Metamorphosis – Our Transformation

Part Three – A New Nature

 
 

 

Eph 2:1-10
2:1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature  and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions — it is by grace you have been saved. 6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.   NIV

2 Peter 1:3-11
3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

5 For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; 6 and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; 7 and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. 8 For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins.

10 Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall, 11 and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.   NIV

Our metamorphosis is not a process of some shallow behavior modification program, but it is a change that takes place at a nuclear level in our being. I do not believe that God is satisfied with a people that have learned how to suppress their sinful desires in a reaction to appease external religious and social mores set upon them by their peers. Although this is a necessary rule of law in a civilized society, it is not to be looked upon as the true evidence of the metamorphosis that we are writing about. Anyone can act more holy and less sinful if given the proper incentive to do so by threatened punishment befitting the act of misbehavior. That is why, in a world that hardly knows God, we live by the laws of government, which prevents our society from wholly degenerating into a state of chaos and destruction. I think we can all agree on the fact that without these restraints, the natural inclination of all men everywhere would be to descend into a state of destructive mayhem, where the most vile tendencies in man would come to the surface and spiral into a black hole of the most hideous acts known to man. In every civilized place on the face of the earth, there are varying degrees of rules and regulations enforced upon the people of that society, to assure that the natural inclination of man’s base nature will be suppressed. Even in the present religious world, there are watchdog groups that have been formed and instituted to keep an eye upon certain aspects of their membership, to ensure that morality and integrity is kept in check. As the scriptures above indicate, no one amongst us can say that they have not had their portion in that corruptible inclination. Now, some will protest against this frank observation, saying that they have never partaken of such wild acts of lascivious behavior, such as adultery or murder and the likes. But, according to Jesus, it is not only the actual enactment of such behavior that God observes, but it is the very thought and intent of the heart that He observes.

Matt 5:27-28
27 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: 28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. KJV

Of course, this applies to more than just the act of adultery. All actions have their source from within us and are only outgrowths from that internal impetus.

 In the scriptures, we find that there is a “nature” to man and his actions. In the King James Version of the scriptures, the majority of scriptures that deal with the English word, “nature” come from the Greek word, “phusis”. The Strongs Concordance gives this definition of that word.

5449  phusis (foo'-sis); from 5453; growth (by germination or expansion), i.e. (by implication) natural production (lineal descent); by extension, a genus or sort; figuratively, native disposition, constitution or usuage:

KJV-- ([man-]) kind, nature ([-al]).

Notice that the thrust of this definition has to do with an outgrowth from a germination or expansion of an internal source, which is native to our being. Everything in essence has a “nature” to it. The nature of the duck is to quack, the nature of the sun is to shine, the nature of the sea is to roll, and so on. There is a nature to our behavior that is directly linked to our soulical life and there is a nature to our behavior that is directly linked to our spiritual life. Regardless of what many claim, man has two natures at work in his being and there is a constant struggle within him between those two natures. Both natures are “inherent”, meaning that we were born with both lineages, one of the adamic life and the other with the God life. All mankind have been born from the God life, which is our foundational nature. However, our life in the physical dimension has been mostly lived out from the mundane nature, which we inherited from the adamic lineage. I have heard from many over the years that have thought to escape that adamic lineage by renouncing their participation in that earthly germination, but the fact remains, if you are living in a physical body, you are a child of corruption, albeit you are not foundationally bound to that lineage but it is worthy to note that you have been invested first with a higher life which is from God. When we were first conceived in our mothers womb, our spirit was fresh from the Presence of God, and our flesh was fresh from the earthy lineage. At that period of natural life, our spirit was still in touch with the Presence and our soul was still innocent and in subjection to our spirit. As time went by, our natural genus germinated and we became more soulical and less spiritual. That is the “nature” of our existence, first the natural and then the spiritual. That is to say, we were first consciously a natural man and then a spiritual man later, but concerning our human life, we germinated out from the natural, adamic life first, and we became soulical in our constitution. Our spiritual life was diminished and became buried under the soulical existence, albeit with a set appointment in God to be reconstituted as our foundational life, revealed in the ages of God’s plan for all men.

 At this present time, we are in an age that is our time of germination of the Christ life. Although we have all walked in the days of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of our flesh and living the limited and sensual life of our flesh, we are now being born once again, but this time we are being born by an incorruptible life, which has been contained in a seed of incorruption waiting for the time to germinate. This is that time!! The “nature” of God’s plan of the ages is for all things to first be germinated after the natural adamic life, and then to be brought under the dominion and influence of the germination of the Christ life. It is the “nature” of God to bring everything into a state of vanity and then to lift it all into a state of glory. In God, the way up is down. We begin in Him, are lowered out from Him, and then are lifted back into Him, but with a New Life. The process of being lowered and then raised by Him works in us a curious and wondrous work of redemption that in the end of the process makes us a New Creature of God, or a new species of His lineage. Man was never intended to stay “man”, but he has been formed and fashioned with a design to be a God-man, a man that has been born out of God and lowered into a humanity, only to be swallowed up into the lineage of his Father, a new-man clothed, covered and invested by the God life. We are destined to become In-Christed by that Christ life, which emanates from our Lord Jesus Christ. By Christ life, we mean the Anointed Life, which is the Life of the Anointed One, Christ Jesus. This Life is the only Life that can transform us from an earthly creature into a heavenly creature. It is that Life, the Christ Life, that we and all creation are groaning to experience! The Good News is that all men will eventually be In-Christed by that Life in the final solution of God’s eonian plan for man. We are even now experiencing an outgrowth from that Christ Life, which is not outside of us, but buried inside our earthly form. That genetic lineage of God Life will stay true to it’s nature, which is to leaven the entire loaf with it’s Life!

Matt 13:31-33
31        Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field:

32        Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.

33        Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.  (KJV)

It is the nature of the Father to leaven everything with His Life. We must, however, understand the difference between the leaven of the kingdom of heaven and the leaven of the Pharisees. As I have stated, our original state in the Father was entirely void of the “leaven” of the nature of the world. When we were lowered into the fashion of flesh and blood, we were “leavened” by its mundane life. So, we must now be “unleavened” from the adamic life and “leavened” by that original measure of God Life that is inherent to us. God is faithful over the works of His hands, and will not leave us “leavened” with death and corruption, and to ensure that promise, He has leavened us with the Christ Life, which is the seed of an incorruptible Life buried in our field through the abiding life of The Christ. The difference between our present experience with the original seed of God Life and the experience of past generations, is that our experience will be the germination of that seed form, resulting in the release of that Life to leaven our whole being with its transforming power. It is the “nature” of the seed to stay encased in that seed form until a time appointed when it will break out from the small, limited form of the seed and bring forth out of that seed form all the inherent genetic substance that it contains. This is the appearing of the Christ Life in the saints!

 Whenever we deal with genetics it is vital that we understand that the genome is in a form far different than that form it is designed to become when fully matured. If you were to compare an apple seed to a fully mature apple tree, you can readily see that the form of the apple seed is incomparable to the form and mass of the tree that it contains. When you look into the mirror and view yourself, you are seeing an apple seed compared to what you contain within you. Physically, we don’t see any sign that we are the bearers of such a glorious lineage. Our natural form is merely a kernel of what we are to become. Encased within this outer shell of flesh and bone is the stuff of the New Creature in Christ! As it is in any seed life, we have been impregnated with the seed of Christ, and it has been buried under the top soil of our being, attended to by the spirit of God and waiting for it’s time of germination, which, when it takes place, will change everything having to do with the form of the seed. After germination, the seed gives way to another form contained within it in a genetic code at a molecular level. Soon, the form of the seed will no longer be visible, but the form now represents a far more extensive structure that was locked up within the seed waiting to be revealed. So, when we talk about the revealing of the sons of God, we are not talking about people having some sort of Pentecostal fit come upon them, able to leap tall buildings and fly through the air. Neither are we talking about ordinary preachers turning into better preachers, or prophets turning into better prophets. We are actually talking about a manifestation (revealing) of the Christ Life in a people that have been transfigured and transformed by a death to their human existence and made alive to their Godly existence by reason of the outgrowth of the Christ Life that has come to the fullness of it’s time.

The Change that some of us have been teaching about for so many years is much more than what we may have imagined in past days. The teaching of this event, The Change, has taken on many names through the years. I first heard it and taught it with the title of “Life and Immortality”. It became shortened to “the message of Immortality” and most of the emphasis on that message has been on a physical immortality, which caused some to preach a message of “never die”, which means that they believed they would physically live forever, without going to the grave, experiencing a physical change that would make them young again and return to their years of vitality. Some have even taught and declared that they had already come into this state and condition, and could not die physically. Most of them that we first heard preach this declaration are dead now. But, there are still some that hold to that declaration and still believe that they will physically live forever. To be entirely truthful, I have gone through a clarification process in ministering about this Change, and this is why I am writing this series, so I can hopefully share with you how the Lord has dealt with me concerning some of the imbalances that have been represented in this message over the years. To be sure, there is a Change that is imminent and it will result in a people that will not lay their bodies down to be buried, or cremated or whatever else we decide to do with our dead bodies. But, this is far more complex than just us declaring that “we will not die.” In the first place, that statement alone is not accurate. I know that for most of us, that statement means that we will not “physically” die, but that is also not correct. We cannot take this physical form into the eternal state of the New Creature. That would be similar to an apple seed saying that it is going to be a tree, but still stay in seed form. No matter how much this physical body is anointed by the presence of the Lord, it will still be a mortal body, even if it glows in the dark or walks on water, this physical body is not the form of the New Man. Before our true form is seen, we will die to our physical form and all of it’s components. I believe that this is one of the great errors we have had in this message about our Change. It seems that we have become so acclimated to this physical body we live in that we have been willing to try to bring it over with us into our transformation, but it is vital that we lose our identity with our physical existence and allow God to expand our awareness to include our “glorious body” that is contained inside of our physical body.  

Physically, we were born with a death sentence genetically implanted within the DNA of our cells. In every cell of our physical body, there is a genetic switch that is turned on at a certain stage of our biological life that causes our bodies to begin to die. Our heavenly Father is the Creative Geneticist that instituted this limited existence into this physical body, so it is not something that the Devil did to us, nor is it some kind of curse for sin and disobedience, but it is simply a physical limitation to our biological house that has a “nature” to live a certain amount of years and then cease to function. The same biological reality is played out in plants, animals, fish, and all other species of earth. It may be a shock to you, but our physical body is not the “image and likeness” of our Father. It is a tent that He pitched for us to live in. The Image and Likeness of God is inside of that tent, and that is where our true identity is found! If I were to lay this physical body down in death, and years later, my wife, Charlotte, were to lay her physical body down, and we were brought together on the other side of the river, Charlotte would not know me in that dimension by my blue eyes or the shape of my nose, or the shape of my body. None of that would exist! But, she would truly KNOW me, but not by my physical features. It is my belief that we all know one another by a much more spiritual sense than we are conscious of at this time. There is a “knowing” of one another that goes beyond our five senses of “knowing”. Spirit knows spirit as much as flesh knows flesh. We may not be aware of it in our natural mind, but our spirit has it’s own abilities to know it’s own kind, deep cries out to the deep, and spirit relates to spirit. Since all of our spirits have come from the same Father, there is a relationship already integrated into us that follows us through this life and into the life to come. Whatever takes place in our natural existence, there is a parallel to that in our spiritual existence. Oh, that God would start to illuminate our understanding about our true self in the spirit. The trouble is, whenever anyone starts to get the eyes of their understanding opened about this dimension of spirit life, they invariably bring it into the soulical realm and turn it into some New Age philosophy or another kind of pseudo mixture of their natural and soulical understanding. Surely, the Day is here when we can delve into this spiritual world without polluting it with the imagination of our mind. The fact is, we are a spiritual people, embodied in a physical body, and we have been leavened with a soulical life, which is a life of mixture and dilution between the natural and the soulical, which would result in a mutated abomination, a Man-god, instead of a God-man, if left without the influence of the spirit of God. As we allow God to “unleaven” us we will be transformed from the corrupted form into the incorruptible form, and we will start to see Him as He is, and not as we imagine Him to be, and not only Him, but we will start to see ourselves as we truly are, and everyone else as they truly are, in Him. Oh, hasten the Day, sweet Lord!

It is quite evident to me, that none of this transformation can take place until we go through a change at the nuclear level of our being, which entails a change of our nature. To be made physically immortal without being changed at a deeper level on the inside, would result in a creature that would be hopelessly imprisoned in an eternal state of mixture and corruption. That would be the true definition of “eternal damnation”! But, thanks be to God, we will not be subjected to this vanity forever, but we have been subjected in hope, which we have in Jesus Christ, as the Psalmist so wonderfully writes, “For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. (Ps 16:10-11) We will be Changed, by that unfailing Life that abides within us, and our Change is coming from the inside out. As we have partaken of the nature of the adamic life, even so we will partake of the Father’s divine nature, for that is our original nature of which we have been born. For whatever reason, the message of Immortality and Life has not emphasized the need for a nature change and this is why so many today are claiming such outlandish achievements without the evidence of a true outworking of the character and nature of the Christ Life. For most, I would think that this omission of the necessity of a change of nature is because of the process involved in such a change. In fact, there is a real aversion to many today to even think of this Change as being a PROCESS, so it is being represented as a finished reality, forgoing the need for any further change of our being. However, there are no shortcuts to this Change, dear ones. I see no feasible way that we can disavow this Change as being a process, since it is a present, ongoing rearrangement of our elemental parts, which have been lowered out of the divine arrangement of the Father, into a corruptible, disarrangement of death which must go through a process of being brought back into divine order. In this present age of our world, there is a consciousness of needing everything to happen quickly, the sooner the better. We have microwave ovens, and some have a microwave message of the Change. We have fast food, drive through establishments that allow us to get it and go, and some have a message of the Change that says we only need to get it and go. You and I know that in this present arrangement of our society, we are giving up a large amount of proper nutrition and palatable taste in our lifestyle of fast food and quick meals. America has a real problem of obesity and malnourishment, and it is all due to our life style of eating on the run and not taking time to plan our meals out and taking the time to prepare them. The reason this is such a problem is that our work schedules and our after-work schedules make it impossible to go through the PROCESS of purchasing and cooking our food the way we know we should. So, we sacrifice what is best for us and settle for junk food and short nights and long days. But, God will not allow us to do the same thing with our Change in Him. No matter how long it delays us and causes us to wonder just how long it’s going to take to get us there, the Change will go through the proper PROCESS that will ensure it is done well and done right. We are not going to eat grapes in the Kingdom, we are going to drink wine, which is grapes PROCESSED into wine over a lengthy but necessary formula of being crushed, filtered, bottled, aged and readied. We are not going to chew on kernels of wheat in the Kingdom, but we are going to eat bread, which is kernels of wheat that have been tribulated, winnowed, milled, kneaded and baked in a lengthy PROCESS that is necessary to be Life to all that eat of it’s substance. Even so, we will not escape this PROCESS of Change, our Metamorphosis is at hand and it will continue in its manifold stages of transfiguration until it produces the design that the Father purposed from the beginning.  

The New Man is made up of spirit, soul and body, but not in the present order of body, soul and spirit. This is the disarrangement of our corruptible life, body first, soul second and spirit last. In the new arrangement of the New Man, the spirit will be first, then the soul will be subjectively joined to the spirit and the body will be last. In our present arrangement, these 3 elements are separate from one another, each having their own individual identities. In the new order of the New Man, these elements will be joined in a marriage of union through fusion, each one having their part in the overall existence, but no longer divided and disjointed from one another. Death is separation, and life is union. We are being made WHOLE in our God, all of our parts are being incorporated together with each part complementing the other. Having said this, let me say that I believe there is a body that is not the body we have been identifying with in our soulical life. The scriptures declare:

1 Cor 15:44 – “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.”  (KJV)

Most of our natural life has been focused upon our natural body, but our true existence is in our spiritual body, our inner man which is renewed day by day. In the same vein, there is a natural mind, and there is a spiritual mind. Most of our knowledge and reasoning that we rely upon in our soulical life comes from the natural mind, which is carnal and not able to conceive of the things of God, but we must start to rely more upon our spiritual mind, which is the mind of Christ and knows all things pertaining to the things of God. The human psyche is what most people live by in their everyday life, and this is where most people worship God from, which cannot bring them into His true presence. This is why Jesus told the woman at the well,

John 4:23-24 - But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.  (KJV)

Notice the phrase, “in spirit and in truth”, for we must come to know the truth about the spirit and how it works in us. There is a True Worship that comes from the truth of the spirit, which is not lip service, but is a NATURE from which all True Worship comes. It is the “nature” of truth to cause the spirit to worship the Father and without the truth of spirit, the soul will bring that worship to a soulical level, which will not rise to the level of True Worship. True Worship is not an act that we do at a prescribed moment of a church service, but True Worship is the result of Truth revealing Himself which initiates a true expression of the nature of the Christ Life. In this respect, our life becomes a True Worship in the midst of this world, and it reveals our true nature in Christ. His Love is acted out in our lives in a True Worship of that nature of God, and we become the instrument of God’s love to mankind. His Peace, His Salvation, His Joy, His Mercy, etc., becomes incorporated into our life, transforming us into the nature that operates each one of those divine attributes, so Love is no longer something we have to do, it is simply what we are. That is how far we have yet to go in our transformation, but all things are possible in God!

How immeasurably greater is our transformation than just physical immortality! How short that message comes when compared to the eternal work that is taking place in our inner being, as thrones and dominions are thrown down, but not just any old thrones and dominions, but these are seats of power and dominion that are ancient in their lineage in mankind. These seats of governmental power have not been shaken by the soulical message of the church systems that have voiced their diluted sermons for the past 2 millennial days, but they have remained through the ages, keeping mankind imprisoned by their reign of corruption and death. Their lineage carries all the way back into the garden in the genetic makeup of the divided man, but their time is short now, as the time has arrived for the revealing of the New Man in Christ. A great shaking is taking place in our hearts, elements are passing away with a loud noise, our earth is quaking with volcanic eruptions of the unstoppable Change that is taking place deep inside of us. Earthly foundations are being cracked and crushed, and those proud thrones that have been resting upon our adamic lineage are swaying precariously by reason of the shaking, which has shook those earthly foundations before, but now this shaking is taking place in the principalities themselves that are sitting on those thrones, reaching into our heavens, and the Lord has promised not to quit shaking those heavens and our earth until only that which can remain will remain. Oh, glorious Day! Our redemption is at hand, our release is at the door, those generational prison houses are being torn down around us and we will see His salvation wrought throughout our being. Hang on, dear saint of God, until God says, “LET GO”, and then let go of the old and grab hold of the new. That is one of the great lessons of this metamorphosis, to hang on to what is, until God is ready for us to grab hold of that which is to come. Everything is by appointment, in it’s season and order and we cannot move out of timing and order in our Change. Be anxious for nothing, but stay in the flow of the Change in your life. Trust the rhythm of the spirit in your life and when you dance with the Day of the Lord, let it take the lead. Listen to the Lord, be quiet before Him and let the voice of the spirit speak words of Life to your soul. Stay in your ordained place and be not moved out of that place by anyone or anything.  Make your calling sure and stay the course, as your world dissolves and your heavens catch fire, be not afraid. The Lord is in control and you will come forth as pure gold, refined in the fires and made whole.

By Bob Torango

 

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