From the Natural Church to the Spiritual Church

2003-08-13 12:32

God, who foreknew his people and predestined them to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, hates Esau, but loves Jacob. Esau was a natural man who for a single meal sold his spiritual inheritance rights as the oldest son to fill his hungry belly, but Jacob was, even if he was younger, a spiritual man who was not after the law of a carnal commandment and bought the inheritance rights with a carnal meal.

The Bible says in Romans 9:13, "Just as it is written: Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." It also says in Malachi 1:3, "but Esau I have hated, and I have turned his mountains into a wasteland and left his inheritance to the desert jackals."

God hated Esau who walked after the flesh, but loved Jacob who walked after the Spirit. The church is the bride of Christ. The Bible calls it "the bride of the Lamb." The spiritual promiser testified: " I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him." The spiritual church is the wife of Christ who is the most holy and glorious.

However, at first the spiritual church undergoes being the natural church that is an infant and craves pure spiritual milk. And after that, it attains to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ and appears as the glorious church--the bride--of Christ.

The church in Corinth was a natural church at first. It is written in 1 Corinthians 3:1, "Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly--mere infants in Christ."

1 Corinthians 15:46 also says, "The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual." It is similar to the process of growth of plants into grain. The Lord said about it in Mark 4:28, "All by itself the soil produces grain--first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head."

Without the head there can be no full kernel in the head. The Bible says about it in 1 Corinthians 15:44, "it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body." The Bible speaks about it at many times and in various ways.

Seemingly both the head and the full kernel in the head look similar, but without the full kernel the head is just the chaff. The Bible says in Mathew 3:12, "His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire."

Therefore, if the natural church--the head--does not appear as the spiritual church--the full kernel in the head, it will be burned up with unquenchable fire. The Bible calls it the second death. The natural church is still of the world, but the spiritual church now belongs to Christ.

God is waiting for the holy and glorious bride--the spritual church--of Christ, his son until now. This bride does not appear from below, but from above. It is written in Revelation 21:9-11, "One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, "Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb." And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal."

The Bible says in Ephesians 5:27, "and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless."

Therefore, the church must be born from above to see Christ because only the spiritual church is the bride of the Lamb. Thank you, Lord.

The least brother, Kim Yun-gu