The Fullness of Christ is Our Promised Land
This small article is an excerpt from my book Heaven's Underground Blueprint. It is a prophetic/teaching book about the current, ongoing reformation of His church. You can obtain a hard copy for cost price + freight, or a free e-version from http://www.christisall.org/hub-book. Peace.
by Brett Jacobsen
Crossing into the Promised Land is not a prophetic picture of salvation; that would be the exodus from Egypt. It is however, a representation of us walking into “the fullness of Christ”. Whilst coming to Jesus is wonderful, it is only the beginning of the heavenly journey which should gravitate towards the fullness of Christ, in and around our lives. Paul in his letter to the Ephesians lifts the standard from just scraping into heaven to a more complete faith:
And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting [katartismos – complete furnishing] of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect [teleios – completeness, of full age / maturity] man, to the measure of the stature [helikia – maturity, full age] of the fullness [pleroma – completely filled] of Christ: (Eph 4:11-13)
Some key words stand out in this passage that we should not pass by. Perhaps it is God’s will and purpose for us to walk in something far greater than anyone has dared thus far to believe. This verse shows that God wants His body to be fully mature and completely filled with His fullness. It would be an insult to the Spirit of Christ to suggest that the church has walked in this capacity at any stage over the past 1900 years. In fact, even the early church, which has clearly outdone our efforts thus far, didn’t walk in the maturity of the complete fullness of Christ.
You may be thinking of some people throughout church history who walked in an amazing place with God. Paul the apostle was deeply intimate with God and as a result manifested a great measure of His power. More recently, people like Smith Wigglesworth, Charles Finney, Kathryn Kuhlman, among others, had great power in operating by the Spirit. The main reason these servants don’t qualify as ones who lived in “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ”, is that one person alone cannot walk in such fullness. The passage in question starts verse thirteen with “Till we all come” which shows that this “fullness of Christ” is far more than an individual’s personal victory - it must be a corporate one.
Jesus, when asked the priorities of heavenly commands, said:
The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, You shall love your neighbour as yourself. There is none other commandment greater than these. (Mark 12:29-31)
It is no mistake that God placed our love for mankind in the same category of importance as our love for Him; and barely one notch down. So, whilst love and intimacy with the Father are our highest priority in His Kingdom, those whom God has stationed around us are an essential priority in our spiritual maturation.
There have also been wonderful outpourings of God’s Spirit on larger scales, sometimes over whole cities and even nations. All of these, even the ones that spread to greater areas, have fizzled out at some stage; none have represented a full measure of heaven. They usually emphasise and revive only certain aspects of the kingdom, like grace, healing, spiritual gifts and/or evangelism. The horrid reality is that each time God has revived an aspect of His Kingdom and baptised it with His presence, man has eventually set up camp. We tend to be happy with a part measure of God’s fullness and therefore create a denomination, thus resisting further maturity. Why do we continue to have this carnal tendency to name everything that God does, claiming it as our own? We’ll look more at denominations and the like in a later chapter. For now, we must at least acknowledge that no denomination can be a “perfect (complete) man” that walks in complete maturity in the fullness of Christ (Eph 4:13).
As it takes every cell in the human body to make up the complete being, so it requires every saint in His body to have complete fullness in Him. If one part stops moving and growing with the body, it begins to lose life and eventually is “broken off” so it doesn’t hold back the whole body (Rom 11:17-24). Whoever is broken off through rebellion, like the Jews in Romans eleven, can be grafted back through faith and obedience.
So, I suggest that the fullness of Christ is a state that the true body of Christ will walk in at the latter end of church history. This is prophetically shadowed by Canaan’s Promised Land. I do not claim to have a full picture of this “fullness of Christ” season, but there are a few key characteristics that it surely must exhibit. Some of these characteristics are:
• Not just a few special people walking in God’s power but the majority.
• All the saints being equipped, operating in a full and balanced expression of Christ.
• “The manifestation of the Spirit” saturating every part of society through all believers.
• The Lord adding to the church daily such as should be saved, not just a few on Sunday.
• A church whose hope is in the Lord, rather than the world.
• Organic, Spirit-lead Christian living replacing meeting-centred-organisation.
There are many more aspects of church life that will be drastically changed through this reformation. Other key elements will come out in later chapters.
REPRINT AGREEMENT
Duplication and re-transmission of this writing is permitted provided that complete source and website information for CHRIST IS ALL is included.
Thank you.
February 11th, 2008 at 3:16 am
Living in union with Jesus Christ and He operating as us using our personalities will bring His goal…Christ being All in All. As usual we get wrapped up in other things besides His Living Presence within us and continue to be sin focused rather than Him focused.
February 12th, 2008 at 6:16 am
Brett,
Purchased your new book, and will completely read it before we talk. I would like to dialog with you about a book I am trying to write (I am NOT a writer). My title is “Good News….Part II. I believe God allowed me to see something and I would be very interested in your feedback.
I spoke with Tom Sparks about this……..he found it interesting. Also, in light of the the new book out by George Barna/Frank Viola.”Pagen Christianity,”my discovery finishes the puzzle. This book is raising eyebrows and causing problems in the earthly world of religion………it’s exposing it for what it really is…..man made.
Do you ever get to the USA?
God Bless, look forward to your thoughts.
Lou Rife
March 3rd, 2008 at 3:11 pm
“We tend to be happy with a part measure of God’s fullness and therefore create a denomination, thus resisting further maturity. Why do we continue to have this carnal tendency to name everything that God does, claiming it as our own?”
Im interested to hear your views on denominations?
I simply see denomination as a certain class of beliefs….
“The body is a unit, though is is made up of many parts”
1 Corinthians 12:12
whether we like it or not, we are all part of a denomination based upon our revelation of the word of God…(the bible)
Hence, these denominations together make up the body of christ and can reach people from all over the world no matter where their faith is at…
I think its a big call to say denominations resist further maturity when clearly the church at large is growing at an incredible rate, and the denomination i am a part of is seeing Jesus Christ do incredible things through it! we cannot deny what God is doing through denominations….
The journey of faith continually grows, at the end of the day if we are connected to Christ, if we abide in Christ, it is him who produces fruit through us!
March 12th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Response to Nathanael,
You said “whether we like it or not, we are all part of a denomination based upon our revelation of the word of God…(the bible)”
Answer - That’s a strange way of looking at it; unless you simply mean that we are denominated (meaning to name yourself after) in Christ. That doesn’t speak well for deominationalism, it shows that we are of Christ, not man.
You said “Hence, these denominations together make up the body of christ and can reach people from all over the world no matter where their faith is at…”
Answer - No they cannot. Denominations produce a divided kingdom. Jesus said that kind of kingdom cannot stand. Not only does the division quench the power of God but also denominated church constructs hide God away in a hall/cathedral. They aren’t doing a very good job at “reaching people from all over the world”.
You said “I think its a big call to say denominations resist further maturity when clearly the church at large is growing at an incredible rate, and the denomination i am a part of is seeing Jesus Christ do incredible things through it! we cannot deny what God is doing through denominations….”
Answer - There are soooo many reasons why denominations resist further maturity. Read the below article for some of them.
You said the church at large is growing at an incredible rate. God only grows HIS church, not mans’. Men grow large denominations because they are talented at running organisations. Jesus never said to build churches, He said He would build His church and the gates of hell wouldn’t prevail against it. Take a look at church statistics, how many pastors are falling, failing, and floundering; how many churches close down every week etc. How many passive pew-sitters are produced? How much divissive in-fighting is there in the body? Man’s churches are clearly a hinderance to the further maturation of the saints (the ekklesia- the church). God is not doing “incredible things through” your denomination, He is doing incredible things through people who know and obey Him. It just so happens that some of those people denominate themselves under man, and so man gets the glory as well as God, what a shame.
If you would like a better biblical viewpoint against denominationalism feel free to read my article ONE BODY- EMBRACING TRUE BIBLICAL UNITY at- http://www.christisall.org/2006/01/25/one-body-embracing-true-biblical-unity-by-brett-jacobsen , or read chapter eight of my book Heaven’s Underground Blueprint. I’d be open to hear your refutation or reasoned response to that.
Peace,
Bretto