Jesus' New World Order

John 4:23 New King James Version (NKJV)

But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him.

We hear a lot about the attempt by enemies of Christ and His people to create a new world order which would try to centrally plan and control the entirety of mankind.

But there is a far greater new world order that has existed from before time, and that order is the person of Jesus Christ Himself.

It needs to be understood that when Jesus was referring to the hour that now is, He meant as it related to being revealed to mankind, and the expectations of God accompanying that revelation of His desire from a people.

Most importantly, He, with that brief statement, asserted the entirety of the old Jewish religion and system as revealed in the Old Testament had, as of that moment, been dismissed as being no longer relevant.

Why? Because the true new world order, or in truth, heavenly order, had now come to fruition in the person of Jesus Christ.

All of the types and shadows, which pointed to Christ, were now fulfilled in Him, so the part they played were gotten rid of because they were no longer needed when the reality had revealed Himself to the world.

The new world order is not a system, but a person living in the very hearts of those that have truly repented and turned from themselves, the world, and the devil, and put their faith in Jesus Christ.

Out of that living relationship and fellowship is to come forth the unveiling of who Christ is in a people, to the end that He becomes 'all in all.' That's the goal and end result of the enternal purpose talked about in the letter of Paul to the Ephesians.

The new world order of Jesus Christ is one of Him indwelling us via the Holy Spirit and the truth or reality that accompanies and emerges out of that experience.

Jesus Christ is our world, the only world we are to look to and live in. This is what the Scriptures mean when it says " in Him we live and move and have our being." That's the order of Jesus Christ. Christianity is nothing less than that.

The Father is seeking those who will live their lives in union with Jesus Christ and one another in this manner, and that will reveal to the world who He is. That's Spirit. That's truth. That's the new world order presented by God the Father in Jesus Christ, Who lives within all that place their faith in Him.

It's meant to be lived out on a daily basis by believers, and that means Christ's new heavenly order is organic and unrelated to the props, institutionalism, and buildings so many wrongly associate with Christianity today.

The End of Types and Shadows

At the time of the death of Jesus, the scriptures tell us that the veil of the temple was rent. The way into heaven to the Father had been opened. The fulfillment of all things by Christ had been accomplished. The law and the prophets, that is, the whole Old Testament was fulfilled in Christ.
 
All the types and shadows, laws and feasts and ceremonies were complete in Christ. That’s why He is called reality itself. Everything these things pointed to were brought to reality in Him. Because of this, all of these things have no more use to us other than the fact that they existed temporarily until He came to fulfill them. Now that He has, they are no long significant in any way.  Yet throughout church history we still have clung to those types and shadows as if we needed them in addition to Christ.  

One obvious example is the concept of the temple. The church never met in special places or buildings, only in homes. Yet most Christians today meet in a building and erroneously call that building a “church.” This is totally unscriptural. These pagan buildings were first used in this way when Constantine, the ruler of Rome in the 4th century a.d., built them.  Even though the scriptures tell us that God doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands, many go there as if He does.  The Jewish temple, that was a shadow of Jesus and His church, was destroyed in a.d. 70 as prophesied by Jesus. There was no stone left, now the true living stones were dwelt in by God through the Holy Spirit. This type is gone forever, now the reality is here.  

The same goes with special types of clothing people may wear. When Jesus was on the earth He wore no special clothes to separate Him as different from His followers. Even after preaching all those years, the authorities needed Judas to go and point Him out to them, that’s how inconspicuous and normal He was.  Even though the Jewish high priest would wear unique clothes in the Old Testament, all of these clothes were types that, again, Christ fulfilled. Jesus strongly rebuked the Pharisees for making additions to their clothing so that they could impress people. Yet today we see people wear costumes as if there is some type of holiness attached to these things.  

No one has a right to revert back to types and shadows or outward shows. All things have been summed up in Christ.  

All of this temple worship and special clothing was straight out of paganism, created by one of the worse megalomaniacs in history: Constantine.  
Now that we have Christ, there is no other way to the Father; there is no one but Christ that gives us access to God. Because Jesus Himself made this claim, He was crucified.  

Types, shadows, and symbolism are dead. They all pointed to the Messiah that was to come. Now that Jesus has been revealed as the Christ, we know Him as complete reality. We are no longer to go back and participate in pre-Christ anticipations.  
 

Gary