“the earth, and all the host of them” (Gen. 2:1, KJV)
After our excursion where we realised that the rocks that Moses struck in the desert (Ex. 17:6; Num. 20:1) were physical, but also, and especially, spiritual and invisible, and thus as spiritual entities moved with the people and thus had to be real but invisible, and that the latter Rock was Christ, an exciting new perspective emerged. In the physical realm there was thus a physical rock from which physical water came forth, but in the spiritual reality realm it was the Christ from whom the spiritual water came.
We are currently examining what exactly happened with the miraculous process of becoming born again, and the mystery as explained in 1 Cor. 10. But before we get to this, we were faced with a question in the previous teaching that we still need to discuss. Let’s speak about the seemingly parallel existence and functioning of the physical and spiritual realm.
According to the first sentence of Gen. 2:1, which acts as a kind of recap of the first chapter of the Bible, there was more than just the invisible heaven and the invisible earth that was created: “Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished.” Heaven and earth thus had, locked within them, an entire invisible army!
It is interesting that Ex. 12:41 refers to Israel as the army or host of the Lord, in other words, ordinary people: “And it came to pass at the end of the four hundred and thirty years—on that very same day—it came to pass that all the armies of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.” In the new covenant this can typologically point to all who are born again. God identifies himself as the God of this specific group, as is for instance seen in 2 Sam. 7:26: “The Lord of hosts is the God over Israel.”
If this earthly army then consists of born again individuals, some of whom still “sleep in the dust of the earth” (Dan. 12:2), it makes it very clear that there are human manifestations in the earth, what we could call the earthly man, which is at this stage still eternal and thus invisible. This eternal earthly man and the earthly Godly army correspond with a spiritual heavenly man from the heavenly Godly army that serves as its complement – a beautiful example of “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10).
This heavenly manifestation that forms part of the spiritual army of God is referred to as the “new man” in Scripture (Eph. 2:15; 4:24; Col. 3:10), or “inner man” (Eph. 3:16; Rom. 7:22; 2 Cor. 4:16). This being is not a tangible being or entity (Heb. 12:18), but clearly becomes a reality when someone becomes born again!
We have often pointed out that this rebirth involves a ritual baptism. But with the information we have garnered about it thus far, it becomes clear that the external (physical/earthly) and visible action also includes an internal (metaphorical/heavenly) and thus invisible complement! According to 1 Cor. 10:2, when you were individually baptised in the Name of Jesus, you were also corporately baptised in the primordial waters, and when you were individually baptised with the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands, you were also corporately baptised in the cloud of witnesses. [We will substantiate this later.] In this way you as born-again individual secured your position in “all the host of them” of which Gen. 2:1 speaks!
- Selah: Ponder the mystery of the concluding sentence in the light of Dan. 12:2.
- Read: 67-69.
- Memorise: 68:6.
