Christ is the mystery of God revealed.

William Branham.

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Christ is the mystery of God revealed.

Notice, God has had a threefold purpose in this great mystery secret. God, in His great mystery secret that He had before the world began. He's got a threefold purpose in it. And now, what we want to go upon this morning is: what is that threefold purpose? See? Now, I believe by the help of God, who's present, He'll show it to us. Now, if He had this threefold purpose.... We want to find out what is this threefold purpose.

The first thing was that God wanted to reveal Himself to the people. He couldn't do it as a great Jehovah God who covered all space, time, and eternity. He could not. He's too great to ever be revealed to people, because it would be too mysterious. How could that great being that never did begin ... that after you went beyond the cycle of hundreds of billions and trillions and trillions of years of light space, and on out into the infinite, into the eternity, and a great creature that was all that, and still is.

But, what He wanted to do, He loved Fatherhood, for He was a Father. And the only way that He could express it was to become a Son of man. That's the reason Jesus kept saying, “The Son of man.” See, they didn't know what He was talking about, many of them. But now, you get it? He wanted to express Himself. That was one of His great threefold purposes- was to express Himself, identify Himself with human beings, to reveal Himself in Christ.

Secondly: to have the preeminence in His body of believers, that is, His bride, that He might live in people.

Now, He could do that in Adam and Eve, but sin separated them, so now there had to be some way to get it back again. Oh, my! Oh, now, this is rich to me, just to even think of it! See? See what God's purpose was? Now, why didn't He just keep Adam and Eve like that? Then He would have never been able to express His fullness, His full attribute, because.... He could have been a Father there; that's true, but also He's a Saviour. You say, “How do you know He was?” He is, because I've had the experience, see. See? He is a Saviour, and He had to express that, and how could He do it?- only through Christ. How could He be a Son?- only through Christ. How could He be a healer?- only through Christ. See, all things are wound up in that one person- Jesus Christ. Oh, my!

When I think of it I just see denominations pass off the scene and everything else just going, see. When I see God's great purpose- revealing Himself, and having.... First, to reveal Himself in Christ, the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and then to bring that fullness of Godhead bodily into a people that He could have the preeminences, the oversight, the leading.

And the other night.... If you didn't get the tape that I preached here one night on “A Prisoner of Jesus Christ”- Paul A Prisoner.... See? When God gets you to be His prisoner, then you can't do nothing but what the Spirit says do. Paul, with all of his great intellects-he was taught by Gamaliel to be a great priest or rabbi someday. And He had high ambitions. He was intellectually a great man-great authority, great man in the nation. But, he had to sacrifice every bit of it (see?) to become part of the Word, to express Jesus Christ. He knowed what it was to say... He had a notion go some place (some brethren had called him), but he was forbidden by the Spirit to do his own will. Oh, if people half spiritual can pick that up! See? He was forbidden to do his own will. He only could do.... “The Spirit forbade me,” see. He was a prisoner to Christ.

Then, this little fortune-teller one day, who he knowed- Paul knowed he had power to cast that devil out, but he could only do it as God willed it. Day after day she followed him, crying out after him, but one day the Spirit gave him permission. Then he rebuked her- the spirit that was in her, see. He knowed what it was to be a prisoner.

Moses: his intellectuals, he had to lose them in order to find Christ, to be a prisoner. Then when God got all the world beat out of him and all the mighty man that he was, and stand in the presence of that pillar of fire that day, he was found just speechless. He didn't even- couldn't even talk, he said, “God had a prisoner, then, see. You won't try after your own searching. Then God had to endue this man- endow him with power enough that he could go down there. And he said, ”Lord, I told Pharaoh what You said, and he wouldn't do it.“ He said, “Then take this, thy rod (God speaking; that's God's word); go out there and point it towards the east and call for flies.” And flies come into creation, because He had a prisoner that Pharaoh couldn't pay off with nothing. Nobody else could turn him no way. He was a complete prisoner in the chains of God's Word, bound up only to thus saith the Lord.

Oh, if God can get Him prisoners like that! Now, that's when He can express the preeminence. You see? He's got the man or the person so that he knows nothing but Christ. You get what I mean? All right. That's secondly. First, to express Himself completely- God in Christ. Second, to have the preeminences by this in His church (which is His body, the bride) He could have the preeminence to express Himself through them. All right.

And thirdly, to restore the kingdom to its rightly position that fell by sin by the first Adam, back to where He walked in the cool of the evening with His people, talked with them, fellowshipped with them. And now sin and death had separated them from His presence and His entire expression. Do you read it? ... before the foundation of the world to express all of His attributes- what He was.

Therefore, if any Trinitarian here would just let yourself loose a minute, you can see that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost is not three gods; it's three attributes of the same God, see. It's expression- Father. He was.... He wanted to be a Father. He was a Father, He was a Son, and He is the Holy Ghost. And the Father and the Holy Ghost is the same Spirit. Don't you see? Do you get it?- not three gods. The devil's told you them things to make an idolater out of you, see. It's one God expressed in three attributes: to be Father, to be Saviour, to be Son, to be healer (see?)- is His expressions.

I want to coast just a little bit so that even people listening to the tape will get the idea, that can see. It would take me around, around that clock, just each one of those subjects. But, I hope I'm making it clear enough that you can see what I'm coming to, see. God, expressed in Jesus Christ. Who was both Father, Son, and Holy Ghost- the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Now, the complete fullness of the Godhead bodily dwells in His church-the preeminence. All that God was, He poured into Christ, and all Christ was, was poured into the church- the believer, not denomination. We'll get to that in a few minutes, and it'll take it out of your mind forever, see. Show you what causes that by the help of God, if He'll just permit it to us.

What's His purpose now?- Express Himself as a Son (see?), and now- that in Him might dwell the fullness of the Godhead bodily. I've got Colossians laying here, right before me, see. That, all through the Scripture, that's what God's purpose was. Then, if through this life of this Son, His cross (the blood, it says here, of His cross), that He might reconcile to Himself a body, a bride (which is Eve- second Eve); and God give it in a type like He did Moses and all of them (the same thing He did in Adam and Eve, giving a type), that they were Christ and the bride (He is the second Adam; the church is the second Eve); and as long as the second Eve compromises against the Word, isn't she doing the same thing the first Eve did? Trying to say “Well, it was for some other age.” And we'll get to that in a few minutes- whether He said that it was for another age. How can it be another age when He is the same yesterday, today, and forever! But, God has purposed that and hid it from the eyes of the prudent and wise and revealed it to the predestinated- babes- who were predestinated to receive it.

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Christ is the mystery of God revealed.

For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.

For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.

1 Corinthians 12:12-13