Begotten Not Made, Final

As I studied the difference between a creature and a begotten one, an important truth began to emerge. This truth highlights the purpose of resurrection itself.

We are all born (from our natural parents) as creatures. Adam himself was part of this creation. There is no indication in Scripture that Adam was begotten of God. Scripture instead paints the picture of Adam being “formed” from the dust of the ground. This is vastly different from the new creation, where we come into being through a spiritual process of begetting Christ in us.

This raises an important question: can this begetting take place if a person is not living on the earth? I do not think so. The dead cannot be begotten in that condition. Even though this begetting is a spiritual event, the spirits of the dead cannot be begotten, because this could not fulfill the divine plan set forth in the feast days.

The Revelation of the Feast Days

The feast days present us with the plan of full salvation. Through Passover, Christ is begotten in us. Through Pentecost, Christ in us grows to maturity. Through Tabernacles, Christ in us is brought to birth on the first day and presented to God on the eighth day, where He is declared to be a Son.

Those who die as unbelievers (unbegotten ones) must be raised from the dead at the Great White Throne in order to be in a condition where they may be begotten of God. This is why “every knee will bow” and will confess Him as Lord by faith. Without the resurrection, they might yet bow to Him and even confess Him as Lord, but they must be re-embodied in order to be begotten. It is not that this begetting is physical, but that they must be restored to the same bodily condition that they were before they died, so that they may be begotten even as other believers were begotten.

Or, to put it in Passover terms, the door of the “house” must be prepared and protected by the blood of Christ on the doorposts and lintel. Apart from the blood the firstborn son dies. With the blood present, the firstborn lives. So we see in the natural that an egg dies apart from the life that only the sperm can impart.

When the people prepared the house for Passover, they were acting as a woman preparing herself by faith to receive life from Father God in order to bring forth a firstborn Son. To “pass over” (abar) takes on a new shade of meaning as the equivalent of “overshadow” (as with Mary in Luke 1:35), or in more carnal terms, “to lie” with a woman. This is the divine metaphor, whereby the natural prophesies of the spiritual. Further, God allowed anyone, regardless of ethnicity, to keep Passover (Exodus 12:19).

Since God does not beget sons without the hope of full birth, He also commanded that foreigners in Israel must also keep Pentecost (Deuteronomy 16:11) and the feast of Tabernacles (Deuteronomy 16:14). In other words, God finishes what He starts. One cannot say that other ethnicities are limited to Passover and/or Pentecost, for this would imply that God begets Christ in them but fails to bring that Holy Seed to full birth. Isaiah 66:9 says that such failed plans are inconceivable (pun intended),

⁹ “Shall I bring to the point of birth, and not give delivery?” says the Lord. “Or shall I who gives delivery shut the womb?” says your God.

Heaven and Earth in Marriage

The ultimate goal of the feast days is to show us the how heaven and earth are two witnesses in a New Covenant marriage. In such a marriage, God (in Christ) provides the heavenly witness as the Husband, and we provide the earthly witness as a Bride. It is not a “same sex marriage,” for then this marriage would have been pictured as heaven-heaven or earth-earth. Instead, it is Heaven-Earth.

The Son that is produced of this marriage relationship has characteristics of both parents. The Sons of God, then, are like Jesus in the transfiguration scene (Matthew 17:2) and in His post-resurrection body (Luke 24:39). Christ could appear in a flesh body on earth and eat with the disciples, and He could also disappear, transforming Himself into a spiritual state into the presence of the Father in heaven.

In other words, the feast of Tabernacles, which births the sons of God, does not merely transform them into spiritual beings once and for all. Instead, it gives these sons the ability to live and move in both realms—heaven and earth. This is the force behind Jesus’ statement in Matthew 28:18, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” Whereas His Father was only spirit (John 4:24), Jesus Christ was both spirit and flesh and could manifest in either realm.

All of this was prophesied in the law regarding the garments of the high priest. This is expressed most clearly in Ezekiel 44:17-19, which prophesies of the Melchizedek Order in legal terms that originally applied to the Levitical Order. The high priest had to have the proper “clothing” when he ministered to God or to the people. He had to minister to God in linen, but he had to change clothes (wool is implied) when he ministered to the people. So when Jesus was in heaven, He was clothed in “linen,” but when He came to the disciples after His resurrection, He changed into “woolen” clothing, because the law forbade Him from ministering to the people in his linens (Ezekiel 44:19).

This was why Jesus went to great lengths to prove that He was not a spirit in Luke 24:37-43. If He had appeared to them in His spiritual garments, He would have been in violation of the divine law. So He ate with them in order to prove that He was “flesh and bones” (Luke 24:39).

The Work of the Sons of God

Christ’s example shows us what we ourselves will be like at the manifestation of the sons of God (Romans 8:19). Do not expect to remain in heaven strumming harps forever. The sons of God will have many responsibilities and duties during the thousand years of the Stone Kingdom and beyond. “They will reign on the earth” (Revelation 5:10). They will reign until all things are put under the feet of Christ. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:25-27,

²⁵ For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. ²⁶ The last enemy that will be abolished is death. ²⁷ For He has put all things in subjection under His feet....

The sons of God will reign under Christ, their Head, until all things are reconciled to God. This means the sons of God will be the executors of Christ’s will, and that their work will succeed in putting all enemies under His feet. This work, of course, has been ongoing since Adam, for God has always given work to His people according to their ability. Yet when they themselves are fully birthed as sons of God, their abilities will greatly increase. During the thousand years of the Stone Kingdom, many nations will come to learn the laws and ways of God (Isaiah 2:2, 3). But even at the end of this time, there will still be “enemies” in the earth who will rise up against Christ and His Kingdom (Revelation 20:8).

After this, all of the dead will be raised and brought to judgment, where “every knee will bow.” Paul says further in Philippians 2:11 “that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” The Greek word translated “confess” is exomologeo, which means to acknowledge openly and joyfully, to assent and fully agree freely from the heart. It comes from the word homologeo, “to say the same thing as another, to agree with, assent.”

https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/Lexicon/Lexicon.cfm?strongs=G1843&t=KJV

The word does not mean to force someone to confess against their will, as so many of were taught in church Bible studies. As a child, I was told that these unbelievers would be brought to justice and forced to acknowledge the truth against their will just before they were cast into the fiery pit. But that is not what the word “confess” pictures.

Instead, Paul presents to us the moment of truth when all of God’s (former) enemies will come into agreement with Him, having been enlightened by the truth that had been hidden from them during their past life on earth. It is a picture of reconciliation, not of condemnation. While this confession will not prevent judgment, it will certainly bring judgment upon them as spirit-filled believers, for Paul says that “no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3).

The age of judgment following the Great White Throne will be a time when these new believers will grow to spiritual maturity under the authority of the sons of God. The lake of fire will not be a torture pit, but the “fiery law” of Deuteronomy 33:2 KJV. It is the nature and character of God Himself (Deuteronomy 4:24), which baptizes us (Matthew 3:11, 12) in order to burn the “chaff” and purify our hearts.

In the end, the law and nature of God demands a law of Jubilee to set all creation free into the glorious liberty of the children of God (Romans 8:21). If we are now approaching the end of six days of labor, where a day is as a thousand years, and if the Great White Throne judgment is scheduled for the end of the full “week” (7,000 years), then it is likely that the Jubilee of creation will occur at the end of 49,000 years.

The work of the sons of God, then, could last quite a long time before all creation is set free. John saw the end of this time in a great vision in Revelation 5:13, 14. He saw all of creation praising God, while the four living creatures representing creation say, “Amen.” The picture is one of absolute unity and agreement between God and creation.

This implies that all of God’s former enemies, which were part of the first creation, were begotten of God and experienced the feasts, culminating with Tabernacles. No one can become part of the New Creation apart from being begotten of God, spiritually matured through Pentecost, and birthed through Tabernacles.

But all will indeed go that path, because God’s will is stronger than man’s will.