Masterpiece 57
The vision
projected into the Image
April 2nd, 2006
Pastor, Brian Kocourek
1. This morning we will
continue with where we left off in our study of the Masterpiece. Let us then
read the next paragraph number 79 of brother Branham’s sermon on THE MASTERPIECE 64-0705
“The perfect image of the God-man, God En morphe had changed from Supernatural
to the vision. And the vision was
projected into the Image. And the
Image was smitten so that the Supernatural could taste the feeling of death,
God's perfect Masterpiece. He could not do it in Moses. He could not do it in
the prophets. Isaiah who was sawed with saws till he was sawed to pieces... He
could not do it in the prophets that were stoned. He could not do it, because
He couldn't feel it. They was just a portion of Him.
But in this perfect Masterpiece He was
the Fullness of the Godhead bodily. He could not only project Moses, He could project His entire being into this
Person and taste death for the whole human race. God's perfect Masterpiece,
God, so inspired by seeing It, He become the Redeemer
of all ages to speak for those in the backgrounds who had been before and now. All promises was met in Him. He was
the Perfection of the perfection. All types was fulfilled in Him: our Kinsman
Redeemer in Ruth and Boaz; our Law-giver from Mount Sinai; our Prophet from the
wilderness, as He come from the mountain, as He come from the wilderness, as He
come from eternity and become man, the perfect Image.
2. Now, in order to better understand what he is
telling us here, let’s break down these thoughts one by one into smaller bites
in which we can sink our spiritual teeth into.
3. He begins here by saying, The perfect image of
the God-man. Now, notice this term Brother Branham
is using, “the God-man”. Now, Christianity has called Jesus the God-man
for centuries. This is not a new term that brother Branham is using here. Jesus
has been called the God-man since the very beginning of the church. But the
emphasis has always been on the God and not the man. And that emphasis is not a
wrong emphasis because as brother Vayle told me years ago, “keep
your mind focused on the Anointer, not on the anointed.” It is always the one the anointed one that
people lose sight do not understand. Brother Branham preached a message called,
“Christ is the mystery of God revealed”. Now, that tells us that Christ or the
anointing or the anointed one is the way God reveals Himself. And that God reveals Himself through that anointed
one. That’s the revealed part of the sentence.
Christ, the Anointed One is the Mystery of God that is revealed. Or shall we
say, the Mystery of God revealed through the anointed. God anointed the Pillar
of Fire, a cloud, and prophets but all revealed only a portion But the Christ,
the anointed of God. God revealed Himself entirely through him.
4. Anyway, the mystery is that God, He’s Spirit, So God uses an anointed one to reveal Himself. That
is how He has always worked. And so we see here this morning that brother
Branham is speaking of this God man, or how that God came down into human form,
and anointed that human form. Notice then the very next thing he tells us in
this paragraph. God En morphe had changed from Supernatural to
the vision.
5. So we see that in order for God to take on the veil
of flesh and become in the form of a man, he describes this process as The perfect image of the God-man, God En morphe had changed from
Supernatural to the vision.
6. In his sermon, WHO IS
THIS MELCHISEDEC 65-0221E 38 Brother Branham said, " The Greek word there, "En
morphe," means... It was taken from the stage act, "that
one person is changing his mask to make him some other character."
7. And in paragraph 40 he
said, And now the Greek word "En morphe" means that
he changed His mask. And that's what God did. It's the same God all the time.
God in the form of the Father, The Spirit, the Pillar
of Fire, the same God was made flesh and dwelt among us: "En morphe,"
brought out so He could be seen.
8. The Vines Greek dictionary tells us the meaning is
1) the form by which a person or thing strikes the vision; external
appearance.
9. And we see in brother
Branham’s sermon called the masterpiece that he tells us just that. He said, The perfect image of the God-man, God En morphe had changed from
Supernatural to the vision. And
the vision was projected into the Image.
And the Image was smitten so that the
Supernatural could taste the feeling of death,
10. Now, in Philippians
2:6 we see an illustration of how this word en-morphe was used.
11. PHILIPPIANS 2:6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not
robbery to be equal with God: 7 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.
12. Now, brother Branham
explains this verse of Scripture in his sermon called UNVEILING OF GOD 64-0614M 52 If you notice here in Philippians he
said, "Not thinking it robbery, but took the form of man..." Now, the Greek word there for that form, I've been looking at it
all day yesterday, trying to think out what it was, I find, come with this word
of "en morphe." It's spelled e-n m-o-r-p-h-e. Looking in the Greek to find
out what "en morphe" was... I may pronounce that wrong, but I...
Reason I spell it, when if the tape is released, the people will, scholars will
know what I mean by it. He, When the "en morphe"... That means that
"He changed Hisself." He come down. Now, the
Greek word there means that "something
that could not be seen, yet it's there, and then it's changed, and the eye can catch it." See?
54
Like Elijah was at
13. And from his sermon IDENTIFIED CHRIST OF ALL AGES 64-0617 77 he said, Remember, God changes His form. "En morphe," the Greek
word means "He puts on a different mask."
14. And again from his
sermon called MIGHTY GOD UNVEILED 64-0629 15-1 He
changed His en morphe. He changed from what He was to what He is. He never
changes His nature.
15. Now, this morning we are not going to preach on
the En Morphe, I feel we did an adequate job of that on Wednesday night, and if
I get started I will not be able to get back to the Subject that I want to take
this morning.
16. Therefore, let's look at this Scripture again, and
notice brother Branham defines the En Morphe as the changing of what is being seen. So it has to do
with the presentation, although the nature is never changed, the presentation
or vessel is.
17. God in the Pillar of Fire is no different than God
in His Son or God in His Church. And yet, we know that while in the state of
the Pre-incarnation, the Son of God was in the form of God. Therefore God had a
form and the Son was in the same form. Let's read it again carefully.
18. PHILIPPIANS 2:6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery
to be equal with God: 7 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.
19. I would like to read this from several other
translations, so that we might get the full impact of what is being said. NIV: Who being in
very nature God; did not consider equality with God something to be
grasped. But made himself nothing, taking the very
nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in the
appearance of man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, - even
death on a cross.
20. AMPLIFIED: Who, although being essentially one with God and in the form of God (possessing
the fullness of the attributes which make God, God), did not think this
equality with God was a thing to be eagerly grasped or retained: But stripped
himself of all privileges and rightful dignity so as to assume the guise of a
servant or slave, in that He became like men and was born a human being. And after
He had appeared in human form He abased and humbles Himself still further
and carried His obedience to the extreme of death, even the death of the cross.
21. The Weymouth Translation says, "Although
from the very beginning He had the nature of God, He did not reckon
equality with God a treasure to be
tightly grasped. Nay, He stripped Himself of His Glory, and took on Him
the nature of a bondservant, a man like other men.
22. Emphatic Diaglott: Who, though being in God's form, yet did not meditate to
usurpation to be like God, but divested Himself, taking a bondsman's form
having been made in the likeness of men, and being in condition as a man, he
humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death, even the death of the
cross.
23. Now we’ve read 5 different translations and each
one pointed to the fact that there was a time when the Son of God was so much
like God, that in all His attributes, in His Nature and full expression, He was
the very representation, the very effulgence, or expression of God. And Paul says, He was in the FORM, the EN MORPHE of God. Therefore, God
had a form, and the Son of God was identical to God in that form in every
detail, in every characteristic, and in every attribute, except that He was not
God.
24. Now, what we are looking at this morning is this
thought that brother Branham is telling us, that “God En
morphed Himself which means he had changed
from Supernatural to the vision. And the
vision was projected into the Image. (That
means that God Himself had projected Himself into his Son,) And the
Image was smitten so that the Supernatural could taste the feeling of death,..
25. Now, what he means by that is that God had entered
into His Sons body so that through the use of His Son’s body which He borrowed,
God could taste the feeling of death. Now to taste the feeling of something is
not the same as the actual act itself. And therefore brother Branham is not
saying that God Himself died. That would be contrary to Scripture. God is the
Only Immortal King and Immortal by definition can not die. But God could taste
the feeling of what it was to die, because God through that body of His Son
could taste the sufferings of death that His Son so suffered in the flesh.
26. Now, you and I are tri-partite beings. We are two
thirds spirit being having a soul and spirit which are both spirit, but then we
also have a body and in that body we can taste the sufferings of life, yet
without that body we could not feel, taste, see, smell, and hear.
27. Our bodies are what links
us to the pains of hunger and thirst. But it is in our soul that we are able to
identify with what transpires in the body. Our soul is who we are and the body
is just a vessel to house our soul and spirit. Yet it is in the flesh that we
hunger and thirst, but it is in the soul that we are able to identify those
traits in our flesh and transcribe them to our spiritual needs as well.
Therefore, in our spirit we can understand the utilization of what it means to
thirst because David said, “as the dear panteth after
the water brook, so panteth my soul after thee oh God. And in several of the
Psalms he said “My soul thirsts after thee oh God.”
28. So we see that our Soul can
identify with what takes place in our bodies, and while God inhabited the body
of His Son he was able to taste
the feeling of death.
29. Then brother Branham said But in this perfect
Masterpiece He was the Fullness of the
Godhead bodily. He could not only project Moses, He could project His entire being into this Person and taste death
for the whole human race.
30. Notice he said, He could project His entire being into this Person and taste death. Now
to taste death does not mean that God Himself could die. I taste an apple and I
taste a banana and I can tell the difference between the two by taste. But the
tasting of an apple or a banana does not make me an apple or a banana.
31. For God to taste death simply means he was able to
experience it without actually dying Himself. And he was able to taste death
because he entered into the body of His Son and through that body was able to
taste what it would be like.
32. We use the word “taste” in a way that means to be
able to experience something, or to be able to perceive something by the sense
of experience. And so we see that God got a first hand taste of the brutality
of the law while inhabiting the body of His Son who was stoned and whipped and
spit upon etc.
33. Therefore, if you can feel the heat of fire in your
body, and you can feel hunger and pain and thirst in your body, then too God
could feel all those things, plus the rejection that His Son went through while
inhabiting the boy of His Son, and therefore God was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised
for our iniquity. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His
stripes we were healed."
34. Because God had incarnated the body of his Son,
and through this vicarious relationship God could experience the pain of hunger
and thirst, and the pain of rejection, and the pain of the whip, and the pain
of the crown of thorns, and the pain of the crucifixion, and the sufferings of
the law, and the penalty for sin. Yes, God suffered for you and me and yet it
was His Son that died, and not God himself that died.
35. I have never died, and yet I have tasted death
because I have experienced death in my own family. I had a little sister that
died when I was twelve years old, and I suffered when she suffered, and I had a
father that died when I was 27. I tasted death then and yet it was not I that
died but my father and my sister who died.
But God could taste the feeling of death because his only begotten son
died and the loss was grievous to God. Yet God was able to
restore His Son to Life again, because the Life that was in His Son could not
be killed. The body could suffer death, but the Life of God that was in His Son
could never die, because it is immortal life. It is eternal Life, and the
Christian can no more die than the God who gave him His Spirit could die.
36. There is no place in Scripture that speaks of a
Christian dying. The Christian sleeps in the grave but can never die. That is
why we do not believe in cremation. Because the body we went into the grave with
is the same body that will come out of the grave.
37. But if this tabernacle be dissolved we have
another already waiting. When you are born again God begins the creation
process of bringing forth your Spirit body, and when word is piled upon word
after word, it begins to take a-hold of this mortal body and begins
transforming it by the renewing of your mind. And when you are born again and
that other body is being prepared, it is growing as you grow in the Word, and
it is being readied for you to enter once you leave this body. And if by chance
you never die in this body, then this body will receive an
change and will unite with that spirit body and then will glorify this flesh
and bring it back to its rightful position where as Adam we were able to walk
with God in the cool of the evening.
38. That is what is taking
place in these services. Each and every time that you come to hear the Word of
God, as that word goes forth in it’s purity, it adds spiritual cells to your spirit
body, and your spirit body then is being fashioned into the likeness of His Glorious
heavenly body.
39. That
is why we read last night, from 1 Corinthians 15: 49
And as
we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.
40. And also from Colossians 3: 10 we
read, And have put on the new man,
which is renewed in knowledge after the
image of him that created him: Notice,
it is being renewed in knowledge, that means it is being formed by the Word
upon Word upon Word.
41. Leadership 65-1207 P:59 And like a baby
formed in its mother's womb, when the baby comes into the mother's womb, by the
little germ, it crawls into the egg. It doesn't form one cell a human, the next
a dog, and the next a cat, and the next a horse. It's all human cells because
it's building off of an original human cell. And when a man has been born again by the Word of God, predestinated to
Eternal Life, called the Elected, it'll
be Word of God on top of Word, Word on Word. Not a denominational creed and
then a Word, and a creed; and it won't work. You can't have that leaven in It. Only one Eternal Life, Jesus Christ
the Word. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelled among
us."
42. Great warrior
Joshua 55-0119 P:14 Look. If my spirit was as my shadow is a
shadow of the material, say my shadow would be the spirit of the material. And
the body, supernaturally now the body of the Lord Jesus is the shadow, as it
was, of the natural physical body of the Lord. And notice, if healings, if
power, if visions, if the things that Christ had in Him, has gone out of His
shadow, then Christ is paralyzed. His natural body sets paralyzed, because that
if His physical body moves, His shadow will have to move with it. And if we are
in Christ by Holy Ghost baptism, and the way the body of Christ moves, it'll
move the same way on earth, for this is a shadow of His body. Amen. Always been
in figurative types, and it is tonight, the body of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now, taking it out of the things of the world, predestinated
by God, called of God, elected by God, chosen of God, saved by God, baptized
into the body of Christ by the Holy Spirit, and made members of this body:
alive, ready, willing. My shadow will move every time anything of my body
moves. And the Holy Spirit body of Christ, will move
just as Christ moves. And if Christ in heaven, can ever get His spiritual body
on earth moving as He wants it to move, watch for things to happen. It's
beginning to come to life. They've paralyzed it long enough, but the Holy
Spirit is bringing life into it. And it's begin to
wake up and begin to move, because it sees its position.
43. Explaining healing and Jairus 54-0216 P:37
The
devil's just trying to scare you out of something. He's trying to put something
off somewhere else, say, "Some of these days you'll be this." You are
now. Now, we're sons of God. Now, we're seated together in heavenly places.
Now, we have all powers in heavens and the earth. See? Now, we have it. Not in
the millennium, we won't need it then. We got it now. We're... Right now we are
the sons of God. "It does not appear what we shall be, but we know we'll
be like Him." What you are here is
a reflection of what you are somewhere else. "Those who He called, He
justifies." Is that right? "Those who He justified, He has
glorified." Already in the Presence
of the Father, we have a glorified body. Whew! Wasn't that deep? All right. We'll find out whether it's right or not.
"If this earthly tabernacle be dissolved, we have one already
waiting." Is that right? That's right. So right now, and what we are
there, is a reflection. Here, what we
are here, is a reflection of what we are somewhere else. So if your deeds
are evil, you know where it comes from. You know where your other body's a
waiting.
44. Questions and
answers COD 54-0103E P:18 You cannot be here
a spiritual being, sinner or saint, without having an influence from the
underworld or from the above world. If you're
influenced from here, you're from above. Your celestial body is waiting up here.
But if you're wicked, and hypocritical, and indifferent, your celestial body is
down here, regardless of how much you think it's up there; because the fruit
that you bear before people proves where you're from. So you are here what you are somewhere else. Your life that you live here is just
reflecting what your inheritance is when you leave here. Do you
understand?
45. Questions and
answers COD 54-0103M P:32 Now, notice then
when they were captured and carried away into
46. Paul said in 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.
47. And in 2 Corinthians 3: 18 But we all, with open face
beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the
Spirit of the Lord. So if the Word
has an effect upon you here it is because it has an effect upon you over there.
The brothers and sisters, what kind of life ought we to be living?