Move On Into the Fulfillment

We talk a lot about the mystical element in the Scriptures. The Lord brought that out to me very vividly a number of years back when I wrote the Trumpet message “The Hidden Manna.” It’s like there are two layers and I will show you what I mean. Let’s look at the first three verses in Revelation chapter 1.

Revelation 1:1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ ... that is what we need ... which God gave unto Him, to show unto His servants things which must shortly come to pass ...

As you well know, the group of men King James selected to translate the Greek scriptures, which gave us the King James Bible, sometimes translated the Greek according to the way they believed. They would sometime change the verb tense. For example, a present tense verb in the Greek was sometimes made a future tense verb in the English, which gave a wrong understanding of certain scriptures. Jesus, for example, kept saying, “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is now.” He did not say, “The Kingdom of heaven is in the future. I hope you get there one day saints.” It is now!

Unto His servants things which must shortly come to pass in the actual Greek reads …things which must occur in speed; things that will take place rapidly. However, we tend to think on a human level instead of in God’s world, so we think they have to take place in the future. Actually, it is speaking about things that must take place in us because we are talking about a revelation of Jesus Christ! As you begin to get a revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ, what begins to happen? Things begin to change inside. You begin to see things differently. You see the Lord differently. Change takes place in your life and as you get this revelation it can take place speedily. This is what the Apostle John is trying to tell us about the Book of Revelation.

People read the Book of Revelation and wonder about the beast in chapter 13. What is that mark of the beast number, 666? They get zeroed in on the negative things and they are looking for the uglies. Then they tell you all the things that will happen in the future, one day. But the Lord is telling us right here at the beginning this book is concerning a revelation of Jesus Christ, things concerning Him that are to take place speedily in us. That is what He is talking about.

Revelation 1:1-3 …and He sent and signified it through His angel unto His servant John:
2 Who bare record of the Word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw ... Revelation 19:10 tells us what the testimony of Jesus Christ is. It is the spirit of prophecy.
3 Blessed is he that reads and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time (kairos = season) is at hand.

It is not time but season in this verse. The season when all these things can take place in us is at hand.

Now, what I am interested in is the Greek word that is translated “read” - Blessed is he that reads. It is ana ginosko. Ana means “again” and ginosko means “to know.” To know again or to read again or to know accurately is what it means. In other words, we don’t just read it and it is going to be a blessing to us. It is saying, “To know it accurately, to re-read.” We read it once and we receive the information, but then we read it on a deeper level and we get what is under the information. So, you see, we can know it as far as the information is concerned or we can know it accurately, which opens to us the mystical things of Christ that are there. Do you follow what I am saying? It is the surface manna or the hidden manna.

Now let’s go to Mark chapter 1. We went over this scripture the other day and it was really a blessing to me. We will read just a few verses. As we do, let’s look for the mystery below the surface.

Mark 1:1 The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Every time I read this verse one question comes to my mind: What about the fulfillment or the ending of the Gospel? This is the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That is what the Gospel of Mark is all about. It is the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What is the fulfillment? the finishing of it? the completion? Well, if you remember back in the 20th chapter of the Gospel of John, which is just prior to the Lord’s ascension, Jesus blessed His disciples and said, “As the Father hath sent Me, so send I you” (John 20-21). Now brethren, you will not see Me for a little while, but you are going to finish the work that I have started” (See John 16:16; John 17:18). So Mark gives us the beginning of the Gospel and we must complete it. What the Lord does through His many-membered Body is going to complete His Gospel.

Mark 1:2-3 As it is written in the prophets, Behold, I send My messenger before your face, which shall prepare your way before you.
3 The voice of one crying in the wilderness ...

Verse 2 is taken from Malachi 3:1 and verse 3 is taken from Isaiah 40:3, The voice of One crying in the wilderness. Let me ask you – Who is One? Who is the voice of One? Now Jesus in Mark 12:29, when asked about the first commandment, said, “The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy God is One.” So when John the Baptist says he is the voice of One crying in the wilderness, it is God’s voice flowing through him. “I am the voice of One. The Lord thy God is One.” It is the voice of One crying in the wilderness. Now listen, if you want the voice of God coming through you, you have to become a wilderness first. You have to become a wilderness first! Isaiah prophesied: In the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert (Isaiah 35:6). Those waters are to flow through us. They flow through a desert, so we must first become a desert. All of the things of our human nature have to dry up and become a wilderness, a barren place of unfruitfulness. Then when our old nature is unfruitful, the fruitfulness of God can come through us.

Mark 1:4-5 John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.
5 And there went out unto him all the land of Judea, and they of Jerusalem, and were all baptized of him in the river of Jordan, confessing their sins.

Verse 4 is quite explicit there. It says, “…the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.” Now you remember in Acts 19 while Paul was on his way to Ephesus he met twelve disciples on the road to Ephesus. They are disciples of Jesus Christ and Paul asked, “Have you received the Holy Spirit since you have believed?” They answered, “We don’t know that there is any such Holy Spirit.” Paul said, “Then to what were you baptized?” “We were baptized unto John’s baptism.” Paul said, “Well, John’s baptism was the baptism of repentance from sins,” and then he baptized them in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and they began to prophesy and speak in tongues. New life! Do you get what we are saying here? The baptism of John, the repentance for the remission of sins is a type. The fulfillment is later. It is a type. We don’t want to stop in the type. “I’ve been baptized and I am a Christian.” That is the type. Move on to the fulfillment of the reality of the Lord!

So they were baptized in the river Jordan. What does the word “Jordan” mean? Descender. The Jordan River flowed downhill. When the Israelites crossed over the River Jordan as they were going into Canaan, it was quite a miracle because it was at the time when the Jordan River overflowed its banks. There was much water coming down there. It wasn’t just flowing along; it was coming downhill. The water parted and backed up as the priests took the ark of the Lord across. That is the descender. That is why it was called “Jordan.” Well, it is a type of He that descends into us. It is a type of Jesus Christ. He is the Descender. The River Jordan is just a type of the real Descender who can descend down into us and bring forth a life beyond being dipped in the Jordan River.

Mark 1:7 And preached, saying, There comes one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose.

John the Baptist said, “There is someone coming after me. I am not the end of this thing. I am just getting you started here. There is One coming after me and I am not even worthy to untie his shoestrings. He is the fulfillment. He is the substance. All of this is just a little preparation for you to get the reality. He is coming.”

Mark 1:8 I indeed have baptized you with water: but He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.

The water is a type of the Holy Spirit. Now, many people put a lot of emphasis on water baptism and I would not downplay that at all. I think it is important for you to be baptized in water for the remission of sin. But I think it is even more important for you to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. Get His life in you. We don’t look and say, “One day He is coming.” John said, “There is One coming after me.” When you are on that type-realm it is always one coming later. We want to get past that futuristic thing of one coming later. Let’s get involved in Him right now!

Mark 1:9-10 And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan.
10 And straightway coming up out of the water, He saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon Him.

The Spirit like a dove descending upon Him in the Greek reads the Spirit as a dove coming down into Him. This is not a dove but the Spirit as a dove comes down into Jesus. The King James translators are thinking more in terms as a dove than the Spirit. A dove, of course, cannot come down into Him so they say “upon Him.” The Spirit did not merely descend upon Him but descended into Him.

Mark 1:11 And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

I like the way the Greek phrases that a little bit better. It says: Thou art the Son of Me, the beloved. It gives it a little more meaning. The word order is important. When His Kingdom is spoken of in the Scriptures, the word order is different again. The Greek reads the kingdom of Him. It goes beyond a possession and becomes the same as. We don’t want to be God’s people in the sense that we are just a possession apart from Him, but we want to be the people of Him so that we have the same nature.

This is what Mark is trying to get across to us here. He said, “The ministry of John the Baptist was important. It is a preparation ministry. Malachi prophesied that it was to take place. Isaiah prophesied that it was to take place. Don’t look down upon these beginnings. This is the beginning of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. But don’t stay in the beginnings. Move on into the fulfillment of it.

How often will Christians get a little bit of God in their lives and not go any further? We don’t want to stop anywhere. Wherever we are right now, we are just in the beginnings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We want to continue on into the fulfillment.

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