Manifest Sons -
Overcomers and the Manchild
Part 3
By John Gavazzoni

This last installment in our series will be a brief one, in which I will attempt to expose a fallacious presumption that puts a confusing and misleading spin on genuine kingdom truth, and by so doing, reveal how pervasive is the "company" spirit among us who have seen something of the centrality of the gospel of the kingdom, as opposed to the gospel of getting to heaven.

There is, by some definition, and in some sense, a notion abroad that the kingdom is superior to the church (I use the conventional word "church" to connect with my readers, though it is a sad choice for translating the Greek: ekklesia), in spite of Paul's explanation of the church as "the fulness of Him that filleth all in all." I really find it most difficult to entertain the idea of anything being superior to THAT.

Along that line, attaching itself to the (I believe) genuine consciousness that we are in a period of spiritual transition, is the idea that said transition — however else it is described — is from the church realm to the kingdom realm. I, personally, do not want to transition to a realm that has left church reality behind. Now, dear readers, do not confuse what I know to be, and am calling "church," with the institutional pretender to that spiritual nobility.

A thing of human-invented hierarchy has attached itself to the people of God who ARE the church, but it, the human invention, is an organizational leach sucking on the blood of God's organism. Whatever it is that the Lord must rid the church of by His refining fire, that which He will purge the church of, is not anything that is native to the church.

As the classic analogy of the refining of gold or silver, what is removed is what doesn't belong to, is alien to, not native to the precious metal. His body and His bride have been perfected by His life, death, burial, ascension, enthronement, and glorification.

No improvement can be made to what the body of Christ and the Bride of Christ truly are. His body, the church, is the fulness of Him, the head, who fills all things, since He is the fulness of the Godhead bodily. In the church, as His body, we see the masculinity of the Godhead, and in the church as His bride, the femininity. There is no male or female as separate entities in the church, for the Christ is both and all, in One.

Have we replaced the denominational spirit with a company spirit? Have we rejected "the rapture," only to perceive of ourselves as raised up above our brethren?

Have we sought to recover from the wounding inflicted upon us by those who could not receive the clearer word that God implanted in our hearts, by putting up defenses of self-aggrandizement?

So, again, I raise a prophetic protest and caution to my brethren, to whom the Spirit of Truth has made the reality of the present kingdom of God a precious revelation: Do NOT separate yourself into a kingdom company that looks over a spiritual fence with a spirit of disdain, at that somehow lesser church company.

Are these the kinds of things of corruption that must be dealt with by the Lord before our sonship is revealed? May the Lord make us true intercessors for a creation in bondage to decay, by, among other things, delivering us from the we and they, us and them spirit.

As intercessors, we really are proceeding, not to the throne for creation, but with Christ, proceeding from the throne. With Him we must, we will go forth from the throne to creation with the Spirit of the One who is so identified with all creatureliness, so absolutely in solidarity with the work of Father's hands, that it will not be said of Him that He is subject to the Father, until God is all in all.

Go to part one, part two or part 3 of this series - Manifest Sons - Overcomers and the Manchild