will be even more terrible than that if you can comprehend it. The near future will be a time when a small few will have everything and the rest of humanity will have nothing. The people who will implement this fascist/totalitarian system are excited about getting it started. They have even boasted in internet ads how great this system will be. It will be great for them but nightmarish for the rest.
What they have planned can be read on one of the World Economic Forum websites, from June 3, 2020.[1] What will happen can be read in the Book of Revelation (Chapters 6-19). The Globalists call it the Great Reset, but Bible prophecy refers to it as the time of God’s wrath (Dan. 8:19; 11:36; Zeph. 1:15, 19; 3:8; 1 Thess. 1:10; 5:9). It is the Tribulation Period/Seventieth-week of Israel. Some Christians have just started to notice the evil presence that has gripped this generation like an invading army of demonic activity because up until now they have been occupied with themselves. But the darkness has been present for some time and is increasing as each day goes by. Ever since Israel became a nation again the beginning of their seventieth week has been set on a timer. That timer is ready to go off. It is ticking down very swiftly. When that timer goes off the Tribulation Period will begin. Many Christians in North America think that by prayer and fasting, they can stop the Great Reset from happening. They believe their prayers will reverse the darkness so that they can enjoy peace and prosperity. I agree that prayer will cut into darkness, but what is coming has already been prophesied to happen. So, beseeching the Lord with prayer and petition to make this ever-increasing darkness go away will not work. God will not stop something from happening when it is already prophesied in the Scriptures to happen.
What the church should be doing is getting ready for the rapture of the body of Christ. The prayer and fasting should be focused on this glorious event. If all the signs are pointing to the Great Reset to be put in place, then that means all the signs are pointing to the start of the Tribulation Period/Seventieth-week of Israel. The door to this most terrible time in the history of the world is opening quickly. It started to open in 1948, and it will be fully open soon. The man who can understand the word of God should know that the Lord is ready at any time to take his bride out of this world into eternity. So, what should the man of God do? He should teach Bible prophecy to warn those who hear him. He should point out that the door to the Tribulation Period is almost open fully. The Beast and his government are all prepared to come through. The time for personal Christian notability is over. The will of the Lord is more important.
Below is a teaching I wrote that will encourage some. But it will also make some others angry. The angry ones do not want the rapture to happen now, they want more time on this earth to enjoy the world and its pleasures. They are addicted to the world like a kid to candy. Some ministers have the desire to become famous, they crave ministerial prestige. They treat the kingdom of God as some spiritual ladder, one they feel they need to climb so they can be hoisted up and be recognized as a super-spiritual leader. I hope this teaching will give the church a jolt, so they can wake up. The church is about to be made glorious.
“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:25-27, KJV).
Paul began chapter five, in this letter to the Ephesians, with the requirement to be an imitator (mimētēs) of God (5:1). Some English Bibles have translated mimētēs as a plural noun, the designation, followers—like the version I used for the above passage of study. When a person imitates another person, they copy the actions of that person, mainly their behavior and speech. Paul gives an example of how to imitate God, and that is to operate oneself consistently in love, agape in Greek (5:1a). Agape is equivalent to being good and kind to one another, compassionate, and considerate. Christ set the example by dearly loving us, by offering himself on our behalf to God the Father as an atonement (5:2b). Scrolling down the chapter, Paul demands that husbands love their γυνή, pronounced goo-nay', the transliteration is gynē (5:25a). Goo-nay' means woman, whether a virgin that is engaged (betrothed), a woman already married (wife), or a woman whose husband has passed away (widow). Paul is referring to the married woman, a man’s wife. The husband must love his wife just like Jesus Christ loves those that the Holy Father has given to him (Jn. 17:6, 26), the church or body of Christ, whom he let himself be sacrificed for (5:25b).
Jesus gave himself for the church so that he might sanctify it (5:26a). The English word sanctify is interpreted from the Greek transliteration hagiazō, which derives from the root transliteration hagios. Hagios primarily translates as the English adjective, holy. Secondarily hagios is used in many English translations to refer to the noun, saints. Jesus gave himself for the body of Christ to sanctify it, or to make it hallow. The act of sanctifying the church is to purify it and deliver it from sin. The church is made hallow by being cleansed by the word (5:26b). The Greek term, rhema, is translated as the English neuter noun, “word” in verse twenty-six.
Word, or rhema, in this context, refers to Scripture that is revealed verbally or in some other way so that the believer can hear it and might understand it better—something specific is being divinely revealed usually by it being uttered or understood within one’s spirit portion of their being. In other words, what is written in Scripture and supposed to be clearly understood is enhanced using divine power by the rhema itself—the rhema makes it clear, or able to understand. For example: Rhema is used in Ephesians 6:17b, to reveal that the word (rhema) of God is the sword of the Spirit so that there is no misinterpretation or misunderstanding about it. Paul, being led by the Holy Spirit, used the term rhema because this statement is meant to be clearly understood by the one hearing it. As everyone knows, the New Testament was written in the Greek language because it was the common language of the then Roman Empire, even though the disciples spoke Aramaic (this was the customary language of the Jews after they were exiled to Babylon) as their primary tongue. It is believed that the apostle Paul spoke Greek fluently being a highly educated man, which he then used to not only write his material but used to preach and teach to the Gentiles of the Roman world—using the Greek language made the New Testament Scriptures accessible especially to the Gentile world since it was the disciple’s mission to: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mk. 16:15, Webster’s). Flavius Josephus, the famous First Century Jewish Historian, had said that the Greek language was common in all spheres of society in his day, everyone spoke it, from the greatest among them to the least. So, when someone reads Paul’s letter or hears that the sword of the Spirit is the rhema of God it would speak to them as something they could understand, there would be no misinterpreting what the rhema is saying. Because the term rhema also has its distinctive meaning to that of the Greek term logos, it would be like a bright light going off within their mind giving them the potential to understand better what is being said.
The Greek term rhema is also used to reveal that when the word of God is preached or spoken verbally the Christ and the gospel message can be revealed so that people can receive him (Rom. 10:8, 18; 1 Pet. 1:25). Using the Greek rhema, instead of the primary Greek term logos, in these soul-saving passages, allows the hearer to understand what is being proclaimed more clearly. By using the Greek term rhema the hearer cannot misinterpret what is being said to him, his level of understanding of what is being proclaimed could reach a new and greater level. The rhema of God increases the potential for the hearer to comprehend that Jesus is the only way to eternal life (Rom. 10:8-13), and it is by the rhema that the gospel is preached so that anyone can understand it without the message being misunderstood (1 Pet. 1:25).
As you go through the New Testament and parallel the Greek with the English versions you will see that the Greek term rhema is used dozens of times to demonstrate that the words of Jesus and the Father were verbally communicated. Rhema is also used to point out the verbal utterances of men (Matt. 12:36; 18:16).
So, when the Greek term rhema is being used in Scripture it identifies that something specific is being brought to light—brought to light by hearing it verbally or it being illumined within by the Spirit. In my opinion, if a person looks at every Scripture verse that uses the Greek term rhema in it, they could almost substitute the English term ‘word’ for the English word ‘revelation’ and still get the general idea of what is being indicated—that disclosure is being made using utterance. Again, the Greek word rhema is used in Scripture to specify that through verbal expression the word of God intends to bring forth divine illumination.
The Scripture is also referred to the Greek term logos, and it is another term used primarily in translating ‘word’ in the English Bible—the Scripture is the logos (word) of God. The Greek term logos is used more than four and a half times more than the Greek term rhema. Logos is used to describe thoughts, reasoning, expressions, or speech in the form of communication. It can be spoken either verbally or non-verbally. Logos expresses the meaning behind the thought either verbally or non-verbal. The Greek term logos also refers to Christ himself, because the Scripture expresses that Christ is the Divine Savior and has always been Yahweh, he has always been with God the Father, being that he is the Eternal God (Gen. 21:33; Jn. 1:1, 14; 1 Jn. 1:1-2; Rom. 9:5; 1 Tim. 1:17). Some refer to Jesus as being the Divine Expression of the Father.[2] The man Jesus, was an expression of God the Father’s divine nature while he was in his earthly body (Phil. 2:6, 9-11; Col. 1:15-17).
Getting back to Ephesians 5:26b; the church is cleansed by the word (rhema) of God as the believer gets revelation of what God is saying either by reading it or hearing it, and then obeying it. The rhema of God is the truth divinely revealed (Jn. 17:17). The Holy Father speaks to his church through the logos of God overall, but he reveals specific things by the rhema of God. When the church understands what is written through the rhema of God it can help them be cleansed, purified, and sanctified. It empowers them to cast off the old nature and put on the new man (Eph. 4:22-24). When the believer is walking in holiness it helps him to stop lying (Eph. 4:25; Col. 3:9). Being cleansed by the rhema of God can help the believer cast out hostility, stop being easily annoyed, end rage, and especially see no reason for revenge or the desire to get even (Col. 3:8; 1 Pet. 2:1). Being cleansed by the rhema of God can enable the believer to clothe himself with Christ, it can also wash away the desire to please the sinful nature (Rom. 13:14). Cleansed by the rhema can also help the believer to forgive those that have hurt them (Col. 3:13). The rhema of God helps to perfect the believer as the rapture of the church draws near.
It is so essential for the church to be willing to be washed by the rhema (word) of God because Christ will one day present the body of Christ to himself—this will happen when the body of Christ is raptured out of this world into eternity (1 Thess. 4:16-17). I say that the church should be willing and strive to be washed by the word because some carelessly neglect to do so. Some mock God by sowing to their flesh which only leads to corruption (Gal. 6:8a), meaning they may forfeit their salvation and suffer eternal misery (Rom. 8:1, 4-6, 13; 1 Cor. 15:50). Christ intends to receive to himself a glorious church, a people that are worthy of honor, who are walking in righteousness (5:27a). A church that has no spot (5:27b). The Greek transliteration that many Bibles translate as ‘spot,’ is spilos. Spilos is defined as a stain, figuratively it can mean being spiritually weak or defective. It can also refer to the noun, blemish, which can mean noticeably imperfect; or imperfection.[3] Paul is saying that Jesus will receive to himself a church that is not weak but overcoming, not defective but perfect, in that it is overcoming defiling itself.
The apostle Peter wrote about those that are spilos (stains) in his second letter (2 Pet. 2:13). They revel in worldly pleasure (2 Pet. 2:13d), and they follow the corruption of their sinful nature (2 Pet. 2:10a). Those in the church that are stained and blemished never stop sinning (2 Pet. 2:14a), they do not seek forgiveness or the Father would forgive them (1 Jn. 1:9-10). People who continue to sin without sincere repentance forsake the Lord’s way and go astray, they follow the way of Balaam (2 Pet. 2:15; Num. 22:1-24:25). Peter said that if a person gets born-again and then goes back to the world to be overcome by it, then they are worse off than before they got saved (2 Pet. 2:20). It would be better for a believer to have never received the truth nor walked in righteousness then to forsake it (2 Pet. 2:21-22)—this is the word of God speaking, not me misinterpreting it. Christians who continuously sin without seeking sincere repentance sow to their flesh which will reap corruption instead of the Holy Spirit which will reap eternal life (Gal. 6:8).
The day the body of Christ is raptured Jesus will present to himself a church without ῥυτίς (wrinkle), the Greek transliteration is rhytis, which is pronounced as hroo-tece'. Rhytis has the idea of a fold or a crease, thereby translators have come up with the English noun, wrinkle. In the context of this Scripture, rhytis is alluding to a separation, like a crinkle within personal relationships and social interactions among the body of believers. There should be no disconnection or schisms between leaders or their congregations. There should be no rifts between one group or another. There should be no class system in the body of believers—no church cliques. There should be no divisions within the church of God, but rather there should be perfect unity (1 Cor.1:10). The believers must endeavor to have unity in the Spirit (Eph. 4:3). They can do this by loving one another (imitating God) instead of provoking rifts and splits that usually occur because of quarreling, self-righteousness, and pride within the hearts of the perpetrators.
The implication of verse twenty-seven is that when Jesus comes to receive his bride, he is not coming for one that is stained (spiritually weak or defective), he is not going to present to himself one that is wrinkled (divided), but rather he is coming for a church that is walking in holiness, one that is blameless. The Scripture passage that I used for this commentary uses the phrase “without blemish” as does many English versions of the Bible. As a point of interest, the Greek word Paul used was ἄμωμος, which is transliterated as amomos and pronounced as am'-o-mos. Amomos in English refers to being immaculate. It means to be thoroughly pure and virtuous, which can also allude to being upright and honorable. In other words, no stain, and no wrinkles. It can also be defined as being unblemished. The Lord is coming for people who obey him, who continually work out their salvation (Phil. 2:12c). God purposely works within the believer to conform to his will (Phil. 2:13), the believer must just obey. The body of Christ must be without fault in an evil and corrupt world (Phil. 2:15). This is the glorious church that will be raptured when the trumpet sounds.
Picture by maya_7966 (Pixabay)
[1] https://www.weforum.org/great-reset/
(Accessed 12/5/2022)
[2] The Divine Expression – Logos vs Rhema: By George
Youket
https://mirroridentity.wordpress.com/2013/12/11/the-divine-expression-logos-vs-rhema/
(Accessed 11/25/2022)
No comments:
Post a Comment