THE TWO KINGDOMSby Lloyd Ellefson
Since natural humanity is in the death realm, we need to be made alive. Christ is a quickening Spirit, and this is the kingdom that is expressed in Jesus Christ. He comes and awakens or quickens us. He gives us a mind which receives spiritual realities; His coming ushers out the natural "realities" - just as light ushers out darkness. Jesus obeyed the law, and did not cause any disturbance nor problems during the first 30 years of His life. He was not persecuted at that time because He was not identifying with the truth that is in the spiritual kingdom of God. But immediately after the anointing, when He became an expression of the Messiah, rejection and persecution came His way.
Truth has the power to replace the error in Adam. Truth cannot be attained by studying and dissecting the scriptures, nor by studying the Greek, and by fasting and praying, etc. The presence of the Christ in us brings us truth. This is the anointing which brings us the spiritual realization beyond the letter, the flesh, and the temporal - the things that are seen through the natural eye. So truth has the power to replace the bondage of false beliefs!
Truth brings about change! Once the rule of our life is changed from the mortal concepts of the natural mind to the immortal concepts of the spiritual mind which was in Christ Jesus, we will function in the mind of Christ. We have been living in a mortal man who has no immortality. If Adam would have had immortality he would not have died. Our old humanity was crucified together with Christ. In other words, Adam ended when Christ came.
How could Adam end when Christ came? Adam could not refer to our fleshly body - for how could it be crucified with Christ? It refers to our sense of being; the mistaken identity of who God is and who we are, was crucified with Christ. We had a false premise of life; we thought it was external. We thought God was not united with us, that we were separated from Him and operating outside of the union we have with the mind of God or the mind of Christ. This is death! The truth is that we have come into a union of life in Christ in a spiritual conception and realization.
It is not hard for us to believe that the physical body is mortal, because we are surrounded by death; the daily newspapers proclaim it in their obituaries. Some people thought they had received a revelation that the flesh is going to exist forever - but they died too. The mind has to mind something. The carnal natural mind minds the flesh; the mind of Christ minds the Spirit!
Everything has to be perceived by the spirit. Humanity thinks it is originating knowledge, but actually knowledge is just being presented to it. Everything was made by God in the beginning. Medical discoveries are also in the realm of mortality; they all have a beginning and end. Only those things which come through the Spirit are immortal. The mind that is only in union with creation, but not with the Creator, is dead. Jesus Christ is a quickening Spirit; when He comes He quickens us, He makes us alive to spiritual realization. This makes a big difference!
The image of God that is in Christ Jesus comes to us by the Holy Spirit who enlightens us. He brings us the realization that we are free from sin because God is not imputing sins to us. The message that comes to us in the Spirit is that Christ Jesus represents the one true God. Christ did not exhibit any of the wrath and fighting that is found in the Old Testament where God was working through the natural man. His manifestation could only come in the way the carnal mind could perceive and interpret it. People were dying because they were operating in death; they were worshiping their own idea of God. Jesus pinpointed this by saying that they did not know God. God's Word was not in them: if they knew God, they would know Jesus.
Whom are we worshiping? Paul said that previously we had been serving gods that were not God. Are we also worshiping gods who are not God? The consciousness of the Israelites did not contain a true concept of God! Jesus Christ proved that their whole concept of God was wrong! They thought He was a God of wrath, one who was interested in having them fight for their beliefs, and for the possession of lands and things on this earth. They thought they were better than the Gentiles who were dubbed DOGS by them. These ideas were contrary to the nature and teachings of Christ for He is meek and lowly of heart.
When Jesus Christ becomes our Lord, He gives us a whole new concept of God, self, and immortality. A death has taken place in our consciousness and we have been born anew. No longer are we in the Adamic man. We may be babes in our new life and may not fully understand what has taken place, yet we have the foundation for growing and living, and for discerning and rejecting wrong concepts. Our carnal thinking, our sin consciousness and our natural sense of being are constantly being rejected and replaced by a new realm of truth. The old is ushered out by the new understanding of God that is brought to us by the Spirit of truth. This is the way redemption works.
The kingdoms of this world are being made subject to Christ. He HAS overcome the world and He has already turned this over to the Father. This did not involve a big battle. Jesus said, "Everything I do is of the Father. I do nothing of Myself. It is the Father in Me who does the works." Every victory that was accomplished in Jesus Christ was immediately turned over to the Father; Christ did not receive any honor and glory for Himself.
I believe that John 16 gives us the best description of the coming of the Christ - the second coming if you will - in the coming of the Holy Spirit. That is the true second coming of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Those who are honest with themselves and God will see that a lot of things people cling to in their natural conceptions, are enemies to the truth that is in Jesus Christ! This stubborness of the ego, the "I", the self that wants to save its sense of being has to go! The self even wants to be enhanced by God that it may appear pleasing to God and to others. Self-rule causes us to think that our carnal nature is to be redeemed; it keeps us from understanding that we are being redeemed out of what we were. The natural conceptions of the carnal mind actually defy the Christ; they stop us from receiving the lordship of Christ's rule in the kingdom of God.
It is sadly evident that the main emphasis of most of religious Christianity is the same as the religions of the world. Its emphasis is upon making itself better and getting something from God. It wants to be redeemed without being changed, and wants to keep its many erroneous ideas or concepts of God. This does not bring us into a union with God; it separates humanity from God. Separation is death! People do not understand that death to that whole self is necessary before the new life, the new Christ, the new man, the new concept of God can emerge!
The kingdom of God is actually an invisible realm. Nobody has ever seen the Christ (who is the anointing or Messiah). When you are anointed, you are an anointed one. We notice that the word ANOINTED is an adjective - not a noun. It describes someone. When you are anointed, the anointing brings you into a union with the Messiah! As this anointing works in you, you actually participate in the Christ of God, for you are one with Him; He is your life! He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him!