Sermon: The Seed of Eternal Life

#1655
Martin G. Collins
Given 04-Jun-22; 67 minutes

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I want to begin by reading part of an article to you that I find connected with what I just said having to do with seeds and plants and things like that. But this one intrigued me and maybe you will see why. In the September 17th, 2022 issue of Ancient Origins magazine, Joanne Guillen authored an article titled "The Judean Date Palm: Extinct Tree Resurrected From Ancient Seeds" She writes:

For thousands of years the date palm was a staple crop in the kingdom of Judah. It was a source of food and shelter and medicine and shade, but the plant went extinct due to the waves of conquest and intentional destruction. But now, after 2,000 years the Judean date palm is back and the sweet ancient fruit has been harvested once again. The thick forest of the ancient date palms towering up to 80 feet and spreading for 7 miles, covered the Jordan River Valley from the Sea of Galilee in the north to the shores of the Dead Sea in the south. It is chronicled in the Bible and the Koran and ancient literature for its diverse powers. It has allegedly served as a cure for a wide range of health issues, including cancer and malaria and toothache.

However, its value was also the source of its demise and eventual distinction. The tree so defined the local economy that it became a prime resource for the invading Roman army to destroy. Once the Roman army took control of the kingdom in 70 AD the date palms were destroyed in an attempt to cripple the Jewish economy. The Romans eventually succeeded and by 500 AD the once plentiful date palm had almost completely disappeared, driven to extinction for the sake of conquest and that conquest continued on through the Islamic rise. They also destroyed what was left of the Judean date palm.

Now, in 1963 the late archaeologist Yigael Yadin began excavating Masada, mountaintop fortress built over 2,000 years ago on the shore of the Dead Sea where King Herod built a spectacular palace. Masada was the last stand of a small band of Jewish rebels who held out against three Roman legions for several years before committing mass suicide in 73 AD. Buried beneath the rubble Yadin unearthed a small stockpile of seeds stowed in a clay jar dating back back 2,000 years. For the next four decades the ancient seeds were kept in a drawer at Tel Aviv's Bar Ilan University. But then in 2005 botanical researcher, Elaine Soloway decided to plant one and see what if anything would sprout. She said, "I assumed the food in the seed would be no good after all that time. How could it be?"

She was soon proven wrong. After eight weeks a small green shoot emerged from one of the seeds producing a sapling no one had seen in centuries and becoming the oldest known tree seed to germinate. The plant was nicknamed Methuselah (I wonder why) after the longest lived person in the Bible. As soon as the ancient Judean date palm had grown into a tree Ms Soloway used genetic testing on it to confirm that it was indeed male and thus incapable of producing fruit. Methuselah is [male] and for a long time researchers believed that this was the only Judean date palm they would ever see.

But Dr. Sarah Sallon of the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem began to look for more Judean date palm seeds and 30 of the ancient seeds were recovered from Qumran, the same location where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. So Miss Soloway planted the seeds and six more have sprouted over the years, one of which was named Hannah. [she named all of the seeds after biblical characters] After six years of growth, Hannah flowered [and the pollen of Methuselah] was placed onto Hannah's flowers and the experiment worked. Interesting Engineering magazine reports that "recently Hannah's fruit was harvested for the first time."

So for 2,000 years those seeds were sitting there and deteriorating and whatever else they do. I guess the air was so dry that it somewhat preserved them but they were able to bring that back to life. The durability of seeds created by God truly is amazing. In this sermon, I am going to explore the connection between seeds, the Holy Spirit, God's seal of ownership, and eternal life, and tie all those together.

Please turn with me to Genesis 1. From Genesis 1 on, seeds are genetically determined, pronounced and absolute in their individual identities. In Eden each plant bore fruit with seed according to its kind.

Genesis 1:11-12 Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth"; and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

God's creation is still good to this day, even though it is agitated because of sin and has been ravaged and exploited by sinful people. God caused plant life to appear on the earth. The grasses, the seed-producing herbs, and the fruit-bearing trees. As we heard earlier in the sermonette, He decreed that each would reproduce according to its kind, which helps to make possible order in nature. So God was preparing the earth for habitation for humans and for animals and the plants and this would help provide them with food.

This phrase, according to its kind, implies that like produces like and therefore that the "kinds" or species are fixed and do not run into each other. In this little phrase, the theory of one species being developed from another is denied. In fact, it is forbidden. The earth was furnished for the maintenance and support of us. Provision was made by the immediate products of the upstart earth, which, in obedience to God's command, was no sooner made than it became fruitful and then it brought forth grass for the cattle and herbs for our health. Provision was also made for the time to come by the perpetuating of the many kinds of vegetables, which are numerous and various. Everyone and every living thing have its seed in itself according to its kind.

God designed His creation with order so that our continuance on the earth would be supported with food that is fit for sustenance. We are running into a real problem today in that all food is not fit for sustenance that they are calling food. Since God designed us, He abundantly provided the perfect nutrition for all earthly life.

Now, what are we that God is mindful of us and that He takes care of us and provides our needs in such detail? As the supreme authority of the universe and author of creation, it is fitting and right that God have the glory of all the benefits we receive from the products of the earth either for food or for shelter.

God caused each plant and animal to reproduce after its own kind. God twice commands us to follow that example. Instead of mingling our crops, we should plant seeds that will reproduce after their own kind. It is a repeated biblical law that a field or vineyard not be planted with two kinds of seed. Let us look into the details of this. What does that mean?

Leviticus 19:19 'You shall keep My statutes. You shall not let your livestock breed with another kind. You shall not sow your field with mixed seed. Nor shall a garment of mixed linen and wool come upon you.'

So this raises some questions. The reference to mixed seed or cloth is an effort to reduce adulteration of a good product. Mixing wheat and barley would make harvesting difficult because of their different times for ripening. The biblical principle concerns the mixture of seeds with significantly differing qualities. Selecting a pure seed over a mixed seed applies the principle that the best quality you can afford should be chosen for you and your family. Why should you feed your children such impure food or defiled food as we see being offered in stores even to this day?

Let us look at this more closely. God is honored by the quality of our choices. So, since He is not the author of confusion, our choices should not encourage confusion either. The apostle Paul tells us in I Corinthians 14, "For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace." It is not wise to go deeply into debt buying better quality than we can afford. So we have to use wisdom and balance in what we are doing in purchasing things and what we use or even put into our bodies.

God's instruction was for the purpose of leading Israel to the simplicity and sincerity of God's way of life, how to keep His law, and eventually proclaim His gospel. He wants us to do this in an organized quality way. So our choices throughout our physical lives show Him the quality of the choices we will make as rulers in His Kingdom. We are being judged for how we will rule right now, today, and in this life.

Deuteronomy 22:9 "You shall not sow your vineyard with different kinds of seed, lest the yield of the seed which you have sown and the fruit of your vineyard be defiled."

Notice the reason God gave for this comment: "Lest the yield of the seed which you have sown and the fruit of your vineyard be defiled." God gave this law for our protection. He does not want us to defile or mix the produce that we grow, nor the seed that we save for growing for future crops. Defile means to make unclean or impure. At least five types of defilement are mentioned in the Old Testament: ceremonial in Leviticus 15:19; ethical in Ezekiel 37:23; physical in Song of Solomon 5:3; religious in Jeremiah 3:1; and sexual in Leviticus 15:24.

In the Old Testament, the land might be defiled by bloodshed, especially of the just or innocent, by idolatry and idolatrous practices like sacrificing children to idols—abortion today, for example. So this land is defiled and has been defiled for many decades, you can be sure of that!

The temple altar was polluted or profaned by disrespect, by offering the unclean by any sort of unrighteousness, and by the presence of idols or idolatrous paraphernalia. The nation was defiled by unfaithfulness to God. People were defiled by adultery, murder, and violence. Moral and ethical defilement involved one's relationship with the Eternal as covenant God and God of righteousness.

The purpose of the Old Testament laws about defilement was to preserve the holiness of God's chosen people, but the Jewish rabbis turned these laws into a legalistic system that emphasized ceremonial cleanness while ignoring spiritual purity. The key there is they based their beliefs on the physical and God wants us to base our beliefs on the spiritual. We have to both keep the letter and the spirit of the law. The letter of the law should not murder the spirit of the law. You should not hate. Just as a simple example, Jesus clarified this misunderstanding by emphasizing the need for moral purity and ethical living. According to the Jamison, Fausset, and Brown Commentary about mixing different types of seed,

Those who have studied the diseases of the land and vegetables tell us that the practice of mingling seed is injurious both to flowers and to grains. If the various genre of the natural order gramineoe [that is translated grasses with flowers], which includes the grains and the grasses, should be sown in the same field and flower at the same time so that the pollen of the two flowers is mixed. A spurious seed will be the consequence, called by the farmer chess, and is always inferior, and unlike either of the two grains that are that produced it, in size, flavour, and nutritious principles. Independently of contributing to disease in the soil, they never fail to produce the same [that is, disease] in animals and men that feed on them.

This brings to mind what man has done today with the genetically modified foods that are being almost shoved down our throats by the producers and also by the manufacturers or the packagers. Let me give you a few specific examples. You should not plant cucumbers near watermelons because they will cross and produce a perversion. Similarly, the various members of the musk melon and cantaloupe family will mix with pumpkins in certain types of squash. They should not be planted near one another. The result is a perversion of inferior nutrition.

There is so much that we do not know in this society today that should be obvious because the Scriptures tell us so much of it. And then as our "science" researchers, if it is honest science, they can find these things out, and have. However, there is nothing wrong with planting peas or beans among corn or planting two pasture grasses together. In neither of these cases would one crop "defile" or "mix" or "mingle" with the other in any way, unless genetically altered.

Many scriptures show that God wants His people to produce and own quality products, just as He does His people.

Jeremiah 2:21 "Yet I had planted you a noble vine [God, speaking to Israel], a seed of the highest quality. How then have you turned before Me into the degenerate plant of an alien vine."

Barnes' Notes says that the phrase, "a seed of highest quality" is literally "a seed of truth." I find that fascinating in itself, a seed of highest quality is literally a seed of truth. That is true. Genuine seed, not mixed with weeds, nor with seed of an inferior quality. GMO foods are not true foods.

We should use good quality seed that will produce a consistently good quality year after year. Good seed planted in the land that is properly worked will produce strong healthy plants that bear profitable crops without needing non-natural fertilizer and pesticides.

(I want to just interject here at this point that it is impossible in this day and age to avoid genetically modified organisms in our food or the changes that have been made. We just have to do the best that we can try to avoid them when we can because they will damage our health. Many of the health problems we have today are partly because of those GMO (genetically modified) things. And then we are getting vaccines that are genetically modified in their gene therapy and that type of thing. And so it is just man will not stop until he has destroyed everyone on earth. But God will not let that happen thankfully. God has us in His hands, He has our back as long as we submit to Him. We do not have to worry about these things. We just have to do the best that we can. It is another reason to ask God's blessing on the food every time that you have a meal.)

Today, corporations are in a nefarious frenzy to genetically modify seeds so that they may patent them to claim ownership. But who really owns the seeds and the plants? You know, but we are going to prove it.

The main meaning of ownership in the Bible is possession with implications of individual accountability and acknowledgment of God's sovereign ownership over all things. Not only the earth is the Lord's, but the fullness thereof.

Job 41:11 "Who has preceded Me that I should pay him? Everything under heaven is Mine."

He is the rightful owner and the sovereign power of all. And the earth was emptiness, but now by the Word's speaking, it became full of God's providence and riches. God the Father is the author of creation and it is all His. It is His corn and His wine and His wool and His flax. Though we are allowed to use them, the property ownership remains His and it should be used for His service and honor. God the Father is the author of creation and Jesus Christ is the one who spoke it into existence.

God loans us the use of His possessions until we receive our inheritance from Him, and He has the right to take them away. His universal ownership is vividly reinforced in the creation descriptions of Psalm 50.

Psalm 50:7-12 "Hear, O My people, and I will speak, O Israel, and I will testify against you; I am God, your God! I will not rebuke you for your sacrifices or your burnt offerings, which are continually before Me. I will not take a bull from your house, nor goats out of your folds. For every beast of the forest is Mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the mountains. and the wild beasts of the field are Mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the world is Mine, and all its fullness."

Haggai 2:8 says, "The silver is mine and the gold is Mine, says the Lord of hosts." So God's ownership is uniquely expressed in His relationship with Israel. He declared in Exodus 19,

Exodus 19:5 "Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine."

In Isaiah God's ownership over Israel provides a message of comfort.

Isaiah 43:1 But now, thus says the Lord, who created you, O Jacob, and He who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are Mine."

How much more of a guarantee and how much more of an assurance can we get than that? Ancient Israel was God's possession because He formed her as His people. He redeemed her and He specifically designated her as His, as He does members of His church.

The same thing can be said regarding His church now; and in an even more important sense, the church is His. He organized it, He redeemed us with the precious blood of His Son, called us by His name, and chose us as His own.

Malachi 3:16-18 [this is about a book of remembrance] Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another, and the Lord listened and heard them; so a book of remembrance was written before Him for those who fear the Lord and who meditate on His name. "They shall be Mine," says the Lord of hosts, "on the day that I make them My jewels. And I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him." Then you shall again discern between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves God and one who does not serve Him.

So the key to being owned by God is the fear of the Lord, which involves serving Him with reverence.

Galatians 6:17 [Paul says] I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.

These marks may be, in the literal sense, the scars of the afflictions and persecutions resulting from being a follower of Jesus Christ or as Moffatt translates it, "I bear branded on my body the owner's stamp of Jesus." These marks and this stamp show ownership and is guaranteed with the seal of ownership, which we will see more about later.

Isaiah also speaks of Israel's resistance against God's claim on them, likening them to rebellious children who do not have the basic knowledge that domestic animals have of their owners.

Isaiah 1:2-3 [this is in relationship to the wickedness of Judah] Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth! For the Lord has spoken: "I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me; the ox knows its owner and the donkey its master's crib; but Israel does not know, My people do not consider."

The design of this comparison is to show the great stupidity and ingratitude of Israel and Judah, and the world as a whole. Even the least perceptive and most stupid of the animals, destitute as they are of reason and conscience, demonstrate knowledge and submission far more than many of the professed people of God. The ox is a well known domestic animal, remarkable for patient willingness to work and for submission to his owner. Even as stubborn as the donkey is, well known for its dullness and stupidity, has sufficient knowledge to understand that its support is derived from the master's barn.

The idea is that the ox was more submissive to laws than the Israelites, and even the most stupid animal knew better from where its support came than the Israelites did of the source of their comfort and protection. The donkey would not wander away and the ox would not rebel as they had done. This comparison was obvious and humiliating and was designed to effectively bring down their pride.

How is God able to communicate with humans on an intellectual level? He cannot reveal His plan of salvation to the donkey and the ox, or any other animal. They may have different personalities, but they do not have intellect like us. They have instinct programmed into their brains that enables them to instinctively know what to do to survive.

But human children do not have that kind of instinct. They have to be able through intellect to learn how to survive. God has given us the ability to learn how to think for ourselves. He has given us the free will to decide whether we will submit to His will or submit to self-will. And God made this possible by placing a spirit in each person. a spirit we know of as the spirit in man. It is not the person—it is something in us connected with our physical brain. It forms the human mind. It imparts the power of intellect and character.

Job 32:8 But there is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding.

The spirit of man is not conscious in and of itself. It cannot know apart from the brain. It is the spirit essence. It is a human spirit. Humans, having this spirit, know only physical things. It requires the addition of another spirit—God's Spirit—to open the human mind to comprehension of spiritual things. You know this only too well.

Let us shift back to biblical seed imagery to see what seeds have to do with judgment and blessing. In both physical and spiritual contrast to the way Satan and his evil world uses seeds to acquire personal power and wealth, God uses seeds to produce pure and wholesome things with great benefits and no side effects. The Old Testament images of seeds often concern the crop that will result as well as the relationships between sowing and reaping, between right living and prosperous harvest. A seed's miraculous growth is a blessing from God, is a miraculous work that produces blessing for humans and animals and plants in the whole earth.

We see this same principle in the New Testament in I Corinthians.

I Corinthians 3:6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.

I Corinthians 9:10 Or does He say it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written, that he who plows should plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope should be a partaker of his hope.

The Greek here is literally and correctly rendered in the New King James version, "For he that plows should plow in hope," to which we can add of reaping a harvest or of obtaining success in his labors.

God gives the increase, therefore we have every reason to hope for success if we are doing our duty.

II Thessalonians 3:10-12 For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busybodies. Now those who are such we command and exhort through our Lord Jesus Christ that they work in quietness and eat their own bread.

This warning is about being a freeloader, lazy, or taking advantage of others for personal gain. Like our everyday work or lack thereof generally produces good or bad (or nothing), the seed's productivity indicates judgment or blessing. At times the Israelites received judgment when they were told that their seeds would be ineffective because of their sin. In contrast to the long life promised to the righteous, the wicked received judgment with a wide variety of bad health. For instance, Jeroboam chooses a personal idol and is judged by having his hand wither.

Death of course is a judgment. For example, in Scripture a prophet lies and is then killed by a lion. But death can also be a blessing. Death can be seen as a judgment of mercy on a larger scale, a judgment that prevents heightened misery is a blessing. So, in some cases, death can be a positive thing, as in the lead up to the growth of seeds and the resurrection of the dead.

The picture of a seed dying to create roots and produce other seeds is representative of discipleship, of you. Jesus clearly links the death of a seed and the roots and sprouts that follow with the death of a believer.

John 12:23-25 (NIV) Jesus replied, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life."

So this metaphor of the seed predicts the physical death of Jesus. It also encompasses a metaphorical death to self: That being a disciple of Christ requires the laying down of one's life figuratively, and even literally. In John 15:13, Jesus says, "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends."

Regarding friends, most of us have many acquaintances but very few good friends, and even some of our friends may prove unfriendly or even unfaithful. In a psalm by David about the blessing and suffering of the godly, he writes,

Psalm 41:9 Even my own familiar friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted up his heel against me.

So even a devoted friend may fail us when we need him most. Peter, James, and John went to went to sleep in the garden when they should have been praying. And Peter even denied Christ three times. Our friendship to each other and to Christ is not perfect. We do work at it. It is not perfect but Jesus Christ's friendship is perfect—always is perfect, is completely perfect, is perfectly perfect.

Christian love is not basically a feeling. It is an act of the will. The proof of our love is not in our feelings but in our actions, even to the extent of laying down our lives for Christ and for one another. Jesus laid down His life for both His friends and His enemies. And while the emotions are certainly evolved, real Christian love is an act of the will. It means treating others the way God treats us and it also means treating others as the way we would like to be treated.

In a metaphor of resurrection, Paul reminds us that God gives each kind of seed its own body. He emphasizes size when he can contrasts an adult plant to but a mere grain.

I Corinthians 15:35-36 [this section of my Bible says, A Glorious Body] But someone will say, "How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?" Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies.

A person is a fool to object to the resurrection which must exist in the undeniable and everyday facts that everyone witnesses. All one must do is observe the growth of grain or seeds to know that in the resurrection there is a change—a major change.

Suppose you had never seen it, that is, the growth of a seed or anything of that sort, physically, and you were told that it was to be put into the earth, that it was to die, to be decomposed, and that from the decayed kernel first there would start up a slender, green, and tender spire of grass, and that this would send up a strong stock and would produce hundreds of similar kernels in the near future. These facts would be as improbable for you to believe as the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead is for someone without God's Holy Spirit or that does not have an open mind to it.

I Corinthians 15:37 And what seed you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be but mere grain—perhaps wheat or some other grain.

One kernel is sown which is to produce many others and they will not be the same that is sown. They will be new kernels raised from that; of the same kind and showing their intimate and necessary connection with that which is sown. It is implied here that the body which will be raised will not be the same in the sense that the same particles of matter will compose it. It will be the same only in the sense that it will have sprung up from that.

Speaking of the resurrection, the body will constitute the same order, rank, species of being, and be subject to the same laws and deserve the same course of treatment as that which died; in a similar way that the grain that is produced is subject to the same laws and belongs to the same rank, order, and species as that which is sown. The same sown particles of manner do not enter into the body which will be in the harvest. The same particles of matter which constitute the body when it dies do not constitute the new body at the resurrection.

There is a parallel here and a representation through the way seeds go through their process and how we go through our process to become spirit beings.

I Corinthians 15:38 But God gives it a body as He pleases, and to each seed its own body.

So God gives this sown seed its own proper body, formation, and growth. The word body here as applied to grain implies the whole system or combination of roots, stalks, leaves, flowers, and kernels that start out of the sown seed. A form is produced from the sown seed as God pleases. Paul is tracing the result to God to show that there is no chance, and that it did not depend on the nature of things, but was dependent on the wise design of God.

There was nothing in the decaying kernel itself that will produce this result, but God chose to design it that way. God was pleased to, He chose to, and it was His will to design and create a unique body produced from each seed. His design conforms to His natural laws. He acts according to His own pleasure in the formation of each root, stock, and kernel of grain.

Paul states that God gives to every seed its own body, a body that appropriately belongs to and is the same kind. He does not cause a stock of rye to grow up from a kernel of wheat or corn from barley. This would be a perversion of God's design to attempt it. God has fixed proper laws and He will not be mocked for long before He brings severe judgment down on those who tried to usurp His sovereign creative authority by genetically engineering perverse seeds.

There is a judgment coming for these people. May God have mercy on them! The fear of God is not in these people as they rely on their own resources.

The biblical imagery of seed reveals so very much that is encouraging and God gives to every seed its own body. In a sense, that is a type of what God will do in the resurrection—everyone will have his own proper body, a body which will belong to him and be suited to him. The wicked will not rise with the spiritual body of the just. In the second resurrection people will be resurrected, but they will be resurrected to human life again and given their first opportunity to live God's way of life.

But the firstfruits we heard about in the sermonette will receive a completely different body. It will be a spiritual body. It is extraordinary in the doctrine of the resurrection, that the fact is constantly before us on earth, that grain that seems to rot sends up a shoot or stock and is reproduced in a wonderful and beautiful manner. In a matter like this, the body will be raised.

I Corinthians 15:39-43 All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, another of birds. There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.

So in a manner like the sowing seed and to the different degrees of splendor and magnificence in the bodies in the sky and on the earth, the dead will be raised in a manner analogous to the springing up of grain; and there will be a difference between the body here and the body in the resurrection. The body here on earth is sown in corruption and dies in the body. In the first resurrection it rises in incorruption and is no longer liable to sin, sickness, disease, and decay. It lives forever! With eternal life, which is a quality of life, you cannot put a length on that as anything because it is infinite. Eternal life is forever, but it is, more importantly, a quality of life. The body here on earth is sown in corruption and dies. But the body in the first resurrection rises in incorruption.

Let us go back to the question of ownership which we were looking at earlier. The world's governments and corporations will never own God's people, though they try to enslave us daily. How does God lay claim to us? He claims His ownership by sealing us. The application of a personal seal to an object shows ownership or authenticity, but in this case we are not only claimed as God's own, but as God's own, we are His heirs. Sealing with the Spirit is closely associated with the metaphor of adoption in Romans 8:23 and the inheritance that we will one day receive in full.

Ephesians 1:13-14 In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.

Ephesians 4:30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

So who does the sealing? Well, it is quite obvious here, is it not?

Please turn over to II Corinthians 1. In speaking of Christ's ownership of true believers, Paul uses the image of the seal of the Spirit.

II Corinthians 1:21-22 Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.

Here the word sealed means to seal up, to close, and to make fast with a seal or signet. For example, as one does to books or letters to prevent them from being read. Sometimes people have personal diaries with a locking device embedded in the the bound cover. There are any number of ways that the seal works to enclose something or to protect something.

It is also used in the sense of setting a mark on anything, or a seal to designate that it is genuine, authentic, confirmed, or approved, as when a deed, a compact, or agreement is sealed. It is made sure and is confirmed or established in this way. It is applied to people by designating that they are approved.

Revelation 7:2 Then I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God. And he cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was granted to harm the earth and the sea, saying, "Do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees till we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads."

The mark of the beast. People who are part of his society will receive a seal on their foreheads, a mark on their foreheads. Well, so do God's people. Our seal is the one you want. Christ received a similar sealing.

John 6:27 "Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him."

So anyone that is in the Family of God has a seal on him, placed on him by God the Father.

Christians are also said to be sealed by the Holy Spirit. That is, the Holy Spirit is given to us to confirm us as belonging to God. He grants us His Spirit. He renews and sanctifies us. This sealing provides us with spiritual protection. And the sealing means that no one other than God can own us. The world is owned by God in a general sense in that He created everyone, but not their minds. Their minds have resisted God's ownership and have gone over to another. With this sealing, God produces in our hearts the feelings, hopes, and desires, which is evidence that we are approved by God, that we are regarded as His adopted children, that our hope is genuine, and that our redemption and salvation are sure—in the same way as the seal makes a will or an agreement sure.

So God grants to us His Holy Spirit as the certain pledge that we are His and will be approved and saved in the last day. It consists of the promised effects of the Spirit on our heart and mind producing repentance, faith, hope, joy, submission, and conformity to God, worship in spirit and in truth, and love of God and others.

The fruit of the Spirit and these things are the evidence that God's Spirit has renewed our heart and mind, and that we are sealed for the resurrection of the firstfruits. We should use the fruit of the Spirit as a checklist. And there is another list in the Bible to go through and see if we are developing those things, helping God in developing them in us.

The Holy Spirit does more than impart to us the possibility of eternal life. It imparts the characteristics of our Almighty God. God transmits to us His spiritual characteristics and attributes through His Spirit. An attribute of God's Spirit is perfect character and it is the spirit of obedience and of perfection. Peter describes freedom from sin as growing from a new type of seed.

I Peter 1:22-23 Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.

We are still flesh, but we have been born from above by way of the Holy Spirit; it is the spiritual seed of eternal life growing within us. Only when we are resurrected to incorruption as spirit beings do we become truly perfect and until then we must consistently work to make our call and election sure and to go on to perfection.

Hebrews 6:1 Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection.

We should already know the basics, the elementary doctrines, but we have to move beyond that, not just stagnate. In knowing the doctrines we have to apply them in our lives and the Holy Spirit is there to help us to do that.

As we move on into perfection, God is completing His work in us in preparing for eternal life in His Kingdom. We cannot move toward being perfected by God until we are born of Him, and one who is born of God, that is, born from above, is unable to flagrantly sin as a way of life because divine nature remains in him and God will not abide in sin. Therefore, if His Spirit dwells in us, we cannot continue in sin as a way of life.

I John 3:9-10 Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin; because he has been born of God. In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.

So the word "seed" can mean several things in Scripture, as we have seen. The English word seed is from the Greek word sperma (you recognize that connection), meaning seed sown, as of grain, plants and trees; or anything that resembles it, anything that germinates, or that springs up, or is produced.

God's seed is His Holy Spirit and can also include God's Word. If God's spiritual seed dwells in us, then so does the Word of God. In other words, if His Spirit remains in us, so does His Word. The Word of God has innumerable aspects and forms and produces a variety of results, as seen in the Parable of the Sower in Luke 18:11, which says "the seed is the word of God."

Jesus Christ is perfect. Because He lives His life in us by means of the Holy Spirit and we are to live by every Word of God. Jesus is the Word personified. Therefore He is the Bible in action. He came to show us how to live God's way of life and to save us.

Now we have available to us the power of self-control as we yield to His Spirit. And this means that we have the capacity to spiritually grow toward a perfect character like God. God's children are to grow up to be like Him. The physical creation reveals the divine attribute of God to reproduce us in His image. Nature reproduces; therefore it reveals that God does. And if He is our Father, and if we are His holy seed, we shall become like Him.

The Father always looks after His children, therefore nothing can happen to us unless He allows it. We have nothing to fear. Even knowing this, we still have anxiety over things that go wrong. Our human nature wants to preserve this temporary body at all costs. Therefore, He sent His Spirit because He knows we cannot live His way of life on our own. Because under the pressures of society, without God's Holy Spirit, we would give in to most of what society has to offer, which is not a lot of good.

Since there is the eternal heavenly Father and we are His children, then God must be a family and the church of God must be composed of the children of God. The apostle Paul confirms this family relationship in his letter to the Galatians.

Galatians 4:6-7 And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, "Abba, Father!" Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

So it is the same Spirit by which we are placed or immersed into the church. Paul tells us in I Corinthians 12:13, "For by one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body." It is the Holy Spirit that unites us in His church. In Hebrews 12:9 the Almighty is called the "Father of spirits."

We will ultimately, at the resurrection, be composed of spirit, members of the divine Family. Often in Scripture, we are declared to be heirs of the divine nature—of immortal, incorruptible, perfect, all-powerful spirit possessing the mind of God. We are to be partakers of the divine nature as the apostle Peter tells us, but we may also receive some of that power in this life.

So it helps us to understand God's truth when all the world is so totally blinded about not only God's truth in Scripture, but also all truth in the world. How much truth did we actually hear about from the "scientists" and medical profession in the last two years? Not a lot, if any.

When we become members of God's Family, we receive a portion—a seed—of the Father's Spirit. And according to Acts 10:45, the Holy Spirit is poured out as a spiritual gift, and the spiritual seed unites with our human spirit upon our initial conversion. So we drink in these dynamic, life-giving written words of God through reading and studying and meditating on them. We drink these in. Each converted individual receives a seed composed of spirit, not matter, which unites with the human spirit in each repentant human mind. And by this seed we are enabled to grow in spiritual mindedness.

How is that seed which is united with our minds going to grow? God is the source of the living water and Jesus explains in John 4:10-14 that He Himself is the fountain or delivery system of the living water supplying what is needed for spiritual growth. Added to the spiritual seed which proceeds from the Father there must be a continuous supply of Spirit through Jesus Christ, so that our minds grow to spiritual maturity.

John 6:63 "It is the Spirit who gives us life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life."

To grow in godly character and eternal life we must live by every Word of God. The world picks and chooses. They have picked the New Testament to ignore the Old Testament. They might throw in Psalms and Proverbs. But other than that they do not want to hear. In fact, they will close their mind to it. Even some of these talk show hosts on the radio who have a Christian background, even here on WBT, the man there said, "I don't want to hear anybody else calling in about what the Old Testament says. That's dead. I live by the New Testament." That was his statement and that is the world's view of it, at least the mainstream Christian view of it.

Added to the spiritual seed which proceeds from the Father, there must be a continuous supply of the Spirit. The expression "filled with the Spirit" from Ephesians 5:18 does not mean to be filled with emotional manifestations which come from the flesh and not from the Spirit. It means that we are imbued with Spirit from heaven, administered through Jesus Christ in His office as High Priest.

Romans 8:8-9 So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, He is not His.

So we are motivated and guided by the Spirit. It comes from the Father in the form of the seed transmitting His characteristics, but the Spirit from the Father must come through Jesus Christ who fills our minds so that we can grow spiritually. You cannot leave Jesus Christ out of the equation. Jesus Christ is absolutely necessary. And that word necessary is too weak. Absolutely necessary and beyond for our spiritual growth, for salvation, for so many other things. God the Father and Jesus Christ have worked together to bring us salvation and eventually eternal life, but we have eternal life living in us, the possibility of eternal life living in us right now as a promise sealed by the Holy Spirit.

Spiritual qualities and entities seem unreal to most people. And no wonder! Spiritual things are invisible, not discerned by the senses until revealed through the Spirit, in the written Word of God. John 4:21 tells us that "God is Spirit." The Father and the Son, who are composed of spirit, have definite shape. The God Family is composed of spirit.

From beginning to end, the Bible tells us about the shape and the parts of each member in the God Family. The Father and the Son each have a head, hair, eyes, nose, mouth, arms, fingers, a torso, legs, feet, plus internal organs and other internal parts. We are made in the image of God. We are matter, but God is Spirit and the Holy Spirit is only like matter in that it exists in various states. It not only composes the members of the God Family, but it also flows through our minds and empowers us to do good works.

Even though the Father and His Son are in definite locations with respect to each other, spirit proceeds from Them and fills the entire universe, much like air fills the earth. King David makes it clear that God's Spirit permeates everything.

Psalm 139:7-10 Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, you are there. [of course hell means grave there] And if I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me.

Spirit is God's life, and air contains the physical, the life-giving oxygen and also nitrogen for mankind. Notice how similar the comparison is. The divine Spirit that fills the entire universe is the channel by which God the Father and the Son create. The Spirit of God transformed the creative energy of a Father and Son into the physical world.

We have no such attribute of power born into us, although many people try to become creators by interfering with God's perfect physical design. We may form tools which transforms our expanded physical energy into visible objects, into light, heat, and numerous other physical manifestations. But we do not have the sense or self-control to not interfere or alter things which could end in tragic results.

We were put here on earth to learn to develop tools for limited creative work—to train for the eternal goal—becoming part of the God Family, which means humbly sharing, not trying to take control. We see the result of man's taking control or trying to: the GMOs, the atom being misused, nuclear warfare, whatever it may be, man has perverted everything—water, air, and land.

Please turn with me for a final scripture to Romans 15. The Holy Spirit of God is the key to eternal life. If we do not have it, then we do not have eternal life dwelling within us. Most people do not have it because they have not been called by God and received understanding of even what it is. The God Family thinks and acts with the inspiration and power of the Holy Spirit. When God infuses us with that Spirit, we are imbued with eternal God life to grow in God's spiritual qualities of mind and strength. Paul asked this blessing on the members of God's church.

Romans 15:13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Glory must go to our God and Father and to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for Their great grace and love. Our intimate relationship with the Father and His Son by way of His Holy Spirit is truly something to be treasured and acted upon. To receive God's Holy Spirit is no less than the greatest miracle that happens in our lives, thanks to the ultimate sacrifice and shed blood of Jesus Christ.

May we glorify God in all that we think, say, and do.

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