John chapter 01 - God comes down to earth

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Time and spirits are in the fourth dimension

The Bible is the expression of the thoughts of Jesus.

JOHN 1:1   In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Right from the beginning God had a plan with His true church. They form His Bride. A bride is closer to her husband than anyone else. So God’s church is His true Body as He desires to live within the hearts of His people and bring them into submission to the Word of God.

So the invisible Spirit of God is looking for a Body to dwell in so that He can manifest His characteristics and bring His Word to fulfillment through this Body of believers.

To better understand the beginning, let us catch a glimpse of God at the end of the Book of Revelation. Four beasts surround God's throne in Heaven: a lion, an ox, a man, and an eagle.

REVELATION 4:6   And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne,

and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind.

7     And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle.

Eyes speak of intelligence. These spiritual beasts or powers know the future (full of eyes before) and they know the past (full of eyes behind). Because God lives outside of time He can see both the future and the past. We are limited to our small portion of the pipeline of time that we are born into and which we are moving through from the past to the future, until we die.

Length, breadth, and height are the three dimensions of space that we live in. We can move in any direction in space.

Time is in the fourth dimension that we do not understand, as it seems to flow in one direction only, from past to future. We sometimes speak of the "pipeline of time." Thus, we can imagine time as the walls of an invisible four-dimensional pipe that surrounds our three-dimensional space, which is made up of length, breadth, and height.

The fourth dimension is also the realm of the spirit world of good and evil. This is where the ghosts of the unsaved go when they die. They will be condemned on Judgement Day and end up in the Lake of Fire until they are burned up to pay for their sins and unbelief. Thus, they remain in time until they are consumed.

EZEKIEL 1:10   As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle.

The four spiritual powers or beasts around God's throne will control and guide the church through their different circumstances as the 2000 years of church history roll by.

The lion represents the true beliefs of the apostolic fathers as they wrote the New Testament and guided the early church, which had received the baptism of the Holy Spirit so that Jesus lived in the hearts of men and women. At first, they believed and lived by the Bible before human leaders later arose to guide the church down the paths of human opinions.

A calf is a young ox. This represents the 1200 years of the political control of the church that started at the Nicene council in 325 AD and continued to the end of the Dark Ages in 1520 AD. Forcing an unscriptural Trinity into the Bible at Nicaea meant that human leaders were fiddling with the Light of the world, which then naturally began to go out. Political control of the church led to the banishment and murder of their opponents and critics. Unscriptural archbishops, cardinals, and popes dominated the scene. Unscriptural recipes like “One God in three Persons”, “the second Person of the Godhead”, “Co-equal Persons”, “of one essence”, or “of one substance”, or "God the Son", clouded the thinking of people as they drifted further from what was actually written in the Bible. The Bible is Life. Getting away from the Bible means losing life. That is symbolized by the symbol of an ox.

Eventually, the church bragged about understanding concepts that are not actually written in the Bible.

More than half of the total 2000 years of the church ages was spent in this spiritual wasteland. Tens of millions died who refused to bow down to the political and religious giant of the Dark Ages, the Roman Catholic church. There was plenty of time for the young calf to grow up into an ox. But an ox is a beast of burden and sacrifice. At the end of its life, it is slaughtered for its valuable meat. God’s Spirit of an Ox inspired the true church to endure this suffering and martyrdom.

The man-beast. Reformers like Martin Luther in Germany in 1520 brought back the concept of salvation by grace through faith alone, not works. Around 1750, John Wesley in England restored the Bible's truth of holiness and outreach, which led to the great missionary age that began around 1790.

The flying eagle has two great characteristics. It can fly to a great height and it has incredible eyesight that can pick out details that others miss.

In 1906 the Pentecostal revival in Azuza Street in America began to restore the Holy Ghost Baptism with the power of the supernatural. The great wings of the Eagle soared high up into the dimensions of God’s powerful Spirit.

Then, in 1947, William Branham began to tape sermons that would enable listeners to catch a revelation of the deep mysteries in Scripture: what is serpent seed? who is the beast? What was the original sin? Why did Jesus write twice in the ground when people requested permission to stone a sinful woman? ... and so on.  The early church once knew these mysteries but they had been lost in the Dark Ages. The errors that had been so ingrained during the long 1200 years of the Dark Ages made it impossible for the reformers and Pentecostals to puzzle out many of these truths.

So, in the end, God wants the final church to return to the beliefs of the first church.

The four beasts thus present an outline of the 2000 years of church history.

There are also four Gospels that stand around the Book of Acts of the Holy Spirit in the first church.

The Book of Acts is God’s original church in action. That is what He wants the church to be like.

In the Book of Acts, God made the first church the way He wanted it.

In the last church age, where we live, God wants the church the way He first made it.

Each Gospel presents Jesus as one of these four great creatures or powers.

The fourth Gospel is John.

He presents Christ as the flying Eagle, the Spirit of God that soars into the higher dimensions of the Spirit and sees with incredibly sharp insight.

“In the beginning God…”  is the sublime start to the Book of Genesis.

JOHN 4: 24   God is a Spirit.

A Spirit is invisible and has no shape. So, the invisible God has to clothe Himself in a visible body.

In the New Testament, God is revealed as being clothed in His Word.

God lives in His Word as if it were a spiritual Body in which the invisible Spirit of God becomes visible.

The Bride must be able to understand the Word of God so that they can see Jesus walking through the pages of the King James Bible.

The fourth dimension is the spiritual region of good and evil. Our human spirits are in tune with this dimension as we continually have to make decisions between right and wrong.

This is also the dimension where lost souls go to when they die as it is inhabited by Satan and his demons.

The sixth dimension is Heaven, or the Heaven of Heavens, where the angels dwell.

We are insulated from this sixth dimension of Heaven by the fourth dimension that surrounds us.  So the purpose of the Bible is to explain how God came down to earth to make a way of escape so that we can bypass the regions of the lost (fourth dimension) and go straight to Heaven (sixth dimension) when we die.
JOHN 14:6   Jesus saith unto him,

I am the way,

the truth, and the life:

Jesus is the way that we bypass or escape hell.

Jesus brings God down to our human level

God Himself is beyond all this as if He inhabits the seventh unimaginable dimension of dimensions.

In the beginning, whenever that was, God spoke and created a spoken-Word Spirit-Body for Himself. He then created the Heavens and had to limit Himself to live in there so that angels could see Him when He created them. This Word-Body that He dwelt in revealed God to the Heavenly realm. (You are an invisible spirit. Your body encloses your spirit.

Thus, your body lives with you and, at the same time, is you. But your mind, which is spirit, is in control and is greater than your body.)

ROMANS 8:27   And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit,

EPHESIANS 4:23    And be renewed in the spirit of your mind;

“Spirit” and “mind” are used interchangeably. So they are the same thing. We do not know what “spirit” is but we know we have a spirit in our bodies that keeps us alive. The spirit is like the father, the body is like the son. The spirit or mind tells the body what to do.

JOHN 1:2   The same was in the beginning with God.

So God wants to come down to our level so that we can see Him.

His first step was to limit Himself to a Spirit-Body called the Word. God would always live in His Word.

God has to severely limit Himself in order to live in Heaven. The infinity of God is simply awe-inspiring. However big we can think, God is still bigger.

PSALM 113:6   Who humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth!

The thoughts of the invisible God would be referred to as the Father. These thoughts were to be expressed through His Word, which would be referred to as the Son.

Our thoughts often run much deeper than the words we use to express them.

JOHN 1:3   All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

God chose to speak His creation into existence. He used His Word-body to utter the words of creation.

His Spirit-Body lips spoke all the words that were needed to create the universe.

Somehow there was enormous power in those words because they became energy and matter. Creation is beyond our ability to understand. The most powerful law in Science is the law of conservation of energy. It states that energy cannot be created or destroyed. No scientist has ever created energy. Scientists cannot create something from nothing. But God proved that He was above and beyond the laws of Science because He created matter and energy supernaturally from nothing. No one else has ever managed to do that. Only God can create. He not only creates the energy and matter of the universe but He also created the incredibly fine-tuned laws of physics which control the universe.

Scientists cannot create energy. They also have no clue where the laws of science came from. John’s Gospel shows that Jesus simply comes from a much higher dimension as He effortlessly does things that are far beyond any human or natural ability.

Scientists desperately claim that a Big Bang explosion (whatever it was and however it exploded are complete mysteries that have never been repeated. Good science must be repeatable.) This explosion was supposed to create all the energy in the universe. This contradicts the most powerful law of Physics which is the first law of thermodynamics. It claims that energy cannot be created. So the Big Bang theory starts by contradicting the most powerful first law of Physics. Not a good start.

Forget the false creation claims of scientists. Are your problems far beyond the ability of humans to solve? Then Jesus is the Person that you need to speak to. He made this unimaginably huge universe. Any huge problems that you and I have are very tiny in comparison to His unimaginably great creative skills. We just have to learn how to hand our problems over to Him. This process is called faith.

Thus, John introduces Jesus as the God Who created us and Who can also override the laws of Nature and society and thereby change the situations that are threatening to overwhelm us. When the massive walls of Jericho supernaturally collapsed, one section remained standing. Rahab, the harlot, lived there. She had lived a bad life but then chose to believe in the God of the Jews. Such is the power of faith that in the turmoil and chaos of that massive destruction of the great city, her part of the wall stood undamaged. God is an Eagle says John, with a tremendous eye for detail that preserved an individual and her family in the midst of turbulent chaos and destruction of Jericho. This God is worth knowing.

PSALM 91:7   A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand;

but it shall not come nigh thee.

God’s Word responded to Rahab’s faith and was the safest protection for her.

JOHN 1:4   In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

But the invisible spirit within our bodies is more than mind and more than thoughts. It is also life. We have no idea what life is as it comes from a much higher dimension.

The Life that God lives in His Word-Body is the only good example that will illuminate the minds of men and women so that they can live their lives as a mutually benefiting community or family, that is in complete obedience to the Word of God.

ACTS 2:44   And all that believed were together, and had all things common;

45     And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.

The first church was incredibly sharing and caring. Could we but be restored to their example?

Individuals controlled by God live their lives in a manner that aims at the welfare of humanity. God’s love for everyone, the individual and the group, is expressed through the lives of each individual that He illuminates.

The ultimate example was Jesus. He represented God coming down from a higher dimension from a Spirit Body to a human Body. In Jesus, the invisible God was literally coming down to our human level.

COLOSSIANS 2:8   … Christ.

9     For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

The yellow circle represents All of the supernatural Spirit of God Who lived in Jesus. The natural Man, Jesus, Who was on the outside of God, was going to live a life that would show us what God was like if God was also a human being.

Because all of the supernatural Spirit of God lived in Jesus, He was called the Son of God.

Jesus is never called "God the Son" because God is not a man.

NUMBERS 23:19   God is not a man,

God was called "Father" in the Old Testment but never "God the Father". God the Father means He had full control of the Man Jesus in whom He dwelled.

JOHN 1:5   And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

Jesus was just too good. Humans could not keep up with Him.  “Love your enemies”. “Turn the other cheek”. “It is more blessed to give than to receive”.

Humans reply, No way!  “I want it all and I want it now”, says a popular song. The singer died of Aids. Getting everything did not help him.

Obsessed with the inner darkness of hating enemies, responding to wrong-doing with a lust for revenge, and being insatiably greedy and selfish, the humans of His day could not live with so dazzlingly bright a light. His Presence exposed human shortcomings and sins. Sinful man only had one desire and that was to somehow turn off this disturbingly bright Light as darkness could not remain in the presence of light. So the Jewish leaders endlessly sought to accuse Him because He so revealed their faults. His harshest criticisms were reserved for the religious leaders. (Imagine what He would say to our self-satisfied pastors who claim all the church income if He came back today? In the New Testament, a pastor was never put in charge of  a church.)

Messiah was coming as promised but the religious Jews of that day would reject Him. Light and darkness cannot live together. It has to be one or the other, not both at the same time. When given a chance, they chose Barabbas, a murderer, rather than Jesus, the life-giver Who raised the dead.

God never went to the religious leaders

JOHN 1:6   There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.

God had one man who could stand in the light of Jesus. A prophet who grew up in the wilderness away from the corrupting influences of the religious Jews. Away from ruthless and greedy religious people who were obsessed with self-gain and their own self-righteousness. (How much do our church systems corrupt the people?).

JOHN 1:7   The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.

John came to tell the people about Jesus. John had never seen Jesus before, but only John could identify the Messiah, who was a Man walking among men. People, if they wanted to find the Messiah, had to look in the direction that John was pointing. People could not choose their own Messiah. They were horrified when Messiah came from outside all their religious groupings. They were doubly horrified when Messiah condemned their favourite religious leaders. Jews were scared to disagree with their religious leaders, just like churchgoers are scared to disagree with their pastor.

But they were warned in advance because John also condemned the religious leaders. He called them vipers. These are poisonous snakes with poison in their mouths. The open mouths of preachers who preach unscriptural doctrines are the gates of hell.

So, a prophet will not point or direct the people to their religious groups and leaders. He will direct them away from their unscriptural religious viewpoints.

For His first Coming, John pointed out Jesus as He walked among men.

Before His second Coming, William Branham's revelations pointed out Jesus as He walks through the pages of the King James Bible and thus helps us to understand the written mysteries of Scripture.

JOHN 1:8   He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light.

John was a bright light of truth as long as he quoted Scripture and knew his place in the divine plan as the forerunner of the first Coming of Jesus. He dazzled the people in his short and powerful ministry. But people are so easily influenced to hero-worship a great prophet, as when Nebuchadnezzar named Daniel after his god’s name, Belteshazzar.

Thus, John’s Gospel specifically mentioned that the prophet who foreruns the coming of Jesus is not the Light.

Only Jesus is the Light. Jesus is the Word. No prophet of today can in any way replace the Word, and no prophet’s quotes can ever be above the Word. (Message pastors who claim to follow William Branham, must please take note. They corrupt his quotes into unscriptural statements as they place his quotes above Scripture by claiming that he is the Voice of God. They develop doctrines based on  quote.)

JOHN 1:9   That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

Jesus, the Word of God, is the only true light. The Word of God offers guidance to individuals both for their personal lives (their little puddle of self-will, which is the small picture) and for the church age that they are living in (God’s Will, which is the Big Picture that flows as the River of Life through the 2000 years of church history and through the pages of the Bible).

Accept Jesus as your Saviour. That means you are a vessel that He has picked up. Live Holy. That means He is cleaning you up. Do outreach and receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost. That means He fills you up.  Then you become available for God to use.  You can now be guided by God to move you out of the small puddle of your own self-will and needs. But we also have to allow God to move us away from our unscriptural church beliefs and the unscriptural leadership of a one-man church head.

Then God can begin to use you if you allow Him to override your self-will and your church's will and place you into the fast-flowing current of His perfect Will, His Big Picture.

MATTHEW 27:32   And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name: him they compelled to bear his cross.

One role model is Simon of Cyrene who was forced against his own self-will to carry the cross of Jesus and was thus briefly in God’s Will. We usually find God’s Will to be very confusing as it is so very different from our self-will, which instinctively seeks our own selfish gain, comfort, and security.

ISAIAH 55:8  For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

God’s Will makes the comfortable uncomfortable. It trains us to expect the unexpected. We need to unlearn and relearn. When we lose control of our planned lives, we find His purpose for our lives. The way up is down. Human failure plants the seeds of spiritual success. God’s ways are very different from our own ways. We are used as vessels to serve others not ourselves.

JOHN 1:10   He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

The invisible Spirit of God came down to the level of His physical creation when He lived inside the Body of Jesus. But He came humbly. Jesus was born of an obscure virgin in a smelly stable. She had a bad reputation because she was pregnant before she got married. Thus, many regarded Jesus as illegitimate. Nazareth was a minor town known for bad behavior.

JOHN 1:46   And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?

Joseph was an obscure and unknown carpenter.

Jesus came into the world with no natural advantages. Thus, the world ignored Him because they expected the Creator to be a superstar with a fanfare of angels.

JOHN 1:11   He came unto his own, and his own received him not.

He came to the Jews, the descendants of Abraham, who lived in the land of Israel that God had promised to Abraham. He came and fulfilled the prophecies of the Messiah. But He came in a humble and lowly manner, walking in dusty sandals and riding on a donkey. Talk about a Nobody.

Roman emperors rode on powerful horses alongside their tough, iron-clad soldiers. Now they looked impressive.

JOHN 1:12   But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:

God was known as Jehovah (and various other names that expressed His various attributes) in the Old Testament when He lived in Heaven, above the Jews.

Now God came down to earth inside the Man Jesus to live with the Jews. God with us. Emmanuel.

So God took on a human name, Jesus Christ.

For the first time, God had Blood in the veins of the human Body that He lived in, which could be shed for the forgiveness of our sins. Thus only the human Name of Jesus could save us. So God never called Himself Jehovah again. The name Jehovah that dominated the Old Testament never appears in the New Testament.

God had become a Man. A Kinsman redeemer. The Name Jesus was the only Name that offered salvation and cleansing from sin by His Blood.

God’s relationship towards man was one of grace, which means an undeserved favour that cannot be bought or earned. It can only be freely offered and gratefully accepted, by faith.

Man’s relationship with God can then only be one of faith, believing that God will do whatever needs to be done in order to save us. We cannot save ourselves in any way. We simply believe by faith that Jesus can save us.

Those people who can repent of their sins and accept the free offer of Jesus’s great Sacrifice to atone for their sins, gain power with God. His Blood washes our sins away and the Life that was in His Blood, the great Holy Spirit, then comes to indwell us as we become born again of the Spirit. His Life in us makes us new creatures.

Original sin and salvation

Our new minds, not our bodies,  are then made in the image of God, Who is a Spirit and not a fleshly Person.

JOHN 1:13   Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Natural blood in the male sex organ causes an erection that leads to the sex act. The veil of virginity of the woman is torn in the process. The life in the male sperm cell is clothed in a body of flesh inside the womb of a woman.

This human life or foetus grows behind a torn veil. Thus it produces a life of death.

No man ever born of woman has lived a thousand years.

GENESIS 2:17   But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,

thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

All the fruit trees were declared to be good on the third day that God put life on the earth.

GENESIS 1:12   And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind,

and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

13   And the evening and the morning were the third day.

There was no natural fruit that was forbidden.

So what was "the forbidden fruit"?

“Carnal knowledge” is the legal definition of the sex act.

Sex is the only human activity that is good and evil. It is evil outside of marriage, even the day before a wedding. Then it immediately becomes good as soon as the wedding has taken place.

Born from behind the torn veil of a woman, we gain a life that has to die. The evidence of this is the scar on our stomach, the belly button. The mark of the beast on our bodies.  This means we will end up in a grave which is a scar on the surface of the earth.

The mark of the beast on our minds, which makes us turn away from Jesus and the Bible, will send our souls to the Lake of Fire.

II PETER 3:8   But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

No man ever made 1000 years. Methuselah was the oldest, he made 969 years.

Thus every human, born of sex, is doomed to die.

But then John introduces Jesus as the supernatural God Who alone can overcome all the barriers of sin and death.

JOHN 1:13   Which were born, not of blood,

nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man,

but of God.

Eternal life must come a totally different way. The Body of Jesus was conceived behind the intact veil of the virgin Mary. There was no sex involved.

MATTHEW 1:20   But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife:

for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.

Whoever places the seed of life into a woman’s womb is the father of that child. So the Holy Ghost is the Father of Jesus.

Thus the Holy Ghost is "God the Father" only when Jesus was conceived.

MATTHEW 1:18   Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.

This verse has the first mention of "Holy Ghost" in the Bible.

A ghost is the spirit of a dead person. Thus Jesus was conceived to die.

The wise men recognized this by bringing Him Myrrh as a young Child.  Myrrh is used to embalm the dead. Jesus came to perform an acceptable service to the supernatural God in Him. He came to die for our sins.

God cannot die. So God had to have a body to dwell in. When the Holy Ghost left that body, the Man Jesus died.

Being the Ghost of a dead Man, the Holy Ghost could enter hell to defeat Satan and dump all of our sins on him.

"God the Father" is never mentioned in the Old Testament.

COLOSSIANS 2: 9    For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

Everything that is God, lived inside the Body of the Man Jesus.

So Jesus, the first sinless man since the fall of Adam, had no sin and thus did not have to die.

JOHN 1:14   And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

God’s Word, that had created everything, had now created or begotten the only human Body for God to fully dwell in.

God became one of us. He was the only perfect Man. We could not see the invisible God Who lived in Jesus, but from His actions and words we could see what kind of a Spirit lived within Him.

He urged people to repent. He healed the sick. He raised the dead. He performed miracles. Only God could behave like that.

Then He told people what was in their thoughts. That was the sign of Messiah.

II CHRONICLES 6:30   Then hear thou from heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive, and render unto every man according unto all his ways, whose heart thou knowest;

(for thou only knowest the hearts of the children of men:)

The greatest prophet is very inferior to Jesus

JOHN 1:15   John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me.

John the Baptist was an amazing prophet. Like a spiritual axe-man he cut down the religious leaders' opinions of themselves and smashed-up the religious denominations of that day who thought that their “churches” and religious leaders were telling them the truth. He pointed only to Jesus. Not to any religious leader or assembly. (Imagine what he would say if he addressed modern day church leaders. Do I hear the word “vipers”? O ye with unscriptural poison under your tongues?)

As the great prophet of that day he could have bragged about the importance of himself and his ministry, compared to other people. But he set a tremendous example.

Instead of focusing on how he towered over other people (which he did) he rather compared himself to Jesus and realized that he was incomparably inferior.

His whole purpose was just to prepare the way for Jesus. He must point out Jesus and reveal Him to the people, then John the Baptist must get out of the way so that the people could follow Jesus.

(Message pastors who keep elevating brother Branham please take note).

The prophet John was the signpost. Jesus was the destination. If you only get as far as the signpost you will never reach the destination.

A prophet only fulfils a part of the Scripture. Jesus is all of the Scripture.

John the Baptist came on the scene in the year 30 AD for about six months and was very important. But the apostle John had already written that Jesus came on the scene right at the beginning, as far back as we humans can imagine. So Jesus outperforms John the Baptist completely. A few Bible verses point to John the Baptist. But the whole Bible points to Jesus, if we just knew how to interpret the verses.

Jesus, he Word, is just so much greater than any amazing prophet.  (Message believers please take note).

JOHN 1:16   And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.

Jesus was introduced and revealed by John the Baptist as a Man walking among men. Then the Apostle John records that we did not have to receive John the Baptist, the great forerunner. We received the Jesus Who he revealed. John fades out as the fulness of Jesus takes over the stage.

Jesus provides what John can only talk about, Redemption.

John can tell us to repent. But Jesus makes repentance work. Jesus died, shed His Blood on our behalf to wash away our sins. Then the Spirit of Christ comes to dwell within us. With the mind of Christ in us we have a new insight into the world and its challenges. With Christ’s Spirit inside us He fights our battles.

John could talk about all this. But only Jesus could suffer and bring it to pass. Thus the grace of God towards us is manifest in the suffering of Jesus for us. Then there is a double dose of grace because only Jesus can give us the faith to respond to His Gospel plan.

So the Jesus Who died for us and Who then moves into our hearts to give us a brand new life is infinitely superior to the prophet John who could only introduce us to Jesus and tell us about Him. Jesus alone could make salvation and the new birth happen. So He is number One. Neither John nor any other prophet can even begin to compare with Him.

JOHN 1:17   For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

Moses was the great prophet of the Law. A towering figure who we regard with the highest respect. Yet he was also the first man to break all ten commandments when he threw down the tables of stone and smashed them. That symbolizes man. Human frailty and self-will on the one side and yet dazzling achievements like the opening of the Red Sea when he was in God’s perfect Will. Breaking the Ten Commndments meant that the Aaronic priesthood would eventually be broken as Caiaphas broke the Law by tearing his robe as he condemned Jesus. Then the Temple veil tore in half as God left.

The Apostle John comes to a dramatic dividing line. He speaks of the greatest prophet of the Old Testament who wrote the first five majestic Books of the Old Testament that introduce us to God. The man who got the Law that was supposed to guide us to God. But human weakness could not keep the Law. Ambitious Jewish religious leaders, power crazy and greedy for gain, subjected the people to their own interpretations of the prophet Moses.

MATTHEW 23:2   Saying, The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat:

The religious leaders got their authority (symbolized by a seat) by saying, “The prophet Moses said …”,  “The prophet said…”,   “The prophet said….”

Does this sound familiar?

Then the religious leaders used the quotes of the prophet Moses to oppose and reject Jesus, the Word.

Message churches today are based on quotes while the rejected written Word stands outside the church door.

So the apostle John draws a line. The prophet Moses brought the Law but the grace and truth of the Word (which is Jesus) are far more important than any prophet. Prophets, like Moses, have their limits and their mistakes but there are no limits to God’s grace nor to the Truth of the Bible.

The Law could only serve to condemn as its standards were too high for humans to keep.  So Jesus enters with the Gospel of Grace which is far superior to the Law. The Law condemns, but Grace saves. The Law could not remove the desire to sin. Grace provides a born-again experience that changes the heart and removes the desire to sin.

Once again Jesus triumphs as He stands far above the greatest Old Testament prophet Moses. Yet Moses, armed with a shepherd’s staff, destroyed the greatest army of his day. Now that was something.

Yet eventually a bigger enemy, Death, claimed Moses.

But Jesus, armed only with a cross and a crown of thorns in His human weakness, destroyed the greatest collection of demons and devils that were ever assembled in one place. Satan could only hide in terror as he was totally outmatched. Jesus then rose on Sunday morning having conquered Sin, Death, Hell, and the Grave. That victory eclipsed Moses’ greatest success. Jesus conquered the Death that had conquered Moses. Moses and the Red Sea is now part of history. Jesus on the cross is not just part of history but it is also something that still changes our lives today if we have the grace to accept by faith what He did for us. Because His grace offers us our salvation for free. Now that is real truth.

JOHN 1:18   No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

The problem that we humans have with God is that we cannot see Him. Humans cannot see a Spirit and God is a Spirit.

JOHN 4: 24   God is a Spirit.

So "God the Father", the eternal Spirit, lived inside the Body of the Man Jesus, the Son of God. The only begotten Son means that God only made one Man in which the fulness of the Godhead could dwell. There will never be another Man like Jesus Christ.

Two forerunners had the spirit of Elijah

JOHN 1:19   And this is the record of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, Who art thou?

John the Baptist hit Israel like a spiritual tornado. He condemned the religious organizations and their leaders (Church leaders take note) and warned of the Messiah to come. The Jews became alarmed. His blunt forcefulness overawed his listeners. He spoke with authority. He sought no popularity, so representatives were sent to ask him who he was.

JOHN 1:20   And he confessed, and denied not; but confessed, I am not the Christ.

Christ means “anointed one”. John the Baptist had the Holy Ghost from his mother’s womb. Thus he confessed that he was an anointed one. He could not deny that.

But immediately explained that he was not THE Christ,  the anointed one.

He knew that he must never try to pretend any form of equality with Jesus.

In John’s eyes, Jesus was always Number One.

JOHN 1:21   And they asked him, What then? Art thou Elias? And he saith, I am not. Art thou that prophet? And he answered, No.

Now comes a tricky question which reveals how well John knew what his ministry was.

"Art thou Elias?" (Greek for Elijah). He said, "No".

But Jesus said he was Elias.

MATTHEW 17: 12     But I say unto you, That Elias is come already,

and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them.

13     Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.

How can we explain that he was not Elias and yet was Elias?

MALACHI 4:5   Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD:

6     And he shall turn the heart of

the fathers to the children,

and the heart of

the children to their fathers,

lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

Elijah has to do two things. He must turn fathers to the children and children to the fathers.

John the Baptist only did the first half.

LUKE 1:17   And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias,

to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children,

and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

The disobedient fathers of the Jewish race, stuck in the traditions of the Law, had to be turned by John the Baptist to their children, the younger generation of Jesus and His disciples who had the truth of the New Testament.

That is why Jesus said that John was Elias (Greek for Elijah).

But there was a second part to this ministry. The disciples would become the fathers of the early church.

There would later be a falling away from truth due to human leadership. Political leadership forced the Trinity onto the church in AD 325 at the Council of Nicaea. That led to the Dark Ages where millions were killed to establish the Roman Catholic church.

In AD 1520 Martin Luther in Germany would restore Salvation by faith alone. Around 1750 John Wesley in England would restore holiness and outreach which led to the great missionary age. Then in 1906 the Pentecostal revival restored the baptism of the Holy Ghost. So all that remained now was for an end time Elijah to restore the truths of the Bible that the early church knew but which the reformers had been unable to find out. We are the children at the end time that need to be restored back to the apostolic fathers who wrote the New Testament.

William Branham was the end time Elias (or Elijah) who would do that.

So that is why John said that he was not the Elias promised in Malachi, simply because that prophecy referred to two different ministries about 2000 years apart. No one prophet could have done both of those ministries.

Then another prophet like Moses is also involved.

The Jews also asked, “Art thou that prophet?”.

DEUTERONOMY 18:15    The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken;

Moses was prophesying of Jesus.

John the forerunner immeditely said , No! In no way did he compare himself to Jesus. John, as the prophet, never claimed to be the Voice of God.

This prophecy from Moses said that the Jews must listen to Jesus as He was going to change Law into grace. Moses was the dominant prophet of the Law. He was the undisputed leader of the Jews. Then Jesus would arise as the undisputed Leader of grace. He would pay the price for our sins making Himself the only Door to Heaven.

As Moses led the first exodus of the Jews out of Egypt, so Jesus would lead the second exodus of the church out of Judaism.

The incredibly powerful impact of John the Baptist’s ministry made the Jews sense that this was a time of great change. So they anxiously questioned John to find out who he was and what was going on.

John had smashed into their religiously corrupt but comfortable “church” systems. But they were worried because John did not come from one of their established denominations like the Pharisees or Saducees or Herodians or Priests or wilderness Essenes or Zealots. In their minds, it was impossible for God to move outside of an established denomination. God would surely use one of their recognized religious leaders to introduce any Messiah.

(In today's world, there are 45,000 different denominations and churches. Which one will prepare us for the catching up of the church when Jesus returns?)

John opposed every religious organization

JOHN 1:22   Then said they unto him, Who art thou? that we may give an answer to them that sent us. What sayest thou of thyself?

These men who were asking were just puppets of a system. They were not seeking truth for themselves.

They obeyed other people’s orders and had to report back to headquarters. (Headquarters is where only a quarter of each head works).

So they insisted that John should clarify his credentials. Where was he trained? What Bible school had he qualified in? Which denomination was he co-operating with? They wanted his CV with all his relevant qualifications.

He surely had to be in one of their religious organizations.

JOHN 1:23   He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias.

John’s answer was a stunning shock.

"I went into the wilderness at a young age. There I learned to communicate with God. He told me to have nothing to do with your religious leaders or Bible schools or your religious denominations nd churches. God told me to fulfil the prophecy of Isaiah. I must be a rugged voice that survived in a harsh wilderness. There is no deception in a wilderness. Things are tough but straight forward. My voice must be a piercing trumpet that will disturb the people and condemn the devious religious leaders who, with their plastic smiles and hatred of criticism, have led the people down crooked paths for their ill-gotten material gain. Smashing the corrupt leadership is the only way to straighten out the people so that they can accept the straight way of the coming Messiah Who is the Lord God. God wants people to repent of their sins,  live a decent life, and believe the written Word of God. Salvation is in the hands of the coming Messiah, not in the different religious groupings or denominations".

Just as the common people cheered Jesus when He rode in on a donkey on Palm Sunday, so they were led astray by their religious leaders and ended up condemning Jesus on the following Thursday in Pilate’s judgement hall. The religious leaders are always the biggest threat to the truth at the time of the coming of the Lord.

So who must you watch out for today? Pastors. Bishops. Apostles. Any other self-appointed church leader.

JOHN 1:24   And they which were sent were of the Pharisees.

The servants of the Pharisees were worried. The Pharisees ruled the (unscriptural) synagogues that only came into fashion after the Babylonian captivity. There had been no Temple as it had been destroyed. So the Pharisees operated outside the Temple worship. Then, to maintain their power over the people and their income, the Pharisees erected synagogues in Israel after they returned from the Babylonian kingdom. Then they made new rules like putting a Pharisee in charge of a synagogue. This was very unscriptural but it turned out to be an efficient way of controlling the people and building up the Pharisee denomination. “Denomination” is also unscriptural but it is a deadly efficient way of subjecting and binding people into a wrong system.

Today’s churches follow that example by elevating a pastor to be in charge of a church. Yet the word “pastor” is only mentioned once in the New Testament, and frighteningly, is condemned six times in the Old Testament. So there is no New Testament authority for a pastor to rule a church. The pastor is regarded as the head of the church. But nobody can have two heads. Thus in Laodicea, the last church age, the true Head, Jesus Christ, stands outside the door of the church.

JOHN 1:25   And they asked him, and said unto him, Why baptizest thou then, if thou be not that Christ, nor Elias, neither that prophet?

Now they wanted to know why he was introducing a baptism. This was new.

JOHN 1:26   John answered them, saying, I baptize with water: but there standeth one among you, whom ye know not;

John said that his water baptism would finally reveal the Messiah Who was at present unknown to the Jews. The Jews were baptized by John as a symbol of their repentance for their sins. But Messiah would have no sin.

So His baptism would simply be the act of washing the sacrificial Lamb Who would be slain so that His Blood could atone for the sins of the world. The spirit of a dead man is called a ghost. Having died on the cross the Spirit of Jesus would descend into the fiery torments of hell as the Holy Ghost to defeat Satan and take from him the keys of death and hell.

II CHRONICLES 4:6   He made also ten lavers, and put five on the right hand, and five on the left, to wash in them: such things as they offered for the burnt offering they washed in them;

but the sea was for the priests to wash in.

Jesus was walking amongst the people but they needed a prophet to point Him out to them.

We need to understand the mysteries of God

At his second Coming we would need a prophet to reveal the mysteries that the early church once believed and which had got lost in the Dark Ages. Once these lost mysteries were revealed we would be able to see Jesus walking around amongst the pages of the King James Bible. We would be able to understand why He twice wrote with His finger on the ground when they wanted to stone a sinful woman.

After His resurrection in Matthew, Mary held Him by His feet. In John's Gospel Jesus tells Mary not to touch Him. We need to be able to understand what these different statements mean.

Two angels were in the empty tomb but only one angel is mentioned by Matthew and Mark. They are trying to tell us something. We need to know why there are these differences if we claim that the mystery of God (the Word) has been revealed. These Gospel writers are not four authors giving their opinions. There is one Holy Ghost inspiring these four men. So each difference is trying to tell us something.

Instead, we give the usual ignorance-cloaking answer of the churches, “It is not important. It does not affect my salvation”. What we are actually saying is that we do not know and we also do not care. Such a shoddy attitude. Actually, you are saved if you have repented and surrendered your heart to Jesus. After that, nothing can affect your salvation. Unless you take on the mark of the beast.

But your lack of interest in what Jesus did, shows that you have no deep relationship with Him. Just like the five foolish virgins. Clean women representing saved people in churches who are not really interested. No oil to light a lamp which would enable them to see or illuminate the Word of God.

So they rejoice in their ignorance, thinking that they know Jesus when they do not know the Bible.

But Jesus is the Word of God. So if we do not know the Bible then we must not really claim to know Jesus.

But in today’s world ignorance of the Scripture is regarded as a virtue.

JOHN 1:27   He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose.

John, the great prophet and forerunner of Jesus, again stresses his inferiority towards Jesus. This sets the example for any prophet. They are great men compared to us but very insignificant when compared to Jesus.

Now comes a tremendous Eagle-insight. Shoe laces or latchets?

Daniel’s image showed Babylon as a head of gold with the Persian empire as the chest and arms. The Greek empire was the stomach and thighs. Then came the iron legs of the Roman empire. But everything changed direction in the feet.

During the time of these Gentile kingdoms, salvation ran through the Jews not the Gentiles. Salvation is represented by the vertical red line behind the Gentile image. Then, at the cross, there would be a “crossing over” as the red salvation line changes to become a horizontal line through the feet. Thus the feet represent the 2000 years of the 7 church ages. Pagan Rome was solid iron. Roman Catholics are the bits of iron in the feet. The Bride is the clay in the feet. Out of the whole image, plant life can only grow in clay soil.

The Catholic church and the Bride would endlessly oppose each other and not mix. The early church would have the truth but the Roman Catholic church would start to undermine Scripture by introducing an unscriptural word "Trinity" into the Bible at the Nicene Council in AD 325 . The name of God would be lost as God would be presented as three People. The Father is Jehovah, the Son is Jesus but the Holy Ghost does not have a name in Scripture. Two names for three People. Not very good.

But the name "Jehovah" is never mentioned in the New Testament. Trinitrians cannot explain why.

When we ask for one name for God, they cannot find one name for three People. So the name of God gets replaced by three titles.

The name of God, according to Christians,  is the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. But what is that name? Christians have no idea. So they have lost the name of God. Very careless.

Let us make man in our own image. Two people on earth is the image of three People in Heaven? Really?

Eve is a woman. How can she be the image of the masculine Godhead?

Trinity is not such a bright idea.

The Egyptian trinity had the same problem. They could not find one name for their triune god. So they gave each of the three persons a name. (Horus is often called Osiris and Isis is his wife.   Seb is the son.)

Isis is a bad name today thanks to the terrorist group ISIS.  So we must watch out for spiritual terrorists who take us away from what is written in Scripture.

Then the church would get more and more unscriptural with archbishops, cardinals, and popes. Eventually, most of the truth of the Bible that was known by the early church died out in the Dark Ages. In 1520 Martin Luther in Germany restored salvation by faith alone. Around 1750 John Wesley restored holiness and outreach which led to the great missionary age that started around 1790. Then in 1906 was a Pentecostal revival that restored the baptism of the Holy Ghost.

After that we needed an end time prophet to restore the rest of the written mysteries that the early church once knew. But the written mysteries of the church ages are sealed up by Seven Seals in Revelation Chapter 6. These have to be revealed which is the equivalent of undoing the shoelaces. Once the shoelaces are undone, the foot of the Gentile image is revealed which explains the history of the seven church ages.

We will then understand the 2000 years of church history.

We will then understand what the early church believed.

We will then be able to be restored back to the beliefs of the early church.

John the Baptist was killed before the first church started on the Day of Pentecost, and he thus did not know the beliefs of the early church. Thus he could not reveal these mysteries of the early church. So John the Baptist said that he could introduce Messiah but he was certainly not worthy to try to undo the shoelaces which represented the revealing of the mysteries of the Seven Seals. The Seven Seals would only be written years later by the apostle John, long after John the Baptist was dead. As a prophet, John the Baptist could forsee that these mysteries would one day be unraveled by brother Branham, the end time Elijah, during the last church age. But John the Baptist knew he was not the prophet to attempt that ministry.

John the Baptist had a remarkable spiritual insight to know exactly what the limits of his powerful ministry were. He was an amazing man. Each prophet has strict limits on his ministry. (Message pastors please note).

Crossing over is essential

JOHN 1:28   These things were done in Bethabara beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing.

Bethabara means “House of the ford”  or “place of the crossing”.

Why is this remote town which we battle to track down where it actually was, mentioned at all?

God, the great Eagle-eyed Spirit, has a Big Picture in His mind as well as a keen insight into the tiny details that most Christians dismiss as unnecessary. Saying, "Unnecessary or irrelevant", is just another way of avoiding having to say “I have no clue and I am also not in the least interested”. This is not the way that a bride-to-be will address a statement made by her dearly beloved.

In other words, tell Jesus that you are not interested in something that He wrote in the Bible and you can be pretty sure that your name will be crossed off the list of people that He wants in His Bride.

We have just seen the “crossing over” of salvation from the Jews into the feet of the Gentile image which represent the 2000 years of church history.

Bethabara is the “place of the crossing” of the river Jordan. So John the Baptist baptized here because He knew that the Law of the Old Testament would "cross over" into the Grace of the New Testament when Messiah arrived.

Three significant crossings of the river Jordan had occurred in this region. Each crossing represented a future "crossing over" into a deeper realm.

Joshua and the Jews crossed into the Promised Land nd attcked Jericho.

Elijah and Elisha crossed from West to East as they moved out of Israel. Elijah was then caught up to Heaven in a chariot of fire.

Elisha crossed back into Israel from the East bank to the West bank.

What do these crossings mean? Let us catch the Big Picture.

The Law of Moses would fail to make the Jews better people. So to symbolize this, God would not let him enter the Promised Land. Joshua then represents the Holy Spirit baptism. Jordan represents death, dying to oneself. So Joshua did more than cross over into the Promised Land. He represented the real “crossing over” which happens when Christians die to themselves and allow the Holy Spirit to fill their lives and guide them into the perfect Scriptural Word of God. This is the “crossing over” from self-will (our small picture) into God’s Will (the Big Picture).

The first church age, while they were guided by the apostles, achieved this. Then Nicolaitanism, the human leadership that God hates, took the church away from Scripture until most of the truth that the early church had, was lost in the Dark Ages.

The last part of God’s Big Picture is a promise that two groups of people would be restored to the original Bible truth. The Tabernacle had a seven branched candlestick (representing the seven church ages) and a table with 12 loaves of shewbread that had to be eaten in the Holy Place (representing the 144,000 from the 12 tribes of Israel that need to be in the Promised Land).

So Elijah crossed over the river Jordan in order to be caught up to Heaven in a chariot. A lovely illustration of the end time church children that Elijah restores to the written Bible teachings of the apostolic church fathers of the New Testament. These children (the last age Bride that brother Branham restores to the Bible) are then caught up to Heaven to meet the Lord in the air. The Bride "crosses over" from mortality to immortality, from earth to Heaven.

But another prophet, the Elijah to the Jews, also has to learn about the written mysteries from brother Branham’s teachings. After the catching up of the church, he then "crosses back over" Jordan in order to take the early church Gospel back to the 144,000 Jews in great Tribulation.

All this "crossing over" depends entirely on one Person only, Jesus Christ. He alone can bring it all to pass.

So the apostle John now brings Jesus clearly into focus.