Chapter Four
With God the Father being revealed to humanity in many patterns and ways, He has communed with man from the ages past even as He spoke to the fathers of Israel by the prophets. The Father God is continuing to speak now, during the time called “the last days,” and even to the end of these days. Without fail He is still speaking to His people. He is talking to us by His Son Whom God the Father has appointed heir of all things. Know that it is also through this same Son that God also made the ages. That is ages past, as well as the age that is now, and the ages that are to come in the future. Through this Son, God the Father is also looking for an increase.
In the finding and the calling forth of these chosen people, His increase, the Father sets forth the qualifications for obtaining the fullness of this place in becoming an heir of God and a co-heir of Christ. Mark 10:29-30 states,
“So Jesus answered and said, Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel’s, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time — houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions — and in the age to come, eternal life”.
This word “left” as used in the above scripture is the Greek word “APHIEMI” which means, “to leave behind, let go, disregard,” meaning to place God and His purpose above all things and He will make way for the rest. The blessings Jesus gives to His people will far outweigh any material loss and persecution incurred by living unto Him. The word “time” in the above scripture has the meaning of a “season.” Thus, indicating a season of time in which the callings of God, yielded unto, brings forth the blessings of the Father.
The phrase “the age to come” is the Greek word “AION” which denotes the “coming age.” This reveals that God is a God of continual increase to all those who obey Him. Paul reveals that knowing Christ is the fulfillment of all things.
Phil. 3:7-8,
“But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ.”
Herein, being in Christ enables us to know Him in His resurrection power, a power that is filling all and in all who stand in Him.
This declaration of fact, that “the world (age) to come” is not speaking of a different planet or earth but is speaking of this same planet earth, but with the coming forth of a new age, a new government. It is the same ground or earth, but only under a different government. Let us take note of the parable of the wheat and tares as written.
Matt. 13:36-43,
“Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him saying; explain to us the parable of the tares of the field. He answered and said to them: He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one. The enemy who sowed them is the adversary, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels [the elect ministries of God]. Therefore, as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He, who has ears to hear, let him hear!”
Let us take note of some of the words used in the above scriptures and their meanings for Jesus Christ desires for us to be the hearers of His word. In verse 38 concerning the “field is the world” it is the Greek word “KOSMOS” which has the meaning of “the world as created, ordered and arranged.” However, in verse 39 and 40, the word “world,” as translated in the King James, is the word “AION” which means “age,” speaking of this present time. Therefore, the Christ is telling us that the world as created, ordered, and arranged by God shall abide forever. Nevertheless, because of those things that offend, that causes offence or a stumbling, those things, which are of iniquity, lawlessness, unrighteousness and wrongdoing, are the tares God removes during this age. A certain age out of many which shall bring purity back into the “kosmos”, as it was created by God.
Could this be telling us there is an age when death shall end? A removal that shall usher in another age wherein a man-child, a many member body of first-fruits, shall rule and reign with God. If we can understand that in this present evil age of death and darkness, with the sons of darkness being the rulers as spoken in God’s word; these sons of darkness are seemingly wiser or shrewder than God’s children of light as spoken of in Luke 16:8.
“So the master commended the unjust steward because he had dealt shrewdly. For the sons of this world are shrewder in their generation than the sons of light.”
Nevertheless, is it not a fact that we, God’s first-fruits are not of this age of darkness. Therefore, we are not to live unto the authority of this age-time of darkness, but we are to recognize and believe that our citizenship is not one of this age, but the age to come. All the effects and influences of this darken-age shall pass away as the Christ within comes forth from us even as He has promised.
Phil. 3:20-21,
“For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself”.
This is telling us that the divine government within this overcoming people is the seat of government wherein Christ rules and reigns unto the transformation of our bodies likened unto the body of His glory. Gal. 3:16 & 29 declares,
“Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, and to seeds, as of many, but as of one, and to your Seed, who is Christ. …. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.”
(Also, read Rev. 5:1-10).
The next coming age, the millennial Kingdom of God, the one we are now beginning to see and enter into, will be but one more of the many ages that stretch out before us. The word tells us in Psalms 105:8-9 that these promises were unto God’s people for a thousand generations.
“He [God] remembers His covenant forever, the word which He commanded, for a thousand generations, and the covenant which He made with Abraham and His oath to Isaac.”
With the true church being the spiritual seed of Abraham, God’s promises are for us. With a bible generation being approximately 40 years, from Abraham unto now has been only about 4,000 years. Thus, only 100 generations have passed which leaves only 900 more generations to go.
Eph. 2:4-7 declares,
“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus”.