The
Doctrine of Christ no 42
“The Life of Christ no. 5”
Projecting God-Life
Brian Kocourek, Pastor
January 11th, 2012
Acts 17: 28For in him we live, and move, and have our
being; For we are his offspring.
This evening I would like to speak on how God projects
His Life through the believer, to be projected forth into manifestation. Just
as the Scriptures declares the
projection of God into that Body of His Son, in which that body of the son
became the very expressed image of God to man. Notice Hebrews 1:3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person,
Now, first of all let’s look at that word “Express Image”. It says, he is the express image of his person, …
Now, this word “express” means 1. To set forth. 2. To manifest; to show
forth. 3. To make known 4. To convey a representation of: 5. To
represent 6. To squeeze or press out, 7. To send by special
messenger 8. Genetics a.
To cause (itself) to produce an effect. Used of a gene: The gene expressed itself. b. To
manifest the effects of (a gene): the
people who inherit the gene express it. c. To manifest (a genetic
trait): All in the study expressed the
trait or nature. And it is interesting that in our dictionary over half the
definitions concerning this word “express” have to do with Genetics expressing
an inherited trait or nature.
Now, in Hebrews 1:3 we
are told of Jesus in reference to God His Father, that, he is the express image of his person, …Jesus
is the express image of God his Father’s person…
And as I have mentioned before, this word “person”
that Jesus is the expressed image of, we all know that it speaks of God
Himself, his Father. Yet in Hebrews 11:1 Paul used that same Greek word
“hupostasis” when he said “ Now faith is the “substance” (the hupostasis , the “Person” ) of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen.”
So Faith is The “Person”… Not a person, not a
substance, but The Person…Then if you do not have that Person how can you have
Faith? For Faith is “The Person”, faith is “The Substance”…that we hope for. In
2 John 9 we
read, “If you do
not have the doctrine of Christ you do not have God… And therefore,
God who is the Holy Ghost, is what we hope for, He is the
substance of what we hope for, He is the
evidence of what we do not see, taste, feel, smell or hear.
Because he is the Invisible, immortal King. And so we see that Jesus was
projected from the mind of God into physical substance as a person, in order to
reflect the very nature of God to a lost and dying world.
From His sermon Identification 63-0123 P: 21 Brother Branham said, “But
when He seen that His creation had fallen, now His own loving character molded Himself into the Person of Christ.
God's own character of love projected
Himself in the man, Christ. As Paul, speaking here, "Thinking
it not robbery, but making himself
equal, equal to God," rather. See, His own character molded that kind of a Person. Oh, no one could
ever do that but God.”
And last week we heard what Brother Branham said about
him, SIRS WE WOULD SEE JESUS 57-1211 021 Now, Jesus was born for one purpose, that was for God to
manifest Himself through that body. God was in Christ reconciling the
world to Himself. He was a body that was made physical, that men and women
could see what He thought, and His
expressions to the people in His gratefulness. And His attitude towards all
mankind, He expressed it through Christ. Christ seemed to be a dual
personality. He would speak sometimes and they'd scratch their heads; and
they didn't understand Him. He'd speak one thing one time, look like, and
something else another time. What it was, was Jesus speaking, and then
Christ speaking. Jesus was the man. Christ was the God that was in Him.
"Not Me that doeth the works: My Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth
the work." See? God will not share His glory with no one.
You see, that is exactly what the Apostle John said in
1 John 1:1 That which was from the beginning, which we
have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and
our hands have handled, of the Word of life; 2 (For the life was
manifested, and we have seen it, and bear
witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and
was manifested unto us;)3 That which we have seen and heard declare
we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship
is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus
Christ.
So we saw the literal Source of Life, live itself
out among men in the body of His son. God expressing Himself in His Son. Jesus
said, “when you see me you see the Father also. Why? because he was so one with
God that all he did was what the father showed Him to do. The Father worketh and the son worketh
hitherto.
Brother Branham said in his sermon Christ is identified the same 64-0415 P:26 He
was the manifestation of God. He was God in
Christ, reconciling the world to Himself. He
was expressing what the Father was in Himself. He said, "I
do always that which pleases the Father. And I and the Father are One. The Father dwells in Me. When you see
Me, you've seen the Father." In other words, He expressed God, the Spirit so much in Him, that He and the
Father, it wasn't robbery for Him to be the same Person.
Now, you might think, How could two beings be one
being? How could another person become the other person? How could that be?
Well, brother Branham always taught us, “if you have the spirit of Dillinger in
you, you will rob banks. If you have the spirit of Beethoven in you, you will
create music. So if you have the Spirit of God in you, you will do the works of
God. Because we are three parts to our being, and two parts are spirit while
the outer flesh is just a mask or just a vessel for our spirit and soul to
dwell in, or to live themselves out of. Therefore, if we are born again, and
God’s very own Life is growing up within us, then should not that spirit act
out it’s own nature in this flesh? Should not the very nature of the Life that
is taking over your vessel, project that nature through your vessel?
From his sermon Identification 63-0123 P:65
Brother Branham said, Now, we notice that... If you were in that
day, what group would you be identified with? With the prophet with the
vindicated Word, although they were in the minority? Or would you be with the
popular opinion folks? "Well, I tell you; I believe that man's
crazy." And the only way that you'd
ever know he wasn't crazy is for the same God to reveal to you the same thing
He'd revealed to Moses. And the only
way that we'll ever be able to be the images of God, and the sons of God, is
for God to reveal to us, and express Himself through His Word to us, and us to
the world. That's the only channel,
for Christ was the Image here on earth that you could see God in a man,
expressed Image of God, because God was in Him so much that they were One.
And now when Christ left, He sanctified the church that the church might take His place and express the Word of God.
See? That's the only way it can be done. Oh, my. 66 Would you be
with the popular folks who had the popular opinion? "As long as I belong
to church, and maybe because I danced in the Spirit I'm all right." Maybe,
"Because I've spoken with tongues, I'm all right." Or maybe, "We
got a good pastor, and I'm all right." Now, those things are loyal. I have
nothing to say against that. That's true. But this plan of salvation is an
individual affair with you. Speaking in tongues is a gift of God. Dancing in
the Spirit is the Presence and glory of God. But for you to let your character be molded into the image of God, that He
projects Himself, and you are His idol walking on the earth, the expressed
image of Him...Now, would you be willing to do that in the days of Noah? Or
would you have been on the critical side, criticizing both the prophet and his
God-sent message? Now, think of it. Which side would you think, in your present
estate now, would you took? Now, be honest, I... (Pardon me.) There's no need
in me trying to say it. You--you got to think it yourself.
So we see that God wants to project His very Life,
His very nature into and through your vessel as He did through His own son,
Jesus. In fact brother Branham said that God had a threefold plan, first to
project Himself through His Son, then His other children he calls His church,
and then finally to fellowship with us like he did with Adam back in the garden
of Eden before the fall.
Christ is the mystery 63-0728
P:85 Now, that's when He can express the
preeminences. You see? He's got the man or the person so that he knows nothing
but Christ. You get what I mean? All right. That's secondly. First, to express Himself completely: God
in Christ. Second, to have the preeminences by this in His Church (which is
His Body, Bride) to... He could have the
preeminence to express Himself through them. All right. 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. And now sin and death had separated them from His Presence and His
entire expression.
Christ is the mystery 63-0728
P:179 First,
to express Himself in Christ and then He expressed Himself through the Church,
and the same thing, Christ was the Word. And the church becomes the Word when it lets the Word go through them.
But when they accept the hybrid denomination, how can the Word go through it?
It's grounded; then it causes a short and blows a fuse. See? But when the current
is flowing freely, the Word of God, It
expresses Itself. "The works
that I do shall you do also." And in the last days it shall come to
pass, "Behold I send to you Elijah, the prophet, and he shall turn the
hearts of the children back to the faith of the fathers." 180 And
in there, there'd be a time come forth when He could express Himself in
Fullness of His Godhead (Deity) through
His Church, have the pre-eminences in this Church. Oh, my. What? The anointed Man, now the anointed people
(oh, my) to bring back the anointed
Bride and the Bridegroom. Anointed by why? Accepting what Eve turned down
(and Adam), coming back with the
anointing of the Word, because He said, "My Word is Spirit." See?
Anointed with the Word. What Eve turned down, He comes back and we accept.
SHALOM 64-011 7
"No Man has seen God at any time, but the only begotten of the Father has
declared Him." See? In other words, God was identified. The Person of God was identified in the
Body, the Lord Jesus Christ, so He
was the expressed image of God. Or, God expressing Himself through an image,
see, through an image,
Jehovah Jireh 58-0127 P:36 And the same Holy Spirit that was in Jesus
Christ, will have to be operating in His church to make them coincide together
at the rapture, or it won't go up at that time. The Spirit that was in Jesus, will have to be in His church, or the
two pieces won't dovetail together, the life of the church and the life of
Christ cannot dovetail together. The body's setting there to make
reconciliations, to make intercessions upon our confession, and the Spirit's in
the church.
Investments 63-1116B P:94 I
wonder this morning, with all sincerity now, without any disturbance, think
just a moment. Have you got this great blessing? Do you hold this policy of
Life, the witness of the Holy Spirit
that your life has turned in to Christ, and Christ is in you? As I said in
the message; if Beethoven was in you, you'd do the works of Beethoven, you'd
live the life of Beethoven. You couldn't do nothing else. You could do nothing
else but compose songs. And you'd be the great writer, Beethoven, 'cause he's
in you. That's who you would be. You would be a reincarnate Beethoven. And if Christ is in you, the Life of Christ
you will be, the lover of the Word. Nothing can stand and take the place of
the Word, 'cause He is the Word. He can't deny His Own Word and remain God.
Hear ye Him 58-0209A P:37 if
the new life that you think you've received doesn't pattern with God's Word,
you've got the wrong life in you. The
life of Christ will produce the works of Christ, will produce the faith of
Christ, will make you act as Christ, make you love Him. He will be first in
your life. Your objectives, your motives, and everything will be all-together
different. It'll be for the glory of God.
How can I overcome 63-0825M P:27 And then, now you take a
Christian that's supposed to be a Christian, let the Life of God go from him and the experience the joy of
serving Christ, and living in the church where such is going on, he rots twice as quick (See?
Right.), living right under it.
So if we are trying to follow the
Message of the hour, or at least this part of the Message, we should live
constantly in the Life of Christ. See? 'Cause if it don't, you lay around,
and know that these things that you're supposed to do and don't do it, the
Bible said, "He
that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it's sin."
And he becomes dotie, rotten when you're separated from the Life of God. So strive with all that's in you to stay in
the Life of Christ, that you'd be fruit-bearing.
Ephesians
4:17 This
I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other
Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, 18 Having
the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the
ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:
Investments 63-0803B P:39 Now, all your sensations, as
we Pentecostal people like to jump and shout, I do. I believe that's right. We
like to speak with tongues. I believe that's a gift of God. The devil can
impersonate anything that you can produce in that line, but notice, then it
shows that something's wrong, the Life
of Christ isn't flowing through the church the way it should. The Body, the
Bride, it's not going through there like it should, now it finally clogged up
somewhere. Notice, when this, your sins are confessed, and your sins are
dropped into the bleach of the Blood of the Son of God, it remits sin so much
that it's put in the Sea of God's Forgetfulness, and can never even be
remembered in His sight anymore. Then what that, does that make a man? A son of
God. God never remembers you to be a sinner. You are a son; you are a daughter; there's no more remembrance of sin
at all. God puts it in the Sea of Forgetfulness, the bleach. The
Christ is the mystery 63-0728 P:147 Notice,
God holds this key alone. No theologian can tell you. It's not known; it's hid
from them. They know nothing about it. So the schools... "Well," you
say, "I got a Ph. LL.D." You only make... To me and I believe unto
God and to any real, true believer, that means you're just that much farther
away; you just backed off. God is not known by education; He's not known by how
to explain it. God is known by simplicity and of revelation of Jesus Christ in
the most illiterate person. See? Not your theology; it's a revelation of Jesus
Christ. "Upon this rock, I'll build My Church." No other rock's
accepted; no other thing's accepted; no other Roman rock; no other Protestant
rock; no other school; no other nothing; but on exactly the revelation of Jesus
Christ in a new birth. He born in there and injects His own Life, and your life
is gone, and the Life of Christ is
projecting Itself through you with the preeminences to the people that they see
the very Life, and works, and signs and wonders that He did is doing the same
thing through you. Outside of that, the rest of it's not even called to at
all.
Stature of a perfect
man 62-1014M P:134 Well,
you take us, that's nothing but a wild gourd, a knothead (See?), and there's
nothing to us, for we're all dead in sin and trespasses. We're all in these
kind of conditions; and then we ourselves can prostrate ourselves, give
ourselves up, until God takes His transfusion tube, the Name of Jesus Christ
('cause there's not another Name under heaven whereby man can be saved) and transfer the Life of Christ into us,
then we have this kind of faith, the faith that Christ had. And Christ's faith
was not based in those Pharisees or Sadducees, or in their pots, kettles, and
pans, and their washings. It was based on the Word of God (Amen.), so much
until Christ was the Word. The Word was made flesh. And then when we can get so
transfused by His power, that we die to our own thinking, and our faith becomes
a genuine faith (Hallelujah.), then the Life of Christ is transfused into us;
we become living creatures of God, a dwelling place where the Holy Spirit can
send His radiant blessings down through there, and we're in the statue of Christ.
Wisdom verses faith
62-0401 P:159 How is a man through wisdom going to
understand it, when the whole Bible, and the whole