01-15-69 Bible Study Q&A

Wednesday Night Bible Study - Questions and Answers

By Dr. Wesley A. Swift

1-15-69

QUESTION:---The Catholics have seven sacraments---

ANSWER:---There are only three---baptism, matrimony and communion. They attempt to say that baptism is not a sacrament it is an ordinance. To be a sacrament, blessing has to descent from heaven upon it. It has to be a transition of spiritual power from heaven to earth. If marriage is a sacrament blessed by heaven, then baptism is also a sacrament for it represented not only the mystic connection between Christ and his church, but not only,-- were they buried with HIM in baptism and raised with HIM in baptism. Then of course a person is baptized symbolically into the body of Christ, then by the same token he is baptized into His death and raised with Him in resurrection. And by the same token then sprinkling, and infant baptism does not just have its origin as some people have stated in the theology of various sects, but way back in the Old Testament, in the temple they baptized in clean water for the people. And they were free from all transgressions. In this instance they also emerged children, the baptism of children symbolically washing them with clean water. Washing away all transgression until the redemption. This was done and you find a bit about this in the Ecclesia of the Old Testament. So in the New Testament the word Christening came from Christ naming the child. They baptized the child by sprinkling water upon him. And as they did this they do it in the name of the LORD JESUS CHRIST. And give this child his name in the name of the LORD JESUS CHRIST. Thus He is his Father in heaven. Thus each individual baptized in the name of YAHSHUA was taking on the name of Christian. The parents therefore baptized their children into the name of Christ as well as into the church. And this was held as fulfilling the areas of responsibility until the child reached the age of responsibility.

In the early church as well, it was said this baptism was fully complete and held unless the child became wayward and strayed from the faith. This was in what we called the Armenian school of theology which differs from the areas of Grace. They thought that a person could be baptized and saves, then could go out and transgress, not saying how much or how little, he can transgress. But he can be lost and headed for perdition so he has to come back, say to a revival meeting, or something like that and be saved again. Or go to the altar and the minister prays him back into the fold. This goes on until he slips again. This in and out slipping operation generally is from the Armenian theology school. This is quite often found in the Holiness churches, and others. But the Apostle Paul said:-'We are not those who can pull back.' There is no possibility of a person having Eternal Life and then losing it because Eternal Life means exactly what it says. The Apostle Paul straightens this out in the book of Corinthians as he talks about the fact that:---"No other foundation can any man lay except that which is laid in Jesus Christ." In otherwords, all a mans works are built on this foundation whether these works be wood, hay, stubble, or precious jewels, are determined by how conscious he is of the quality of these works. But if all the man's works are wrong, except as he recognizes and believes in Christ, still this man is saved by fire. The situation is by this translation that even tho every work the man does is in error, except that he believe in Christ, still no man can believe in the deity of Christ except by the process of the Holy Spirit which is not only in him, but dwells in the entire household of God's family. This is the difference in the white race, and the other races of earth. This is when in the second chapter of Genesis when God had prepared Eden and he said there is no Adam (man) to till the ground. So no man was found of this type on earth. So God begat Adam and then breathed into him His breath of life and Adam became a living soul. The word in Hebrew for this indicates that He breathed HIS Living Spirit into Adam. Thus Adam became an Issue of God with God's Spirit in him. Because he had the spirit of God in him then Adam could understand and know the things of God, the purposes of God, with his mind, which was out of God. In his fall, Adam lost this spiritual perception which he might have had but it would be restored by Grace which God promised to do. But prior to that, Adam had a greater area of discernment than he had after the fall. But this God promised to restore. The areas of Pre-existence are brought out by the Apostle Paul as God hath promised us this before the foundation of the world. We existed with the Father before the foundation of the world. One of the most important things is, that a person can remove out of scripture this theology, this fact that you were a child of God before the foundation of the world. That God had begotten a household in spiritual planes. That our body of Light which existed in this dimension is no less tangible, no less operative than the physical body is in this plane. For God spoke to us, and in reality He explained how He foresaw a Luciferian operation. He saw and explained to us how Lucifer would mongrelize and deteriorate the world. Then how He would embody us in physical bodies in the world. And we were to conquer the darkness. We were to destroy the power of Lucifer, and preach the Gospel which was of great joy to the earth, as we were to free the races Lucifer had taken under bondage. This is where the word Israel first came from meaning Issue ruling with God. Therefore, God said:--"I will embody my issue in the flesh."

Now; if one does not want to believe in pre-existence, and think they cam into being as this physical body came into existence, they have to actually throw out about 2/3 of the Epistles of the New Testament because this is what the Apostle Paul is explaining. In fact even more clear than translation permitted is this:---You were in the bosom of the Father before the foundation of the world. You were to be born in an exact time. He conditions you in the power of His sons and daughters and does this according to His own will. He will do all that He wants to do, when He wants to do it.----This is woven into all the Epistles by the Apostle Paul. And this same truth is in Old Testament times carried on as the Apostle Paul, after his trip into the heavens outlined in the New Testament.

The Apostle Paul said:---'I knew a man whether in the body or out of the body---(and then he tells the story of being taken into the heavens and then admits it was he, and he came back and wrote the Apocalypse of Paul and many Epistles.)

Now; the strange thing that the Armenian Theology is the Ecclesiastical deteriation of the Doctrines of Grace that existed in the days of the Apostle Paul. The Armenian theology gets away from the things that Jesus and the Apostle Paul taught by rationalizing that this cannot be. Couldn't see that Gods Grace is big enough to believe when He said He saves to the uttermost.

But the children of God have the capacity of spirit which recognizes the person of God, the truths of God, the Messiahship of God, the embodiment of God. As long as man recognizes that Jesus is the Christ, he possesses Eternal Life, and doesn't lose this. In otherwords, he would have to be hit in the head and be not responsible before he would not believe that Jesus is the Christ or the fullness of God dwelling bodily. Lots of people are begotten of God in the spirit and they don't even know it. And when they come to the realization of who Christ is, they may not go thru all these factors of theology you and I are discussing. They may still be living under the carnal patterns of their mind and the world order may effect his thinking. And when he got all thru, if everything he had thought or did was in error still because of the Eternal Spirit in him, this man will be saved even by Eternal Firs, which burns but the error. This word Firs is Aura. It is not a fire of total destruction, but the Shekinah Glory or Light. It will burn all the error out. And even if all his works burn up, he will still be saved by this fire. The best thing that ever happened to a person would be to lose all error out of their lives and reveal the fullness of God to him.

Remember that God has a big investment in this thing. One of His Archangels--a cherub, a sun of the morning who, no doubt, stood up next to God in power in the Universe. And God knew before he ever transgressed that transgression would have to exist before it could be coped with. This is ultimate theology. For God knew at sometime someone would challenge His claim of righteousness. He could not set this aside without letting it happen. So He permitted this Archangel to bring up this question of rebellion, so that once and for all , that once it had made its appearance, He would deal with it. He would then not only handle it for all times, but could then put in completely out of the Universe and it will never rise again.

Lucifer is actually the scapegoat. We despise the devil and his children because they are evil. And we are to conquer them in the fullness of time. After all it is not our Archangel, it is the Father's who rebelled. And it was with the Father's knowledge that he rebelled. Therefore, we have this strange statement made. I created evil and I created good---But God never created evil in form. But He did create evil and allowed Lucifer to rebel. He created Archangels in order to give them the power of Will for their positions and He had to give them the power which could someday become the opposition or righteousness itself. Therefore, rebellion had to come into existence before God would cope with it.

Now; by the same force the day will come when Lucifer will worship at your feet. For he embodied his spiritual children in earth in physical form in this physical world wherein Lucifer can now only be embodied after leaving his first estate. But the children of the MOST HIGH are higher than the Angels, for never to the Angels did He ever say thou are my son. In the book of Hebrews, He says we are His kinsmen. He acknowledges this fact that we are sons and daughters. Since the children of God are embodied in flesh He took upon Himself a body of the flesh of Abraham. He acknowledges you. He became embodied out of the circle into the flesh. In resurrection, He raised a cleansed physical body into the Celestial. He took every sin onto that body. But He had so much power that as He came our of the grave, all transgression was atoned for, paid for, eliminated from His family. This is Grace so supreme, that many mens minds cannot cope with this. They can't accept this that He was so full of Grace for His offspring, that He could accomplish this.

An Evangelist meeting just whips people back and forth with every transgression and sends them down that line of hell fire and brimstone. It was possible for Israel to backslide in the Old Testament. But in the New Testament, that is not the program. But suppose you do such things. Still the spirit in you is forever and He can bring you up out of that. You are a wayward child but still a child.

Now; the word Sheol is the grave. And Hades is still translated Hell when it is just the grave. The wages of sin is death in the physical. It effects this body. But by the resurrection, then God conquered Lucifer. When He came up out of the grave, He resurrected with all the household of God tied into that resurrection by the sacraments of Baptism. By the same token also, the sacraments of communion is a rejoining of the individual to Christ. As he takes of the blood and flesh of Christ, he identifies himself with Christ at the Crucifixion. It is a substitutionary act, because as the individual identifies himself with the body tho it be 2000 years later, He says he is flesh of His flesh, and bone of His bone from the creation of Adam. Now as partakers of the Communion as a sacrament, then since Jesus said this is by blood, then the individual is crucified with Christ and is raised with Christ. Thus the fellowship of the resurrection is established. The communion is the fellowship of Christs suffering. There was no one else who could have made that atonement. Thus you become identified with HIM in that atonement,--for flesh of His flesh, blood of His blood--then resurrected with His resurrection. Thus the unction of His Holy Spirit surrounds the communion wafer and the wine. As you digest it, then it is passing thru your physical body and can quicken your mortal body. Thus spiritual power is transferred from the Celestial thru physical food which when digested is capable of coating with the unction of God's aura. Therefore this is a sacrament.

Now; I will say this concerning the Catholic Church.--We see much heresy today in many churches and we have seen many things in the Catholic Church that we don't agree with such as the bodily ascension of the body of Mary, or in the infallibility of the Pope anymore than any Clergy would be infallible. But there is one factor that has maintained the church. That is the Holy Communion. This is a Living miracle. On this communion table they have offered up those elements of the MOST HIGH. They believe that the unction of the Holy Spirit has made this as the body and blood of Christ. This is exactly what the Apostle Paul introduced in the Book of Corinthians as God introduced this to him. If you go into the book of Corinthians, you will discover--God was inferring that this was the body and blood of Christ by the miracle of heaven. Because Jesus said:--'Except ye eat my flesh and drink my blood, ye have no part in me'. In otherwords, by this method you identify with ME.

Again, here the spirit states, because you are identified as the race, who draws this out of HIM, as the race who HE redeems, then he said:--'No man can ascend into the heavens unless he came down out of there.' Our coming in and going out is known unto the LORD. In the Old Testament it talks about how you brought nothing into this world, and can take nothing out but the experiences, the knowledge of the earthly lives, and eventually all these will be brought together when He comes by the plane of spirit. The Apostle Paul, after he returned from the heavens said"--''whether in the physical or the spirit body, I could not tell.' In otherwords, it was just a matter of dimensions. But he said:--'I know now that I have a house not made by hands. A spiritual house eternal in the planes of spirit. It is called heaven. He said:--'If this body oxidizes, this spirit and consciousness of mine will go into that spiritual tabernacle and will keep right on living.' In otherwords:--absent from this body is to be present with the LORD.--This means that you continue on. But the Apostle Paul said:--I don't want to die. I just want to be swallowed up in this light. This tabernacle of Light. One of these days the Celestial body will swallow up this physical body and it will be a great and marvelous day. But for me to live is Christ---(or embodied in physical). While to die is gain. I don't enjoy going thru this veil of pain and suffering but I really don't want to die. All those Armenian schools of theology all want to go to heaven. But sick and they run for the doctor trying to stay here. Even the Apostle Paul, his eyesight almost gone, did not want to die. He just wanted to be swallowed up in Light. After he surrendered to the death idea, he didn't last long. But the fact is that this physical plane being governed by Celestial plane is just a basic fact. Every generation---the Patriarchs, all the way down to the Apostle Paul, all perceived this. They did not know the more advanced fields of theology which were brought out more by Christ and then the Apostle Paul. But they still understood the patterns of resurrection. Because the oldest Bible writer we have who is Job, about 5000 B.C. Enoch wrote also in that time. But we do not have him in our Bible. But Job recognized this idea of resurrection;---'I know that with these eyes I shall behold my redeemer upon this earth.' The oldest writer then of the Bible believed in the power of the resurrection and he was going to live because his Redeemer lived. Job didn't like the Negroes either. They hid in the thorn bushes and turned on him. Weren't fit to lay down with his dogs. The devil challenged God saying:--'All men would serve God because He protected the.' So God said:--'Suppose I just let you do your devilish work. You can do anything but take his life.' So the devil killed Jobs children, took his land, his herds, brought him sickness, and all of Jobs friends came and complained. The devil said:--'Why don't you curse God and die?' Job said:--'Even tho He slay me I still praise Him.' So even tho Job might curse the day he was born because of the suffering, still he praises God. So God restored Job and he had more children and he migrated down to the land of Palestine and on into Egypt where he got to help in the building of the Pyramid. And wrote it in iron and stone, sealed it in the rocks forever---that there would be a resurrection.

What I want to point out to you is that in the book of Job, I can show you almost all the fundamentals of theology that are a part of the Christian faith of our time. So you see it was a maintained faith from Job on down to our time.

Marriage is the third sacrament. One of the most important things to God was the maintenance of the race. Today we believe in a single marriage. But there is nothing Biblical on this except it thought a Bishop was best with one wife. The transgression in old times was to have a wife not of the race.

Remember Adam was begotten and named all the animals. They had names before this, but Adam spoke a pure Hebrew--almost English. Did you know that old pure Hebrew is almost the same as English?

Now; remember as Adam took a look at the Enosh, then there was no one for Adam to marry. So God made Eve and they were one flesh out of the body of Audaum that God begat.

Lillith was the serpent woman that was the symbol for Lucifer. Hydra the serpent was high in the sky woven into the Gospel message of the stars. When Eve was seduced, then she introduced Adam to Lillith. But Adam was told not to do this. Not to mix. but Eve didn't know. Had never been directly told. But Adam fell with knowledge of what not to do. God said Adam knew. When God spoke to our race and said he was going to put us down here to lead the world back to the true savior. But I will have to redeem you first because you are my offspring. I can't leave my children in such a state. You said:--' Oh, we won't fall.' But He wrote our names in the Lambs Book of Life before the foundations of the world.

Now; with each revelation of His purpose He empowers His sons. And we are waiting for that power. When He comes He will fill this consciousness until we are exactly like HIM. As Celestial beings your mind takes on the full scope of understanding until we know as He knows. In a twinkling of the eye, we will perceive as we did before. As your body puts on immortality, it will never die again.. All that has been paid for. It is as sure as tomorrows sunrise. We don't question that.

One of the strange things--some with an Armenian theology say, it isn't fair. If I work harder for God than someone else and we all walk into this promise together. It isn't fair. Well, He said:--'I bring my reward with Me. Not your reward. I bring my reward with ME to give to every man as His work shall be.' If His Grace is so great that everyone must be perfected, then I as for that.

God will put the seed of Lucifer out on Ara in His Shekinah Glory and burn the error out of them. What would be worse than the devil being allowed to always be in error?

But he is going to worship at your feet. And even in the Netherworld, they will be singing Hymns. So are you going down with a whip and try to stir them up for worshiping God? Some people think there will be a great amphitheater and they will watch people toasted and roasted. But God never said anything like that. I will save to the uttermost is HIS WILL.

The little flock is Israel. A minority in earth. But in the fullness of time all flesh shall be saved.

QUESTION:---He that is born of God never sins?

ANSWER:---That is right. The spirit does not fall. This new name you are to receive is tied to your begetter. But you don't lose the association with your Father. Any of the household of God.

People who were closely associated in the Celestial have a close affinity in the physical world. Therefore whether you know it or not this brings you closer together. You feel closer to those who think as you do. The foundation of spiritual association then started in the heavens. When the time is finished then, everyone will be perfect. You don't take error into heaven with you.

The rewards are here. You live before the judgement seat of Christ all the time. And your judgement was consummated at His Atonement. The rewards of Faith are given to you as you study. Parables are simultudes. Some things in the Old Testament wouldn't do you any good. They are ended. The curses are even not in the law for you anymore. He hailed them to His Cross. One of the greatest of forces is the force that holds the Universe together. The deception of people comes from Lucifer and his children.

 

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