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153 Oh, if God can get Him prisoners like that! Now, that’s when He can express the preeminences, you see. He, He’s got the man, or the person, so that he knows nothing but Christ. You get what I mean? [Congregation says, “Amen.”–Ed.] All right. That’s secondly.
Isn’t that a beautiful thought? God has preeminences in you when you know nothing but Christ. Can He have preeminences in you outside of Christ? No, He cannot. The prophet told us that the only relationship we have to God is Jesus Christ.
154 First, to express Hisself completely, God in Christ.
So He had preeminences in Jesus, that was God’s thought. To do that First. He could do whatever He wanted in Jesus. Jesus testified that He did nothing unless His Father first showed Him. Nothing. Jesus said it wasn’t He that did the miracles and works but the Father. It was ordained that He would do that first in Jesus Christ.
155 Second, to have the preeminences, by this, in His Church, which is His Body, the Bride, till He could have the preeminence to express Himself through them. All right.
Notice here that after stating that He had preeminences in Jesus He moves secondarily to have preeminences in His Church. Why secondarily? Didn’t He have full preeminences in Adam and Eve before the fall? The prophet said a “life lived” would have been the Word but that Adam and Eve did not do that. So, even though He had preeminences for a short while it was not His full preeminences, He was not expressed completely in Adam, otherwise the prophet lied here in paragraph 154 when he said “First, to express Himself completely, God in Christ” That was God’s plan from the beginning to FIRST express Himself in Christ. And notice what he says here:
64-1205 THE.IDENTIFIED.MASTERPIECE.OF.GOD
133 And when He made His first masterpiece, He put him behind the Word. When He made His second Masterpiece, He was the Word. Amen. He was the Word; not behind the Word. But, He was the Word. God never changes His plan.
Notice Bro Branham making the bold difference between Adam and Jesus. He does not say Adam was the Word, only that he was behind the Word. I’m not trying to say Adam was not spoken by God. No. What I’m wanting to point out is that in Adam, God did not fully express Himself as was in His mind since the foundation of the world. That did not happen until Jesus. So, the statement from paragraph 154 above follows through later on in the message here.
But lets not miss something very small and very important in paragraph 155. Two words “by this”. He is referring to God having preeminences in the his church by something. He is referring to God’s first expression of His attributes, Jesus Christ. So, again he is making it clear that preeminences in the church only comes by Christ. It was ordained that way in the Garden of Eden in before the fall and its that way now. Preeminences in God’s people was ordained to be in one way and one way only. It would not be by Adam’s will or my will or your will or anybody else’s but the “I will”, the “I am”
63-0728 CHRIST.IS.THE.MYSTERY.OF.GOD.REVEALED
156 And, thirdly, to restore the Kingdom to its rightly position, that fell by sin by the first Adam, back to where He walked in the cool of the evening, with His people, talked with them, fellowshipped with them.
157 And now sin and death had separated them from His Presence and His entire expression. Do you read it? Before the foundation of the world, to express all of His attributes, what He was.
Lastly do not miss what the prophet tells us here as he drives the point home. Adam and Eve was separated “from His presence and from HIS ENTIRE EXPRESSION”. Separated from God, they had not and could not ever express all of His Attribute. The only way they could do that is with Christ. It was that way at the beginning, it was ordained that way from the very beginning that we would receive eternal life one way and one way only, through Jesus Christ. So, why hadn’t Adam and Eve already partaken of the Tree of Life? Let me leave you with one more thought to back up what I just stated.
102-2 EPHESIAN.CHURCH.AGE – CHURCH.AGE.BOOK CPT.3
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We start with the fact that there were TWO trees in the midst of the garden. The Tree of Life was Jesus. The other tree is definitely Satan because of what came forth of the fruit of that tree. Now then, we know that both of those trees had a relationship to man or they would never have been placed there. They must have had a part in the sovereign plan and purpose of God in their relationship to mankind and to Himself or we could never impute omniscience unto God. This is all true so far, is it not? Now the Word most definitely sets forth that from BEFORE the foundation of the earth the purpose of God was to share His Eternal Life with man.
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But that Life could not, and would not, be shared in any other way than through the way of “God manifest in the flesh.” This was a part of His eternal and predestinated purpose.
So, you can see that all through the message this thought of God having ordained Life/Preeminences would come one way and one way only. Man would not win it or earn it. But it would be given without money and without price to babes such as would learn. The Tree of Life in the garden was Jesus and the only way to partake of that tree, was for Christ to come and GIVE His life.
63-0728 CHRIST.IS.THE.MYSTERY.OF.GOD.REVEALED
155 Second, to have the preeminences, by this, in His Church, which is His Body, the Bride, till He could have the preeminence to express Himself through them. All right.
Next time we will take up on when and how the Bride received this life.