Redemption is Over
Brother Branham opened our understanding to a wonderful revelation when He expounded Ephesians 4:30, "Grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed until the day that the Book of Redemption has been revealed, and the Redeemer comes to claim His possession."
Redemption ended in 1963 when Christ claimed His possession and revealed its contents (Revelation 4, 5, 10:1-7). The Book of Redemption is the inheritance of the last Adam. It records the names of his redeemed sons -- the elect who constitute the Lamb's Book of Life and the non-elect who remain in the Book of Life. Jesus Christ died to redeem this Book which is the Title Deed to everything the first Adam forfeited. As Christ's Bride, the New Testament Church, is joint heir with Jesus Christ.
Only in the sense that Christ is not yet revealed to certain elect still dozing under denominational delusions could one imply that redemption is ongoing. These will soon awake, but unlike the Church Age saints, they were all redeemed in Christ on Calvary. Read on.
The majority of mankind, being in the lineage of Cain, are not of Adam's race and therefore not in the Book of Life which is Adam's genealogy. Cain and his race are not God's spoken Word expressed, not "Spirit and Life", but a hybrid between the Serpent and Eve, and have no part in redemption.
The word "redeem" means to "buy back". As the Serpent seed line of Cain are not God's creative thoughts, they have no part in Him and are born "lost". The Serpent is the spoken Word and will be in the Millennium and the new heavens and new earth, but in his present reptilian form not in his original upright man-like frame. But neither Cain's serpent seed lineage nor any other hybrid species such as the mule will be present.
Only lack of revelation can explain why those in Message circles invest scarce time and resources ministering to and trying to convert the Serpent's seed. Jesus was the last Adam, He was not the last Cain. When He died to redeem the first Adam, who is the Book of Life, He potentially redeemed all of Adam's seed.
Cain was never in the Book of Life. Neither are any of his descendants -- whole ethnic groups are excluded from the Book of Life (Genesis 10:15-19). Adam's children who marry a Serpent seed partner commit genocide as their offspring will not be on the Book of Life . . . ever. Satan knows this which is why his people promote racial mixing.
God destroyed all life by the Great Flood because of miscegenation between the races of Adam and Cain. Jesus said these unforgivable consequences would repeat in the time of His "parousia" which began in 1963 (Genesis 6:1-4; Matthew 24:37). This accursed hybreeding of God's manifested Word from Spirit and Life, to Death, is disguised and promoted as "multiculturalism" (Genesis 1:11; John 6:63; Revelation 22:18-19). God separated the nations and set enmity between the races of Adam and Cain (Deuteronomy 32:8; Genesis 3:15;). That enmity is still present which is why multiculturalism is accursed of God.
Few who call upon the lovely Name of the Lord Jesus Christ seem to realize the distinction between the "saved" and the "born-again". Everyone in Adam's race is born "saved" from mother's womb because their names were placed on the Book of Life from the foundation of the world (Revelation 17:8). Jesus was the Kinsman Redeemer for all of Adam's race regardless how sinful their parents, the circumstances of their conception or whether their community worship devils and eat human flesh. Provided a baby is born of Adam's race, his name is on the Book of Life and he is born "saved" (John 1:29; I John 2:2).
Babies (not still-born) and children who die before the age of accountability are "saved" so long as they are in Adam's race; so are adults who never heard the Good News of Jesus Christ but lived all the righteousness they knew naturally (Romans 1:19-20). Every one whose name remains on the Book of Life is "saved" and will be granted in to eternal Life at the White Throne Judgment.
One can not read the Bible or listen to a sermon and "get saved". Everyone in Adam's race is born "saved" but with the freedom to choose whether they will receive God and live by His every Word, or follow the desires of their own hearts and chance losing the salvation Jesus has already purchased for them.
God is long suffering and gracious, not desiring that any of Adam's race should perish, excusing a multitude of sins in each of us. But sinners who exhaust God's patience and spurn His mercy, having rejected the revealed Word once too often, will come to a time of no more repentance and their names will be removed from the Book of Life. Then they are irrevocably LOST.
So long as one's name is on the Book of Life, one is "saved" and will be judged by the saints and granted into eternal Life at the White Throne Judgment following the Millennium and the general resurrection.
Our service to God and our duty to ourselves is to recognize the gift God has already provided for us and to secure our salvation by advancing in the faith through Justification by grace confirmed by Scriptural water baptism in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, to Sanctification: amending our ways to conform to God's standard of Scriptural holiness, to the baptism with the Holy Spirit which is the new birth whereby we hear our name called from the Lamb's Book of Life: recognizing the PRESENT Truth -- what Jesus is doing NOW -- and becoming written epistles of THAT part of the Word.
Only when we have been born-again are we Christians with "eternal security", knowing our names are inscribed in the Lamb's Book of Life and can not under any circumstances be removed. This Book is the genealogy of Jesus Christ and records the names of all who will be born the second time. Once born-again we are Spiritually redeemed and sealed to the day of our redemption. We can never be lost and are joint heirs with Jesus Christ by His eternal Life in our soul.
The evidence of the baptism with the Holy Ghost is hearing, receiving and acting on the revealed Word of God for YOUR day -- recognizing YOUR day and ITS Message. This is best illustrated if we paraphrase I John 1:7, "UNLESS our lives are manifesting the Word Jesus promised to fulfill in THIS day, we are not and cannot come under the Blood (or be born-again), nor share true Spiritual fellowship with those who are Christians".
According to Jesus the evidence of the new birth is that "the Holy Spirit will guide you into ALL the truth revealed for YOUR day. You may determine whether the inspiration is from the Holy Spirit or your own spirit impressing private ideas and interpretations because whatsoever He says will be Bible doctrine (from Genesis to Revelation) and He will unfold Scriptures to come to fulfillment in your dispensation. Thus He will honor Me by drawing upon My Word and revealing It to you" (John 16:13-14).
Throughout the New Testament, the evidence of the new birth is "hearing" not speaking, what the Holy Spirit is saying in blessing to the elect Church, and to the nominal church by way condemnation (Acts 2:66; 4:4; 10:44-48; Romans 10:14-18; Revelation 2:7).
When Jesus died, his mortal Spirit expired, but His soul which was united with the Holy Spirit descended to the realm of the departed and preached to sinners, vindicating the Messages of the former prophets who pointed to their Redeemer. Early on the third day Jesus re-entered and glorified His embalmed body buried in Joseph of Arimathaea's tomb. In this form He encountered Mary Magdalene (John 20:11-18), bidding her not to touch Him lest she defile the sacrifice. He then ascended to present Himself to His Father and cleanse the heavenly temple of the sins of the Old Testament saints with His atoning Blood. And following the shadows and types, He sprinkled the Mercy Seat above the Ark between the Cherubim seven times with His Own Blood, once for each of the seven Church Ages.
Next He descended and led the saints Satan held captive in death, captives of eternal Life. They entered into His resurrection, appearing to many who would become the New Testament saints and who were in the City of Jerusalem for the compulsory feasts of Unleavened Bread and Pentecost, under the blood of the Passover Lamb, which in that year was Jesus Christ (Ephesians 4:8; Matthew 27:52-53).
The Church was founded on the day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit was given to inaugurate the many-membered Body of Christ as His new, permanent and final Temple, made not with hands but by His spoken Word (Matthew 11:25-30; Acts 7:48-50; Ephesians 2:21-22; Hebrews 10:5; Revelation 21:3).
Since Daniel and John had been commanded to SEAL their common vision and prophecy unto the time of the end (Daniel 12:4, 9; Revelation 10:1-4), only PART-Word was revealed to the saints predestinated to Pentecost and the seven Church Ages. On this account the Holy Spirit came to them in the Office of Son of God or advocate (Greek, "parakletos") to plead before God in behalf of their ignorance of the full Word so long as the Bible was sealed with Seven Seals.
Christ was Mediator, arbitrator or intercessor between two parties to a contract -- the New Covenant or Testament written between God and His elect in His Own Blood (Revelation 1:5). Christ's function from the day of Pentecost to the end of the seventh Church Age was to restore peace and agreement between the PART-Word saints and God, the Word.
Christ was ONLY a Mediator for His elect, NOT for sinners. ONLY for those called to be party to the Contract. Because they had only PART-Word, they could not but be in error or at variance with God, and required the offices of an Advocate and Mediator acceptable to Him. Clearly then, for seven out of seven Church Ages the Church has been believing and teaching error. Otherwise Christ would never have been a Mediator.
Aaron was Christ's type. He was a high priest or intercessor ONLY for those called of God and following THUS SAITH THE LORD, the Word for THEIR day by His prophet Moses. He was not a mediator for the Egyptians, the Moabites, Canaanites, or the mixed multitude who followed Israel out of Egypt. Likewise, Christ was Mediator ONLY for God's elect, making it possible for them to be born-again despite their errors and contradictions of His Word.
God did not expect the saints to understand all of His Word in one dispensation. He revealed a little here, adding further understanding over there, and so-on through the years (Isaiah 28:9-13). Although the Church of all Ages is One Body, It commenced in relative ignorance whilst God expounded and proved the Covenant to Paul and the early prophets by Old Testament shadows and types. This faith was delivered to the early saints but God hid many secrets within His Word which even the prophets who wrote It could not understand for they did not pertain to their Age (I Peter 1:10-13).
As the assemblies increased in number they declined in exclusivity as many who joined themselves to them were not elect. Standards of holiness relaxed, errors crept into the teachings, and the elect Church diminished as the nominal church increased through the first three Ages. The nominal majority gathered at the First Nicea Council of AD325 where they organized under State patronage on the pagan doctrine of the Trinity and a false baptism in three Titles. Then over the next thousand years that Roman Catholic church persecuted the saints, killing all who refused to worship their Trinity of gods or receive their false water baptism.
The last three Church Ages represent the Reformation of the Roman Catholic system of worship. Following the Thyatira Church Age (the Dark Ages) God raised up great teachers who expounded the Bible and protested the blasphemy and corruption of Rome. Sadly they did not take the Church back to Pentecost and the only Church Jesus recognizes as His Own. And although the reformers perpetuated Roman error they were mightily used of the Lord for it was not yet time for restoration. The Bible would remain sealed until Christ completed His mediation and the last saint predestinated to the Church Ages born-again in Laodicea. Then He would reveal the Seven Seals through a prophet and restore the Church back to the apostolic faith.
Knowing all things, God did not require perfect understanding from the Church Age saints. Christ's mediation made allowance for their ignorance. He received their faith in the Word revealed for THEIR day and He placed their errors and ignorance under the atoning Blood which is the sea of God's forgetfulness where the sins of the Bride Age saints and the 144,000 elect Israelites have been since Calvary. Please read that once again, . . .or twice.
After Jesus' assumption into heaven His body lay on the altar of sacrifice as a memorial and throughout the Church Ages He was "the Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world". So long as those seven stripes of Blood were present above the Ark it was a Mercy Seat, and Christ was a Mediator until the last saint predestinated to the PART-Word divisions of the Body came under that seventh stripe of Blood or was born-again in the Laodicean Church Age.
Once that soul was baptized into the Body, the Church Ages were over, and the sevenfold Spirit of God that had anointed the seven angels to the Church -- Paul, Irenaeus, Martin, Columba, Luther, Wesley and Branham, ascended from Earth with the four Cherubim and stood before the Ark or throne of God in the heavenly tabernacle, reporting that Christ's ministry of Mediation is fulfilled and redemption is over. It was no longer a throne of Mercy, and instead of Blood an angry God sat upon the throne from which proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices (Revelation 4:5). It was now the throne of Judgment.
The Church Ages were the time of Christ's JUSTIFICATION of the PART-Word saints by receiving their faith in the Word for THEIR Age and extending grace by pardoning their ignorance of other Scriptures. Now it is time for REDEMPTION to be revealed to the end-time Bride of Christ -- HOW the saints were redeemed in each of the PART-Word dispensations, and WHO they were in each Age. In other words, how the mystery of God was revealed in Jesus Christ, and how Christ was revealed in His Body, the elect Church. These mysteries hidden under the Seven Seals are revealed "in the days of the voice of the angel to the Seventh Church Age" . . . after that Age had ended . . . in the fiftieth day.
The Gentile dispensation has within it nine separate dispensations defined by nine distinct baptisms of the Holy Spirit or new births. The fullness of the Word delivered to the Pentecostal saints was SEALED with Seven Seals. The Seven Church Ages that followed were determined by seven different portions of the Word. Seven baptisms of the Holy Ghost. Finally the revelation of the Seven Seals restored the apostolic faith and finished the mystery of God to quicken the saints of this Capstone or Bride Age by the FULLNESS of the Word (Malachi 4:5-6; Revelation 10:7).
Whilst the Book was sealed, the saints were born-again by becoming written epistles of the PART-Word revealed for THEIR day. And in each Age the saints displayed a distinct nature as we explained in The Stature of the Perfect Man, a teaching sermon linked to Newsletter 146 explaining how God added faith, virtue, knowledge, and so-on, to endue the Body with His Divine nature (II Peter 1:1-12).
The elders advertised for a Kinsman Redeemer and one of them said to John (who throughout the Book of Revelation represents the end-time Bride who will not see physical death), "Behold the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the Book, and to loose the Seven Seals" (Revelation 5:5). We turn around to see the Lion but behold the bleeding, bloody Lamb coming from the sacrifice altar where He has been through all His years of intercession.
When the Lamb left the sacrifice altar, the Blood left the Mercy Seat, redemption was finished and the Mercy Seat became a Judgment Seat. Let me repeat that. When the Blood left the Mercy Seat it became a Judgment Seat; the Lamb had left the sacrifice altar and redemption was OVER. The redemption of mankind ENDED (past tense) in 1963. The sacrificial Lamb of God became the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.
Christ is NOT a Mediator today, He is King of Kings and Judge. He has not been a Mediator since He came forward and claimed the Book of Redemption in 1963. Our Messenger is not William Branham or any of the seven earthly angels but "another Mighty Angel Who came down from heaven clothed in a Cloud with the rainbow over His head and the Book of Redemption open in His hand". Our Angel is Christ Himself, the Angel of the Covenant (Revelation 10:1-6).
Mercy is over EXCEPT in the fullness of the Word because Christ is no longer a Mediator, He is the Judge, and the Fullness which requires no dispensation as It is God. The Word has descended for the space of half an hour to unite with His Bride and indict the world (Jude 14-15). After It is revealed to the 144,000 elect Israelites It will smite the nations in Armageddon and rule with a rod of iron at the White Throne Judgment after the Millennium (Revelation 19:11-15).
The revelation of the six written Seals was the Seventh Seal and the Coming of the Lord with ten thousands of His saints. The fullness of the Word in that unseen substance called faith. What are these mystic lights they call UFO's? Investigating judgment angels! It's the dimensions breaking into one another as we approach the first resurrection and translation of the living Bride. Wait until Satan and his demons are cast out in the next cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary. Judgment and the Tribulation plagues will follow them down to Earth.
Christ was never a Mediator for the non-elect. The presence of the Bride on Earth enables God's blessings upon them as they honor His Word -- written, or manifested in His saints. The non-elect were not "saved" by virtue of His Blood on the Mercy Seat, but being born into Adam's race, their names are on the Book of Life.
The prayers of the saints for intercession could only be received when Blood was on the sacrifice Altar and upon the Mercy Seat. Without that Blood, their prayers could not ascend to God, for until the Seven Seals were revealed the Blood was the evidence of their Atonement. Since "that which is perfect has come" the evidence of our Atonement is the Token or Life of Christ on display. So you see it is essential that we have the Token ON DISPLAY.
You will recall the Israelitish high priest stood before the Golden Altar of incense and offered those prayers after the evening sacrifice had been offered. He was Christ's pattern or type. In Revelation 5:8 the sum of the prayers of the PART-Word Bride are presented to the Priest, and represent their imperfect revelation Christ had interceded for through the Church Ages. They are accepted. Their prayers can now be offered up because their Kinsman has come forth to claim the Book of names He has redeemed and the Mercy Seat has become a Judgment Seat. The "much incense" offered with their prayers is the revelation of the end-time Bride by the fullness of the Word (Hebrews 11:39-40).
Christ comes forth to claim His Own throne (Earth) and His redeemed subjects (in the resurrection). The Book is His Title Deed. Right now He is separating His end time Bride from the harlot and her daughter churches by revealing the Book.
Christ's end-time Bride and the 144,000 elect Israelites require no intercession for redemption, nor do we require Blood on the Altar or the Mercy Seat as we were redeemed in Christ on Calvary. Christ did not need to mediate for us as we present God with "that which is perfect", the fullness of the Word which is Christ Himself. And Christ is already accepted.
This explains why the Prophet said, "the Church goes up after the third Chapter of Revelation and does not reappear until the nineteenth". Christ's mediation for the PART-Word saints was fulfilled at the close of the Laodicean Church Age in March, 1963 (Revelation 3:22). But the end-time Bride was ALREADY redeemed in Christ on Calvary (although we were ignorant of that fact). So when He finished mediating for the last saint predestinated to Laodicea, the Body was completely redeemed.
This explains how the redeemed of all ages were already around the White Throne worshiping that day in March, 1963 when Christ claimed the Book and opened the Seven Seals (Revelation 5:8-14). Some of us were not even conceived by our mothers. Not one of us was born-again. Yet we were all present on that day because we were already redeemed in Christ on Calvary.
If you can see these things, rejoice! Thank God you are "in"! And recognize this is the "relaxing time" of the Holy Convocation or fiftieth day of the Pentecostal Feast under the Seventh Seal where all "work" has been done. We have THUS SAITH THE LORD by a vindicated prophet and sit in the S_O_N Light of the Message, ripening, until all of the greenness and error is gone from us, and we are mature with the Token on display, ready for the manifestation of the Sons of God and the Translation. (nl147.htm) bb001129.htm
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