Part 5 of 8

The One Son of God the Father

Let’s now consider the significance of the title, “The Son” when referring to Jesus. The title “son” generally speaks of the life and relationship received of one’s father. Every son bears the very life of his father. Jesus in fact is “the only begotten Son of God.” The term “only begotten” is from Greek “monogenes,” taken from “mono,” meaning “one” and “ginomai,” meaning “only born”.

Jesus was “conceived… of the Holy Breath (Spirit)” of God (Matt 1:20). Jesus was one of the five children born to Mary, but Jesus is the one and “only begotten Son” of God the Father. Joseph fathered the other four children of Mary; they are Jesus, James, Joses, Simon and Judas (not Iscariot, Matt 13:55). The members of “the body of Christ” share Jesus Christ’s one life God the Father’s “only begotten Son.”

Jesus Christ organically bears the Father’s life to all those who are rebirthed of God’s One Christ-seed as “the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:2). God has only one Son and all believers are born of that One Son-Seed, making them also “joint heirs” and participants in the one life of the one “Son of God,” as literal the members of “His body.”

Romans 8:15-17 For ye (believers) have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. ¹⁶ The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: ¹⁷ And if children, then heirs; HEIRS OF GOD, AND JOINT-HEIRS WITH CHRIST; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

No person could be a son of a father unless he possesses the literal life of his father within him. E.g., my father in the physical is Joseph Licursi. The physical life of my father lives on in and through me. He right now is in me by virtue of his life’s blood flowing in me. In fact, I was in him before I was born.

Believers are “in Christ” and also have “Christ in them” ( Col 1:27, Rom 8:9). Every reborn believer was “foreknown” and “chosen” (Rom 8:29a) to be “in Christ before the world began.” Ephesians 1:4 According as HE HATH CHOSEN US IN HIM (In Christ) BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:

God’s “One… Seed (Gk., sperma), which is Christ” (Gal 3:16) by virtue of Christ’s resurrected eternal life. Christ lives in and through all the offspring of the Father’s spiritual loins; they are all the born-again children of God.

My earthly father’s human life flows in the blood of my arteries, since I became a recipient of his physical life; “the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Lev 17:11). I may even look like my father and express his mannerisms, etc. Similarly, our heavenly Father has shared not only His life but also His nature with us by virtue of the life of His “Seed, which is Christ” in us. In fact, since all believer’s have died with and in Christ (Rom 6:3); Christ’s eternal life is now their only real life. “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but CHRIST LIVETH IN ME… (Galatians 2:20) Regardless of their current appearance, in time, either here on earth or hereafter, all the Father’s sons will grow to more fully express His life within them.

Below, God’s promise of a “seed,” for Abraham, is seen as being plural. He used the word “seed” as meaning innumerable offspring.

Genesis 15:5 And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.

Yet here Paul is emphatically writes of Abraham’s “ONE… SEED, which is Christ.” (Galatians 3:16) Why does Paul use the singular form of the word “seed” by the phrase “one… seed, which is Christ” in Galatians 3:16? The words “one…seed” here refers to Jesus of Nazareth as Abraham’s one life-giving spiritual “seed,” as Abraham’s descendent, be born of the Tribe of Judah. The “seed” here is not the many children of Israel who are people born of Abraham, but rather one specific person. This one person was not Isaac, but Jesus of Nazareth, of whom all God’s children, Gentile and Jew (Gal 3:28) are to be reborn.

As far as Abraham was humanly concerned, the seed that would inherit the land was to come via his earthly son, Isaac. But we must realize that Bible truth is often seen in a duality. So, in the wider Biblical context there is Abraham’s “one…seed, which is Christ.” Isaac was but a shadow son of a deeper reality; the substance or reality seen here is Christ. In fact, Christ is the “one… seed” of whom Israel would ultimate inherit and bless the “wider land,” the whole recovered earth in the eternal kingdom that is still yet to come to earth.

Both power and authority are with Christ alone (Matt 28:18). God’s powerful redeeming work is carried out by Christ on the cross, not by Isaac’s birth. Christ, as God’s one Son is the “One… (Son) seed” who inherits the promises God gave to Abraham. In order for believers to inherit the promised blessings of Abraham they must become a real child of Israel by being reborn and one with Christ. 1 John 4:13 Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit. While the Christian today already enjoys that union with Christ by His indwelling Spirit in their spirit, this is yet come to pass for Israel in the ages to come.

Apart from Christ, neither Israel nor “the body of Christ” can inherit their promised spheres of blessing. In Christ, Israel will inherit the earth and the “body of Christ” will inherits the whole world (Gk., “cosmos,” meaning, “The universe”). All the blessings of “the body of Christ” are spiritual and heavenly, not earthly.

The order of the universe was undermined and broken by Lucifer’s rebellion with the fallen angels who currently occupy the government of “the heavens and the earth.” God will restore order in the universe by Christ’s cross and His Spirit working in and through the redeemed of mankind. Luke wrote of the last day in the Tribulation… “Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for THE POWERS OF HEAVEN SHALL BE SHAKEN (Gk., saleuo, toppled).” (Luke 21:26)

Christ will “topple” the “powers” currently ruling the heavens and then He will rule the heavens through the instrumentality of the members of “the body of Christ.” He will rule on earth through the believers of the Nation Israel . The people of God will reign by God’s grace, with the rank and authority of Christ vested in them by His indwelling “Spirit of life.”

Let’s once again consider the two God-created dynaspheres called “the heavens” and “the earth.”

1) The members of “the body of Christ” are destined to dwell eternally in their home in heavenly dynasphere.

“… the hope which is laid up for you IN HEAVEN” (Col. 1:5).

“… our conversation [or citizenship] is IN HEAVEN” (Phil. 3:20)

“For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, ETERNAL IN THE HEAVENS” (2 Cor. 5:1).

Paul, in his epistles to the members of “the body of Christ,” essentially says; “If you believe, God will take you UP to HEAVEN to ever be with Him.” Christ will descend to the clouds to “catch away” or “rapture” the members of “the body of Christ” who meet Him in “the air,” ever to be with Him in heaven. The “rapture” of “the body of Christ” is part of Paul’s “mystery” gospel and found in the writings of no other Bible writer.

1 Thessalonians 4:17 Then WE WHICH ARE ALIVE AND REMAIN SHALL BE “CAUGHT UP” (Latin, rapteur) TOGETHER WITH THEM IN THE CLOUDS, to MEET THE LORD IN THE AIR: and so shall we EVER BE WITH THE LORD.

2) By contrast, the believing members of the nation Israel , as Abraham’s earthly seed, are promised the Messianic “kingdom of (from) heaven” to come DOWN from heaven to be on earth. Acts 3:19-20 (Peter said) Repent ye (Israel) therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the (visible) presence of the Lord; ²⁰ And HE SHALL SEND JESUS CHRIST (DOWN TO THE EARTH), which before was preached unto you: Peter here above addresses “Ye men of Israel” (not the Gentiles) at Pentecost, essentially saying “repent, and God will send Jesus DOWN here on earth.”

Being currently in royal exile, at His second coming, Christ the “King of kings and Lord of lords” will one day come to abide and reign in His kingdom on earth. Jesus’ second coming will fulfill Jehovah’s promises to the father’s of Israel concerning the coming “kingdom of heaven” on earth as the “the restitution of all things” (Acts 3:21). In Act 1:3 Jesus spoke to His disciples only those things “pertaining to the kingdom.” Peter here below goes on to says the covenant promises God made with Israel was the subject of “all the prophets.”

Acts 3:24 Yea, and all the prophets (of Israel ) from Samuel and those that follow after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days. ²⁵ Ye (men of Israel ) are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And IN THY SEED (see Gal 3:16) SHALL ALL THE KINDREDS OF THE EARTH BE BLESSED.

In the “fullness of times” God will recover and rule over both “the heavens” and “the earth” through His two people groups who are to be His co-regents in heaven and on earth. They shall administer His rule by His righteous indwelling life with justice achieved through the cross of Christ (Rom 3:26).

 Ephesians 1:10 That in the dispensation of THE FULNESS OF TIMES he (God) might (will) GATHER TOGETHER IN ONE ALL THINGS IN CHRIST, both which are IN HEAVEN, and which are ON EARTH; even in him:

In God’s eyes Abraham has only “One… seed, which is, Christ.” We must be “in Christ” if we may participate in the blessings and promises of Abraham. These come to us when we exert the like precious “faith of Abraham” who “believed God” and “his faith was counted as righteousness.”