Gary L. Garner

One Promise To The Fathers

Acts 13:32
And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, 33 God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee.

I believe you can understand why this was called glad tidings. Notice it says that there was ONE promise to all the fathers, the patriarches of old. That promise was Christ and that promise was fulfilled when He raised Him from the dead. Jesus is our Promised Land.

I failed algebra class when I was in the eleventh grade. I did not fail it because I did not have the answers. Every problem that was ever given for homework had the answer in the back of the book. I had all the answers. I never failed an algebra test because I didn't have the answers. I failed because I did not know how the answer was achieved.

Knowing the answer is not what is going to get you over; it is knowing how God got that answer that will help you. In algebra, when the test came I did not know how to get the proper answer. In the tests of life, success will not come by knowing a promise. You need to know how the promise came to be.

There is only one promise in the Bible. Everything that the prophets spoke of was a part of the same promise. That promise is one of all the ages. It is coming together before our very eyes. It is the promise of Genesis 1 that said, "Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and the fowls of the air, over the creeping things."

Genesis 1:26
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.)

It is the promise that God would have a man in His own image who would rule and reign with Him. That is the promise. That is what God is doing in the world today. God is bringing to pass the fulfillment of the promise made to the fathers. God hath, this is something God has done. When you read the Bible you need to always recognize the tense in which it is written. He hath fulfilled the same, He hath fulfilled the promise He made to the fathers. God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, talking about us. He fulfilled it unto us in that He did something. He raised up Jesus again.

Everything that God made promise to by the fathers, He fulfilled in raising Jesus from the dead. That is the essence of the Gospel. You have to understand that when Jesus walked the shores of Galilee, He walked them as a man. Paul wrote to Timothy and said Jesus was God manifest in the flesh (I Timothy 3:16). The incarnation, the birth of Christ, was God taking on Himself a body and in doing that Philippians 2 says that He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
 

Jesus Became A Man

Philippians 2:7-8
But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: 8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Jesus, the Son of God became a man. This is difficult for some to believe because they have never really grasped what God wanted man to be, but Jesus walked the shores of Galilee as a man. Someone will say, I have never seen a man walk like He did. What you have been looking at is man growing up. Man coming to something. Jesus was God's idea of what manhood was all about. He said, I am the son of man. Everything that Jesus did He did as a man. He laid His deity powers and abilities and attributes aside. He never stopped being God, but because He was God He became a man. In His Godly attributes He became a man. He functioned as a man. The reason He did that was because it took the death of a man on Calvary to redeem us from our sins.

God could not pay the price for man's sin. God did not sin, man sinned. The Bible says, for by man came death and by man also came the resurrection.

1 Corinthians 15:21-22
For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

Jesus qualified as a man. He lowered Himself below God, became obedient to Him, and did that which was the Father's will, walked among men as a man, then He went to the Cross. He went to the Cross and as a sinless, spotless man, He became what we were.

II Corinthians 5:21
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

Jesus never sinned, but He opened Himself to the force, or the nature, or the power of sin. You did not become a sinner when you sinned. You sinned because you were a sinner. The nature that we were born with, Adam's nature, caused us to do those things. Sin is not just an act, it is a force. Sin is a power and Jesus opened Himself up on the cross. Jesus was nailed to the cross and He said, "Into Thy hands I commit My spirit," and God then poured into Him the nature of us all.

Jesus did not die that you might live. Jesus died that you might die. What does it mean when someone gets saved? Does it mean that they got cleaned up? their spirit got cleaned up? No, you were not cleanable, I was not cleanable. The only thing that God could do to me was kill me and bury me and get the old me out of the way. So on the Cross Jesus did something. Jesus identified with who we were.
 

Jesus Identified With Man In His Sin

Why is it that one Man's death 2000 years ago changed who I am? You mean God killed His own Son and that saved me? Why? Because God's own Son identified with you. By identify I mean God considered Him to be the same as you. How did He do that? Because He became who you were.

John 12:31-33
Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. 32 And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. 33 This he said, signifying what death he should die.

Now is the judgment of this world. So for four thousand years, since the fall of Adam, judgment in a sense had been held back until that moment when Jesus said, Now is the judgment of this world. Then He proceeded to tell us what He was talking about. He said, "If I be lifted up I will draw all men unto Me." In the next verse He went on to say that by this He signified what death He should die. Jesus' death was the judgment or the death of the world. Jesus died that you might die. He was made alive so that you might live.

On the Cross of Calvary Jesus opened Himself up and identified with fallen man. When He did, He said, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Mark 15:34
And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Christendom does not know the answer to that question. The answer is, "I forsook you so that I would never forsake them." You were incorporated into His death. His death was your death. Many may say, "Thank God, because of Jesus I never have to die." No, you must not see it that way. Jesus' death was not instead of your death. Jesus' death was your death. It is not recorded in heaven that you did not die. It is recorded that you were crucified.

Romans 6:6
Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

I walked for years in my life believing I was a forgiven sinner. I was willing to live with that, but the joy of redemption did not rise up within me. It is one thing to know that the things you used to do are forgiven, it is an all together different thing to find out the man that did those things no longer exists. I am not just a forgiven sinner. The person that did those things died the death of Calvary and was buried in Jesus' tomb. He became so much like me that God could legally say that I was crucified.

How does this fulfill the promise made to the fathers? The process is not over. There is a dark side to redemption. There are three things Jesus did to get rid of who you used to be. He was crucified, He died and He was buried. Those three steps got rid of everything you used to be.
 

You Were Crucified, Died, And Buried With Christ

When you made Jesus Lord, you were birthed into Christ. That means you were born into His death. There are three things that Jesus did to get rid of who you were, the history of who you used to be. You were crucified, you died and you were buried in Jesus.

Isaiah 53:11
He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.

God saw the travail of His soul and was satisfied. It goes on to say that by the knowledge of Him shall many be made righteous. Righteousness! God had truly paid for the sins of the WORLD. That should make evangelists out of all of us.

II Corinthians 5:19
To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation.

It says that God was personally present in Christ restoring the world unto Himself. The sad thing is that there are people walking the streets of our cities who God has absolutely nothing against. The sacrifice of Jesus restored the world unto Himself and they are going around thinking God has something against them. He does not. The death of Jesus was the death of all the world. God said, "In Jesus I am satisfied. I have seen the travail of His soul and I am satisfied." From that moment on, God began to do something.
 

Adam, The Head Of A Race

Genesis 1:27
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Genesis 2:7
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

God breathed into that man's nostrils the breath of life. God made the first Adam to be everything He wanted every one of us to be. Then He said "Adam, I want you to multiply; I want you to replenish the earth."

Genesis 1:28
And God blessed them, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every thing that moveth upon the earth.

God said, "You are the head of a race of people, Adam. I want you to multiply." Multiply means, I want what you are, to be duplicated. I want you to be the master.

I have a tape duplicating machine that makes three copies. You take a master and you put it in it and you take three blanks and put them in there and push a button and everything that is on the master is duplicated exactly into those three cassettes. Adam at the beginning was a master and every single person that would be born would be born in his image.

Something happened and the master was warped. Sin entered into the master and when the button was pushed and you were born, guess what came out? another Adam. You did not have to do a single thing. You just had to be born. You had to be pushed in the machine. You were just like Adam.

All you have to do to get Adam's inheritance is to be born. People are crying all over the world saying, "I don't deserve this, why was I born like this?" You were born like this because of what Adam did six thousand years ago. He was the head of a race of people. God did not make eight billion people He made one and said, You multiply. That is the way God did it.

You must understand this in order to understand what God was doing in the heart of the earth two thousand years ago.
 

Jesus, The Head Of A New Race

Jesus became a substitute for fallen man. He became what Adam was and He died Adam's death and He was buried with Adam's burial. Jesus identified with who and what Adam had become and the penalty of death was exacted in Christ.

When this was accomplished, when He had gotten rid of the old man, the old sinner, He began to make another Adam.

The promise that God made to the fathers was fulfilled in us by raising Jesus from the dead.

Take yourself back in Spirit two thousand years ago before Jesus came out of that tomb. See what God was doing in Him. He had identified with us and become who we were and paid the penalty for our sin. Then God began to form in Christ whatever He wanted us to be.

1 Corinthians 1:30
But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:

This is talking about Jesus, He was MADE. When was Jesus made? When was Jesus begotten? When was Jesus becoming the first-born among many brethren? It was when He was in the heart of the earth. God placed within Christ everything that He wanted the new creation to be.

Sometimes in our own lives we try to walk like Christ. We are not to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. His life is the very life you now have in your spirit. God made Jesus to be everything that He wanted all creation to be. Because He made another Adam, the last Adam.

1 Corinthians 15:45
And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.

Jesus is the LAST Adam. Adam was the first, Jesus is the last Adam. That means that He was the first born among many brethren. The FIRSTborn. In Jesus' death you died. In God giving life to Christ He gave life to you.

I have heard people say that Jesus was the first born and I was the ten millionth born or the two hundred and fifteenth born. No, there was only ONE born. There is only one birth, you do not have a separate birth. You are born with His birth.

You may ask, "Why am I this way?" It is because of Adam. You did not get your own nature, you got Adam's nature. All you had to do to get Adam's nature was to be born. All you have to do to get Christ's nature is to be born again (John 3:3). When Jesus walked out of the tomb, whatever He was is what God would duplicate in you when you made Jesus Christ Lord of your life.

Every new born believer needs to understand this message, it is the Gospel. The joy of Christianity will come when you understand that you do not have a past. That old man that did all of those things died the moment you said, "Jesus, I receive You as Lord." You were buried, that person is gone.

II Corinthians 5:17
Therefore if any man BE in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

Spiritual growth is the development or the renewing of our mind into who we BE in Christ. He hath fulfilled the same in us. Spiritual growth is the out working of the inner truths of the new birth. We have to put off the old man. What that means is you have to put off the old man's thinking.

The only way you are going to ascend to the throne is to know that Jesus did it for you and you are going to rest in the finished accomplished work of Christ. That is the only way it is ever going to happen. That is the promise.

1 Peter 1:3
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Begotten means, to be given life to. That is the term the Bible uses in the geneology's that says So and So begat So and So, it means given life to. Notice, here it says He hath begotten us, given life to us. Do you have life in you? How did you get that life? He begot us to a lively hope BY THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST from the dead. When God raised Jesus from the dead, when God gave life to Jesus, He gave life to all who are in Him. It is His life you have in you. The SAME life. It is the same birth.

In any normal birth the head comes first. Jesus is the Head of this race and He had a birth. He came forth first. You are the Body of Christ. I was in the room when my son Joshua was born. His head was born first then his shoulders and his belly and his feet. They all had the same birth. It is not a different birth. It is not a different life. We did not say, Joshua's head is born, then a few seconds later say, There is another birth. If you are in the Body of Christ, you have the same birth.

That is good because the blessing of the first-born is a double portion. If you are in Christ, you have the blessing of the first-born. He said, "He begot us to a lively hope." When did I get begotten? I was begotten when He raised Jesus from the dead. His birth was the birth of us all. His death was the death of all the world. His birth was the birth of us all.

I Peter 1:4-5
To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, 5 Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

This inheritance is reserved, not from you, but FOR you. Whatever Jesus was when He came forth out of that tomb, whoever He is, whatever He is, that is our inheritance and is reserved in heaven FOR US. All that He is.

When is it going to happen. When are we going to come to that. Notice this, ready to be revealed in the last time or the last days, or the end of the Church age. There is a salvation that is ready to be revealed in these last days.
 

Growing Up Into Christ

We are at the point when someone is going to find out who they are in Christ and they are going to say, "If my old man died in Christ, if I was justified in Him, if He took me to the Cross then He must have taken me to the throne!"

Romans 8:29
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

The promise of all the ages is to have a son in His own image. "To whom it was predetermined," God knows when we are going to grow up. We are living at the end of this age. Do you feel a high calling? I cannot explain it all, I cannot give it to you in words, but I believe I sense in my spirit a calling to the prize; the prize of the high calling. There is something more the Church WILL enter into. Paul said...

Philippians 3:14
I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

1 Corinthians 9:24
Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain.

I thought, Wait a minute! All of us are running for the same prize, but only one receives the prize? Only one man wins this race. It is not you or me, but the One we are in, Jesus wins. Jesus is the one man who got the prize and you need to be found in Him. You were justified when Christ was justified because you are in Him. You were in Him two thousand years ago. If you were justified two thousand years ago, it says, "Whom He justified them He also GLORIFIED" (Romans 9:30).

What we are doing Church, is growing up into what Jesus has already become. We are not going to have to try harder, if any thing we will try less. We are going to labor to enter into His rest.

Hebrews 4:11
Let us LABOUR therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.

That means to get in the Word and find out who we have been made to be.

The first giant we will have to face in the Promise land is the giant of self effort. We can see this pictured in the book of Joshua as the children of Israel endeavored to cross over to the promise land.
 

Joshua, Our Jesus

If you take the Hebrew word translated Joshua and take it over into a Greek word it would be Jesus. Jesus and Joshua are interchangeable. Joshua pictures our Jesus who is leading a people into the promise land. The promise land is a Man. Jesus is our promise land. The Bible says the promise made to the fathers was fulfilled in Him. It is a better promise than a piece of property somewhere.

I believe that what we are talking about is what we have heard all our lives as the "Millinium." But there is always a transition from one age to the other. There is always someone who rises up early. You are not going to wake up one day and say, Boom! We have changed. Someone goes in first. There is always a remnant in the Scriptures.
 

The Remnant

In the book of Ezra, when Cyrus, king of Persia said, go back and rebuild the temple, only a handful went. Just a small portion. They went early. Now there was not any quarreling among each other. They did not say, "I am better than you." They did not have a fight over who went and who didn't. They just said, "Fine, you take off." They all heard the message. King Cyrus said, "Anyone who wants to, go, return, leave Babylon, leave confusion," but for some reason, some did not want to go. Some did and they rebuilt the temple and blessed them all.

There is a passing over that has to occur in each age. We are at the end of the two thousand years from Jesus' crucifixion. We are at the time when the Church age is coming to a close.
 

Identifying With The Work Of Christ

How long does it take to get to the promise land? It takes three days. It takes from the cross to the throne. It took Jesus three days to get rid of the old man and give you a new man. You have to go through those three days. This speaks of the three days and nights of the death, burial, resurrection and ascension of Christ.

Joshua 3:1-4
And Joshua rose early in the morning; and they removed from Shittim, and came to Jordan, and he and all the children of Israel, and lodged there before they passed over. 2 And it came to pass after three days, that the officers went through the host; 3 And they commanded the people saying, When ye see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests the Levites bearing it, then ye shall remove from your place, and go after it. 4 Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure: come not near unto it, that ye may know the way by which ye must go: for ye have not passed this way before.

The ark of the covenant is a picture of Christ. Even as the ark went into the Jordan and came up on the other side, even so, Jesus went down into death and He came up out of death with your new man. He then sat down at the right hand of the Father.

The Word of God is amazing, it not only tells you what the promise land is, but it also tells you in here, in type form, how long it will take for people to go from what Jesus did, into the promise land behind Him. There shall be a time between you and it, two thousand cubits. I believe the length of time between the ark of the covenant and between the people was measured not in cubits but in years. It will take two thousand years for the Church to follow Christ into His death, burial, resurrection and ascension.

Bits and pieces of this have been known throughout the Church age, but simply because it was not time, or the information was not all available, there have been people who have pushed themselves out into dimensions and aspects of Christianity that have been way before their time. We are in a time today when the Church is going to grow up into everything she was destined to be.

"You have not passed this way before." I know there is coming a revival but it is not like anything that has happened in the past. There has been great moves of the Spirit in times past but where God is taking us, is not like anything that has ever been before. It will not be like it was in the forties or fifties. This is like a new thing (Isaiah 43:19), where no one has gone heretofore.

"It came to pass" that means it came and it passed. This is what will come to pass. The people passed over. When the ark went two thousand cubits ahead, the priests took the ark, which represented Christ, on their shoulders and they stepped in the water. The Jordan is the river of death. When they stepped into the Jordan it backed up all the way to Adam!

Joshua 3:15-16
And as they that bear the ark were come unto Jordan, and the feet of the priests that bear the ark were dipped in the brim of the water... 16 That the waters which came down from above stood and rose up upon an heap very far from the city Adam...

This tells you exactly where we are headed. When someone enters into the finished work of Christ and follows Him in it, then what we can expect is not an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, but a backing up of everything that flowed from Adam. Everything Adam has dumped into the river that has fallen on us will back off all the way up to him and we will walk across into the promise land, redeemed.

He is the Promise Land. This is everything Adam was created to be before he sinned. This is a restoration and that is where we are, we are right there. We are understanding what Jesus did.

The Church is going to take the Word and break it apart. We are going to feed on that Word until it renews our mind and we are going to say, "We do not have to live the way we have been living. We do not have to do the things we have been doing." The implications are so far reaching.

Someone is going to walk past the flaming sword that has kept the way to the garden. A people are going to walk through that big flaming sword, which is the Word of God, that is so on fire right now it is burning within us and they are going to say, Where is the tree of life? They are going to reach up and partake of the tree of life.
 

Going Back To Eden

The devil got inroad into this world by taking something off a tree. The devil said, "Go ahead and take something off that tree of the knowledge of good and evil" and when man took something off that tree and ate it he died. Whatever Adam did will be absolutely reversed when a people go back. I am talking about a spiritual place. A place where you can walk and talk with God in the cool of the day. Where you can reach up and you will take something off a tree. You will take Jesus off the tree. It is Him on the tree. Satan gained inroad by causing man to eat something off a tree and God reverses the whole process and says, "I will get people to take something else off a tree and that will destroy Satan's power. He was given dominion over man because Adam disobeyed in taking something off a tree, but we will obey God and eat of the tree of life.

We will eat and we will grow up and experience Satan's defeat. Satan's dominion will be broken over us for ever. It already is but we must receive a revelation of it. We will grow up into Him in all things.

Ephesians 4:15
But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ:

There is no need in you laying down at night wondering if you are saved, or whether you are worthy enough to receive the infilling of the Holy Spirit. Are you in Christ or are you in Adam? Many believe that in order to receive the Holy Ghost you have to quit all these things. That is absolutely ridiculous. If you are saved, receive the Holy Ghost. The Bible says by the Spirit we mortify the deeds of the flesh.

Romans 8:13
For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye THROUGH THE SPIRIT do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.

You receive the Holy Spirit TO mortify the deeds of the flesh. The Holy Spirit moving and making Jesus alive to us in greater dimensions than we have ever thought about.

The children of Israel on the banks of the river in Babylon said, How can we sing a song of the redeemed while we are in this strange land (Psalm 137:4). We are discovering more and more that we are not in a strange land. We are discovering more and more that we are in Christ. The more we see, the more our praises will rise up and the song of the redeemed will be sung. Not because we memorize the words, but because we know who we are, the redeemed.

Something has already started. The light of a brand new day is dawned and it will rise higher and higher within us unto the perfect day (II Peter 1:19). Jesus fulfilled the promise made to the fathers and He did it in us.

Promise Land

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Spiritual Maturity Through a Revelation of the Person and Work of Christ