For the purposes of clarity, I am beginning this post with the same intro as my last post entitled, The New Covenant.
It was three and a half decades ago that I first heard the voice of God. It was not an audible voice, but rather a knowing of exactly what the spirit of God was saying to my spirit.
The information that I received was definitely not from my thought processes, as I knew my intellectual limitations. It was something far greater than me, and it was always accompanied by an indescribable sense of peace and well-being.
Over a six-month period of time, I received revelations daily and my eyes were opened to so many things of which I had been completely unaware.
One surprising feature of the visitation, as I call it, was that God showed me passages that were written by the prophets, Isaiah and Jeremiah, in particular, that were jaw dropping to me.
First of all, at the time, I was a dedicated Christian who never read from the Old Testament, because I was taught by the church that Christ fulfilled the law, and we should now focus on the New Testament to learn how to be good Christians.
However, God had a different plan for me and He instructed me on this particular day to start reading from the first chapter of Isaiah, and so I did.
But, before I tell you what God showed me in Isaiah on that day, I want to explain the other aspects of studies that He led me into.
At the time, I studied from a King James Bible, and God showed me that it was a good version of the text because of one aspect. King James kept words consistent throughout his entire translation.
Therefore, when a concordance search of a word like salvation, for instance, is done and each scripture throughout the Bible is read concerning that word, a clearer picture of the meaning of the word begins to emerge.
During those days, I spent hours studying about what the Bible had to say about so many different subjects, and it was eye opening as to how wrong I had been taught by my Christian religion about subjects like, salvation.
When I studied the word salvation throughout the entire Bible it became clear that salvation is not achieved by just saying a sinner’s prayer and simply believing in Jesus, but rather, it is achieved by hearing the voice of God and obeying.
God showed me a simple example. Let’s say that a dangerous situation is coming your way like a hurricane, and God warns you to get out of town.
The act of you listening and doing is your salvation from the destruction that would have happened if you had stayed in town. You will be saved from perishing in that storm if you act upon the instructions that come from God.
Salvation doesn’t happen when you die and go to heaven. It happens everyday that you exist on this planet, and continues on into eternity.
How do you acquire the ability to hear from God?
It is by following the teachings of Christ. He showed us the way.
So, on that particular day that God had me start reading Isaiah, the lesson went like this:
God said, “I want you to turn to Isaiah, chapter 1, and start reading.”
I kept reading until I got to verse 7, but I want to insert verse 5 here, which reads:
Why should you be stricken anymore? You will revolt, more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint.
From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds and bruises, and putrefying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment.
That is when God said to me, “stop reading.”
And, He asked me the question, “what body do you think Isaiah is talking about?”
I answered, “I don’t know.”
God said, “Isaiah is talking about the Body of Christ, the Christian Church.”
Of course, I knew what the term Body of Christ referred to as it is a very common teaching in the Christian religion.
However, I had no idea that it was in such an unhealthy state. I was shocked!
That was the first time God showed me the condition of the Church, and over the next six months, He showed me so many more references to the Christian Church written about by the Prophets.
For instance, Ephraim is often used as a typology of the Church.
When Joseph took his sons Manasseh and Ephraim to be blessed by his father, Jacob, he prophesied over the boys. He said that although he was born second, Ephraim would be much greater than his older brother and become a multitude of nations.
The older brother, Manasseh, although he would become a great nation, would only be one nation.
Spiritually, Manasseh represents the nation of Israel, and Ephraim represents the Church. They represent the biological and the spiritual descendants of Abraham.
So, let’s go back to Isaiah’s vision of the ailing body that God showed me thirty-six years ago.
As a nurse who has practiced now for over forty years, I can tell you that if Isaiah was writing about a literal human body, that individual would be near death due to overwhelming infection, called sepsis.
The body in Isaiah’s vision is covered with purulent wounds which have not been treated. The body is septic and sepsis causes dangerously low blood pressure; thus, Isaiah’s words, the whole heart is faint.
It wasn’t until years after I had left the Christian Church that God would show me from where the concept of the Body of Christ came.
It did not come from Christ. The term was coined by Paul.
Paul called the Christian Church, the Body of Christ.
Yeshua never used that term.
Rather, Christ announced that he would build his Church upon a rock, and the gates of Hell shall NOT prevail against it.
That is what Christ proclaimed right after Peter had heard from God and announced that Yeshua was the Messiah.
The word, Church, that Yeshua used is an Aramaic legal term referring to the ones who are called to witness in court.
The rock is the solid foundation mentioned by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount. Yeshua said that the ones who hear his teachings and do them are the ones who build their houses upon a solid foundation, and their houses will stand strong during the storm.
Therefore, the church that Christ is talking about is a spiritual people who know how to hear the voice of God and can testify that God is most definitely real, AND they listen to the teachings of Christ and do what he instructed us to do.
The Church that Christ is describing is a spiritual entity that is exceedingly strong, a force that will withstand the Gates of Hell.
Christ never taught that everyone has to join this spiritual group, but everyone will either bless it or curse it, and those who bless it will not lose their reward.
Paul’s church is the weak and dying body, of which Isaiah wrote. Its members claim that everyone will go to Hell unless they join them, the Body of Christ.