The Spirit of Life and the Spirit of Death

[tulsa 2011]

The Spirit of Life and the Spirit of Death

Christ taught that "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." John 10: 10. And when James and John wanted Christ to call fire down on a village in Samaria because they rejected Christ, Christ told them "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the son of man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." Luke 9: 52-56

Galatians 4: 19 says "My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you."

Having the spiritual life that Christ is talking about in John 10: 10 is not just a matter of getting saved by making an alter call before a large congregation and experiencing that group dynamic. Acquiring that spiritual life Christ promises comes about when Christ is formed in you. In Colossians 1: 27 Paul writes about God making known that which "...is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." Philippians 2: 5 says "Let this mind be in you, which also was in Christ Jesus."

In being formed in you, Christ creates "you" as your spirit, by the Holy Spirit. Flesh cannot inherit the Kingdom of God - I Corinthians 15: 50. Christ lives in your spirit. Yet Paul talks about having the "mind" of Christ in us. The human body and mind are the two parts that cannot inherit the kingdom of God. And yet Ephesians 2: 5-7 says " Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved 6. And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: 7. That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus."

So, this is a mystery, how that Christ, in giving spiritual life to individuals, creates their individual spirits, and yet what is given to the individuals from Christ is called a mind, which in man does not inherit the kingdom of God, and yet in the flesh of man these individuals are made somehow to sit with Christ in heavenly places. It is the mystery of life.

There are two beasts in Revelation 13, and neither one is easy to figure out. The first beast can be seen as a composite. Part of it is in Revelation 13: 3, "And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast." The other part of the first beast is seen in Revelation 13: 2, And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority."

The lion, bear and leopard as world empires are in Daniel 7:4-7. But another beast emerges with these four beast empires - and is shown in Daniel 7: 8, "I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things."

As one part of the first beast of Revelation 13 is like the lion, bear and leopard empires in Daniel 7: 4-7, so the little horn in Daniel 7: 8 is the same as that head of the first beast which was wounded to death, and its deadly wound was healed.

The Little Horn represents the spirit of anti-Christ because it became an earthly nation of those who rejected Jesus Christ. I John 4: 3-5 says "And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. 4. Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world. 5. They are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them."

They who have the spirit of anti-Christ are of the world, but those in Christ, in whom Christ has been formed, overcome the people of the spirit of anti-Christ, who are of the world and therefore also of the flesh.

Romans 11: 5 explains that a small part of Old Covenant Israel accepted Christ, while those of Old Covenant Israel, of the flesh, by genetics, who rejected Christ, are said to be cut off in Romans 11: 15-21. Paul in Galatians 3: 3-29 explains that in Christ, after the Cross, those who belong to Christ are Abraham's seed, and not by genetics or the flesh, because Galatians 3: 28 notes that in Christ there is no longer a separation between Jews and Gentiles, but all are one in him.

Then, the second beast of Revelation 13: 11-18 can be seen as the false prophet. This office of the false prophet - not one single super false prophet of fable - is defined in Matthew 24: 5 and 11, "For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.....And many false prophets shall rise, and shall deceive many."

In Ezekiel 13, the office of the false prophet is seen in Old Covenant Israel.

"Now is the end come upon thee, and I will send mine anger upon thee, and will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense upon thee all thine abominations." Ezekiel 7: 3

Ezekiel 7: 20-22 says "As for the beauty of his ornament, he set it in majesty: but they made the images of their abominations and of their detestable things therein: therefore have I set it far from them. 21. And I will give it into the hands of the strangers for a prey, and to the wicked of the earth for a spoil; and they shall pollute it. 22. My face will I turn also from them, and they shall pollute my secret place: for the robbers shall enter into it, and defile it."

"Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel that prophesy, and say thou unto them that prophesy out of their own hearts, Hear ye the word of the LORD; 3. Thus saith the Lord GOD; Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing!" Ezekiel 13: 2-3

"Because, even because they have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace; and one built up a wall, and, lo, others daubed it with untempered morter:
11. Say unto them which daub it with untempered morter, that it shall fall: there shall be an overflowing shower; and ye, O great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall rend it.
12. Lo, when the wall is fallen, shall it not be said unto you, Where is the daubing wherewith ye have daubed it?
13. Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; I will even rend it with a stormy wind in my fury; and there shall be an overflowing shower in mine anger, and great hailstones in my fury to consume it.
14. So will I break down the wall that ye have daubed with untempered morter, and bring it down to the ground, so that the foundation thereof shall be discovered, and it shall fall, and ye shall be consumed in the midst thereof: and ye shall know that I am the LORD." Ezekiel 13; 10-14

The false prophets of the Old Covenant deceived or seduced God's people. The wall they built with untempered morter is a metaphor for false doctrines which the false prophets teach. The prophecy of bringing Old Covenant Israel to its end in Ezekiel 7 is the Lord's judgment for following the false prophets. Jeremiah 29: 19-20 says "Because they have not hearkened to my words, saith the LORD, which I sent unto them by my servants the prophets, rising up early and sending them; but ye would not hear, saith the LORD. Hear ye therefore the word of the LORD, all ye of the captivity, whom I have sent from Jerusalem to Babylon...Jeremiah 25: 11 says "And this whole land shall be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years."

God brought Babylon, an external power, another nation, in to defeat and take captive the people of Old Covenant Israel. But the means by which God judges New Covenant Israel for following false prophets may not be entirely external powers as nations, but a power which works internally. One key to this internal power is in the word emporos used in Revelation 18, especially in Revelation 18: 23, "For thy merchants were the great men of the earth; for by thy sorceries were all nations
deceived."

Merchants is from the Greek word emporos, that is, a merchant is an emporos. On page 508 of A Linguistic Key to the Greek New Testament, Vol 2, by Fritz Rienecker, emporoi in Revelation 18: 23 is defined as "merchants who deal in foreign exports." Imporoi are world traders.

World traders in our timeline are the giant international corporations. The financial elite are allied with the giant international corporations, the Imporoi.

Going back to Matthew 24: 5 and 11, the false prophet of the New Covenant comes in the name of Christ, saying that Christ Jesus is the saviour. But in Matthew 24: 4, Christ warns "Take heed that no man deceive you." Again in Matthew 24: 11, many false prophets shall come and shall deceive many.

The office of the False Prophet as the second beast in Revelation 13 works by deception. This second False Prophet beast pretends to being the spiritual life that Christ promised, but by "his" false and deceptive teachings, what he brings is spiritual death. In Revelation 12: 15-16 the serpent casts a floor out of his mouth, as a metaphor for inspiring the many false prophets to speak false doctrines into the minds of the people claiming to be Christian. In Revelation 9: 16-19 the army of horsemen are said to "kill" the third part of men, meaning their spirit part, leaving them as the 666 of Revelation 13:18.


Man as a collective, without a spirit given to him by Christ, is .666. And in II Thessalonians 2: 3, " Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition," the man of sin is not an individual, not the anti-Christ of fable. The anthropos tes amartias, man of sin, is mankind coming to the point in which he is dominated by sin, and by false doctrines.

In the language of metaphor the metaphor itself would be written as a singular man, but the meaning of the metaphor would not be about a single individual. The literal "hermeneutic" of John Darby, C.I. Scofield, Lewis S. Chafer and others insists that all scripture must be interpreted literally. But that is not possible because the language of metaphor is all over both Testaments.

II Thessalonians 2: 4 helps to identify the man of sin as a metaphor, not as a single individual.

"Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
4. Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. "

What is the temple of God in the New Testament? "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? I Corinthians 3: 16

As a group claiming to be the people of God the "sinful people" represented as the "man of sin" are like the transgressors who have come to the full in Daniel 8: 23, where "transgressors" is Strong's number 6586, pasha, "to break away from just authority, i.e, trespass, apostatize, quarrel, offend, rebel, revolt, transgress."

Revelation 13: 12 says the second beast, the False Prophet, as an office "... causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed." "He" leads those claiming to be Christians to honor the head of the first beast whose deadly wound was healed. "He" leads them to honor the Littler Horn of Daniel 7: 8.

The image of the beast of Revelation 13; 14-15 is made in verse 14 "...to the beast, which had the wound by a sword and did live." What the organized group which calls itself the Church does is to honor the Little Horn and to make itself in some sense a copy of that first beast whose deadly wound was healed. This means that the False Prophet, as an office, causes those who claim to be Christians, who call themselves the Church, to honor the Death beast. The False Prophet deceives them into thinking they will have spiritual life by honoring the Death Beast.