General Assembly, church of the firstborn

Â Hebrews 12.22Â But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels,Â 23Â to the general assembly and church of the firstbornwho areÂ registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect,

Here we have in scripture from the holy writ, a verse that is overlooked by the greater portion of Christian denominations. It flies in the face of carnal thinking and understanding. It by-passes time and matter and ascribes what is seen by most as a future event at some event in the sky at a final moment in eschatology, or end time scenarios and talks about a current reality in the spirit as fact to experience saying “but you have come”.

I will draw first from the phrase “General Assembly” also translated “Festive Gathering”. This is a direct correlation to the feasts celebrated by the Israelite’s. The 7 feasts that the whole body of believers partook of was the partaking of the body of Christ (1 Cor 10.1-14). This they displayed 3 times or seasons a year at Pass-over, first fruits and End gathering also called Tabernacles and Atonement. And they gathered for these when they were instructed by the trumpet blasts from the leaders. As they gathered for these events it was all the rituals and articles being eternal concepts and timeless realities of Jesus Christ “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world”. These things that they practiced carnally were suppose to imprint these eternal concepts indelibly in their hearts and minds to understand them as spiritual truths to be realized or actualized in a believer. These practices, rituals, and concepts of truth were to train them for proper relationship with the Father as they were able to understand.Â

They gathered together as one man in the Son of God (Exodus 4.22) partaking of Israel His first born to learn from these things then trade in the physical for the eternal “each one in their own time” (1 Corinthians 15.23) That when faith had come they were no longer under the tutor” (Gal 3.23). This did not happen to the whole nation at once but each person in their own time. And anyone back then who realized and actualized this by faith were a new creation even as it was said of Joshua and Caleb that “they were of a different spirit. They wholly followed the Lord”. If this were not true and as most believe, that no one was born of the spirit before Pentecost then Paul could not have said that the flesh man persecuted the spiritual man like Ishmael persecuted Isaac (Gal 4.29). Or even Cain and AbelÂ

This is why Jesus chided Nicodemus for not knowing that one must be born again saying “are you the teacher of Israel and you do not know these things?” It is so easy for us to think dispensation-ally in our humanness because we have to see to believe, but the gospel message was not new with Jesus. It was that all the patterns that Moses saw on Sinai where He took his sandals off because the ground was holy, was now poured into the person of Jesus Christ of whom it is said “I am not worthy to loosen His sandals”. Jesus Christ was the fulfillment of all the law and the prophets. They all had their end and all have expired in the life and times of Jesus Christ. “God who in times past spoke to the fathers by the law and the prophets has in these last days spoken to us by His Son Heb 1.1). There is no more speaking. There is no more prophesying. We however do have the prophetic word delivered to us that is more sure than anything they experienced even more sure than having Jesus in His transfigured form (2 Peter 1.16-19) We look back to the cross and the power of the resurrection that propelled Jesus to the highest place in all created realms as our source for transformation for our own transfiguration in the here and now. We learn the eternal value of all the feasts, rituals and articles and are re-newed in the mind by them. We put them on. This is putting on Christ, and the highest degree they learned in the spirit by their feast’s is tabernacles and atonement of which we have received the atonement/reconciliation now in our tabernacle/tent or also translated Booths. “Know ye not that you are the temple of God?” and of Jesus “Through whom we have now received the Atonement”. Â

And 2 Corinthians 5.17Â Therefore, if anyoneÂ isÂ in Christ,Â he isÂ a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.Â 18Â Now all thingsÂ areÂ of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation,

The whole purpose of all the feasts was this. Atonement, meaning at-one-ment now, reconciled, joined together now. Not at an end time event. Even as Paul went on to say “I implore you! (I am begging you) on Christs behalf be reconciled to the Father. This is the General Assemble, the Festive Gathering if you are able to receive it. It is all the law with it’s feasts and articles complete in Christ.

So you see it is not as end timers view of something in the future to happen in time and matter as they wait for the feast of trumpets so they can be gathered together and be one with Jesus. That is a foolish cause and focus, for it denies the works Jesus did. Jesus Christ was the expectation and all that the law and the prophets taught is not our future expectation but our starting point. They are the foundation on which we stand not a future event “for no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid which is Christ Jesus”. And again “all the law and the prophets were until Christ. Now the Kingdom is preached and all are pressing their way into it”.Â

This brings us to another phrase in our beginning verse of Hebrews 12. 22-23, Heavenly Jerusalem. So we will stop here for now and continue later with the place of our citizenship which is when?

Ephesians 2.19Â Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,Â 20Â having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone,Â 21Â in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord,Â 22Â in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

BlessingsÂ