The Jews had a very strong attachment to this material, flesh and blood realm. They believed that life was in the blood (Leviticus 17:11) and also that their sins could not be forgiven without the shedding of blood (Hebrews 9:22). They believed that God “visited the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation” (Numbers 14:18) (see What’s in Your DNA?).
Their lives revolved around what and what not to eat, how to prepare it, the endless keeping of feasts and fasts, and innumerable sacrifices of the flesh and blood of birds and animals.
They got their identity from their blood line which they attempted to keep as pure as possible.
They believed that God would send them a physical Messiah, born of pure blood (of a virgin), who would give them physical deliverance from their physical enemies and set up an earthly kingdom far surpassing the glory of that of their father David, from whom this Messiah must be descended.
How shocking it must have been to hear Jesus’ response to the Pharisees’ demand to know when the kingdom of God should come:
Luke 17:20 . . . The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: 21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
And to hear Jesus say, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36).
They did not realize that this physical man Jesus was not their Messiah, that this physical man, “made of a woman, made under the law” (Galatians 4:4) would have to die, thereby taking to the death the flesh and blood realm (humanity, this world) so that we could all be raised with Him into “heavenly places” (Ephesians 2:6). This physical man Jesus (son of man) had to “go away” so that the Christ (son of God who was living Jesus and was the true Messiah) could “come again” and live as each of us:
Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Unfortunately, the people who call themselves Christians, and believe that they are followers of Jesus, have not yet understood the truth that Jesus came to reveal, “the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but is now made manifest”. . . which is Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:26-27). This is the same Christ that was in the Hebrew man Jesus, the same Christ that is in you (and in every man), the Christ that is our life (Colossians 3:4), the life of every man.
Christians are still praying to a God outside themselves, still believing that it was the physical blood of the physical man Jesus that saved them, still expecting this man to come out of the sky and set up an earthly kingdom that will rule the nations with a rod of iron.
They believe that we will all experience a physical resurrection of our physical bodies and be judged by God. Those who have met some requirement placed upon them by God will be in God’s presence in a physical location called heaven while everyone else will be separated from God and put into a physical location called hell where they will suffer physical pain and mental torment for all eternity while those who are in heaven will experience eternal bliss.
They still believe that God the Father made a physical, blood sacrifice of His Son Jesus to appease His own wrath against our sin rather than believing that “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them” (2Corinthians 5:19) and that nothing “shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39).
We have been so thoroughly trained by our church leaders to fear this God of wrath and judgment, so afraid that we will be deceived if we dare read the Scriptures any way other than the way we have been taught (see Understanding Scripture) that we have not been able to experience the love of our Father that “is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us” (Romans 5:5), this “perfect love” that “casts out fear.” We remain in “torment” because we are “not made perfect in love”(1John 4:18). We are tormented by the fear of death (followed by judgment from this God), this fear which has produced in us a “lifetime subject to bondage” (Hebrews 2:14-15).
We haven’t realized that this “torment” IS the “hell” that Jesus came to take us out of by resurrecting us from this realm of “flesh” into the realm of Spirit where there can be no separation between God and man, where we know that we are one with our Father because we are born of Spirit (see Born of Spirit).
We have so identified ourselves with this flesh and blood, “earthy” realm (1Corinthians 15:45-50) that we have thought Jesus came to save “sinners” (our “earthy,” mistaken identity). NO, NO, NO! He came “in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Romans 8:3) to DESTROY that “body of sin” (Romans 6:6) so that in our true identity (son of God, made in His likeness and image) we might know that we “cannot sin” because we are “born of God” (1John 3:9).
Our attachment to this material world has caused us to see “sin” as all the bad things that we do rather than our belief that we have a life of our own apart from our Father that we have to preserve by discerning between good and evil, choosing the good over the evil to earn God’s favor. This concept of sin is responsible for the law (all the do’s and don’ts) and the conscience (constantly reminding us of our failure). We, like the Jews, have “a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.” Like them, we have been “ignorant of God’s righteousness” (Romans 10:2-3) which is “without the law” (Romans 3:21) and is a “free gift” (Romans 5:17).
I don’t have to ask Jesus into my heart or say the sinner’s prayer to get “saved” (keep from going to hell when I die). I just have to realize that I was never “lost” except in my own mind (Colossians 1:21). There is but one Spirit (Ephesians 4:4) which is God, and I am in Him as He is in me (Acts 17:28; Colossians 1:27). I was “chosen” “in him before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4); I have been chosen by God, not the other way round (John 15:16).
No matter how far I wander into this flesh and blood realm (which is the creation of man, not God), believing that my flesh and blood body is who I am, the Christ that is living me will never stop knocking at my heart’s door (Revelation 3:20) until I “awake to righteousness” (1Corinthians 15:34)—to the realization that what was “lost” has now been found (Luke 19:10). It was not “I” who was lost, but rather that sense of belonging to a loving Father from whom I could never be separated—because I was born of God into a realm of Spirit, not into this realm of flesh that I have thought to be reality.
When that awakening occurs, when I “come to myself” (Luke 15:17) (Christ is myself) and return to the realm of Spirit from whence I came, I will again have “fellowship” with my Father and my “joy” will be “full” (1John 1:3-4) because I have entered the kingdom of heaven which is not “meat and drink” (all the things we concern ourselves with in the flesh and blood realm) but rather “righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost” (Romans 14:17).