Spiritual Body—Flesh Body

Spiritual  Body — Flesh  Body

Martin Cecil  April 22, 1980   Assembly

We are concerned with the resurrection of the Body, not on the basis of trying to believe something but because of the actual experience in which we ourselves play our part. The Body with which we are concerned may be describable as the Body of the Son of God, but it includes flesh bodies of human beings. The emphasis is on the fact that it is a spiritual body, but it only has meaning in the world because it also is a flesh body. So we are concerned with the resurrection of this body, a body the flesh of which already exists, but the resurrection takes place by reason of spiritual action. For spiritual action to come into play there must be the essential spiritual substance of the required quality and consistency to accommodate the spirit in action. So our emphasis has been on the generation of this substance, because without it God is powerless in the affairs of men. At least He is powerless in the creative sense. He is not powerless in the disintegrative sense. I suppose this is perhaps why so often in the Bible there is emphasis of destruction. It is about the only thing that could happen on the basis of the action of the spirit of God.

But the real concern is with resurrection, raising up. For this to transpire there must be the substance, and this substance in combination with spirit which is described as the Holy Ghost, needs to pour out—the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. But from our standpoint, standing in the place of the point of origination, the outpouring is actually an in-filling. We have experience of this over the years. We are now assembled in what is called the West Chapel, but it used to be simply “the Chapel” at one time. It got so full of substance that it overflowed into the next room and also down into the Family Room. And so the form needed to change. Once the form is filled as full as it may be by the essential spiritual substance then it is transformed in one way or another. This didn’t mean that this building disintegrated and out of the ashes the new one rose up. It simply meant that this particular room was subsequently used for other purposes—quite fitting for this present use.

However, another chapel put in an appearance of a different design, and capable of accommodating more substance in the sense of human flesh, but also in the sense of spiritual substance. This Dome Chapel is a rather remarkable building, impressive in many ways, not because anyone set out to make it impressive but because it took form on the basis of the fact that what form was originally available was so filled with spiritual substance that it could be transformed, and in the transformation it multiplied. This Assembly room is still here and in use, and the Dome Chapel is here and in use, simply because these forms were filled full of the spiritual substance which was then capable of transforming. Here is a principle, of which we have an awareness, and we participated in this transformation in one way or another. So we are not in the business of tearing down existing forms but of receiving those forms which come to us and filling them full of spiritual substance. The very fact of filling them full of spiritual substance initiates the cycle of transformation. Nothing that now exists, the way it now exists, properly exists in the New Heaven and the New Earth, but how is it going to get from here to there? The usual human approach is to eliminate the old form, the old structure, so that there is nothing, and then build another structure—and there is nothing again. It started with nothing and it finishes with nothing.

The starting, insofar as we are concerned, is always with the Word—with the action of the spirit of God in combination with the spiritual substance. This is our field of operations. [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/2023/12/new-heavenfine-substance.html] We may still feel that it is necessary for us, and for others, to do this and do that—saw up the boards and lay the bricks and mortar, and so on, to build whatever is needed in the way of a structure—but whatever the structure is that appears, it is not unrelated to some structure that went before. Now there may be occasions when some structures cease to have eternal life—even on Sunrise Ranch, where there are some structures which it was anticipated were temporary structures, but the spirit has upheld them thus far. So it may be that structures do dissolve to allow for something new to put in an appearance, but it is always on the basis of working with what we have. We are not going to decide now, “Let’s raze the whole place and build a really efficient structure here.” No, it’s not the way to go. We continue to utilize whatever is present, filling it full with spiritual substance; and usually, with all structures that may be present, there is a lot more room than we had at first supposed. So we continue this business of filling whatever structures are available with spiritual substance.

Now the main structure with which we are concerned is a flesh structure. We may say individually that it is our own bodies which need to be filled so full of spiritual substance that they are transformed. This is part of the resurrection process. Of course we see something larger. We are aware of the reality of the Body of the Son of God. This living structure is not all that apparent at present. And let us not try to limit it to the Emissary ministry—it includes vastly more. We don’t even have 144,000 yet, the magic number. There are many more who are in fact composing this flesh body on earth than those of us who begin to have some idea about it.

We have a consciousness of a form that is present on earth, and it certainly needs filling with the essential spiritual substance so that the creative action of the spirit of God can allow the resurrection of the Body—bring that forth. This is of primary concern. But we see it operating in the fields that are beyond us in the sense of form, because while we are living on earth there is the necessity of a variety of forms. Obviously, there needs to be the form of the atmosphere, the air; we need that to breathe. And there needs to be a variety of forms in the world of education, and in the animal world, in order that the operation can continue. And we start with what we have. We always move from the known to the unknown. But the transformation of the known into what is presently unknown comes by reason of the action of spirit and not by reason of the good ideas of the human mind. So we do not know ahead of time what it would be, but we do know enough to permit us to undertake to fill all the forms of our environment with this spiritual substance.

This has, over the years, become more real in our experience than it once was. To start with it was probably just a word—pneumaplasm, for instance. And because we had a nice descriptive word everybody was inclined to think they knew what it was, and that we had reached our goal: pneumaplasm. We need to have more than the word. We need the reality of what it is the word symbolizes, and this is the substance of our living, so that wherever we are, wherever we move, whatever we do, we bring with us this rich substance, and receive the forms that are present, that are brought to us in this way, and fill them full with this substance. As I say, it will take quite some time with some forms.

Only when the form is filled with the spiritual substance is there a basis for the expansion and the multiplication of the physical structure. We are not functioning on the basis of anticipating the future the same way that it may be done in the human world. Things are not operating quite according to the rules anymore, so that nobody quite knows how to calculate what is going to happen. The effort is still being made, doubtless. We do not need to become involved too much in those sort of calculations but simply accept what now is and fill it with this vibrational substance, living substance, so that the forms live with us, and they change shape and change their nature in various ways simply because of this. So we see a New Heaven being brought into contact with the substance which is to compose the New Earth. There is an evolutionary process involved as the resurrecting cycle works out—forms change, structures are different. From our standpoint the changes begin to occur because the structures themselves are coming to life. No structure can help but come to life when it is filled with life substance.

Now it may be that in the initial stages of resurrecting inert physical matter there is not that much evidence of movement. It is sluggish. Let us not be discouraged by reason of this fact. We have found that substance does change, does come together, does produce new forms. So we are here in the business of resurrection, taking responsibility for providing the essential substance to accommodate spirit, which is not hesitant to be present—it is present anyway, regardless of the substance—it is not hesitant to be present in that substance and to establish the inherent design that is present in spirit in that substance. There will be an evolutionary process working out, just as it does in the production of the human form. Fortunately we are not just the same as we were at the point of the initiation of the cycle in our mother’s wombs. There has been some development since then, and we become more useful because of it. That took a while.

We anticipate that the resurrection of the Body of the Son of God, and the whole resurrecting process from the first heaven and the first earth to the New Heaven and the New Earth, would take a cycle of time. It involves a creative cycle. We know that. And there is evil and there is good. There are successive steps taken. We do proceed step by step, but one step succeeds another. We do not take a step and then set up that step as a platform—there has been this inclination—a platform upon which we could stand and orate. There are steps, movement, and one has to leave one step to reach the next. Let us not have sticky feet in this regard. We seemingly sometimes become so enamored with a certain step that we are very reluctant to leave it. These steps that we take are interesting because we cannot really see the staircase ahead of us. We have to take the step to find out that there is a step there, and this is one reason why human beings shiver on the brink a bit. They stay on one step because they are not too sure the next step will be there when they launch out into what at that moment is the unknown. But the very moment you put your foot forward, you put the other foot forward and you begin to feel the step under your foot. You can feel it out a bit, and then when you are aware that it really is there and quite firm, then you can relinquish the hold of your foot on the previous step, and you have a free foot then for probing ahead a bit to find what the next step is. Now all this is very elementary, isn’t it?

But these are spiritual stairs, step by step, and we learn to move increasingly on a rhythmic basis rather than a hesitant basis, so that we are afraid all the time that there is not going to be another step there. I would have thought that we have all taken enough steps so far to be assured that there always has been a step ahead of us. I was mentioning this in connection with the movement of the children of Israel long ago, out of Egypt. They were not too sure of the steps. They would only take very, very small ones, and they did not dare to go into the Promised Land when they easily might have. They were hesitant, reluctant. And one sows one’s own seeds in this regard and has to reap the harvest, which they did—forty years of reluctant movement through the wilderness, complaining the while about their hard lot, which they themselves had established for themselves. It didn’t have anything to do with what the LORD had prepared. We need to become very assured of what it is that the LORD has prepared, so that we can take firm steps without this niggling fear still being there that we may put a foot forward and finally we’ve come to the end of the staircase, and there is nothing down but oblivion. Surely we have more faith than that, understanding faith.

So in our living we are concerned with the generation of this substance and the filling of our environment with it, so that it is not an imaginary thing anymore. We accept the forms that are present, because we have the means of transformation, the means by which what is brought to us may be resurrected. Now here again, we do not have any preconceived ideas as to what it is that would happen, and what it is that happens right next to us is not necessarily the only thing that is happening. What is happening right next to us is connected with a lot more beyond that again. If we are aware of this we are not in such a hurry. There is a tendency to impatience, isn’t there, with what is immediately present in the environment, because it is uncomfortable in some way, because we think we can see how easily it could be better and more enjoyable, but these stuck people all around us will not move. We need patience—the awareness that, no matter what it is with which we are dealing, we are dealing with far more than that.

There is a great body of stuff out there that is all connected up. And how quickly will work out what rightly needs to work out, under the creative action of the spirit of God, who can tell? Just because something does not seem to move too quickly in the immediate environment, let us not jump to the conclusion that nothing is happening. You cast your bread upon the waters and it returns after many days. In other words, there is a lot to be accomplished out there and we need to give it time to accomplish out there. It will come back in season, and then we see the evidence of it next to us. But most people want to zap whatever it is that is next to them so that it is transformed instantly, and there it is. Well, if that happens, presumably nothing got beyond it. Give it a chance to leaven the whole lump.

We have many things to deal with. Our environments are not always and entirely what might be called emissary environments. With our recognition of the need for true government on earth, well surely we have a recognition that our field of action is vast. And so we are going to deal with many things that are brought to us in one way and another. Let us not be reluctant about it. Go in and possess the land. [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/joshua-and-calebthe-word-of-good-report.html] One can wander in the wilderness until one is dead. So there is this matter of receiving what comes to us. Certain things come to us in certain ways while we are in this Assembly here, but there are also other things coming, which will come to us in the future, in other settings, and there are things coming to people who are associated with us right now, wherever they are. We can provide something of an in-filling of substance so as to let these structures be filled up, filled full increasingly with the true spiritual substance.

There are some other areas where people have opened up contacts of various sorts. Hugh spoke this morning something about cults. But these are all existent forms that may be brought to us. Always there are people related to these forms. And how is one going to distinguish between people, as to whether they are properly a part of the Body that needs to be resurrected or not? If something is brought to us, presumably it is worthy of some slight attention at least. Giving it slight attention, we may discover whether it is worth more attention. But we look at all these things from the standpoint of filling them full with this spiritual substance of which we are stewards. This spiritual substance is for right use. We are in the resurrection business. Forms are brought to us. Let us pour in the substance.

The substance poured into some particular form will change the consistency of that form. We can see this as it relates to a living flesh body too. Well, life is already acknowledged as being present in a human body. We are quite a few steps ahead of the game if one is considering inert matter alternatively. It would take a while for that inert matter to get up to the level of the living flesh body. Of course, it does this. [greatcosmicstory.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-way-of-ascension.html] It is doing this constantly in the ecological system of the earth; we obtain this substance into our flesh bodies and it is transmuted there. Therefore, pouring this spiritual substance into the Body of the Son of God begins to change the quality of that flesh substance. Whereas before it was associated with rather coarse levels of vibratory substance, now those coarse levels are being conditioned by the in-pouring of finer levels of vibratory substance, and the whole package is going to change in consequence. But it has to be done to find out whether it is a fact or not. And so when these structures of various sorts are brought to us we are aware that there is human flesh involved. A lot of structures are not worthy of too much consideration, because, clearly, anyone who is associated with the thing would not as yet be very fruitful material for the resurrecting process of the Body of the Son of God. Maybe they will be in season.

But there are those various forms around us which are brought to us from time to time, which may at the same time indicate some relatedness to the spirit of God. Of course, all these structures still contain an approach other than that of the Third Sacred School. There may be those who are beginning to edge into that field. If they are, they will come to us, because we provide that representation; and it is essential for the resurrection to occur that the spirit of God be in action, and this is the reason for the existence of the Third Sacred School. But every other structure that we may come upon, every cult in fact, is a part of the human nature state; it is a part of the devil’s domain. And while we may be in position to discern certain reasonably true aspects to these structures, we are at the same time very much aware that the approach is still from the human nature standpoint within that structure. We are not all that much impressed by the structure, in other words.

Now I have noticed some emissaries get all carried away with some structure of this sort because it looks so good. “Oh, it looks so close to what is offered through the Third Sacred School!” Well, there may be elements in there that relate, certainly, but the approach invariably must be from the standpoint of the devil. Now, I can say that to you, but you wouldn’t say it to them, to that structure, but it is the fact of the matter. But that doesn’t mean that we write the whole thing off. Anyone you meet—even yourself, in the mirror—has some devilish background. So we cannot write everybody off because there has been association with the devil. There would not be anyone left on earth. We consider these things in order that we may pour some substance into the situation, sharing the responsibilities of government in these particular ways.

The emphasis is placed on spirit. That is where the weight is. That is where the value is. That is where the power is. However, this does not mean that we simply sweep away the forms. The spirit is of very little meaning until it finds expression through form, and the only forms that are available are the ones that exist at the moment, and these need to be transformed. So once we have the value in the right place, we can begin to go to work, and we are no longer trying to make the forms over into some preconceived idea that we have, or to disintegrate them. We simply fill them with the substance, and the fact that the substance fills the forms changes the quality of the substance in those forms. It becomes more malleable, for one thing, so that it can begin to move more easily into the creative designs that are present by reason of the action of spirit. We can see vast possibilities beginning to come into view in this field.

© emissaries of divine light