I want to share with you today a very deep and profound belief. One which, though we hold lightly, we do so preciously because it reveals such a glorious revelation of our Fathers intentionality towards us as His children, and our Saviours deep love for us as His Bride. Over the years, Call2Come has taught on these things, and it often leads to further enquiry and prayerful discussion. So as this precious movement continues to grow, it is good to revisit some of these things in the hope that they may also encourage you, help to answer any questions you may have, and also to continue to quicken a bridal consciousness within all of us.
Eph 1:3-6 NKJV – 3 Blessed [be] the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly [places] in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
In Ephesians 1:4, Paul writes that we were chosen in Him before the very foundation of the world. Not exclusively, but this profound statement indicates two very important points
- That we were chosen in Him. The matter of how God chooses is deep and disputed, but that’s not the point I’m making here, which is not what that choice may be by where that choice is made. We uphold our being chosen is made in Him. It is in this sense that we existed in God, as Paul writes:
- Before the foundation of the world. The supposition is that we existed in Him before creation. Not with form, or soul, but within God’s foreknowledge and heart.
Now, to be clear, this foreknowledge is not generic in the sense that God knew us all collectively without distinction, but that He knew us individually and intimately. David marvelled at this when he wrote Ps 139. In verse 16 he pens “Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them.”. Jeremiah also had the same revelation when being called, the Lord told Jeremiah Jer 1:5 NKJV – 5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations.” This foreknowledge was very unique and specific to Jeremiah. Before Jeremiah was ever conceived the Lord knew him, sanctified him and appointed him.
This profound and beautiful thought makes me sing and quickens me deeply that I existed in the heart and mind of God. He knew me intimately even before the Creation of the this world. He saw me though not yet formed and He chose me, sanctified me and ordained me. Every day of my life was written in His book before one of them every came to be. No wonder David writes Psa 139:6, 17 NKJV – 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is high, I cannot attain it. … 17 How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them!
Since this pre-existence in Him was in thought and heart only, at what point is it that I am brought forth to have form, a body, soul and spirit. In the physical natural realm my journey began at conception when I was formed in my mother’s womb and had a body and soul though my spirit was dead at my birth. This was my adamic state, born as a sinner in need of being born again, no longer born of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but born of God (John 1:13). This miracle of rebirth is upon our belief and acceptance of Jesus Christ as the atoning sacrifice for our sins. John 1:12 NKJV – 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name. This is familiar and fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith, but how is this new life appropriated by the believer? By what means is the adamic nature ended and the new creation quickened into life? Paul answers powerfully in Romans 6, let’s pick out a couple of those verses.
Rom 6:3-4 NKJV – 3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
Our confession is not only that Christ died for us, but that we also died with Him. There is participation possible through the Eternal Spirit in the work of the Cross, that we too are able to be crucified with Him, die with Him, be buried with Him, and as verse 5 reads, since we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection. How is this identification with Christ possible? Well, Paul gives us the answer. It is by being baptised into Him. This spiritual baptism is, as the water baptism represents, an immersion into Christ, not an extension from or connection to, but an immersion into Him. This immersion is complete and total.
When Jesus died upon the cross, He was very much alone, and cried out to His Father, “Why have your forsaken me?”. Yet it was there, upon the cross that we have been invited. It was there, whilst alone on the cross, that Jesus held onto the joy set before Him, knowing that through this selfless act of sacrificial love, His body would provide the means through which His Bride would be brought forth. When we talk of being baptised into Christ, it is here at the Cross, at the point of His death that we are spiritually immersed into Christ. It has to be so, lest we fail to be crucified with Him, lest we fail to die and be buried with Him, we cannot attain to resurrected life. Now do we speak symbolically here? Since I am not literally (or physically) crucified, and I have not literally (or physically) been buried, we would say that these are symbolic. Yet I should not make everything symbolic. I cannot allegorise the entirety of what Paul teaches here, otherwise what am I to make of my resurrected life? Is that symbolic also? If so, symbolic of what? Clearly, that would not be correct either! For surely I am in Christ as He is in me is not symbolic but actual, a spiritual reality, a profound mystery yes, but nonetheless true.
We may ask, how can I be crucified with Christ, since He died 2000 years ago? That is a good question, and the answer is by understanding the work of the cross in the spirit. Yes it was physical, located and fixed in time and space, but it was also spiritual in its work, where time has no place. Therefore, as the first Adam was placed into a deep sleep, the second Adam was crucified, as the first Adam brought death, the second Adam brought life, as the side of the first Adam was opened and his wife brought out, so also the wife of the second Adam who was in Him (because she was baptised into Him on the cross) has been brought out from Him. To me the spear in Jesus’ side is symbolic of this point. For the crucifixion account records that Jesus was already dead when the spear was thrust in this side, signifying Jesus work of atonement as the Lamb of God had already been completed when He cried out “It is Finished!”. So what of the spear? This was after His death. The record describes how blood and water flowed out, these two elements present at birth.
So to conclude, our understanding of the scriptures as Call2Come is that;
- We existed in the mind and foreknowledge of God before the Creation of the world. Not as a being or a soul, but in His heart where He saw us, knew us, choose us and wrote all the days of our life in His book. Eph 1:4 Ps 139:6
- This foreknowledge is not generic but intimate and individual for each and every one of us Jer 1:5
- Our adamic nature began at our physical conception, but our re-birth as a child of God upon our faith in the atoning work of Jesus Christ upon the cross. John 1:12 Rom 6:3-4
- That miracle of being born again took place “within Christ” at the point of His crucifixion. Because it is by being baptised into Christ, by being baptised into His death, and burial. Rom 6:3-4 that we identify with Him at the cross, so that we might also share in the likeness of His resurrection Rom 6:5 As Paul writes “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer but Christ who lives in me”. Gal 2:20
- Therefore, as in the first Adam when Eve was taken from His side, so also the Bride was within Christ when He was crucified. Not in bodily, physical or soulish form, but in spirit.
