Voice of the Kingfisher speaks out …from a different perspective
by Elinor Montgomery
The Foundation of the Church
September 27, 2011
The book of John lays down the doctrinal foundation of the church. There is no other foundation aside from it. Heresy can be determined using this book as the plumb line for all those who call themselves church. It surely is straight in direction veering neither to the left nor to the right.
John pulls the entire prophetic word of the Bible together by stating who Jesus is in its prophetic symbolism. He begins by stating that the Word was from the beginning with God, and the Word became the flesh of Jesus dwelling with man, as the glory of the only begotten of the Father, and not created, and therefore full of grace and truth. Many men can be called religious leaders, but none of them can lay claim to being either the truth or the begotten of the Spirit of God.
Man became the son of Satan by making a spiritual crossover from the Spirit of life to the spirit of death in the rebellion of Adam to God; he was, therefore, doomed to die. Jesus could never die, being born of the Spirit of life unless He chose to do so by taking the place of man in his judgment, which is the result of the sin of rebellion. Man was warned from the beginning by God, our Maker and our supreme Judge, what the consequences of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would be; he would surely die.
There is quite a difference between the Hebrew lineage of Moses and the spiritual lineage of Jesus in God. It is the difference between the natural Hebrew nation of Israel and the world-wide spiritual nation of Israel. Jesus was with the nation as its guiding Spirit, but He was with the spiritual nation in the flesh.
John the Baptist was sent to witness of Him, crying out as a voice in the wilderness; “Behold the Lamb of God” – the pure Sacrifice of the Father for all mankind, which no natural son of Abraham could ever be. The inheritance of Isaac could stretch no further than the nation and could never be an eternal inheritance of a kingdom, only of a patch of land, which is, in point of fact, the promise of a kingdom.
Jacob had to discover that the house of God was dependent upon the ladder to heaven upon which angelic forces ascended and descended. Angels fight the battles of God against Satan and bring victory over his forces of religion and evil, which come from the waters of the world. Jesus made it clear to Nathanael that He is the Ladder upon which the angels ascend and descend between heaven and earth. And all of this was revealed to Jacob before he was ever called Israel.
He was given the spiritual picture of the house of Israel long before the national picture of Israel. Not only was the message of the crossover before him before there was a cross, but, also, he placed the blessing of the crossover upon the sons of Joseph. It was only after this that he placed the blessing upon his sons, which was a spiritual blessing describing the spiritual tribes who would become the spiritual gateway to a spiritual kingdom, which, one day, would come down from heaven as the New Heaven, the New Earth and the New Jerusalem.
The first thing Jesus did, as His ministry began, was to change water into wine at a wedding in Cana. It was done in part to suggest His bride of the church (His apostles were with Him at the wedding and it was said that the servants who had drawn the water understood) will receive the Spirit of life when the waters in her life are changed by Jesus, at the time of preparation for His wedding feast. Not even His mother understood, but the bride of the apostolic church will understand. Then He cleansed the temple, speaking of a future cleansing when His bride who is clean of religion and worships only in spirit and in truth has no need of a temple other than the body of the Lamb, the flesh of which is truth and the washing agent of heaven.
He followed this by witnessing to a religious man to whom He stated that there would be no access to kingdom inheritance without a change of the spiritual waters in man. This is a rebirth in the spirit, whereby the spirit of death gives way to the Spirit of life, sent by Jesus who has returned to His spiritual place with the Father after salvation had come through the cross. Religious teachers clearly do not know these things as Jesus indicated to Nicodemus. He also spoke of the salvation of the nations with respect to their kingdom position surrounding the tabernacle of heaven. This is another level of salvation, which was prophesied by the spiritual tribal blessing of Jacob upon his sons in the book of Genesis. It took place after the crossover blessing had been given to the sons of Joseph who was prophetic of Jesus (see Genesis. chapters 48 and 49).
These are the believers, separated into the nations of believers apart from the priestly inheritance through a new birth in a new spirit, within the coming kingdom on earth. There is no way into the kingdom except through the Son and a belief in Him for the salvation of man; no religion or religious man can offer mankind entry. In fact, darkness hates the light, as we are seeing today with religious Christian forces seeking to get rid of the cross of salvation.
It was to a woman that Jesus prophetically delivered the message of the waters. She was a woman who was perceived by the Jews to be outside of the supposed inheritance of David. In fact, she was the forerunner of the witness of the bride, the 144,000 witnesses with the seal of God on them in the book of Revelation. The church of the church age will be judged, but she will emerge from it, shining in purity, free of all religion, on a solid apostolic foundation of truth. She will know the difference between the religious empire waters beneath and the Living Water from heaven. At last the house of Israel will be ready for the kingdom and for the wedding feast of the Lamb as the servants, fully understanding the changing of the waters into wine by Jesus at the wedding of Cana.
She will know and understand what the Samaritan woman at the well was told by Jesus. He said to her that neither the religion of the Samaritans nor the practices of the Jews in Jerusalem had anything to do with true worship. God is a Spirit, and the day was coming, and now is here, when those who worship Him shall worship Him in spirit and in truth. Only Jesus could tell her such things; she would never hear it from the religious leaders of Judah who would not even consider speaking with her.
She knew in her heart that the Messiah of Israel was really hers, too, and did not belong only to the Judeans, and that He would come and reveal all things. It was to her and her alone, with no other person in sight that He declared He was that Messiah, and it was through prophecy that she came to believe the truth of who He was. She would be given the message for the bride’s ears only that the evil religious empires of the world, numbering five (the number of her husbands) up until her present time and that of Jesus, symbolized her religious submission to man. Both had been born at the time of the sixth religious empire, and the fifth in line within the Babylonian system. Jesus had not yet fulfilled His role as Husband of mankind, which is very much at the heart of the marriage covenant of Genesis, chapter two, and the message for this Samaritan woman.
He encountered her in a surprise, but calculated, meeting in which He tells her that He is the Messiah who has come to deliver to her the living water, from which she will thirst no more. When she speaks of worship Jesus delivers the important message for the time of the bride when the worshipers will worship in spirit and in truth, which excludes the religious practices of the Samaritans and the Judeans to which she referred.
Then He delivered the message of the food, which was not about natural food, but rather about doing the will of God and finishing His work. He looked forward to the harvest and saw no socialism on the horizon of God’s plan. The one who reaps receives the wages, and they do not go to the foreign gentile enemies of God. They were to gather fruit for eternal life and receive their treasures for doing so in heaven. Jesus gave the picture of a continuous flow within His church from sowing to reaping, and both laborers would partake in the wages; those who do not labor deserve nothing; there is only payment according to labor.
Anyone who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father. A purpose-driven church, determined to remove the cross, does not honor the Son. A church that bows to any other high priest does not honor the Son. A church that remains in religion does not honor the Son who calls her out of Babylon the Great, mother of all harlots, lest she share in her sins and receives of her plagues (see Revelation 18:4).
John stated that Jesus said of Himself that He is the bread of life, the manna that comes down from heaven as the living bread, not that which the fathers ate in the wilderness and then died. He is the Living Water and the only source for the rivers of living water. They are a far cry from the religious waters that dry up or return to the sea. He is the Light of the World, which dispels the darkness. He is from above, not beneath, and His own shall know truth, not religion, and the truth will set them free from religious captivity.
There is no place for the Word among the religious, for their father is not God, but rather the devil. Jesus is the resurrection and the life, so those who believe in Him shall live; He was sent from God. As the Word, He is also the Judge of the last days. He is the Washer of the church. The great and marvelous declaration of all is this; He is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Him.
This is the foundational message, which separates the true church from those who say He is the way, the religion of Christianity and the life. He is the true vine, with His Father, the vinedresser. The bride of the church will love in the manner He loved, which is a willingness to lay down her life so that the world can be saved, not by feeding it natural food but rather by feeding it the proper spiritual food. The Spirit of truth will guide her into all truth, which will be given in the spirit of prophecy for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy (see Revelation 19:10).
He is the door of the sheepfold, and the Good Shepherd who will give His life to save His sheep. His sheep hear His voice and know Him and follow Him. He gives them eternal life so that they shall never perish, nor shall anyone ever snatch them out of His hand. They are referred to as gods, not because they are divine, but they have heard and received the Word of God directly from Him and are allowed to speak for Him as mere men and not as deities, as Psalm 82 indicates. However, like Jesus, they will become sons and daughters of God in the kingdom. The bride has the king’s scepter handed to her just as the king handed his scepter to Esther many centuries ago.
And so John has written it, Jesus has spoken it, and the heavens declare it. This is the true foundation of the church and anyone, who does not have Jesus, is in no way going to the Father nor will he/she receive the living water always offered to the bride at the well of spiritual water, which Jesus made available to the Samaritan woman. It is here she will meet her Husband for the first time, where Rebekah, Rachel, and the Samaritan woman were found.
The Samaritan woman declared it when she said that she knew her Messiah was coming; Jesus stated it when He said, “I who speak to you am He (John 4:26).” He is the way, the truth and the life, and there is no other way or doctrine. It is all about who He is and who you are in Him, in His righteousness. The church is not a building, not an institution, not even a fellowship; it is nothing without Him, and He is all the church needs.