Culture of the Kingdom
Today’s Topic: The Apostles’ Doctrine: The Patriarchal Order: Shadow and Reality
Scripture: 2 Kings 2:9-15; Luke 1:17; Luke 3:23-38; Malachi 4:5; Hebrews 10:1; Hebrews 8:4-6
Greetings Kingdom Citizens
This is a perfect example of how a type and shadow becomes reality. But this thing called the Patriarchal Order is a vital concept to understanding the Kingdom culture. However, to understand the Kingdom culture you must go back to the beginning. We know Adam was the son of God (Luke 3:38). Now we also know that Adam sinned and Holy Spirit was recalled back to Heaven. As a result, mankind lost rulership and fellowship with God. Now the Garden of Eden is a type and shadow and remember God removed Adam and Eve from the Garden. Now since Holy Spirit, who teaches and guides us in the ways of God, the Father, was recalled God only spoke to mankind in type and shadow because the only way to receive revelation and truth is Spirit to spirit. So God kept Adam alive for close to 1,000 years and his purpose was to teach, or better yet father and disciple his children in the ways of God and the secrets of the earth. How do we know this? Because when you look at the genealogy of Jesus in Luke 3:38 it says that Seth was the son of Adam and Enos was the son of Seth. Now when we see these genealogy charts we tend to bypass them as being just useless pieces of information but this chart in Luke 3 is so vital to understand what God was about to do in that season. Now the way God established His household is Patriarchal so it is defined by the relationship between Father and son (Heb. offspring). Now God always intended to have sons so God created a type and shadow of what Adam once was. This type and shadow is called the Order of the Sons of God. This order is a physical, natural lineage of sons that the Gospel was to flow through until the reality comes. So when we look at the Old Testament and the lineage to Christ, this lineage is a natural, type and shadow of a reality to come. Now before God brings us into the New Season, God shows the prophets and the prophets speak the word of the Lord to tell the people to get ready for the change in Season. Now once the season changes, the apostolic heralds the reality in that takes the place of the natural or type and shadow. So if there is a natural lineage that is a type and shadow then there is a prophetic voice to usher in the reality. The prophetic voice for his type and shadow of the Patriarchal order comes from Malachi 4:5,6:
“Behold I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the Earth with a curse.”
God ends the Old Testament with the prophetic voice and then the angel of the Lord comes to Zacharias and tells Him this same prophecy from Malachi in Luke 1:17. Now I am not going to spend much time on this because we talked about it in a previous message but the prophecy speaks of the spirit of Elijah coming and the Lord turning the hearts of the Fathers to the children. Now, the spirit of Elijah goes back as a type and shadow to the event between Elijah and Elisha (2 Kings 2:9-15). Now Elijah is a type and shadow of John the Baptist because it was he that came in the spirit of Elijah. In turn, Elisha, who received the double portion, was a type and shadow of Jesus because Jesus was the one who received the double portion of the Spirit of God. In addition it is Jesus that shows us the Father. So when Jesus arrives on the scene and is resurrected from the dead the Patriarchal order changes from a natural lineage to a spiritual lineage. Even better it is now the original lineage that God established back in the Garden with God as the Father and mankind as His sons. So now no longer is the Patriarchal order about biological fathers but about spiritual fathers. Moreover, these spiritual fathers do not have to be biological fathers. Hence we have Paul writing to the church at Corinth (1 Corinthians 4:15) telling them that he has begot them in Christ Jesus as their father because they lack fathers even though they have thousands of teachers in Christ.
So the type and shadow of the Patriarchal Order is found in Luke 3:23-38. This is made up of biological fathers discipling their sons. When the reality came, Jesus Christ, the season changed and the Patriarchal order changed from biological to spiritual. So there is no fleshly line to the Father. There is only a spiritual genealogy and God is our Father and we are His sons (offspring). In this spiritual genealogy there are earthly spiritual fathers that are here to disciple and show the ways of Christ, who also shows us the ways of the Father. So we need to understand not to live in the type and shadow but live in the reality that is heralded by the apostolic. Now let me show you these scriptures and end this part of the messages.
Hebrews 10:1: “For the Law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers perfect.”
Hebrews 8:4-6: “For if He were on Earth, He should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the Law: Who serve the example (type) and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount. BUT NOW hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a BETTER COVENANT, which was established upon better promises”
Serve the reality and hear the word of God for this current season. Living in the type and shadow when God has brought the reality means you out of the Will of God because the reality has come and the apostolic has heralded it in. Hear ye the word of the Lord in this Season.
At the Father’s Service,
Elder Calvin Calhoun Jr.
