The Man Who is A Branch

Zech 6:12-13 And say to him, Thus says the Lord of hosts: [You, Joshua] behold (look at, keep in sight, watch) the Man [the Messiah] whose name is the Branch, for He shall grow up in His place and He shall build the [true] temple of the Lord. [Isa 4:2; Jer 23:5; 33:15; Zech 3:8.]

13 Yes, [you are building a temple of the Lord, but] it is He Who shall build the [true] temple of the Lord, and He shall bear the honor and glory [as of the only begotten of the Father] and shall sit and rule upon His throne. And He shall be a Priest upon His throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between the two [offices — Priest and King]. [John 1:14; 17:5; Heb 2:9.] AMP

Zechariah is saying there is One coming, and this One that's coming, He will build the true tabernacle of the Lord. Now we all know intellectually, the tabernacle of the Lord today is the saints, the church of the Most High God. We also know that Ephesians tells us that the church is the fullness of Him who fills everything everywhere with Himself. That's the true church. The Church is a group of people, whether they be small or whether they be large, who are built together in spirit, and they have become a habitation of God. They have laid down their own personal wants and likes. They've laid down their own desires. They've laid down their own ambitions. They have come together for the purpose that God may fill them to the fullness of His glory that they may corporately be an expression of His life upon the earth, that they might be a habitation of God in the spirit.

We might ask what happened? It has been two thousand years since Jesus came and we still don't see the church being the habitation, the dwelling place and the expression of God. Some say the Church is just spiritual and not visible and does not come with any observation. However we all know by now that Jesus is the pattern son and that we all are sons. To say that the Church is simply an invisible spiritual kingdom is only partly true. We are to pray that the kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. It is true that the work was finished but the finished work is to be walked out and be manifested to the world. Jesus gave all power and authority to the Church not just a few members but all of us. We are the fullness of God to be expressed as Jesus was 2000 years ago.

Jesus tells us how the Church will be built. Matt 16:15-18 He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not Revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. J

Jesus said to Peter, “Flesh and blood hasn’t revealed this to you, but my Father has revealed to you the truth of my being. I am not just Jesus of Nazareth but I am Christ the son of God. Jesus said, “Upon this rock I will build my church.” Well the Catholics think He meant Peter was the rock on which the Church was to be built. What Jesus said is, “Upon this rock” - what rock? - THE REVELATION OF CHRIST IN A MAN.

When Jesus said that, He was not specifically just referring to Himself, Jesus of Nazareth, because you can have a revelation that He was and is the Son of God, and that may not help you build the Church. However if you understand what He said, the church is built on is the revelation of Christ in humanity, in a man. This is the revelation that will build the true tabernacle.

This is what Paul meant in Corinthians. He said, “You know, at one time we knew Christ after the flesh. We knew Him as the man of Galilee. But henceforth we know Him no more.” And he said, “From henceforth, we do not know any man after the flesh.” That is one of our biggest problems we see each other according to the flesh. We see homosexuals, we see lesbians, we see prostitutes, we see thieves, we see good people and we see bad people; we see people according to the flesh. Paul said, “Henceforth, know we no man after the flesh.”

We must get past our very own flesh and realize that the same Christ who walked the shores of Galilee, the same Christ that raised the dead and opened the eyes of the blind is now a many membered body. That is what He meant when He told His disciples, “I must go away, because if I don’t go away, the comforter won’t come. But when He comes, He will teach you all things.” Well who do we rely on today to teach us? Most of us rely on men, or pastors or our leaders or our teachers. We rely on them to teach us. You know what? Until we get past that, they are not going to be able to help you a whole lot, because what a pastor, evangelist, prophet, teacher, apostle – whatever you are looking to; until you yourself have a revelation of Christ in you, and the anointing that abides and teaches you of all things, you won’t be able to hear the pastor. But once that anointing begins to move and stir in you, then when you hear your pastor speak, it will confirm what God is beginning to reveal to you, and show to you. For years now, I’ve been saying there is no man alive, and never has been a man alive, who can teach you how to live in the kingdom of God. That is what we have been trying to do. And it is the same thing as if you take a seed of corn and try to teach it how to grow. The seed of corn has everything that a seed needs to fully produce a corn-kingdom. We don’t have to teach that seed how to grow do we? Yet that is what we’ve been doing to Christians. People who have the seed, the life, the nature, the character of God in them, sitting in our churches, and we try to teach them how to be like God. It’s the same thing as trying to teach a grain of corn how to grow into an ear of corn.