Birthing the Manchild

When Christ in you is manifested, it will be the birthday of your true self. Your Adamic flesh will then die in childbirth, even as we see in the pattern of Rachel who died giving birth to Benjamin (Gen. 35:19). Rachel had two sons, Joseph and Benjamin. Joseph was a type of Christ, but he was named as a prophecy, for his name means "God will add." Gen. 30:24 gives us its interpretation: "God will add to me another son."

Joseph was a type of Christ, and Benjamin was "another son." This is the corporate Son that has been begotten in you and which comes to full birth and manifestation at the feast of Tabernacles. The overcomers of the past have already seen their Adamic body die, of course, but those who live into that time will see their Adamic flesh die as well. It will be replaced by a glorified body. What will that body be like? We only have the resurrected body of Jesus Christ as our example. It was flesh and bone, not flesh and blood. He could appear and disappear. He could eat with the disciples like a man, and He could disappear like a spirit. Beyond that, His body is hard to define.

Benjamin had two names. His mother called him Ben-oni, "son of my sorrow," while his father called him Benjamin, "son of my right hand." These prophesy of the two comings of Christ, for He came first as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:3), and later was raised to the throne at the right hand of God (Heb. 12:2).

But Benjamin is also a type of the second Son--the corporate Sons of God company. These also must go through the same two steps. They will not become the son of His right hand without first becoming a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. This is the path of Christ, and we are all partakers of His sufferings. 1 Pet. 4:13 says,

"But to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing; so that also at the revelation [manifestation, unveiling] of His glory, you may rejoice with exultation."

The overcomer is not justified by his works or ability to refrain from sin. He is justified by faith in the blood of the Lamb, which is his Passover experience. But as the overcomer walks through life in the experience of Pentecost (hearing His voice and being led by the Spirit), he walks in the footsteps of Jesus. This is real life, and it is not pain free. But through it, we learn obedience by the things that we suffer, even as Jesus did (Heb. 5:8).

Tabernacles is the reward of Pentecost, even as the Promised Land was the reward of those Israelites who walked in the wilderness. Tabernacles gives us immortality and the glorified body. United with our Head, Jesus Christ, we are manifested to the rest of creation as the example of what they may hope to attain at a later resurrection. Though they miss the "better resurrection" (Heb. 11:35), they may yet attain life in the general resurrection (John 5:28, 29). And even if they miss that one, there will be a Jubilee for Creation at the end of time, after they have learned righteousness by the judgments of God (Isaiah 26:9).

Meanwhile, however, we are admonished in Scripture to seek the better resurrection, or what Paul called in Phil. 3:11 the ek-anastasia, the "out-resurrection," or the resurrection out from among the dead. This is the "high calling of God" (3:14), the call to reign with Him and to be the hands and feet of Christ to the world in the Age to come.

This corporate Son is prophesied in the law in Deut. 25:5-10. This law says that if a man dies childless, his brother was to take the man's wife and beget a first-born son through her that would inherit the property of his childless brother. That way, a childless man would not lose his inheritance in the land.

In such a case, the son would be the biological son of one man, but the legal son of his childless brother. This story is well illustrated in the book of Ruth. Ruth's husband died childless, and Ruth was then married to Boaz, the near kinsman to her dead husband. In the story there was a nearer relative who had the first right to take Ruth as his wife (Ruth 3:12), but he refused to do so (Ruth 4:8). So Boaz took her, and the other relative lost his sandal, according to the law.

This is the law specifically applicable to us as spiritual mothers of the Christ-child in us. Jesus died childless, but He was not ashamed to call us brethren (Heb. 2:11-14). As His younger brothers, we are called to raise up seed unto our elder Brother. We are His brothers, but each of us is also the "mother" of this child, begotten by the Holy Spirit.

That holy seed in us is, as it were, our "biological" son, but it is also the legal son of Jesus Himself, who is our elder Brother. We BOTH have a claim on this son within us. That son has two identities. It is the Son of God, and the Son of Man, even as Jesus was both of these in His ministry on earth 2,000 years ago. This Son has authority in both heaven and earth and can therefore minister in both realms by simply "changing clothes," as Ezekiel 44 pictures it.

Those who refuse to raise up seed unto their elder Brother will lose their sandal. The law reads this way in Deut. 25:7-10,

" (7) But if the man does not desire to take his brother's wife, then his brother's wife shall go up to the gate to the elders and say, 'My husband's brother refuses to establish a name for his brother in Israel; he is not willing to perform the duty of a husband's brother to me.' (8)Then the elders of his city shall summon him and speak to him. And if he persists and says, "I do not desire to take her,' (9) then his brother's wife shall come to him in the sight of the elders, and pull his sandal off his foot, and spit in his face; and she shall declare, 'Thus it is done to the man who does not build up his brother's house.' (10) And in Israel his name shall be called 'The house of him whose sandal is removed'."

Such a man did not lose his citizenship in Israel, but his Christian walk was impaired for lack of a sandal. He was allowed to refuse, but only at the expense of his walk with God. What does this mean to us? The man represents Christians who have no desire to bring forth seed unto their elder Brother. If everyone did this, the elder Brother would lose his inheritance in the earth.

In the story of Ruth, those who were called first refused to take her. In Jesus' day, the Judah nation refused also. After that the Church as an organization did not even seem to know what to do about it. But there were overcomers who did, and the desire was in their hearts to bring forth a Manchild, who would rule the nations with an iron (unbreakable) rod of authority.

There can be no fulfillment of the feast of Tabernacles without a birthing of Christ in the corporate body of the overcomer company. That is the Son that will prevent Jesus Christ from losing His inheritance in the earth. The son of His right hand will inherit all things with Christ as a co-heir with Him (Rom. 8:17).

It is important to study the law, for it reveals the divine plan and forms the basis of all New Testament theology and Christian living. It establishes the progression of our Christian walk through the revelation of the feast days as they progress from justification to sanctification and finally to glorification. The law of the manchild in Deut. 25 is the clearest law of Sonship in Scripture, and yet this law is one of the least understood. Men discard the law when they do not understand it from the divine perspective, or they use it legalistically when they interpret it with an Old Covenant mindset.

The law is good if we use it lawfully (1 Tim. 1:8).