Jesus’ First 12 Years: The Mystery of Christ’s Childhood

When God created man, he created the third-highest life form, the highest visible form of life, the most complex of all. God is spirit; angels are the very limited spirits. Cattle are body and soul; monkeys are body and soul. Birds’ bodies have very little soul, and fish have virtually no soul at all. Plant life is just the body. But here is this creature who is the highest visible life. Very complex. On this side is spirit; over here is soul and body; but right here, the pivotal point, is something that is neither and both—a very complex creature. God took the dirt, fashioned something visible that looked like Him, who was invisible. He reminded the angels of their God in a way beyond our understanding.

He built the body out of clay, so we’re sure of one thing: he’s got a body. Then God went into… now, get this, will you? He went into the heavenly realms, took a deep breath from the spirituals, came back to the clay, and blew something from the other side of the door into its nostrils. God gave him the wind of heaven and blew a spirit into him. This is not God’s spirit; it is something from the heavens, something created, but invisible and without dimension. You can cut any one of us open and won’t find it there, but it’s there; it has no dimension, and it is great, and it is small, and it is big, and it is little, and it is neither. It is man’s spirit.

So, lying on the ground, in the blink of an eye, is something that is part earth and part heaven. It rests in this moment in the Garden of Eden, or near it, a place that seems to overlap the two realms. It’s almost as though man overlaps two realms. He’s partly of heaven, and partly of earth. Now that’s exciting. In this split second, you are part heavenly and part earthly. You’re part of the physical and part of the spiritual realms. You’re half and half. As the two join, a third element emerges: the human soul. Before us stands something erect: a living creature with a soul like the animals and a spirit like the angels; it is contained in a physical form visible like the things of the earth.

Now then, this is a life form, the third highest life form. It is a biological form of life. Many Christian writers and speakers throughout the centuries have made clear what he was made to contain and what he was not. He was a container, and I really agree with that. But I put this limitation on it: there is a moment, in fact, the whole day, when he has no content; He is, in fact, a form of life, a free agent. We have to recognize that before He was filled with God, or before He was filled with sin, there was a moment when He was filled with neither, yet He walked around. His purpose may have been to contain, but there was, for that moment, on the biological scale, a thing called man in that particular state.

There is no question that He was to contain God, and no question that the tree of life was eternal life, the highest form of life, God. And God’s life was to be inside Adam. Not in his body, not in his soul, but in his spirit, God was to live. This creature is the only creature that was made for both realms. The only creature that was visible that was ever made to contain God. The only creature ever created, visible or invisible, to contain God. He was supposed to move from third place to first place. He was to become a son of God by having the life of God, but He also, according to Augustine…I’ve never fully believed this, agreed with it, or understood it; I have no opinion on the matter, but somehow they were told God had a great desire for Him to have free will, and He got it. Boy, did He get it. He gave us free choice, and we made it.

He chose to be a container, but it would not be God who would be contained in his spirit…God’s Spirit in man’s spirit. He chose to let sin dwell in his flesh, and so he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Sin entered and took up residence in his body, and we’ll stop here; I’ll ask you to follow me. Man was made in the garden, and at a certain moment his soul was the leading element in him, with his spirit second and his body third. Did you get that? He was intended to have spirit first, soul second, and body third. You got that?

When he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that spirit, which came from another realm within him, died to that realm. The door shut. The radio went dead. He could no longer receive signals from that realm. He could no longer see the unseen. I have the very deep conviction that Adam glowed. I really do. I think he was clothed in light because his spirit was light and his body didn’t obstruct it. There was no sin there. He glowed. Well, he stopped glowing. The receiver went dead. He could no longer see spiritual realms. He could no longer see angels. He went blind and deaf to the spiritual realm. He is now captive to this realm. The door closes. A seraphim is set in front of the door. There is no commerce anymore. Not going this way; there isn’t. Some commerce is coming this way. That angel will open the door this way, but not this way. Do you understand that? He stands on this side to guard. You’re not coming through. There’s no commerce going this way.

Man died to one half of his inheritance. He died in heavenly realms. Now sin infests his body and, little by little, corrupts it with every passing generation, and what you have for a brief time is a man with his soul in first place, his body in second place, and the spirit that essentially is dead. So the spirit’s in third place. We have his soul in first place, his body gradually becoming flesh, and a spirit essentially dead, so it’s in third place. At best, it’s in third place. He’s dragging around something dead. Gradually, the body becomes flesh. Man becomes, first, flesh, second, a very perverted, distorted, and damaged soul, and the spirit is in third place. It is absolutely inverted from God’s first intention. Man became extremely fleshly; God sent the flood to start over. Now, that is, in a nutshell, the basic situation with man. He is flesh. Scripture clearly teaches that the flesh is the dwelling place of sin. The soul is damaged, distorted, twisted, and the spirit is dead to the realm from which it came. The spirit desperately needs a resurrection.

So, this is what is on the earth at this time, the time of Zachariah, a priest, down in Jerusalem. I don’t know; perhaps not all men are first flesh, second soul, and third spirit. Perhaps some men are first soul, second flesh, and third spirit. We seem capable of being very fleshly, and some are very capable of being very soulish, but the spirit’s on the bottom end of this thing.  The situation does not look good at all. God’s first intention is way, way off. Who is God in all this? He is in the other realm. He is the eternal spirit. He is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. He is still 100% spirit, and though He visits the earth, He is nonetheless somewhat a spectator to man. Although He knows us fully, He’s never been one of us, and He would never be the kind that now inhabits the earth. However, He plans to come in a form identical to ours, except not fleshly.

Alright, I know that you know the story. That was an introduction. Here is Zachariah. You know it’s Zachariah; it’s not Zacchaeus, it’s Zachariah. Zachariah is from one of the tribes. Each tribe has the privilege of caring for the temple. We’re now in the year about 1 BC, probably. He puts on his garments that day. Some say it’s actually the Passover. It’s the one day of the year when the man goes into the Holy of Holies; it’s not really clear. If it is the day of the Passover, then he’s got a rope tied to his leg right here. You’ve all heard that story: if he goes in and sees God and is struck dead by seeing God face to face, they can drag the body out without going in there themselves. He’s at the altar of incense in the holy place. Except some people believe incense is in the Holy of Holies, and that’s where we run into problems. We’re not going to get into that. It’s not important.

Zachariah is probably in the holy place lighting the incense. A veil separates it from the Holy of Holies on the other side. Inside is nothing but a golden box: a gold-covered wooden box. The temple pictures what is real. It pictures something in heavenly places, and in some ways, it also pictures you and me: our outer court, our holy place, and, deep within, the Holy of Holies. The Holy of Holies is the heavenly realm. It is pictured in the temple in Jerusalem. It’s a small, perfectly cubed room, or a rectangular box of acacia wood, which is covered with gold. Just outside the curtain, a man is burning incense. That’s what’s happening over here.

In this realm, in the true Holy of Holies, is the living God, and the eternal realm begins to move. The door moves, and the real Holy of Holies comes and sits within the pictured one. A conversation is going on between the living God, who is the real golden box, and an archangel. They’re having a muted conversation, and this living God is obviously very excited. The entire heavenly realm is now somewhere inside the picture: the Holy of Holies on earth, in the temple; the whole place is in there. Now the door opens from the heavenly side. The seraphim steps back, rests his sword, and Gabriel steps from one realm into the other, pulls back the curtain, and says, “Zachariah, I have news for you.”