A Glorious Church: In Pursuit of the Biblical Model of Christianity

Foreword

Thought-provoking and challenging, this manuscript opens the door for a frank and open conversation on the scriptures. It is evident that the author believes that much diligence is applicable in the search for truth, and that truth can stand the test of scrutiny and re-examination.

C. Orville is not asking you to blindly embrace his conclusions, but rather to take the journey with him using the various tools available to analyze the scriptures. He makes the clarion call that the modern-day Church needs to be committed to the model clearly outlined in scriptures, both by precept and example. He is bold in his assertions, many of which may result in a paradigm shift or present the need for further thought and research.

One cannot deny his passion to see in this era an awakening of the believer and by extension the Church. As you read, be prepared to be challenged, encouraged and edified, as you embark on this journey to see what is, the Glorious Church.

Rev. Valentine Rodney, Author

Director Word Impact Ministries International

Acknowledgements

Firstly, I must give thanks to my Father, who continues to teach me the ways of a son. He has enlightened me and brought me into a working knowledge of who I am in Him. I seek only to know Him more, so I can make Him known.

Thanks to my Brother and Lord, Jesus, who has stayed with me even during the darkest seasons of my life. Now that I look back, I see Him more clearly than I have ever seen before and know that even when I thought He had abandoned me, He never did.

Thanks to my very soft-spoken and invisible Guide, Holy Spirit, who leads me in such a calm and almost natural way. I have found that even with the simplest of chores, He teaches me and enables me to do things I had no prior knowledge of, like writing a book. Without Him, none of this would be possible.

I thank my family and friends who support my vision and take the time to listen to the revelations I receive.

I give honour and special recognition to my mentor and spiritual father, Dr. O, through whose teachings and guidance, a lot of my doctrine and what I believe have been challenged and corrected. I now read the Bible with fresh eyes.

Finally, many thanks to the love of my life, Nordia, who supports me in such a way that crowns everything I do with excellence.

Introduction

There are two reasons this book had to be written, the first is the powerlessness of most of our churches: the second, the faithlessness of most Christians. I believe Father God wants to address these issues because of what He is doing in the earth today. He is calling for a cohesiveness among all churches worldwide as He has gently whispered in my spirit that the part is not the whole . This book is just a part, you reading it is just a part, what He has called you to do is just a part. The true miracle takes place when all the parts come together as one.

Jesus asked a relevant question in Saint Luke 18:8: "...When the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?"

In Ephesians Chapter 5 we read: "For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s Word. He did this to present her to himself as a Glorious Church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault." Verses 25-27 – NLT (emphasis mine).

We need to get back to our roots. Jesus Christ is the example for every believer to follow. He is the standard of normal Christian living, and anything less is unacceptable and renders His sacrifice null and void. He promised the Father to present to Him a ‘glorious Church’ free from blemishes, and that is exactly what He will do.

We need to get back to the model church that He established with His life, death and resurrection.

We need to become the Acts 29 church...A glorious Church, a people of faith...a perfect church, who will pick up the mantle where Jesus and the Apostles left off after bringing to ruin the kingdom of darkness. I am amazed that we have managed over the centuries to give power back to everything that Jesus disempowered through His ministry.

At the end of each Chapter is a Prophetic Word I believe I received in my spirit from God over the course of writing this book.

CHAPTER ONE

Sons of God

This will probably be the most controversial of all Chapters in this book. When this revelation came, I was blown away, but not dissuaded as somehow a lot of things just started to make sense. So, if you are ready to know who you are, then read on.

I have never been the kind to just accept what other people say. I realized very early on that the Bible is open to various interpretations, and very often we accept what makes sense to us and preach that as a fixed doctrine. Later, when new revelations come, we are hesitant to let go of old beliefs because it will cause us to face our shortcomings as human beings prone to err. No one wants to admit that they were wrong.

Revelation will always come to the one who is not afraid to admit that what they believed was wrong.

One of the issues I have always had a particular problem with was the Scriptures found in Genesis 6:2 & 4:

That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men who are of old, men of renown.

Several red flags go up when I read these Scriptures. The most obvious question is, Who are sons of God? It is a pertinent question that has been answered for centuries by renowned Biblical scholars who claimed that sons of God are angels or fallen angels. I had several issues with that answer. Firstly, the Bible has never been hesitant to refer to angels as angels, so why on this particular and seemingly isolated instance would the Word refer to angels as sons of God? The second issue I have, and the most pertinent, is that angels or demons cannot reproduce with humans. To put it bluntly, a spirit cannot ejaculate human sperm to impregnate a woman. Only physical creatures have the capacity to reproduce.

With that said, there is a heavy cloud of mystery surrounding ‘sons of God.’ The term ‘sons of God’ appears only nine other times in Scripture, six of which are in the New Testament. I think it is necessary to quote those verses here:

Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them. - Job 1:6

Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord. - Job 2:1

When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? - Job 38:7

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. - St. John 1:12

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. - Romans 8:14

For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. - Romans 8:19

That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world. - Philippians 2:15

Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. - 1 John 3:1

Beloved, now we are the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

- 1 John 3:2

Bear in mind that previous interpretations, or what I was asked to believe, is that in the Old Testament ‘sons of God’ were fallen angels, and in the New Testament ‘sons of God’ referred to humans.

To know the truth, we sometimes have to travel back to the beginning. Armed with all my confusion, and revelation received from others I went to take a look, and what I found was surprising (to say it mildly).

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. - Genesis 1:1

What we read in Genesis Chapter 1 has always been attributed to, by and large, what was happening in the earth, in the natural, but let’s take a closer look.

And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. - Genesis 1:26

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. - Genesis 1:27

When we get to Genesis 2:5 it says:

And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.

You will understand that by this point I was utterly confused, but what I missed was that before there was anything on the earth, it had to be created first in the heavens. That is why we read and God created the heavens and the earth.

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. - Genesis 1:27

Both male and female were created in the image and likeness of God, so we looked like God. We bore His resemblance. Note also that both male and female were created before God formed man from the dust, and before Eve was taken out of Adam, that is if you read the sequence of events in chronological order. Theologians will say that Genesis 1 is a summary, and Genesis 2 expands on the summary. If that was true, both chapters read like a summary, so there would be some overlapping which makes very little sense.

And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. - Genesis 2:7

In Genesis 2, everything that God created in the realm of the spirit took form in the natural, including man and woman. We were now spirit (Genesis 1), soul and body (Genesis 2), and we looked like God: we were a living soul so we must have looked way different from how we look now. I believe this is why it was possible for them to be naked and unashamed (See Genesis 2:25). I have heard it said by theologians that a celestial light covered man. It was not just light, but who they were – who we are.

The dynamics of man, however, changed when we sinned. When Adam sinned, his soul died leaving the body exposed. He knew this was going to happen because he was already seeing it happen with his wife.

"May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ." - 1 Thessalonians 5:23

Some believe we are a body with a soul and spirit inside when the truth is we are a soul/spirit being, with a body.

Look at this verse:

And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth. - Genesis 5:3

Mankind no longer resembled God but became a reflection of our fallen natural man. We were a body with a dead soul, but we still had the breath of God (Spirit). In essence, we really died on that day Adam and Eve disobeyed God and fell into sin.

As a spirit being, you were initially a son of God who stood before the throne of God, even shouted for joy when stars begun to sing before his throne (See Job 38:7). Every human being was a son of God before being conceived in this world. You were a son of God before conception, and it doesn’t matter the circumstance that brought you here.

"Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee,