Return to Part 1
In its original intent the Christian water baptism is the recognition and confession of faith. It is the identifying with Christ’s death and resurrection. Christ did not take our place. We died with Him and in His resurrection, we were made a new creation, made one with His resurrection life. Water baptism is the symbolic act of this faith. It is our “I do” reply to the bridegroom who chose and selected us as His bride. In origin marriage is also a covenant union, but unlike our modern western marriage ceremonies we were chosen by God and His Christ to be the bride. Christ entered the New Covenant of Peace with the Father and through our marriage with Christ we benefit from this covenant. (Romans 6:6, 2 Cor 5:17) In ancient Israel, brides were usually chosen by the father of the bridegroom. He would send his most trusted servant to search for a bride for his son. In the book of Genesis, Abraham sent his most trusted servant Eliezer (whose name means “God’s helper”) to find a wife for his son Isaac. (Genesis 24:2-9)
The servant found Rebekah, who became the very first Hebrew bride. The bridegroom’s father would act in his son’s best interest in choosing a bride. If the son was old enough, they could confer together. In either case, the bridegroom selected the bride not the other way round. Jesus said: “You did not choose me,” (John 15:16). We were chosen as the bride of the Messiah. The ancient Hebrew traditions for marriage in many ways reflect the marriage process of Christ and His bride and how God chose us and did not consult us or ask our permission when Christ came and paid the Mohar. (Mohar means price and is the Hebrew word for the price paid for the bride)
To redeem means to purchase. Christ eternally redeemed humanity. This was a choice made by God apart from our input.
Although a bride was selected for a bridegroom, the prospective girl had some say in responding to a proposed marriage contract. We see this in the example of Rebekah in Genesis 24:57-58. After Abraham’s servant’s encounter with her at the well, she brought Eliezer to her father’s house where they discussed the proposed marriage between Rebekah and Abraham’s son, Isaac. The following morning, they called Rebekah and said to her, “Will you go with this man?” She said, “I will go.” Rebekah gave her consent – her “I do.” This consent or rather “I do” from Rebekah is a typology of our own freedom to choose to love God back. You see we love Him because He first loved us. (1 John 4:19) Once we learn of God’s love for us and how Christ redeemed us, we begin to believe this enormous revelation. The next automatic consequence is the desire to act upon our faith and confess our loyalty to Jesus.
Once the bride was chosen, the son would enter a covenant with father of the bride, pay the Mohar and betroth the bride. She would be engaged to the bridegroom for a twelve-month period during which the son would return to his father’s house to prepare a place there for them to live and then marriage would be consummated. At a time, unknown by the bride the son would go back to collect his bride and take her home with him.
Now proponent of futurist eschatology would have you believe that we are still waiting for Christ to return so we can go home with Him to married to Christ and enter the marriage supper of the lamb.
However, it was the first generation of Christians in the first century who were eagerly awaiting His coming, whilst they were betrothed to Him.
Revelation 19:9 King James Version
9 And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.
Christ did come during the great period of the 67-70 A.D. siege and destruction of Jerusalem. The dead in Christ were raised out of Hades, and those who were alive still were transformed, and they all met the Lord in the air and went home with him. The first generation of believers in the first century were initially all Hebrews who turned to Christ. The gentile (non-Jews) believers began to come in somewhere around ten to twenty years later, after the day of Pentecost. To these believers the water baptism was hugely important, because it was the “cut off” point, a break with their old life and alliances to the Old Sinaitic Covenant or any other covenant they were under. In ancient times it was not just the people of Israel who practised the tradition of covenant making. Every other gentile nation was remarkably familiar with covenant keeping. It was common practise between nations to join in covenant relationships for the purpose of economic and military advantage against other nations.
I stated in other articles that the book of Revelation is the account of a violent transfer of covenants, from the Old Sinaitic Covenant to the New Covenant of peace. I want to add here that it was also God’s declaration of divorce with the Hebrew nations (tribes). Many had committed spiritual fornication by going after strange god’s, such Baal and Moloch, which in essence was pure Luciferin worship, and involved human sacrifice mainly children, and gross acts of sexual immorality, and dark witchcraft. Many verses in the book of Revelation refer to this type of conduct by those who say they are Jews and are not but are the synagogue of Satan. (Revelation 2:9 and 3:9)
The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob took a bride for Himself when He redeemed the Israelites from Egyptian bondage. Israel was His first love. He said to her: “I will take you as My people, and I will be your God” (Exodus 6:7). Despite many warnings and judgments, including the invasion of the Assyrians, and Babylonians 600 years earlier, His people remained stiff-necked and hardened themselves against their Messiah when He came to fulfil and so end the Sinaitic Covenant by setting up the New Covenant of Peace. From the cross until His coming, they had the final period of one generation, almost forty years to repent, turn to Christ or be destroyed with the city as the wrath of God was unleashed in accordance with the requirements of the Old Sinaitic Covenant. (John 3:16)
When scripture says that “God is righteous” we must understand that this means that from this perspective “righteousness” means that God is loyal to the covenant He is in. The Old Sinaitic Covenant contained the imposed punishments if any of the party’s broke loyalty to the covenant. God was obligated to hold true to His his end of the covenant or else He would not be righteous.
Christ married us, and pulled us into His covenant of Peace. He upholds the New Covenant for us and thereby made us righteous.
Once the wrath of God was finished and the Old Sinaitic Covenant was abolished the divorce was complete.
Revelation 15: 1 Mounce Reverse Interlinear New Testament
Then I saw another sign in heaven great and marvelous seven angels with seven plagues, which are the last, because with them the wrath of God is finished.
This meant that Christ could now take His newly chosen bride, made up of Jews and Gentiles, home to heaven and enter the marriage supper of the Lamb where Jesus would once again drink of the cup of the fruit of the vine, to seal the marriage i.e., the New Covenant of Peace.
Matthew 26: 29 King James Version
29 But I say unto you, I will not drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.
You see the first generation of Christians were betrothed, engaged to Christ eagerly awaiting His return to go home with Him for the consummation of the marriage. We on the other side of 70 A.D. who have come to believe the Gospel are presently His bride and His wife together with all the saints who are already in heaven.
Ephesians 5:25-27 and verse 30-32 King James Version
25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 27 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.
and
30 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. 31 For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. 32 This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
This was fulfilled when Christ returned to collect His bride in the first century! Sadly a large part of the Christian community in the world today are in a sense still groaning and longing for this day when they can finally become a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, and be holy without blemish. Aaargh!
We have been a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, and holy without blemish presented in Christ in the presence of God the Father for more than 2000 years. What do you think would happen to the Church if all of us would suddenly wake up to this fact? We may not have acted holy and glorious, but this is a spiritual reality based on who Christ is and what He has done for us. Do you see why Satan has been a loyal church member to try and infiltrate his message of self-righteousness and dispensationalism with the intention to completely compromise and water down the Gospel truth?
Who entered which Covenant with whom?
I recently read somewhere that conducting the rite of water baptism means a person enters a covenant with the Lord. Although this person had many other interesting things to say, this point is a common error many Christians make. We do not enter a covenant with God, we are the ones redeemed by Christ’s Covenant with the Father. Though Old Testament Covenants were Grant, Kinship or Vassal Covenants set up between God and man, the New Covenant of Peace is set up between the one Man (and Son of God), Jesus the Messiah and God the Father. Because Christ set up this New Covenant, we can not break it. We have no influence on the state of this New Covenant of Peace. It is forever unbreakable irrespective of us, our lifestyle, our works, and our beliefs.
In our Bible translations we read the word “Covenant” depending on the language of your Bible. However, this can be somewhat misleading. Below are the Greek and Hebrew words, which are then translated into its respective language. The English translates these Greek and Hebrew word as “Covenant” or “Testament”.
Greek: διαθήκη – Strong’s #1242 — diatheke
Hebrew: בְּרִית – Strong’s #1285 – berı̂yth
Diatheke primarily signifies “a disposition of property by will or otherwise.” An agreement (from a verb signifying “to cut or divide,” in allusion to a sacrificial custom in connection with “covenant-making,” e.g., Genesis 15:10 , “divided” Jeremiah 34:18,19 ). “A coming together”, which signifies a mutual undertaking between two parties or more, each binding himself to fulfil obligations, it does not in itself contain the idea of joint obligation, it mostly signifies an obligation undertaken by a single person. For instance, in Galatians 3:17 it is used as an alternative to a “promise” (vv. 16-18). God enjoined upon Abraham the rite of circumcision, but His promise to Abraham, as recorded in the Old Testament is the Hebrew word “berı̂yth,” but translated into the English word “Covenant” was not conditional upon the observance of circumcision. This is what is called a Grant Covenant.
Berı̂yth carries the meanings of: covenant, alliance, pledge, between men, treaty, alliance, league (man to man), constitution, ordinance (monarch to subjects), agreement, pledge (man to man), alliance (of friendship), alliance (of marriage), between God and man, alliance (of friendship), covenant (divine ordinance with signs or pledges), covenant making, covenant keeping, covenant violation.
A controversy with regards to the word covenant.
Throughout history the etymology of the English word “Covenant” also morphed into the word coven. A Coven was said to be the core group of witches who were to gather, i.e. “a coming together”. One of the chief proponents of the theory of a coven was the English Egyptologist Margaret Murray in her work The Witch Cult in Western Europe (1921). According to her a coven consists of 12 witches and a devil as leader. The number is generally taken as a parody of Christ and his 12 disciples, and 13 as the maximum number of dancers that can be accommodated in a nine-foot circle.
Split the word covenant into two words, you get the term “coven-ant”. As stated, the word coven means “an assembly of witches, especially a group of thirteen”. The suffix definition of “ant” is “causing or performing an action or existing in a certain condition”. It can also mean “serving in the capacity of”. In the Turkish language, the word ant means “oath”.
The Dictionary suffix definitions of ant:
A suffix forming adjectives and nouns from verbs, occurring originally in French and Latin loanwords (pleasant; constant; servant) and productive in English on this model; -ant has the general sense “characterized by or serving in the capacity of” that named by the stem (ascendant; pretendant), especially in the formation of nouns denoting human agents in legal actions or other formal procedures (tenant; defendant; applicant; contestant). In technical and commercial coinages, -ant is a suffix of nouns denoting impersonal physical agents (propellant; lubricant; deodorant). In general, -ant can be added only to bases of Latin origin, with a very few exceptions, as coolant.
From the occult perspective in the world of witches, the water baptism is a rite, which amounts to the making of an oath or a contract with a coven controlled by witches, and their lords. Their lords could in fact be a demonic entity or satan himself. In that context a person going through that kind of baptism commits to serving in the capacity of a coven or is making an oath/contract with a witches (male/female) coven. The group of witches are the “lords” that the people joining the coven swear an oath to when they agree to be baptized. The word “Lord” means “a person who has authority, control, or power over others or Master”.
We need to be clear here once again that these dark practises are nothing but the perverted, inverted copy of the true origin of water baptism. The witches coven has absolutely nothing to do with the water baptism as a profession of faith in Christ.
If so called Christian groups or denominations claim the water baptism is also expression of commitment to their local church and pastor or priest, they are potentially crossing over into the reason the pagan and occult covens practise their baptism. The Bible is clear that we only have one Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ, no pastor, no priest, no preacher can ever take that place.
- If a Church does not teach you how to take back your spiritual freedom, better you stay away from that place.
Worship and external Saviour?
I read another article somewhere recently where the writer stated, “When you worship an external saviour, it will disempower you, it will weaken your spiritual powers. Furthermore, you are basically telling the Supreme Creator that It did not give you the necessary spiritual powers to empower you to achieve spiritual freedom. This is an insult to the Supreme Creator. Because of these things, religious institutions are great for teaching you how to be a coward and a good little slave.
The Supreme Creator gave you Its most precious gifts with no string attached. Some of these gifts are your natural rights and the power of thought, consciousness, love, imagination, creativity, and awareness, which are the same spiritual powers which the Supreme Creator used to create the Universe. These spiritual powers have infinite potential and therefore you also have infinite potential. By worshiping an external saviour and relying on a religious institution to save you and not standing up for your natural rights, you are in a sense throwing the Supreme Creator’s spiritual gifts in the trash, and therefore are disrespecting yourself and at the same time disrespecting the Supreme Creator. In other words, you insult the Supreme Creator every time you worship an external saviour. If you were the Supreme Creator, would you want to help a bunch of irresponsible people who keep insulting you?
The saviour program is a psychological operation created by the Dark Forces to enslave your body, mind and soul, and turn you into a cowardly slave to be used as a battery. The sooner you realize this, the sooner you can rise above their matrix and free your body, mind, and soul. You already have all the necessary spiritual powers to achieve spiritual freedom, so stop acting and thinking like a cowardly slave and take responsibility for your spiritual growth.”
This logic seems to make a lot of sense and presents a definite insight into our natural born God given potential. The writer has done well to identify the evil tactics employed by dark forces and their agents to try and enslave humanity. For thousands of years religious organisations indeed had a large part to play in manipulating and bewitching the masses into a hypnotic trance to disconnect them from reality. However, the most supreme factor here has been overlooked completely. Christ came to set us free from religion (performance-based righteousness, i.e. the attempt to earn right standing with God) and the control and manipulation of evil overlords.
Believers of the Gospel – Christians, are NOT called to worship an external saviour by obligation.
Christ did not come to rule by force as an overlord. If you do not want to love Him, which is basically the deeper meaning for the word “worship”, then He does not want it. As in any love relationship, both parties must have a heart felt longing and desire to love the other. This can ultimately only be a voluntary act of the will. Yes Christ chose us and eternally redeemed us apart from our choice, but it is our choice whether we want to love Him back.
The New Covenant is a Covenant of Peace, where God will never be wroth with His people again. It is a Covenant of Grace. Grace is unmerited favour. This is the favour of God by which He reconciled the world with Himself in Christ. It was unmerited, which means undeserved. This means we were reconciled with God even when we did not deserve it. That does not mean God did not think we were not valuable enough. No quite the opposite. He counted each one of us so valuable that Christ came to redeem and reconcile us with the father, but we did not earn it. We did not earn our reconciliation with God based on our performance, lifestyle, or beliefs. Christ reconciled us with the Father through His death and resurrection. Now that we are reconciled, we are friends with God. That is what reconciliation means; it means to be made friends again. Now that we are friends, there is no room for wrath. We have peace, we benefit from a covenant of peace. As Lord and King of heaven and earth Christ executes His rule according to His Covenant of Peace, and according to His Word which reveals Gospel, the Good News.
The Gospel is the Good News of His forgiveness, with the gift of reconciliation and our oneness with Him. Christ will not go against His word or break His New Covenant by acting as a tyrant forcing people to serve Him as slaves.
He does not dangle people over the fires of hell and say now love me or else I will drop you into eternal flames to be tortured. Where I come from that is manipulation by a threat of serious violence any day. Just because organised churches or religious groups have taught a message like that for so long, does not make it so. That message is evil and caused much misery in our world. It does not reflect the Good News of the Gospel in the slightest. To be sure, Christ does not operate by way of threats with violence and eternal punishment.
In other articles I explained how the word “eternal” is the Greek word Aion(os) and literally translates as “Age enduring”. Dependant on context Aion could refer to the Age of the Sinaitic Covenant. That Age endured until the Sinaitic Covenant was abolished in 70 A.D. God’s life is perpetual everlasting. Therefore, “Aion” as prefix to life would mean Age enduring life, which in the context of life in Heaven is perpetual and everlasting. The punishment as referred to in many New Testament verses is mostly referring to the time of Jacob’s trouble during the three and a half years of the Neronic persecution, followed by the three and a half years of the siege of Jerusalem until the end of that siege and the destruction of the temple. Jewish historian Josephus recorded 1.3 million Jews died a horrible death during that period. That was also the end of God’s wrath poured out upon a people who had broken the Sinaitic Covenant again and again by means of extremely evil practices of Idolatry and the ultimate conspiracy to suppress the truth of Yehoshua HaMashiach. However, since 70 A.D. God only upholds the New Covenant of peace.
Christ came to liberate us. He is not an external saviour outside of ourselves to whom we look to save us someday in the future. That is bad psychology and it will cause you to become weak in your faith and possibly ill because hope deferred makes the heart sick. That message will generate false hope only to be disappointed like the donkey running after the carrot dangling in front of it. He already redeemed us 2000 years ago. We must grab the revelation of this fact.
Christ came to elevate us to His status. That is what righteousness means. When I explain the meaning of the word righteousness as right standing with God, that is correct, but it’s much more than that. It means we are made one with Christ. One Spirit with Him. We are seated with Him at the right hand of the Father on His throne. This means that that He is not outside of us, but we are in Him, and He is in us.
When you pray at the throne of grace, you come before your Father whilst being in Christ, and the Father sees His son’s righteousness, holiness, glory and majesty when He looks at you. When you learn to renew your mind, and establish your self image with this scriptural truth, it sets you free to be bold before God, and you will fall in love with Him, because of the revelation of His love for you.
You will want to share His good news and what He has done for you with others. This relationship is completely void of manipulation, pressure, and threat of punishment. There is only love, acceptance, and oneness. That is where you begin to tap into your God given potential, your God given sovereignty. You become a God empowered human being. Ah, and whilst we are at it. Since you are a brand-new creation in Christ, and partaker of His divine nature, (2 Peter 1:4) you are no longer a human being, you are a divine being free to live the life you want. If it is in anyway true that the fourth industrial revolution involves programs of biotechnology to integrate nanotech with the human body, which turns men and women into trans-humans or cyborgs, it really is a sad inversion of the way God already made us divine beings in Christ. In this kind of relationship, reflecting internally into your heart where you commune with Christ the King who saved you 2000 years ago, you become a powerhouse of potential. As an old preacher friend I once knew used to preach saying: “You are Loaded!” It is no longer about you must have faith in Him. It is about Christ, your Lord and saviour who has faith in you.