The concept that God does not regard the actual behavior of Christian people is a severe corruption of the Word of God and results in the destruction of the testimony of the Christian churches.

It is time for a reformation of Christian thinking.

There is a distinction between imputed righteousness (as it is conceived today) and the new creation—a distinction that produces an uncrossable chasm between the contemporary moral disaster and the Kingdom of God.

God has given the land to Abraham and to his Seed forever. Because God cannot accomplish His goal with a city filled with sinful, self-willed people, God is creating a spiritual Jerusalem in Heaven. God is populating the spiritual Jerusalem with righteous people who are being made perfect by the Life of Christ and the working of the Spirit of God.

God is creating righteous people. God is perfecting the spirit of Jerusalem, and He is doing so by creating a spiritual Jerusalem in the heavens. God's whole intention under the new covenant is to create a righteous Jerusalem, a Jerusalem that will govern the earth with the eternal moral law of God. Meanwhile, the Jerusalem that is on earth is in spiritual bondage with her children. Earthly Jerusalem is in bondage because the adamic nature of man cannot serve God satisfactorily. We must be born again of the Spirit of God.

Our flesh and blood personalities are spiritually corrupt and cannot please God. Flesh and blood cannot enter the Kingdom that is from Heaven, as the Apostle says. Flesh profits nothing. Only the Substance and Virtue of Christ are eternal Life. Only that which is born of Christ can inhabit Jerusalem forever.

Converting the Soul of Jerusalem

The Scriptures do not always differentiate clearly between the spirit and soul of man. Therefore we will not attempt to make a strong case for such a distinction.

We think of the spirit as the part of our personality that goes out from us and enters union with God. When we are joined to the Lord we are one Spirit with Him. Our life becomes part of the greater Life of Christ in God. Perhaps our spirit is the same as our mind, or close to it.

As soon as our inner spiritual nature is reborn it is brought in Christ to the right hand of God. From that point forward our spiritual nature, being filled with God's Spirit, seeks to govern the appetites of our soul and body. Our reborn ascended spiritual nature is a firstfruits of our whole personality.

To be continued.