Jubilee! by J. Preston Eby TRACING OUR INHERITANCE (3)

Jubilee!         

by J. Preston Eby

TRACING OUR INHERITANCE  (3)

I am deeply impressed with the words of Jesus Christ as found in Jn. 8:32. The Master was giving a discourse, explaining that He had come from God, sent from the bosom of the Father He had come from above, and they did not know Him because they did not know His Father. Then to those Jews present who believed on Him He declared, "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." The word "truth" there means a revealing of what was covered. You will know that which is hidden. You will understand that which has been concealed in the patterns, the types, the shadows. You will perceive that which has been obscured by the veil of the fleshly mind and hidden in God from before the dawn of the ages.

The word "know" is from the Greek GINOSKO meaning to experience or become aware of. Jesus said you would experience, you would become experiencially aware of that which was formerly concealed and hidden, and that truth would make you FREE. In II Pet. 1:3-4 the apostle wrote, "According as His divine power bath given unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that bath called us to glory and virtue: whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust."

The word "knowledge" is in the Greek epignosis meaning to recognize, recognition, full discernment and acknowledgement. This is most interesting! Cognition means, according to Webster, "the process of knowing or perceiving." In re-cognition we have the prefix "re" which means "again." Re-cognition, therefore, means to know again, to percieve a second time. What did Peter mean, then, when he said that exceeding great and precious promises are given to us, and all things that pertain to life and God-likeness "through the knowledge (epigno- sis: re-cognition, knowing again) of Him who has called us unto glory and virtue." 

Recognition is to become fully aware of and fully acquainted with what we already knew before! It means to identify what was known before. If I met you on a street corner one day and then didn't see you for a couple of weeks, when I saw you again I would recognize you because I met you once before. I would remember you, bringing you back again into mind. And that, precious friend of mine, is what truth is, that is what salvation is, that is what redemption is, that is what re-conciliation is, that is what re-birth is, that is what Jubilee is - it's recognizing what we already know, it's identifying and possessing again experiencially what is already ours! It's being awakened. It's a return. Hallelujah!

This beautiful truth cannot be more graphically articulated than in the following words by George Hawtin.

"With these lofty thoughts of God in our minds, knowing that His ways and methods are higher and better than our own, our hearts respond with joyful accord when Paul in wisdom shows that it was God's intention that all mankind should come to know Him through faith in God's Christ and not through their own works of righteousness. Therefore, exalting mightily the grace of God rather than the works of man, he wrote to the Gentiles these almost incredible words of faith: 'For God has concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all. O the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? or who has been His counselor? Or who has first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed to him again? For of Him, and through Him, and to Him , are all things: to whom he glory for ever. Amen' (Rom. 11:32-36). The clearest possible rendering of the final verses of Romans eleven is found in the translation by Goodspeed, which in verses 34-36 gives this clear wording: 'Who has ever known the Lord's thoughts or advised Him? Or who has advanced anything to Him for which he will have to be repaid? For from Him everything comes, through Him everything exists, and in Him everything ends.' 

Somewhere hidden in the spirit of every man there abides the secret knowledge that we came forth from God, even as this text forcefully declares. This, too, is the thought so beautifully expressed by the poet in the idyll: 

Oh my Father, that dwells 
In a high and glorious place, 
When shall I regain Your presence 
And again behold Your face? 
In Your holy habitation 
Did my spirit once reside? 
In my first primeval childhood 
Was I nurtured by Your side? 

For a wise and glorious purpose 
You have made me here on earth 
And withheld the recollection 
Of my former friends and birth. 
But at times the secret something 
Whispers, You're a stranger here; 
And I feel that I have wandered 
From a more exalted sphere.

Oh, my Father, that dwells 
In a high and glorious place, 
Yet shall I appear before 
You And again behold Your face. 
Day by day Your Spirit leads 
Ever onward unto Yourself, 
Till at last I'll find contentment 
In Your pure reality. 

I shall be surprised indeed in that glory world above should we find that these blessed words of Christ, spoken of Himself, do not in truth apply to us all: 'I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world and go to the Father' (Jn. 16:28). Far away in the depths of my ransomed being there is a chord that vibrates in response to the words, 'I came forth from the Father and am come into the world,' and that same chord responds again to the words, 'Again, I leave the world and go to the Father.' We came forth from God, our orbit leading us from the celestial to the terrestrial. There can be no doubt of that; and by faith we know that this same orbit will guide us again from the realm of the terrestrial back to the bosom of the Father, for from Him everything originally comes, through Him everything now exists, and in Him everything will ultimately end. Glory to God for ever! 

"My spirit rejoices today in thankfulness to my Father in heaven that many years ago He let me hear a secret from His own heart, a secret that few in our generation have ever understood. When He breathed it into my listening heart, it well nigh stunned me because of my tradition and unbelief, yet I could not doubt the truth He taught me when He said, ' The creation was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but reason of Him who has subjected the same in hope ' (Rom. 8:20). As dew distilling from the mighty ocean falls in snow and ice upon the rugged mountain, there to remain in the grip of glacial death for a thousand years or more until released at last by the warmth of the sun to race down the mountainside in rushing torrents of water and join a thousand babbling brooks to expand into a mighty river and flow into the eternal seas, so as a mist has the spirit of man gone forth from the presence of God. Buffeted by the frigid winds of earth, he learns the lessons before ordained by the wisdom of God, and when the Sun of righteousness shines upon him, freeing his spirit from the icy bondages of the flesh, cleansing him by the power of the blood of Christ, he returns to God whence he came, not empty and alone, but as a mighty river, once again to become one with the ocean of God's self." 

Who is our family and what is our possession that once we had in the Father, that we are to return to? I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that it is a possession that we had in God before the foundation of the world. How clear and unmistakeable the scripture is about this! "Father, I will that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory, which You have given Me: for You loved Me before the foundation of the world" (Jn. 17:24). "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: according as He has chosen US in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love" (Eph. 1:3-4). "Who has saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began" (II Tim. 1:9). "In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised (us) before the world began" (Tit. 1:2).

Our inheritance is a possession that we once knew in God and that we are being restored to because it was promised and given to us in Christ before the world began. Do you understand, precious friend of mine, what God is saying? "That beginning you had with Me, when you and I knew each other, in that distant age of antiquity, before the foundation of the world, in the bosom of the Father, in union with Christ, when you were foreknown of Me, while the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy - do you not know, dear one, that that state of being in which you existed, that conscious awareness in which you dwelt, that righteousness and peace and joy and glory and wisdom and knowledge and power which was then yours with Me--that is your inheritance!" 

We have an eternal inheritance in the Lord. "And you shall divide the land by lot for an inheritance among your families: and to the large tribe you shall give a larger inheritance, and to the small tribe you shall give a smaller inheritance; wherever the lot falls to any man, that shall be his; according to the tribes of your fathers you shall inherit" (Num. 33:54). Concealed within that law of Israel's inheritance lie truths of staggering significance. Every man has a place in God's great Kingdom, just as each of the twelve tribes of Israel was given a lot of inheritance in the promised land. Each member of each tribe had their own designated lot of inheritance in the land of Canaan. And that is a figure in the Spirit. Just as we are Abraham's seed after the Spirit, so we have a spiritual promised land which is God's spiritual Kingdom, bespeaking of a glory, or a position or a lot of eternal inheritance in Jesus Christ.

Long milleniums ago the aged prophet Daniel, having faithfully come to the end of his illustrious course, was given a final blessing with a message of personal consolation and hope. The angel of God turned to Daniel and said, "But go your way until the end: for you shall rest, and stand in YOUR LOT at the end of the days" (Dan. 12:13). He was to depart and continue on his road, awaiting the end. His future was not left in uncertainty. Like many other Old Testament saints, he was to pass away, without receiving the promise (Heb. 11:39), but, in faith, awaiting the divine pledge. When the age of abiding bliss came, he would arise to receive his "lot" of inheritance, the heaven bestowed heritage as distinct from the "lot" apportioned in the earthly Canaan.

Not every one of us has the same lot, for each has his own lot of inheritance and each of us will be different. We know that in the natural if you pertained to the tribe of Judah you had a particular lot of inheritance in Canaan. Or if you belonged to the tribe of Ephraim, Manasseh, Gad, Issachar, or any of the other tribes in Israel you possessed a certain geographical location your lot of inheritance had to be staked in. If you were squatting on the inheritance of your brother you were there like a sojourner or a stranger, sometimes as a bondman, but your real lot of inheritance was found in the geographical area God gave to your tribe.

It is my conviction that in the spirit all of us belong to a spiritual tribe in God, that is, a spiritual position or calling in the Lord. Beyond the natural there is a spiritual Israel and there are spiritual tribes And there are spiritual lots of inheritance. Everything that is seen in the earth regarding the plan and purpose of God had its origin in the heavenlies. The arrangement and structure of the Tabernacle in the wilderness and all its furnishings and ceremonies and priestly ministrations were to be made according to the "pattern" shown Moses in the Mount. Therefore there had to be a heavenly reality from which the earthly was made. The Jerusalem which is above is the mother of us all, and that great City has twelve gates bearing the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. This intimates that there is a heavenly Israel as well as an earthly Israel. Therefore we are down here working out or staking out our position in the Christ for our inheritance.

We mentioned earlier that Peter says that we have an inheritance "reserved in heaven for us." I do not for one second believe, as so many Christians ignorantly assume, that Peter meant that in some far-away land, on some beautiful Isle of Somewhere, we would receive a mansion, a harp and a crown for an inheritance; but we have an inheritance reserved for us here and how in a heavenly way of life, in a spiritual state of being, in the sphere of divine reality. And no one can take it from us. None of us can have the inheritance of any of our brothers. Each has his calling. Each has his position. Each has his unique place in the great and eternal Kingdom of the Father. Our own is so grand and glorious to us that we care not for a portion of any one else's. God gives the best for each of us.

Let us look a little closer at our inheritance. The first Adam was given an inheritance which was lost, but through the last Adam the inheritance is regained. "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds" (Heb. 1:1-2). The great aim and object of God in creation was to provide yet another dimension of inheritance for His Son, in whom He might show forth His glory and find His blessedness. On the sixth day the Lord said, "Let us make man in our image and after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him..." (Gen. 1:26-27). When the Lord said, "Let us make man in our image," He was speaking not only of Adam, the first man. His mighty edict included the entire human race, which included every descendent of Adam from Adam himself to the very last man who shall be born of his family. I am a son of Adam, the extension and projection of his substance, mind, nature and being, and so are those who read these lines.

As we consider this truth, we should especially notice this most significant statement: "Let us make man in our image ... and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."

This statement, which seems so simple, is a shadow of things divine. Man in Christ, man in God's image, is God's government in the Kingdom of God. It is a well concealed prophecy displaying to the spiritual mind the vast scope of man's authority when, perfect in God's image, he is presented faultless, tested, and ready to receive again his inheritance.

First, Let us give him dominion over all things under the earth, let us make him ruler of the things beneath, the lowest realms of the bottomless, typified by the fish swarming in the depths of the seas. 

Second, Let us give him dominion over the things in the realm of the heaven, the things above, the spiritual world of the celestials, typified by the fowl that fly in the heavens. 

Third, Let us give him dominion over the earthly and physical realms, over all natural things, typified by the cattle and all the earth. The dominion that would be man's after he was perfected and conformed to the image of God through the dreadful sufferings of death was to extend, not merely over fishes and beasts and birds, but over those things which they foreshadowed, that is, the things beneath the earth, things upon the earth, and things above in the vast universe of angels, principalities, and powers of the celestial realms being made subject to him. 

Should someone find it difficult to embrace so great a truth from so small and insignificant a type, I would point you to the unequivocal confirmation of these very facts given in plain and easy to understand words by the inspired writer of Hebrews wherein he says, "For unto the angels has He not put in subjection the world to come, whereof we speak. But one in a certain place testified, saying, How poor a creature is man, and yet You remember him, and a son of man, and You come to him! You have made him for a little while lower than the angels; with glory and honor You have crowned him, and have set him over the works of Your hands. You put everything in subjection under his feet. For this subjecting of the universe to man implies the leaving of nothing not subject to him. But we do not as yet see the universe subject to him. But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels - even Jesus - because of His suffering of death crowned with glory and honor,, that He by God's grace might taste death for every man " (Heb. 2:5-9, Weymouth). You won't quite grasp that at first. It's too overwhelming! To be crowned means to be given kingly rule. To be crowned with glory and honor is to be given such rule as Jesus has now - and that is described as being the Administrating, Ruling Executive over the entire universe!

As "the seed" of Abraham, Christ is the inheritor of all the promised inheritance (Gal. 3:16,29). Christ is the designated heir of all things, of all ages, and of all worlds (Heb. 1:12). And in Rom. 8:17 we find, "The Spirit bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then HEIRS; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ." God Himself sums up this great truth in Rev. 21:7, declaring, "He that overcomes shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and He shall be My SON."

But today unregenerate, carnal man is shooting rockets to the moon and sending space vehicles to the planets of our solar system, boasting that he is going to use the moon as a launching pad to soar to the planets and galaxies beyond. But man is simply getting in too big a hurry! He is striving to take over what indeed can be his - but man has not yet fitted himself to manage it - and it has not yet lawfully been placed in his hands! Man today is not in God's image and likeness, and it is that man to whom God entrusts universal dominion, the man in His likeness! Man today does not bear God's image, and can only spread his sin and death, bringing chaos and destruction wherever he goes. What natural man does not know, does not remember, is that when, through Christ, he first qualifies for the trust - it has been God's intention all along to place not only the moon and Mars, but the whole vast, limitless universe, physical and spiritual, under his jurisdiction! What an inheritance!

But there is a deeper and more wonderful truth beyond this. As the ocean includes the seas, the bays, and straits, which, though known by separate names, are parts of its majestic and all-embracing fullness, so is there a dimension of HIis inheritance that encompasses all that is ours in Christ. In the law of the Old Testament priesthood, the Lord spoke to Aaron, "You shall have no inheritance in their land, neither shall You have any part among them. I am your part, and your inheritance, among the children of Israel"(Num. 18:20). It was a very satisfactory arrangement for the pious priest. He could well dispense with the oliveyards and vineyards, the wheat fields and homesteads of Palestine, if he might have God Himself as the strength of his heart, the source of his provision, and his portion forever. And the Psalmist eagerly caught at the thought, gladly surrendered all portion in this life, if only he might be satisfied with God (Ps. 17:15). "The LORD is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: You maintain my lot. Yea, I have a goodly heritage" (Ps. 17:5-6).

Ah, how blessed the thought! God Himself is our inheritance! Not golden harps. Not golden streets. Not walls of jasper or pearly gates. Not a cabin in the corner or a mansion over the hilltop. Not fluttering wings and a white nightgown with which to flit about over the Elysium hills of glory. NO! There is something deeper, more inward and rapturous - the possession of God. Heirs of God! Heirs of all the communicable glories of the divine nature and power. To know Him, to explore His Being, to live on His fullness, to discover new tracts and continents in the terra incognita of Godhead, to see His glory, to put on His mind, to be changed into His image, to wield His scepter - this is "the heritage of the servants of the Lord." Glory to God!

The inheritance is incorruptible as to its substance. It is not liable to decay, as are the things of this gross material realm. The inheritance of the saints is, above all, spiritual; and it requires spiritual faculties to apprehend and enjoy it. But in such as have not been born again, their spirits quickened by His Spirit, those spiritual faculties are lacking. They cannot remember the inheritance once promised and given to them before the foundation of the world. They do not recognize heavenly things. They are bondmen in an enemy's house. The glory that pertains to their spirit has been lost in the dimness of a distant dimension. A blind man may stand amid the fairest landscape unconcerned, because the one organ by which he could enjoy it is lacking. A lunatic may live in a house stored with rich treasures of art and craft, oblivious to it all because his mind is blank to all its beauty and value. And the natural man might stand in heaven itself, and miss God with all the glories of His inheritance in the saints, for want of those powers of spiritual perception of which he is deficient. 

Truly, the Kingdom of God comes not by observation; for behold, the Kingdom of God is within you. We are not heirs of the "things" of God, but of God Himself. Heirs of all that He is. Name any of the divine attributes - His love, His holiness, His wisdom, His knowledge, His power, His nature, His life, and myriads more - these make up the inheritance. What an inheritance!

Ephesians 1:10 speaks of "the dispensation of the fullness of times," that is, the period in which the perfect end of God's governmental ways is seen in the dominion of Christ. "That in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in Him: in whom also we have obtaned an inheritance..." All things are to be gathered into the Christ in the heavenly realms and in the earthly realms. All -into Him! "In whom," continues the apostle, "we have obtained an inheritance." Listen, my brother, my sister, we have obtained an inheritance, not in Palestine, not in Israel, not in America, not in Great Britain, not in the earth, nor even in the heavens alone; but, rather, IN HIM. We are appointed the heirs of God and joint-heirs with the Christ.

When Christ is manifested in all His fullness of glory we shall be manifested with Him in His glory. At this "manifestation of the sons of God" creation is brought "into the liberty of the glory of the children of God." It is thus in "the heirs of God" that He will hold the inheritance. Christ is the heir of God. IN HIM we also obtain the inheritance. In this enChristed body God will possess the inheritance. All that vast inheritance that shall be placed under the hand and rule of the Son of God, God will hold in the saints; just as the land of Canaan was Jehovah's inheritance, and He gave it to, and held it in, Israel.

Let us understand! The inheritance is from God, but in Christ. God holds the inheritance in Christ, that is, in the saints, just as a man who has a million dollars may hold it in the bank. He deposits his wealth in the bank, or invests it in a piece of property. So God deposits His inheritance - all He is and all He has - in the saints! He invests all in them so that they are the receptacle and substance of His inheritance. So Paul says, "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation that you may know what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints" (Eph. 1:18).

Mark the two occurrences of the word glory in the above verse and their connection. "The Father of glory," and "The riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints." We can understand the Father being the Father of glory, and that He must be the One who gives His grace and glory; but what are these words which tell us that we are of worth to Him? "His inheritance in the saints?" Yea, more, "The glory of His inheritance in the saints." Yea, yet more, "The riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints." 

Faith rubs her eyes and wonders if she has read correctly. Love bows in adoring worship and accepts what she cannot understand, and Hope exults with expectant joy and longs for the fullness of the Christ to come. Grace graces the graceless with grace and then admires the graced ones of grace. The worthless are made worthy in the worth of Christ, and then HE appreciates the worth of the made-worthies. The beggars beggar the Son of God by making Him a Beggar, and then HE out of His beggary blesses the beggars and makes them peers of the King of Glory. The inheritance is thus from God, but in the saints. It is our inheritance, but first and foremost it is God's inheritance - invested into us. As under the law of Israel the land was the Lord's, but He gave it to Israel to manage as their's, for Him. What an awesome responsibility!

http://www.tentmaker.org/articles/savior-of-the-world/