[Home] [How to Measure Your Beliefs] [The Man-Made Church] [Misc]
[Home]>[The Man-Made Church]>[42. Resurrection of the flesh?]
This is the 42. Chapter of "The Man-Made Church"
by Frank L. Preuss
I had a look at an evangelic church hymn book and there is something like The Little Catechism of Doctor Martin Luther.
The First Main Part there is called The Ten Commandments and they are listed there and provided with explanations.
The Second Main Part has the tittle Faith and is a creed as it is known of denominations. The individual parts there are also provided with explanations.
The Third Main Part has the title The Lord’s Prayer and also there are explanations added.
The Fourth Main Part is called The Sacrament of the Holy Baptism. Then follows the Teaching of the Office of Keys and of Confession and at the end there is The Fifth Main Part and this is called The Sacrament of the Altar or the Holy Communion.
In this Fifth Main Part it is said:
How can bodily eating and drinking do such great things?Eating and drinking certainly does not do it but the words, which stand there:
Given for you and shed for the forgiveness of sins.
Next to the bodily eating and drinking are these words the main part in the sacrament.
And who believes these words, he has what they say and they are namely: forgiveness of sins.
In Chapter 34 of this book The Man-Made Church, Communion – Part 2, we have seen that when we are to eat the flesh, the flesh of the Lord Jesus Christ, then the spiritual meaning of flesh is meant with this, and that is the word, exactly that, according to John 1:14, that had become flesh.
At communion it is therefore about gathering about the word of God and offering the word of God and consuming it.
And Luther actually explains this quite well. He says: These words are the main part.
That he speaks of sacraments is of course completely un-biblical. There is no such thing like a sacrament in the Bible. That is precisely still the influence, which he has carried over from the Catholic Church and from which he has not yet weaned himself.
Another explanation from Luther, in the Third Main Part, The Lord’s Prayer, however makes already a very carnal impression:
The fourth requestGive us this day our daily bread.
What is that?
God gives bread daily, certainly also without us asking, to all evil men; but we ask in this prayer that he may let us recognize and receive with thanksgiving our daily bread.
What then means daily bread?
Everything what belongs to the food and necessity of the body, like eating, drinking, clothes, shoe, house, courtyard, field, livestock, money, goods, devout spouse, devout children, devout and loyal sovereign, good regiment, good weather, peace, health, discipline, honour, good friends, loyal neighbours and such.
This statement of Luther is of course an impressive testimony of worldliness of orthodoxy, of all denominations, and especially of the Lutheran Church.
This statement is in stark conflict with what Jesus tells us in Matthew 6:33, that we are to seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto us.
We therefore seek spiritual things and not material things because material things will be added unto us by God when we go for spiritual things.
When Jesus tells us in Mathew 6:11 and Luke 11:3, Give us this day our daily bread, then he speaks of spiritual food for our spiritual body, our soul, and that is the word of God.
We pray for spiritual food, God’s word, and when we seek that, the kingdom of God, then all material necessities will go to us.
This is one of the most important differences between the true church and the wrong church, because this difference explains best the worldliness of the denominations and their belonging to the regiment of Antichrist, the prince of this world.
But now I want to come to the main object of this chapter and it is in the Second Main Part, called Faith. There we find the following:
I believe in the Holy Spirit, a holy Christian church, the community of the Saints, forgiveness of sins, resurrection of the flesh and eternal life. Amen.
When we deal with the ten commandments, Luther’s First Main Part, and with the Lord’s Prayer, Luther’s Third Main Part, then we deal with things from the Bible, and Luther then adds his explanations. But when Luther deals with his Second Main Part, Faith, deals with the creed, then it is about something what is not in the Bible, but about something what Jesus calls the traditions of the elders, therefore the traditions of Orthodoxy, of the man-made churches.
The creed, which Luther presents there, does not exist in the Bible. It is man-made work of Orthodoxy. Christians do not have a "creed." The entire word of God is valid for them and that is not limited to the Bible. God did not die 2000 years ago and God did not stop 2000 years ago to speak to his children. God’s revelation is a continuous thing and God has always spoken to men. The only thing is that Orthodoxy has fought God right from the beginning and has suppressed all prophets and all revelations and killed God’s messengers.
So the creed is not biblical.
The statement "resurrection of the flesh" does not exist in the Bible.
In his explanation Luther writes: "...and will raise me and all the dead on the last day..."
This is a concept that again does not know the spiritual meaning of a word.
When Jesus talks about his flesh then the spiritual meaning of it is the word of God, which has become flesh.
When Jesus talks about bread then he does not speak of food for the body but of food, spiritual food, for the soul.
When Jesus talks about the dead then he does not speak of the physical dead but of the spiritual dead. This is clearly expressed when Jesus, in Luke 9:60, says, Let the dead bury their dead. The spiritual dead are to bury the physical dead. Or the spiritual living are to go and announce the kingdom of God.
We leave the burying of the physical dead to the spiritual dead, the theologians, the pastors, the priests, the denominations, the clerics and their followers, the laymen.
When Luther writes "Resurrection of the flesh" and "and will raise me and all the dead on the last day" then orthodoxy understands by this a physical body coming again into being, a body, which is the same like the one we have now.
And in this connection also the rule through Jesus Christ is then assumed that he will be bodily present on earth and will live on earth like us.
Three things are wrong here. First there is no resurrection of the flesh in the Bible. Second no-one gets raised on the last day. And third the dead on the last day are spiritual dead and not physical dead.
That there is no resurrection of the flesh can best be seen from Acts 2:31. There it says that David has spoken of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul will not be left in hell and his flesh will not see corruption.
Jesus Christ rose from the dead because he had spiritualized his body completely, and as a result his body could no longer be seen. His body had become so spiritually that it could not see corruption and Jesus could take it with him and he did not leave a body behind on earth. His grave was empty.
When his disciples, and his disciples only, then later saw it, then for that reason because Jesus changed their state of consciousness in such a way that they could see it, his spiritualized body, could even touch it.
It is important to understand this because only when this is understood then also the second coming of the Lord will be understood correctly. The second coming of Jesus will happen in exactly the same way as Jesus has lived already here on earth between Easter and Pentecost. He only appeared to individuals or individual groups of people. The unbelievers could not see him and the believers only on certain occasions. His rule was a spiritual rule. Men at that time as also men in the coming one thousand years kingdom will be governed by Jesus spiritually. It is a spiritually leading by the Lord.
Jesus is now a completely spiritual person. But because he once had been a man, he can again make use of this now spiritualized body and now appear as man.
A light being, therefore a being that once had been a man and is now an occupant of the kingdom of light, can appear to men on earth and that was done by Moses and Elias when they appeared to Peter and John and James on the mountain of transfiguration.
Now we come to the decisive point and that is the resurrection of a man and that is a completely spiritual matter.
It is the story with Nicodemus in John 3:3: Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
The kingdom of God is the kingdom of light. And the kingdom of light is part of the spiritual kingdom, which is also called heaven. Hell is that part of the spiritual kingdom, which is called the kingdom of darkness. And darkness actually simply just means that in the kingdom of darkness one can practically perceive nothing. Spatially there is hardly any difference. It is more a matter that one cannot see one’s surroundings because one lacks spiritual goods. One is certainly in the spiritual kingdom but because one can recognize next to nothing, one believes that nothing is there. One cannot see the kingdom of God.
So the resurrection of man is being born again, being spiritually born again.
It is the end of the fight against God and the decision to turn to God from now on.
I now bring a message from Bertha Dudde:
Unification of the soul with the spirit.
27. August 1944. B.D. NR. 3235.
It is an exceedingly important process when the soul of man unites with the spirit in it because then the change has so to speak occurred; the material existence has been overcome, although man still dwells on earth, and the spiritual world is predominant for the last part of his walk on earth. Now the soul can receive every expression of the spirit; it is able to understand it, and it makes fullest use of its ability. It allows itself to be instructed and therefore enters the state of knowledge. The spirit in man is constantly intent on imparting richest knowledge to the soul about fields, which are otherwise closed to the soul and which it can enter only with the assistance of the spirit. But every material fetter is an obstacle to reach this knowledge; consequently the soul must first have overcome matter because the unification of the soul with the spirit is a pure spiritual process, which goes with no earthly relationship. Matter has an effect upon the soul that it is unable to hear the voice of the spirit. The soul must completely come off it and completely leave itself to the spirit in it; completely without resistance it must surrender to its power, which is now becoming effective at it as power out of God. And so the soul is guided into cognition; divine wisdom is imparted to it because the spark of the spirit in it is part of the divine spirit, whose gifts are of highest value and which for that reason must help the soul to perfection. The soul is now developed according to divine plan; it is introduced into knowledge, which means spiritual progress for it. Because the more the soul stands in knowledge the freer it becomes and the abler to utilize this knowledge. And therefore it is now active in love, by passing on this knowledge to its fellowmen. Knowledge, which man receives from fellowman, must first be checked for truthfulness; knowledge on the other hand, which man draws out of himself, which the spirit in him has imparted to his soul, carries the absolute truth in itself, and the soul feels this and therefore supports such knowledge full of conviction. And this knowledge will also not remain without impression upon fellowman, because it is presented full of conviction and fully comprehensible for everybody, because it carries truth in itself and this also imprisons fellowman, when he earnestly desires truth. And that is why the unification of the soul with its spirit is so important, because it not only helps one man to truth and therefore to maturity, but has beneficial effects upon wide circles, because truth paves the way and is also recognized as such by men, who again strive for it, however have not yet established the unification of their soul with the spirit. But this unification will not be difficult for them when they have the earnest will for this, and this will again is stimulated through truthful instructions of a man, whose spirit is awakened. Amen. B.D. NR. 3235.
So the resurrection from the dead is a change. It is a spiritual process. A spiritually dead man becomes a spiritually alive man. He again becomes that what he was before the fall. He again becomes as God has created him, as his image.
It is a process that occurs when man still dwells on earth.
Religious people simply do not recognize that when Jesus speaks of the dead, he speaks of the spiritually dead, of people, who are spiritually dead. And there are several places in the Bible where the resurrection of the dead is mentioned.
In Matthew 22:31-32 Jesus speaks of the resurrection from the dead:
But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
When men are spiritually dead then they are far from God, and they only then come again back to God when they have again become spiritually alive, when their soul has again unified itself with its spirit.
The resurrection of the dead became possible through Jesus and became necessary because men had spiritually died, through the fall, and Jesus now offered them the possibility to become again spiritually alive and that through his own bodily dead and his then following resurrection. 1 Corinthians 15:20-22:
But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
Now follow two messages from Bertha Dudde about the Last Judgement:
Last Judgement.
23. February 1942. B.D. NR. 2242.
The demon of hate and of lack of love poisons the world, and this means the start of the spiritual collapse, of spiritual decay - it means the downfall both spiritually as well as earthly. What has completely become lacking of love must be regarded as being lost for eternity, i.e., it cannot acquire on earth eternal life, but death, therefore complete lifelessness is its lot for eternal times. Consequently the earth has become unnecessary as redemption station for the spiritual, because it has used no possibility, and that is why the time of stay has ended for the spiritual on earth – a redemption period finds its conclusion, so, as it is announced in word and script. A time of development lasting millennia ends with a judgement, with a separation of the redeemed and the unredeemed – of that spiritual turned towards God and that completely far from God. God judges his creatures, i.e., he finally separates his from the followers of Satan; the former he gives a free life in happiness and binds the opponents anew in form, in matter, which they desired and forgot God because of it, therefore became completely estranged from him. These are the living and the dead – which are now judged, which receive their award and their punishment from God according to his words, because God is just, and he gives out according to merit. Those will live who have recognized God, who love him and fulfil his will; but being damned to eternal death those who did not acknowledge him and turned towards his adversary and whose life was just lack of love. God certainly has infinite patience with his creatures, and he still postpones the day; but his patience is not valued by mankind because those who do not acknowledge God, they also lack every faith in a judgement of God, and every hint at it is unsuccessful. And so it will come unexpectedly for men who have no faith, and trigger greatest horror, but brings rescue in greatest trouble to the believers because they are in extreme distress for the sake of their faith. And now the separation has to take place because no possibility of improvement exists any longer for the unbelievers who vegetate in fullest lack of love, because all tests before, suffering and earthly misery, are unsuccessful and the power of Satan immense, because they submit to him and seek the life of the believing people. This is the time of the complete decay which precedes the last judgment, which means the end of the present earth and the beginning of a new time epoch, which is exceptionally significant spiritually, because God banishes evil anew for inconceivable long time. Amen. B.D. NR. 2242.
Last Judgement. End of epoch of redemption.
24. February 1942. B.D. NR. 2243.
The entire mankind will be judged at the Last Judgement, and everyone, whether good or evil, will receive his wages. And therefore there will be a separation of the good from the bad, the just from the unjust, the believers from the unbelievers, and God himself will sit in judgement and reward or punish everyone according to merit. This judgement is inevitable and concludes a significant period, a time of favour, which was granted to the unredeemed on earth through God’s over-great love. This time was a time of constant wrestling of the luminous spiritual with darkness; it was a time of struggle of all beings which strive up, and in this time the beings had the possibility to develop themselves to light beings so they just wanted. But God also imposed limits on the beings by the period being determined beforehand for eternities, which was available to the beings for redemption. And this time was certainly so apportioned that it was completely enough for the total redemption, however it was not used in that measure as it could have been used, and no notice was taken of countless possibilities because the beings did not make use of their free will or abused it and chained themselves anew to the power from which they were to free themselves. On the day of judgement the being now has to answer for this free will and its use, and according to its will it will turn towards heaven or towards hell – to light or to darkness – nothing else will be its lot than what it has created through its will for itself. Spirit will be in all freedom when it has striven for this on earth, or again be banished in hard matter, which it desired on earth with all its senses. The former is a state of happiness, the latter a state of agony and inconceivable suffering – renewed imprisonment through endless times in most agonizing remorse and helplessness. But God is just – because in his love he made an effort through eternities to guide these beings to freedom. All aids were at their disposal, the favours of the work of redemption he acquired for the beings through his becoming man and his death on the cross; he was infinitely longsuffering and patient, but he had to leave one thing to them – free will. And according to this he now must also judge men when the day has come, which ends this time of favour. Because this free will is degenerated; it is only still used for the work for the opponent, and therefore it must again be bound for endless times. The Last Judgment is the beginning and the end – a new epoch begins, and the old has ended; earth life has found its conclusion for all beings, which were embodied on earth, partly in the works of creation, partly in the flesh. But a new creation comes into being, which again holds the spiritual in itself, which has not yet finished its earth way, was however close to the last embodiments. Because this spiritual has not yet been given back its free will, therefore can also not be held responsible on the day of judgement. But the entire mankind will have to answer God on the last day, and its sinfulness will be revealed, and only a small number of righteous will be able to hold their own before the eyes of God and enter into the kingdom of peace. Amen. B.D. NR. 2243.
Now follows Luke 9:60:
Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.
In this short verse we have the entire difference between the man-made church, the imitation church, on one side, and the true church, the body of Christ, on the other side, put together.
The man-made churches deal with worldly things, with the burying of dead for instance. There the spiritual dead come together and deal with the things of the world. And this dealing with the things, which concern matter, has the main purpose to avoid dealing with the really important things of life, to deal with spiritual things.
They want to avoid dealing with the spiritual world, with the kingdom of God.
And the kingdom of God is the hereafter. And the hereafter is the kingdom of light and also the kingdom of darkness and especially what happens there and how the soul of the deceased fares there. Exactly this knowledge of these things is to the greatest possible extent avoided and they only talk about them in hints so as if one cannot speak about them as one speaks about worldly things.
The entire orthodoxy is aimed at drawing a veil over the kingdom of God, to hide it, to make it invisible, so that there is no knowledge about it that people occupy themselves with it, but concentrate upon this world, therefore remain worldly, and are worldly when they die and miss the target of life and end up in the kingdom of darkness.
They cannot preach the kingdom of God because they do not know it.
Above we had mentioned the event on the mountain of transfiguration. There Moses and Elias appeared. The three disciples of Jesus, Peter and James and Johannes, could, because their state of consciousness had been altered, see the spiritual bodies of Moses and Elias.
When Moses died he left a body. On the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho, there in the land of Moab, he died and was buried in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor
Elias however did not die. He did not leave a body. Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven and his successor, Elisha, saw him no more.
So Elias’ body had been spiritualized and he could take his now spiritualized body with him and later appear with it on the mountain of transfiguration.
How does it now come that Moses could appear in his former body on the mountain of transfiguration? He had left his body in the land Moab, after all, and did not take it with him.
When we speak of men than we actually simplify the thing, because actually the thing is more complicated. Actual man is a triple being. He is body and he is soul and he is spirit.
This is now a concept that is hardly explained or discussed by the so-called ministers. There are many reasons for this but the main reason is simply that the kingdom of God is to be kept away from men. Men are to be prevented to seek the kingdom of God and to find it and to get to know it and to get redeemed. They are all supposed to nicely and well-behaved follow the ministers into hell.
But this concept of a three-fold man is actually still a simplification because in reality the thing is more complicated. We have discussed this more in detail in the Chapters 22 and 23 and 24 of this book The Man-Made Church.
There we have seen that already the body constitutes itself of three different parts, of the physical body and the life body and soul body.
And then the physical body is actually the only thing that is really material. The other two parts are already supernatural.
What man, for instance Moses, leaves behind are just the physical body and the life body.
The life body and the soul body are connected through the silver cord with a living man and at death this connection is undone and the soul, together with the soul body, leaves the body and goes into the spiritual kingdom, and the body and the life body are left behind.
The physical body completely depends on the life body. The life body gives it life, organizes everything and is itself driven by the soul body. The soul body is imperishable and the life body and the actual body are however transient. They pass away.
When Moses now wants to appear to somebody on earth then he still has his soul body and can let it be manifested in front of earth inhabitants.
Moses does nothing differently than Elias. Both use their soul body to show themselves. Moses’ soul body was completed in the hereafter and Elias’ body was already so spiritualized in this world that God could rapture him together with his body.
Equipped with this information it is then relatively simple to understand the following:
Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent; and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. Matthew 27:50-53
Many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.
Between death and resurrection Jesus was also in hell and the saints there ended their stay there and came into the kingdom of light. They slept there, before their liberation, in the netherworld. And that means certain inactivity, a certain being dead, because a spiritually alive being is always active, always busy. And before they came into the kingdom of light, many of them showed themselves unto many. They let their soul body be seen by many. They caused a change of the state of consciousness with many so that they could see the soul body of the saints and this change of the state of consciousness also caused that they immediately knew about whom it was all about, which saint they had in front of them.
We started our discussion with Doctor Martin Luther and the important thing to know about Luther is that he was a carnal Christian; he was a carnal Christian until he excommunicated the Catholic Church out of his life. That was the moment he became a spiritual Christian, because he left his denomination and with this leaving of this man-made church he also left his carnal state.
He then translated the New Testament into the German language and that is a quite popular and famous translation until today. It is also the only translation, as far as I know, that was not done by a carnal Christian or by carnal Christians or by carnal people or by groups of carnal people.
So as long as Luther was still part of the Catholic Church he was carnal. And he was not just carnal; he also was a wolf in sheep’s clothing because he was a priest and a professor of theology. He was a cleric. Unfortunately Luther’s spiritual state did not last because he later started his own denomination and reverted back into his former state of carnality.
Now the word carnal is used in the King James Version. A modern version uses the word worldly. And that is what all denominations are. They are worldly. They are worldly and they serve the prince of this world. They are all part of the regiment of Antichrist.
See B.D. NR. 3916 – Sleep of death. Raising out of the graves on the last day.
This is the end of "Resurrection of the flesh?"
Go to the German version of this chapter:
Auferstehung des Fleisches
Next chapter: [43]
[Home]>[The Man-Made Church]>[42. Resurrection of the flesh?]
[Home] [How to Measure Your Beliefs] [The Man-Made Church] [Misc]
The address of this page is:
http://www.fpreuss.com/en2/en242.htm