“them that walk after the flesh … and despise dominion”
(2 Pet 2:10, ASV)
We concluded the previous teaching with an amazingly important principle – there is a difference between entering the kingdom (through being born and again and being baptized) and inheriting the kingdom. It was spelled out – Those who have lost their fidelity due to Satan’s craftiness have also lost their inheritance and can thus not govern. The Word differentiates between these two groups through a distinction of those who walk in the spirit and those who walk in the flesh. Remember: BOTH groups are saved and born again (although there is also a difference between these two processes) but the one group will inherit the kingdom while the other will not. Those that walk in the flesh “despise dominion” as the Scripture quoted above relates, and cannot govern now or during the 1000-year reign of peace.
In an effort to eradicate misunderstanding we should attempt an explanation of this difference at the hand of the tabernacle of Moses.
If by choice you leave the kingdom of darkness for the kingdom of God it means, within the tabernacle typology, that you come in from outside into the area that has been demarcated, by choosing to convert yourself. In the outer court you are firstly confronted with the bronze altar, which we by now know points to the cross of Christ and place where salvation is received on account of the blood sacrifice of Jesus. When you accept Him, you are SAVED and your sins are forgiven and you become a child of God (John 1:12; Gal 3:26; 1 John 5:12). There you are sanctified and cleansed with the washing of water by the word (Eph 5:26; 1 Cor 6:11; Zac 13:1). Many believers spend the rest of their lives in this first dimension, where the gospel of salvation (Rom 1:16; Eph 1:13a) prominently features. They have been led here by the Spirit of God (you cannot be saved without the Holy Spirit); and thus have the Holy Spirit, but do not walk with Him, and have not been baptized in the Spirit. Thus Paul considers them carnal Christians (1 Cor 3:3), they remain “babes in Christ” (1 Cor 3:1).
The first curtain, separating the outer court from the Holy section, through which the converted individual can pass, is the process of being born again. If you are born through spirit and water, Jesus explains in John 3:3&5, you can for the first time see and enter the Kingdom of God. This includes baptism with water and baptism with the Holy Spirit. Now you not only have the Holy Spirit but the Holy Spirit also has you, and thus God can use the menorah (=gifts and fruits of the Spirit), the table of showbread (=to know the voice and will of God) and the altar of incense (=intercession, praise and spiritual warfare) to have you enter the Kingdom. But it still possible to camp in this dimension, enjoying the charismatic experience which has sprung from the gospel of the Kingdom (Matt 4:23; 9:35), without inheriting the Kingdom. Those who make the “kingdom come” (Matt 6:10) in the second dimension, through the fulfillment of God’s agenda by functioning within their purpose and calling (Acts 13:36) can traverse the second curtain, the baptism with fire (Matt 3:11) and receive their inheritance in the Kingdom of God and thus have the right to govern (Rev 5:10). This is the third dimension, that of “a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4:13), where the gospel of glory (2 Cor 4:4; 1 Tim 1:11) originates.
- Sela: Explain the differences between the three “gospels” to someone. Remember that one does not exclude the others, but that the first leads to the second, and second leads to the third.
- Read: Jos 14 Est 7; Isa 30
- Memorise: Isa 30:21
