The Rending Of The Veil (5)
Reading from the book of Romans the fourth chapter.
Romans 4:1-18: “What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory" but not before God. For what saith the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin. Cometh this blessedness then upon the circumcision only, or upon the uncircumcision also? for we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. How was it then reckoned? when he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised: that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised" that righteousness might be imputed unto them also: And the father of circumcision to them who are not of the circumcision only, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had being yet uncircumcised. For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect: Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression. Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace" to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed" not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham" who is the father of us all, (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were. Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.”
This is a beautiful thing here, in that God made a promise to Abraham. This promise was that at the time of life, He will return unto Abraham and Sarah and she shall have a son. And here it is, the deadness of Sarah’s womb and the deadness of Abraham’s body. He was, perhaps, a hundred years old, yet he staggered not at the promises of God, but was strong in faith, giving glory unto God, being fully persuaded that what He had promised He was able also to perform. And even when the son was born, he staggered not again at the Word of God, when the Lord said, “Take him and offer him for a sacrifice.” Abraham boasted by saying, “I and the son shall go thence to worship, and we shall return.” He was full of confidence that God had promised and could not lie, and He had promised to bless all nations through the seed of Isaac. If God took that life, He would have to restore it because God could not lie.
My, what faith! Never have you ever heard of such faith! This great faith! He believed when there was nothing to believe in. He believed in hope when there was no hope. Everything was against him, but because God said it, he believed. This pleased God, and he became the friend of God, and faithful Abraham became the father of many nations.
Notice that he was yet in uncircumcision when he received these promises. Remember that. He received these promises before he was circumcised. This was long before the law. It was four hundred and thirty years before the law ever came into effect. How then could this salvation be of the law? How could this promise be of the law? How could this wonderful thing, Abraham becoming the father of the faithful, be of the law? It was four hundred and thirty years before the law ever came. The law was added because of transgression, until the seed should come, unto whom the promise was made. That is, God said not, “As to seeds, as of many,” but as of one seed, even Isaac, and the bondchild shall not be heir with the free child. So then, it is very, very clear today that this promise was unto Christ, who was to come through the seed of Abraham, through the royal seed down through the Jewish lineage.
We see how this was side-stepped in the days of David, when God promised that a seed of David should not fail to sit upon the throne. But when Coniah did what he did and the corruption came in, God changed things" not His Word, but foreseeing the corruption, He changed it. He brought it down through the royal seed on Mary’s side, through Nathan. God made it come down so the Scripture could be fulfilled that said that a woman shall compass a man. “And behold a virgin,” the prophet said, “shall be found with child.” A virgin shall conceive and bring forth a son. Mary asked the angel, when the angel Gabriel appeared, “How shall this thing be, seeing that I know not a man?” And the Bible says, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee. The Spirit of God shall overshadow you and you shall divinely conceive. And this holy thing within thy womb shall be called the Son of God.” Even the prophet and the prophetess, when Jesus was to be dedicated at the temple, said, “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the Lord.” And even the promise of the great Spirit, as to this prophet saying, “And ye shall see the glory of God.” And so it was that he said, “Let thy servant depart in peace. Mine eyes have seen the salvation of Israel.”
So we see that the thing that God has done is so great and so mighty, bringing to us this wonderful act of faith. Abraham was to be the father, but not of a nation. It doesn’t say that he was to be a father of a nation, of any particular nation, whether it would be one nation or another. How could we, as a nation, say that our father is father Abraham and he is not the father of others? The promise of God to Abraham was, “I will make thee a father of many nations.” So that brings in the Gentiles.
This also brings in the mysteries of God, how that God hath made the Jews and the Gentiles fellowheirs in faith through Jesus Christ our Lord, and that by the righteousness of God, wrought through Jesus Christ, nailing to the cross the handwriting of ordinances, and blotting out of the way those things that were a middle wall of partition. This middle wall came as intellectual reasoning, the veil of death, even the mind that entered Eve in the garden, which is human reasoning and man leaning to his own understanding. God had to move through types and shadows, through the veil of intellectual reasoning, even as the veil that was over Moses’ face, which the Jews could not, in that day, steadfastly look to the end of that which has been abolished, as to the death veil.
Jesus abolished death at Calvary in His body. The veil is the human body. He put off the old body of the veil of death as that image of the beast. God smote that which was made in the image of sin, to do away with that. We’re free from the body of this death, and it’s now buried and it’s gone. As we were buried with Him in baptism, so have we risen with Him in the resurrection of God to this new life, though we be under tutors until the time appointed of the father, that is to say, the bar mitzvah, or to the coming of these wonderful things. But at the same time, we are free from sin and death. We’re free because we are free from the flesh. He smote the bodily image at Calvary, folded up the law, laid it away, in that the law was added because of transgression, and the law worketh wrath, for where there’s no law there’s no wrath because there’s no transgression. Where there’s no transgression, there’s no sin, for transgression of the law is sin. Where there’s no sin there’s no sting, and where there’s no sting there is no death, for sin is the sting of death. Therefore, where there is no death, the grave has no victory. So we can boldly say that we’ve passed from death unto life, because we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
So then, Abraham, in uncircumcision, received this wonderful faith of God. Now, being justified by faith, the Spirit came, as we would say as to the typical thing. The unveiling came, as the circumcision, to bring forth a headship as we would say, to them that can understand. It was to bring this forth, that the veil might be moved and the light might come forth. So now we can see that the veil of death has been rent in twain. The veil is now gone. The intellectual indoctrination of that which came through Lucifer back there, that which came on down, is gone. The indoctrination of the veil that covered the light caused that to be the lesser light, as Paul refers to it, and that light had no glory by reason of this light, even Christ Jesus, or the church of today, being the light of the world. The lesser light has vanished away, in that the veil has been done away with, and now the true light shineth.
By Rev. George Leon Pike Sr.
Founder and first President of Jesus Christ’s Eternal Kingdom of Abundant Life, Inc.
Holiness Unto The Lord