![[The Good Seed]](../images/thegoodseed.gif)
Blood, Soul and Redemption
By Lloyd Ellefson
Greetings in the name of the Lord! The Lord is spirit. Not only is the Lord our spirit corporately but also individually.
Before we go on to talk about the blood, I just want to say that we cannot always explain what the spiritual realization or comprehension behind everything is. Sometimes we simply make a declaration. We live in a declaration of faith - not merely an exchange of thoughts. If we are in a receptive mode (good ground), the seed will sprout and bring a consciousness of life. It does not BRING life, because life always exists. God is life, and He is everywhere all the time. We are taken into a consciousness of this life because God is omnipresent. "In Him we live and move and have our being" even though we are unaware of it. So we have to come into an awareness or realization of it.
There is only one God and only one life - His life. All else is only a manifestation of that life. God's life can never be separated from Himself, or given to another to make him a god. In Jesus Christ we have the revelation of who God is and what He is. He is the One who comes into our understanding and awareness of spiritual things, to cast down all our imaginations, idols, or wrong ideas of God. When Jesus confronted the Jews regarding their wrong ideas of God, He showed them that they were worshiping a God who was a product of their own minds. Our ideas do not change God - He is the same always!
There are a lot of misconceptions about the blood. People are pleading the blood, sprinkling the blood as a fetish, calling on the blood, trying to scare satan off with statements about the blood of Jesus, etc. This shows immaturity and lack of understanding of the blood. Although I have shared, both in tapes and writings, what the relationship is between the soul and the blood, I hope I can further clarify it - at least to the extent that the Lord has given me understanding.
Many look at Jesus hanging on the cross as though they have been justified by that historical act. They hope that their present self-life is going to be redeemed in some dramatic way - the rapture, accompanied by a change of body would make this a pleasurable experience. It is important to believe in the finished work of Christ today - that in Christ all these things are yes and Amen. There is no rejection of any promise of God in Him.
In the scriptures it says that God has a soul - Isa. 42:1 and Matt. 12:18. It is His life that gives movement to everything, and it is comprehended through the soul. Adam was made a living soul. In Genesis 1 we read that everything that moves - like animals, fish, birds, insects, etc. - are called living souls. Plants are not called living souls because they do not have movement nor direction; they do not have the awareness a soul could give them.
In Matt. 2:20 we read that Herod sought the life of Jesus. Actually, it really says he sought His soul. The Greek word there is PSUCHE which is SOUL; in the King James version it has often been translated as life instead of soul. Finding the difference in meaning is actually seeking after truth - and Christ is the truth.
Jesus said that the soul is more than food and raiment. (Matt. 6:25) "Do not be anxious for your soul" - again many translations read LIFE, but it should read SOUL. So the soul is more than food, clothing, or the events of tomorrow. That is why we are not to be anxious about our natural bodily needs which are only for the present time. Our soul should be aware of, and concerned about immortal things - things that have to do with God, things that are unseen!
"And do not fear those who kill the body, but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." (Matt.10:28) The King James version says "hell", but the original Greek word is GEHENNA. Gehenna typifies a fire which destroys that which is not redeemable. That which is to be totally discarded is thrown into it, and no attempt is made to redeem it from the burning fire. It is not to be brought back, ransomed or redeemed. It is interesting to note that God can destroy both the soul and the body in Gehenna. The destruction of our soul and body would leave us without any consciousness. Instead of drawing our consciousness of being from the Creator, we have been receiving it from this body of death - this Adamic man. Our image of God is conceived, formed, and comprehended within the limitations of our natural body and our soulish sense of being. In speaking about the body, we realize that it does not necessarily mean the flesh, for it is a vehicle for the body of sin, the man of sin and the soul of the Adamic man.
The soul is our awareness, consciousness or sense of being. It is an awareness of a life that is already present. A believer's soul can receive a realization of life beyond that which has been received through our natural mind. Jesus said the soul can be lost. "For whoever wishes to save his life (actually SOUL), shall lose it; but whoever loses his life (SOUL) for My sake shall find it." (Matt. 16:25) Again, the correct translation here is SOUL, not LIFE, as many translations read. In our search for truth we learn that the same word SOUL is used twice in this verse.
We can lose our soul by trying to save it. Adam's soul - his awareness or realization of self - was actually in a delusion; he had a wrong identity of himself and a deluded sense of being. Jesus Christ, the truth, came to correct this. However, man is so firmly entrenched in his ego that it is hard for him to give it up. Unless this is put into subjection, it will interfere with the truth that Christ is bringing us. So if we try to save our deluded sense of being, we will lose our soul. It is impossible to SAVE it - so why try? We have to LOSE it!
"For what will a man be profited, if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matt. 16:26) There is nothing he can give. If he forfeits his soul, there is no redemption for him. That is why he needs a Redeemer. "For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and will then recompense every man according to his deeds. Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who shall not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom." (Matt.16:27-28) The Son of Man is the spiritual man, the Christ, the Mediator between God and man. And that happened in the upper room when the Spirit was poured out - after the death and transformation of Christ back into spirit. No one has ever seen the Christ.
It is easy to use words like "world" and "creation" interchangeably, but they are not the same; neither are SOUL and MIND exactly the same. Likewise, there are differences between terms like the Son of Man, and the Son of God, and the Christ, and the man Jesus in His human form.
"But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised." (1 Cor. 2:14) The word NATURAL is translated from PSUCHE, meaning SOUL. We know who the natural soulish man is; he is the Adamic man. There are only two corporate men. One is Adam, the other is Christ. You are either totally identified with Adam, or you are identified with Christ. In Adam you are totally identified with sin. All sin comes from the same original sin, of which every man is a partaker, but it is manifested in different ways. The soulish man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God - it does not say "of ANY spirit".
The government of Jesus Christ is not for the natural man, for he is governed by the god of this world. The world system is run by satan, the adversary opposed to God and His Christ. It affects what man sees, feels and understands creation to be. It is a delusion to think man is governed by his ego. The main thing to note is that the soulish man does not receive of the Spirit, so he cannot be governed by the kingdom of God, for it is governed by the Spirit. He can receive the laws of the kingdom of God in his natural mind and try to obey those laws which affect him; he can vainly try to live out of his self and try to save his soul, but it is all futility. I understand this egoistic sense of being which resides in man to be the soul. We are subject to the natural limitations of our bodily senses and therefore there is much for us to learn.
"It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So also it is written, `The first man, Adam, became a living soul.' The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual. The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven. As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly." (1 Cor. 15:44-48) Our mentality is first of all imbedded in the Adamic man; that is why it says that the natural is first. We need to be delivered from identifying with the natural. We have a tendency to think of God, the great white throne, how God comes to us and how we talk to Him, from a natural point of view.
How does God speak to us and how do we speak to Him? Often we hear people talk about their conversations with God. According to one reported conversation, the young man said, "God isn't it this way?" and God said, "No, I think it is this way." And he replied, "Well, good thinking God." When God speaks, He always speaks with authority. He spoke to Paul on his way to Damascus. However, the mentality in which people are always saying, "God told me this and God told me that", can degenerate into a new law. It can boil down to God saying, "Do this, or don't do that, or go here, or I am going to do this for you." This may promote a projection of God in which He gives us direction without bringing about a change in us. Then our sense of being and relationship to God is still in the natural realm. God is not confined to using an audible voice, the English language, nor anything physical. I think the ability to hear the Spirit in our spirit is actually greater than having to hear an audible voice. The voice of the Spirit comes to us in a dawning of light or illumination. We receive a realization of what we are to follow, and this is what we declare. We have to be careful not to explain away the true meaning; this would cause people to revert to the conceptions of their own mind. Let's declare what God says.
"It is sown a soulish body; it is roused (raised) a spiritual body. If there is a soulish body, there is a spiritual body also." (v.44 Concordant) It doesn't say "there is going to BE a spiritual body"; it says there IS one. Jesus Christ said that He was going to prepare a place for us in His Father's house, that where He IS we may be also. Wherever He is, His body must be also. This prepared place in Him is our spiritual body. This has to transcend the consciousness we have of our natural body. Unless it does, there will be a big tug of war between what the Spirit is telling us and what our soul is telling us. If we try to save our deluded soul, we will cling to what we have seen as truth and self and our own identity. This earthy sense of being that is attached to this natural body has to pass away so that we can accept spiritual truth. We want the Lord to win the battle in us.
"It is sown a soulish body, it is raised a spiritual body." We have not seen a spiritual body. Jesus Christ did not have a spiritual body when He came into the upper room. He said Thomas should feel Him and see that a spirit does not have flesh and bone. There is a soulish body and there is a spiritual body. The first man, Adam, is the first man in our consciousness. The first man in Gen. 1 was the spiritual man; he was a spiritual image of God, for God said, "Let us make man in our image." Man is only an image - he is either a natural, soulish image or a spiritual image. His thoughts and speech portray whether he is soulish or spiritual. If the Holy Spirit in man transcends the natural, he will speak spiritual realities; therefore the natural man won't understand him. Religious Christians also fall into this category. Although they speak in tongues, believe in sonship, and the kingdom, they cannot differentiate between spiritual and soulish realization. This will continue until their receptive agency changes. The soulish person cannot think spiritually. Jesus Christ was always conscious of the Father within Him, and we too are called into this.
"So also it is written, `The first man, Adam, became a living soul.' The last Adam became a life-giving spirit." (v.45) These two men, or two images of God, are different. We have been raised from the death in the first man, Adam, to the life in Christ. We are a new man! We are created in the image of God; we are not formed of the earth.
"However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual. The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven." (vv.46-47) To be from heaven, He had to reside in heaven. A physical body cannot reside in heaven, so the second man could not have a fleshly body. At first our consciousness is in the natural; the spiritual is evidenced or manifested in the second man. The second man is the Lord, and "the Lord is the Spirit". (2 Cor. 3:17) God has given us the Spirit of Jesus Christ. He brings us the Spirit of sonship, and we cry, "Abba! Father!" Those who are immature will cry JESUS, because they have not yet come into the revelation of the Father. However, crying JESUS is not scriptural.
"And just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." (v.49) Our image of the heavenly is formed by what we have come to experience and believe - the sum total of all our ideas of who God is, and who we are. The image we have of ourselves is created by our own conceptions, and therefore not a true image. When Christ creates His spiritual image in us, it will be a true image. It does not come in a physical form, nor in doctrine, nor the printed page. It is not made of earthy materials; it is not an idol. Natural man's imaginations are idols, because he worships his own thoughts. He worships what he THINKS is God. This is also happening in the religious systems and schools. Jesus came to the woman at the well and said, "You worship you know not what." Jesus had to explain that true worship consists of worshiping God in spirit and in truth.
There is a spiritual relationship between the soul and the blood. The mistranslation of Leviticus 17:11 accounts for our confusion between the two. It says, "..the life of the flesh is in the blood..." The Hebrew word used here is NEPHESH; this was mistranslated as LIFE, whereas the actual meaning is SOUL. In the same verse, the Hebrew word NEPHESH is subsequently correctly translated SOUL - "..to make atonement for your SOULS". The same word is also used in Gen. 1, when it speaks of animals, birds, fish, etc. and in Gen. 2, when it speaks of Adam being made a living soul. So the verse actually says that the soul is in the blood! The soul is our sense of being or realization. It is more limited in animals than in man. The life is not in the blood; the life IS God! All life comes from God. Life is in the Spirit. Jesus said, "My words are spirit and are life." He did not say they are soul. So life is NOT in the blood!
In Eph. 2:13 it says, "But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ." Christ Jesus is our illumination. In the New Testament lampstands, fed by oil, were used to give light. In Revelation 1 we see that as the oil is drawn up through the seven Spirits of God, it lights up the church and the Son of Man. This new man is our first illumination.
The temple symbolizes our growth in fellowship with the Father. The entrance to the temple does not lead directly into the holiest place. We must initially enter the holy place through the first veil (door). This gives us the basis for entering the holiest; without blood no one could enter the holiest and live. Only the blood could go all the way from the outside to the holiest! This was a type or shadow. This explains how the blood of Christ draws us near. The soul is in the blood, so it is the soul of Christ that saves us! Those who think that they will be saved by sprinkling blood externally, do not realize what saves them. It is important to seek the Lord, meditate, and let the Spirit give us His understanding of these things. We should not be pre-occupied with self-preservation.
In Leviticus 17:12-14 it says that we are not to eat blood. We are not to partake of the blood of an animal, for it is its sense of being or soul. However, Jesus said that one day we were to drink His blood. Drinking His blood is of spiritual significance, and is not to be taken literally. Can you see the typology? At the cross Christ's blood was poured out for us. No one drank that blood. However, we drink of His blood spiritually when we receive Him and His understanding. This is a participation in the soul of Christ, the Son of Man.
"For as for the life of all flesh, its blood is identified with its life. Therefore I said to the sons of Israel,`You are not to eat the blood of any flesh, for the life of all flesh is its blood; whoever eats it shall be cut off'." (Lev. 17:14) Again, the word NEPHESH is in the original, so instead of LIFE it should read SOUL - "...the soul of all flesh, its blood is identified with its soul...the soul of all flesh is its blood." It is easily seen how different ideas can come into being due to wrong translations. The Bible is a testimony, and the Spirit creates in us that which the Bible declares.
A redeemer cannot redeem people into a higher spiritual level than he possesses. He must live on the spiritual level into which he is going to redeem people. Only Christ can redeem the Adamic humanity. He redeems man out of his old sense of being and brings him into the life of Christ. This cannot happen by anything natural such as killing of animals, using their blood, etc. This is because the redeemer must have in himself the goal and result of redemption. Only Christ has this!
"Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His soul a ransom for many." (Matt. 20:28) The harmonious relationship with God which Adam enjoyed at the beginning, needs to be ransomed back. This harmonious relationship with God was usurped by our own sense of being which is devoid of God. Man was subjected to vanity, and he followed that vanity. God did not make Adam a sinner, nor did He make him sin. He just subjected him to vanity. As Adam operated in this vanity, ego or self-life, he became disobedient to God, and this sin passed upon all men. All die in Adam, but all are made alive in Christ.
Our Redeemer has to have all the elements of redemption reside in Him. When Jesus Christ died on the cross between two thieves, He said to one of them, "Today you shall be with Me in paradise." That tells us that Jesus never went out of the garden, He never went out of paradise - He NEVER left the harmonious relationship of oneness with God. In John 17 Jesus prayed that we might have the same ONENESS that He had with the Father. "That they may be one, just as We are one; I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected in unity."
In contrast to this, the first Adam left his harmonious relationship with God because he accepted the image of God that satan presented to him. He was expelled from the garden because of his disobedience. The flaming sword prevented him from re-entering the garden. Adam was put out of the garden, never to return. Adam is not redeemable; he is the one from whom we are redeemed!
When Jesus said, "You are going to be with Me in paradise", He was not referring to the physical body. In effect He told him, "I am there...you are going to be there." Christ, the Lamb of God, was ALWAYS there - even when He was hidden and slain, or put to death among the prophets, the laws, offerings and sacrifices. He was able to bring that man in because He was the Redeemer!
Although the thief did not go through all the things we do, he did have the contrite heart to ask Jesus, "Take me with you when you come into your kingdom." How he found out that Jesus had a kingdom is not revealed, but since the inscription above Jesus read, "This is Jesus the King of the Jews", he probably deducted that a king must have a kingdom. This illustrates Christ's ability as Redeemer. He brings us into the same harmony He had with the Father and never lost. Paradise or the garden depicts this harmony with God. Christ did not come into our humanity to identify with our darkness and estrangement from God. Death could not hold Him because death is not truth. If it were eternal or real, it could not be swallowed up in victory through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is always the same yesterday, today and forever.
Adam and Eve were types. Adam was a type of an image of the Christ who was to come. (Rom. 5:14) Types are not kept. The Adam man is simply a type or figure that is done away with, for he will not be brought back. When the reality comes, the types are no longer needed. That is why Adam can never be a Mediator from man to God. He does not have the ability to redeem anyone, but he keeps on trying through his religion, Christianity, and ideas of God. His sense of being is not right; he is not the Christ, the Son of God. Only Jesus Christ can redeem us! The mind that was in Jesus Christ, His soul (His sense of being), His union and harmony with God, redeems us. The soul is in the blood, so the blood redeems us.
"But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light." (Eph. 5:13) Everything is manifested by light. In Gen. 1 we have two different types of light. First the spiritual light. (v.3) The God, who first declared the light to come in Genesis, has shone in our hearts! The physical light (v.4) of the sun, moon and stars can only illumine natural things. The types in the temple, from the outer court to the holiest place, show a progression of natural light to spiritual light, to the divine nature itself which needs no light. Light is understanding, realization, awareness or consciousness.
The light of Jesus Christ has given man a new understanding - His understanding. This eternal light has nothing to do with day and night, because there is no darkness in it. With Jesus on the Mt. of Transfiguration were Moses and Elijah. Moses brought the message of the law, and Elijah typified repentance - as demonstrated by John the Baptist. The law and repentance bring us to Christ. They bring us an anointing and understanding of God.
When Jesus was transfigured on the mountain, His face shone like the sun. Peter referred to that experience when he said, "We ourselves heard this utterance made from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain...until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts." (2 Peter 1:18-19) The day of the Lord is as the light of Jesus Christ that dawns with a new realization within us - and that is the Christ. He is not the physical Jesus; He was the anointing that was manifested in the physical Jesus. Nobody understood that because a veil hid it from them; they could not go beyond the veils of the temple until a death had taken place. This death was not primarily to the physical body, but to what it represents, namely, its conceptions, ideas, and self-preservation. All this is destroyed by the light of the coming of Jesus Christ in its spiritual sense; then we can see beyond the veil. This has to be experienced individually as we submit ourselves to hearing what the Spirit is saying. So Jesus is the light that came to light every man in the world.
Isaih 53 may help us gain a better perspective on how we are ransomed or redeemed by the blood of Christ; it shows us what redemption has to do with the blood. We have already seen that the soul is in the blood. (Lev. 17) So the blood of Christ is actually the soul of Christ. "Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief; when You shall make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed..." His soul had no sin in it; His soul had no division, no condemnation, no guilt nor mortality. Christ defied all that! That soul was offered as an offering for our sin. SIN here is singular, for it is the sin of all men. Man wants to retain the vanity of his ego, and therefore he cannot believe the message of the Spirit of God.
"He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied; by His knowledge shall My righteous Servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities." (v.11) Justification includes forgiveness, but it also goes beyond forgiveness. It can only come from God. Justification justifies us from all our wrongdoing, but it is not the result of our efforts at becoming righteous. It depends upon what God has done! Therefore it rests on His declaration - not on my ability, my degree of sinfulness, nor my striving to become righteous. Justification is a distinct necessity and surpasses forgiveness. Forgiveness does NOT DEAL WITH THE NATURE OF MAN; it just deals with the acts, not the source. God deals with sin by the destruction of the Adamic man, for he is not a true image of God.
"...because He has poured out His soul unto death; and He was numbered with the transgressors; and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." (v.12b) Our redemption is accomplished through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit who gives us the mind, understanding, and character of Christ. He is the Son of God who causes us to cry "Abba! Father!"; He causes us to address God as OUR Father!
In Hebrews 9:19-22 it mentions that in the old covenant the blood had to be sprinkled on everything. Now we come into a new understanding. Jesus did not enter a mere copy or pattern of heaven, but into heaven itself; not with the blood of animals, but with His own blood! This is typified in the Old Testament. Only the high priest could go all the way from the outer court to the holy of holies, but NOT WITHOUT BLOOD. So Jesus Christ, our High Priest, made a full entry by His blood. His soul (His consciousness or sense of being) entered the death of the outer court. Then it proceeded to the first holy place which is the Son of Man or the spiritual realization given Him by the Holy Spirit, and into the holy of holies, which is the divine nature or the divine participation of oneness with God. Now He is a living testimony to that.
Let us zero in on our participation in the blood of Jesus, and see how our union, communion or oneness could be with that blood. After Jesus died, some of His blood flowed visibly out of His body onto the earth. This was a type or manifestation of what was happening spiritually. Jesus took His blood into heaven itself, that is, into the realization of God, and it was accepted by God. The blood of goats and bulls was sufficient to cleanse the patterns, but the more perfect tabernacle which is not of this creation, needed the blood of Christ. (Heb. 9:11-12) If it were of this creation it would create a delusion. Jesus Christ is now creating something new in us! When we truly hear what the Spirit is saying, something new is created in us! He creates a new image of God and a new sense of natural things. It is a new creation in Christ! He is the Word of God and His words are spirit and are life!
The point we are making is that Jesus Christ ministered beyond the natural. "And not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption." (Heb. 9:12) Because of His identification with humanity, He can bring us into a realization of sonship and a participation in the divine nature all the way into oneness with God. His true being did not consist of His flesh; He was not of this world, and therefore not mortal.
"For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify for the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" (vv. 13-14) Our conscience is purged of wrong ideas - of earthly things. The blood of animals sanctifies for the purging of the flesh. Most religious people and Christians have had their flesh purified by this idea of sacrifice; they think Jesus was like a lamb or goat put on the cross and sacrificed. They think their fleshly mind is purified from guilt because they believe that. Believing in the sacrifice of Jesus brings some reality even to the natural man. However, it becomes a delusion when it does not come by the Spirit. Then it is just the flesh being sanctified to think that way. However, it says the blood of Jesus Christ is going to take us into an entirely different dimension.
In the latter part of 1 Cor. 11, Paul talks about the Lord's table. Communions and baptisms, days and seasons are all necessary for our growth and development, just as the stem, leaves and chaff are necessary for the maturation of the grain. Yet after the grain has matured, they are burned because they have served their purpose; they are no longer needed. In a similar manner, communions and baptisms help us in our spiritual develoopment, but they are not an end in themselves.
Paul said, "Is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ?" (I Cor. 10:16) Now how are we going to share or participate in the blood of Christ? This does not refer to the blood that was shed on the cross, for that was visible. Nothing is visible here. No one saw Christ entering into the true heavens (not the patterns) with His blood. The oneness of believers is in their redemption by the blood of Christ. As we no longer live in our carnal minds, we share in the blood of Christ. We are a new creation in Christ Jesus. This new creation is not mortal even though it lives in a mortal body; we have been translated out of darkness into His kingdom. Our consciousness is now based on what the Spirit says to us instead of what we hear through the natural mind. This is a new life in union and communion with the Father; it is a participation in the blood, soul, and understanding of Christ.
"Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord...For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself, if he does not judge the body rightly." (1 Cor. 11:27,29) When you commit this sin, you don't deserve a body, and bring judgment to yourself. Discerning the body of Christ does not mean discerning His physical body, the cross, etc. That does not take discernment; that only takes reading and is readily understood. The body of Christ is in the unseen realm. It consists of the things that Christ said He was. He said, "I am the way, the truth, the life...the resurrection...the bread of life...before Abraham was, I am." He identified with immortality! He did not identify with His mortal body and its needs. He dwelt in truth; this was His body! His understanding came out of truth!
Our first identity came in Adam who was given an earthy body and was made a living soul. His understanding came from, and through his physical body. After we have been baptized into the body of Christ, our identity has to change. Instead of identifying with who we were, we now identify with our new body, the body of Christ. This gives us a new dwelling place! Our consciousness or sense of being is no longer rooted in delusion and mortality; it has received a body of truth in which to dwell. Since this is in the unseen realm, we dwell here by faith. Faith is what these words have produced in us, so it does not belong to us. It is the substance of these words that have come to us. Faith is the evidence that we have heard these words.
Jesus said, "My words are spirit and are life." I believe His words represent His body, and the spirit and life represent the Spirit, and include the consciousness of what was in that word, which is the soul or blood. For we are one bread and one body because we are partakers of that one bread - not like a group of people, but as one. The body of Christ is not composed of a group of human beings, each one having a body of his own.
"And when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, `This is My body, which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me'." (1 Cor. 11:24) This is what Jesus did; then He said He would not take the fruit of the vine until He could drink it afresh when it was fulfilled in the kingdom of God. God's kingdom of righteousness, peace and joy is spiritual, and it is with us now. So the fulfilllment of His words is in the unseen spiritual realm - not in the physical.
"In the same way He took the cup also, after supper, saying, `This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me'." (v. 25) How do we get into the new covenant? Before possessions are bequeathed, there has to be the death of the testator. Then that which He had, is brought to light. Jesus did not have any earthly possessions or inheritance to give us when He died. He didn't have any houses, barns or money; the soldiers took His coat, ripped it up and divided it among themselves. Lots were cast for His tunic. His last will and testament, should we say, was devoid of earthly possessions; but what He had He gave! He had ETERNAL LIFE that could not die! He gave us eternal life from God that cannot be taken away! This testament, or new covenant in His blood is life, righteousness and immortality. This is His body of truth. Through this new sense of being we are ransomed from our former dark understanding of who we were. So the blood of Jesus Christ and His soul are synonymous.
"The soul that sins shall die." Our sense of being comes from our senses which pick up their direction from the earth, creation and satan. Since this is all in the death realm, it lives in death. This Adamic soul cannot be joined (or married) to Christ; our old sense of being does not function in spiritual life! Our own sense of being cannot be brought into Christ, heaven and God. This is impossible!
"Jesus therefore said to them, `Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves'." (John 6:53) It is impossible to eat the flesh of the physical Jesus who once roamed this earth; nor does it say that we are to eat the flesh of Jesus. Jesus is referring to the Son of Man, the spiritual man. His flesh typifies His spiritual body of truth and His blood typifies His soul. This is all spiritual! Unless we eat of His flesh and drink His blood we won't have any life in us. His body of truth has to be our sustenance, and His soul, His understanding has to be our drink! This is eternal life!
"Consider what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything." (2 Tim. 2:7) Amen.