Jesus Christ, The Mystery Of God

Paul makes it clear in his letter to the Colossians, that Jesus Christ is the mystery of God, in which all treasures are hidden in the form of wisdom and knowledge (see Colossians 2:2-3).

 

Colossians 2:2-3:
2 My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ,

3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

The Entry Into The Deeper Understanding Of God's Truth

According to this, it is important to the Father in Heaven that we enter and live in a deeper understanding of His truth, which is Jesus Christ.

 

Therefore, God has instructed His servants to teach and support His people by unlocking the mysteries in Jesus Christ for this time, related to the hidden manna, so that the saints would achieve spiritual maturity which is needed for the coming time.

The Higher Measure Of Revelatory Knowledge

It is essential that we as the people of God move in a higher measure of revelation than we did in the past, according to the message to the church of Pergamon (note: means 'stronghold'). The higher measure of this revelatory knowledge is equal to the 'hidden manna' mentioned in Revelation 2:17b.

 

… 17b To the one who is victorious, I will give some of the hidden manna. …

The gift of the hidden manna contains the spiritual nourishment of the 'undiscovered' Word of God, leading people to entering into a new facet of identity in Christ through revelatory knowledge, which has not been known up to the present time (see Revelation 2:17c).

 

… 17c I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it.

This spiritual nourishment means taking up the Word of God in the spirit for this or the coming time, as the seat of the spirit is located in the area of the belly and stomach (see John 6:32-35; Matthew 4:4 i.c.w. John 7:38).

 

32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread (note: manna) from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread (note: manna) from heaven.

33 For the bread (note: manna) of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread (note: manna).”

35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread (note: manna) of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

 

4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

 

“ … 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”

The Manna At The Time Of Moses

While the people of Israel were in the wilderness under the leadership of Moses, it was the manna (note: word => truth), which manifested itself overnight (note: undiscovered) together with the dew (note: revelation => knowledge) on the soil of the desert ground (see Exodus 16:13b-14).

 

… 13b and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp.

14 When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor.

A part of the manna was commanded to be placed in the ark of the covenant by Aaron, which is a representation of Jesus Christ (see Exodus 16:32-33 i.c.w. Hebrews 9:4b).

 

32 Moses said, “This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Take an omer of manna and keep it for the generations to come, so they can see the bread I gave you to eat in the wilderness when I brought you out of Egypt.’ ”

33 So Moses said to Aaron, “Take a jar and put an omer of manna in it. Then place it before the Lord to be kept for the generations to come.”

 

… 4b This ark contained the gold jar of manna, Aaron’s staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant.

So, it becomes very clear that the manna that Jesus Christ gives according to Revelation 2:17b is concealed in Him. Jesus Christ gives His hidden manna to those who are aware of their position as a spiritual principality (note: Pergamon => stronghold) in Him. As a result, the Holy Spirit leads saints to a supernatural understanding of the depths of God through the Holy Spirit, as revealed in 1 Corinthians 2:10-16.

 

… 10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.

11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.

13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.

14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.

15 The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, 16 for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

In connection with that scripture the term 'hidden manna' can also be called 'manna of the Spirit'. It means the things that only the spirit can receive and which cannot be analyzed by the human mind or sense.

The Meaning Of Manna

The Hebrew word for 'manna' literally means => A) 'what' or ' the what' because of the question 'What is it?' of the people of Israel at their time of transition in the wilderness. B) The manna signifies the divine provisions of grace which are demonstrated in the miraculous. C) It also indicates the nourishment that can only come from God. That is why Christ described the manna in John 6:31-58 as nourishment in the Person of Himself. The Bible says that the Lord has fed the Israelites in the desert with manna. D) Manna was considered the food of heaven. As divine nourishment, the manna represented spiritual thoughts and ideals (see Psalm 78:25; Exodus 16; Joshua 5:12). From John 6 we can see that the manna is Jesus Christ. Revelation 2:17 adds that the manna is spiritual in its origin. <= (part excerpt of the 'Prophet's Dictionary' by Paula A. Price, Ph. D.; page 327)
 

Furthermore, the hidden manna also contains the things you can't remember of a dream you had, for example, even though you might have prepared the dream field well. One of the reasons for God's encoding is because these hidden things are meant to make our spirits stronger, similar to what happens when we pray in tongues (see 1 Corinthians 14:2.4a).

 

2 For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit. …

4a Anyone who speaks in a tongue edifies themselves, …
 

Finally, all other things that we can remember of any sequence of a God given dream serve to interpret them with the Holy Spirit. By this analyzing and interpreting, our mind is submitted to Him (note: Holy Spirit) in order to receive God's spiritual instruction for us in the earthly realm.

The Necessity Of Spiritual Hunger

In summary, it can be said that similar to the procedure of intake of food in the natural, human beings must first have a hunger or appetite for food as a desire in order to being able to willingly take up food. Therefore, it may occasionally be necessary to examine or reflect yourself to realize to what extent you have a spiritual hunger for more of Christ. Maybe you can reflect on the things which slow down such a desire to get more of Christ. As saints, we are called to comprehend the depths of Christ and receive His hidden manna in our spirit with gratitude.

 

Amen and Amen.

 

In His Wisdom,

 

Daniel Glimm

There are many books and written material relating to marriage, choice of spouse and the relationship between man and woman. For some, the large number of recommendations and tips available is confusing and the fact that in our society there is little reference to the Word of God in its current developments does not necessarily make it easier for disciples (note: men and women who follow God's will and the standards of His Word without restriction) to find orientation.

Five Things That Can Help

There are five things that the Word of God emphasizes in relation to men and can help women to focus in their choice and time of preparation for marriage.

This teaching is intended above all to give men the necessary clarity as to what makes them capable of an upcoming relationship, which means marriage with a woman.

The first marriage we find in history can be read in Genesis 2.

Genesis 2:23-25:
23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”

24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

25 Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

First of all, it is important to acknowledge that the first man, the man Adam, was placed in the Garden of Eden, which God had planted. “Eden” is not connected with an idea of an area of trees and plants, but rather includes a framework of divine order. In the original Hebrew text, the word “garden” is translated as “gân” (Strong's H1588), a “garden (fenced)”, which is originally derived from “gânan” and also means “to secure, (generally) protect and defend” (Strong's H1598).
 

The First Step

And when God had put the man into the garden within Eden, he was in the presence of God. So, the first thing God gave the man was His presence – the presence of God, which should be the most important thing in a man's life.

The first thing a man needs is the presence of God and not a woman. And in this presence of God, a man should meet his wife. (note: Surprisingly, there are women who believe that they must first leave the presence of God to find a man in an area of absence of God's presence, whom they must pull out from there to bring them “back” into the presence of God. This approach is difficult and in many cases doomed to failure, which is why it is not recommended.)

 

The Second Step

After the man was placed in the presence of God in the garden, he was instructed to work in it. The man should cultivate and preserve the garden in which he was (see Genesis 2:15).

Genesis 2:15:
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

This clearly shows that God first assigned work to the man before God would entrust a woman to him. According to this, a man first needs a job before he should enter into marriage. This is based on God's priorities, which clearly emerge from the Word.

Next, the mission that God has assigned to the man will be clearly in the task of cultivating what is entrusted to him (note: also care, develop). So, to cultivate herein means to make the best out of something, to be fruitful and productive, to exploit existing potentials and to develop various matters in a positive way with one's own self-efficacy.

The man (note: first man) was created to create and to be creative in order to produce the result he desired or plans to. For this reason, God would not give the man a “finished” or “perfect” woman, because the man is destined by God to “cultivate” what is given to him (note: in this context a woman).

Basically, many men have the idea of a woman who does not yet exist in this structural form. According to this principle of God, the man would be assigned to marry a kind of “unfinished version” in order to cultivate it through his participation and to see this version transformed into the image of his imagination.

This statement implements that some men, who have been married for many years and are dissatisfied with the development of their wives, carry responsibility for this circumstance. At this point it should be noted that Jesus Christ, the Son of God and last Adam (see 1 Corinthians 15:45) is also a “man” in the sense of the word who has a woman. Her name is “ekklēsịa”. And he urges all husbands to love their wives, just as He loves His wife and gives Himself for Her (see Ephesians 5:25).

 

45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.

 

Ephesians 5:25:
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her …

 

The Third Step

The man, following the example and model of Jesus, would wash the woman in the water bath of the Word (see Ephesians 5:26-27) to remove existing blemishes and spots from her and to present her to himself what is connected with her identity.

Ephesians 5:26-27:

… 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.

 

In this understanding, wives may lean on their husbands and allow themselves to be “cultivated” by them instead of having the liability of what characterizes them alone. Consequently, here is a practical example to illustrate in more detail what is meant when, for example, men who blame their wives of gaining weight would attract their wives out of bed in the morning before the usual time to go jogging with them. Another example is a woman's dress style, so if her husband doesn't like it (note: or not anymore), he would take her to an adequate selection of shops where she can choose something nice and he would pay for it; or if a woman doesn't have such good English skills, for example, her husband should make sure that she can attend or complete an appropriate course to improve her language skills. …

Men bear responsibility for the development of their women and should not criticize them but promote and support them.

The Fourth Step

Fourth, God instructed the man to guard/preserve the garden (see Genesis 2:15), which means that the man is assigned to protect or to be protector.

Genesis 2:15:
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

The root word of “caring/keeping” is “shâmar” (Strong's H8104), which means among other things “hedge, secure, guard, protect, watch, preserve, observe, protect, save, wait, awake”.

A man should protect and preserve everything that is assigned and belongs to him.

 

Therefore, in order to be able to do this in the will of God, the man was generally given a proportionate stronger bone structure and a larger muscle mass. This was not assigned to the man to use physical strength (note: in the sense of capacity) for any abuse and/or intimidation of women, but to protect the woman.

 

 

The last thing God gave the man, Adam, was His word. It was God who first spoke to Adam that he could eat from every tree in the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

 

It is important to realize that God did not talk about this with Eve, the man's wife, but with Adam alone. It was Adam's mission, therefore, to teach his wife and to tell her what God had said.

 

Applied to the relationship between man and woman, this can also mean that there is hardly anything comparable that can cause frustration for women than the words that answer their question “What do you think?” or “What do you have in mind?” (note: in a problem situation or challenge) as “Well, what do you think?” or “What do you think I/we should do?”. Such an action of the man is not what corresponds to the principles of God, which are connected with the responsibility of the man, and therefore will not produce the blessing, which God holds ready for a married couple.

 

A woman wants to be guided – in the divine sense and understanding of God's principles – and support her husband in his project, which means that she is looking for his knowledge, wisdom and instruction. That is one reason why women want to know what men think or have in mind.

 

These principles of God embrace an understanding of authority, so that man is entrusted with much and is therefore in greater responsibility.

 

After God entrusted these things to the first man, he said that it would not be good for him if he were alone. In this, the reader should slow down and pay attention to the Word of God in order to correctly understand the context in the text of Genesis 2. It says that God watched this Adam, to whom He had previously entrusted and instructed much, walking in his life and finally decided that it was not good for this man (note: “such one”, in the sense of there was not another one) that he should live alone.

 

 

In summary, this procedure of God means that a man who

should NOT REMAIN ALONE.

 

On the other hand, it means that if men do not like God's presence (note: do not dwell in it), are unable to do decent work, and are financially unable to take care of the competencies of (note: to be able to promote, support oneself and others), as well as to give protection, cannot show and neither know nor successfully apply the Word of God, it may be better for them to remain alone (see Proverbs 18:22 i.c.w. Proverbs 12:4a).

 

22 He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord.

 

4a A wife of noble character is her husband’s crown, …

 

All in all, it is good for men to be guided by these principles before and within marriage and not to stop exercising their responsibilities, just as it is good for women to reflect on what belongs to their assigned responsibilities, to let go false responsibility and to generally recognize men in their God-given authority. (note: This message is based on a teaching of Dr. Myles Munroe†)

 

Amen and Amen.

 

In His Wisdom,

 

Daniel & Tina Glimm