The Greatest Mystery of All: Part 2; Zebulun the Spiritual Body Awakened

Before continuing deeper into our study of Zebulun, it would seem good to review just a little from the previous article.

Zebulun means “dwelling,” and he is symbolic of our spiritual body. It is attached inside of us to our physical body but we have been unaware of it. When people die they go into the afterlife in their spiritual body. This is a spiritual part of us that died at the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden. The other part that died was their spiritual mind. God had said that on the day they ate from the forbidden tree, they would surely die. They continued living in their physical bodies for over 900 years, so on the surface of the Word it would appear that they didn’t die on that day, but when we understand their spiritual bodies and minds died, then we see that they did indeed die on that day.

Zebulun’s name that means “dwelling” is prophetically speaking of the day when we will dwell in our spiritual body along with Jesus here on earth as he comes to us in these end times and awakens that part of us. He will also be doing something with our physical bodies that will remove all sin and death from us as we are changed at the last trump.

As explained in Part 1, I was permitted to experience this awakening in February of 1997, but the experience did not stop then. It has continued on without any break. It is the most wonderful feeling of the Lord’s love along with the tangible evidence that his presence is always with me. It opened up the Word to me in a new dimension and also brought deeper communication with the Lord.

I believe that millions of Christians are going to be experiencing this very soon because I believe something catastrophic is going to happen that will strike great fear into the hearts of everyone, and those who truly love the Lord will feel him at that time. Then they will know he is with them and this will give them great hope and reassurance.

I was chosen to have this awakening experience early so I would have several years to study this in the Scriptures, to write about it and prepare teachings. In this way, when it happens to others, people will have something written that can explain to them what has happened.

Looking at what Jacob said over Zebulun when he prophesied over all his sons in Genesis 49 reveals more evidence that Zebulun is indeed a type of the spiritual body that has been awakened:  

Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea; and he shall be for an haven of ships; and his border shall be unto Zidon (Gen 49:13).

Now it is interesting that there is no large body of water touching Zebulun’s territory on the maps that show the locations of the various tribes in the Promised Land. Zebulun is surrounded by Issachar, Naphtali, Asher and Manasseh, but there is no large body of water touching his territory.

We know that the Bible is perfect, and that in the original languages there are no mistakes. I believe this scripture is as it was supposed to be, because there is a spiritual meaning we are supposed to derive from this. If you will look at the picture above of the tribes in their inheritances, you will see that there is no water touching the borders of Zebulun. To the right is the Sea of Galilee and to the left, of course, is the Mediterranean Sea.

Also Jacob said that Zebulun’s border would be unto Zidon. Zidon is at the top of the map above what I have shown, so it is not near Zebulun’s territory. Zidon is the same as Sidon. Sidon is spoken of in the New Testament several times but, as you can see, Zebulun’s territory does not touch Zidon. There is meaning we can glean from this that is spiritual in nature. Let’s look at the first clause of Jacob’s prophecy over Zebulun:

Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea.

A key word here is “haven.” In the Hebrew it is khofe from a root word meaning “to cover, a cove as a sheltered bay.” As we saw above, there is no water and no bay in his territory. So this is speaking of a spiritual cove and a spiritual sheltered bay.

Our natural body covers our spiritual body. Our spiritual body dwells and is sheltered underneath our natural body. It is sheltered. It is covered. No one sees it or even knows that it is there, but it is underneath our physical body.

Gesenius’ Lexicon says this word khofe can mean “the shore as washed by the sea.” To me this describes the feeling of the spiritual body being awakened in that it does feel like a very gentle washing by the sea. I had said earlier that it is kind of like floating on gentle waves of a body of water. There is also a sense of being gently washed but it is deep inside. I believe that the Lord is gently washing away the sin nature that is in all of us, because in these last days God is going to remove the sin nature. He is taking it out of our soul and out of our natural body, and this is part of the process of this mortal putting on immortality. So this is taking place at the haven of the sea.

The word for sea in Hebrew is yam from a root word meaning “to roar, a sea as breaking in noisy surf.” So this has something to do with sound. I have found God speaks to me through my awakened spiritual body. I don’t hear it with my natural ears but what I hear is very clear, very easy to understand. It is unmistakable. It is a way of communication that I have never known before, but God does clearly speak to me through my spiritual body.

I cannot tell the difference between my natural body and my spiritual body other than that I feel the gentle, wave-like motion or a feeling of floating in the very center of my being at all times. When I feel the Lord’s hand on my shoulder, I believe I am feeling it in my spiritual body because it is unlike anything I have ever felt in my natural body and it is very gentle. When it happens I don’t want it to stop, but it does. I want to feel it over and over again because it is so sweet and so gentle and touches me deeply in my spirit. I cannot will it to happen. It is solely up to the Lord and almost always has a message in it related to what I am thinking or experiencing.

I know there will come a time when the Lord will be able to remove out of my natural side the sin nature that came upon all humanity at the fall. He wants to do this for all his people who are willing to forsake all to have him. In my study of the four living creatures of Ezekiel 1, I learned things that explained what I was experiencing at that time having to do with the relationship between the spiritual and natural bodies, but it is best to leave that teaching for later because we will see it as revealed in other tribes of the sons of Jacob. I don’t claim to have a complete understanding of how the two bodies function apart or together, but I have found some clues in some of my other studies.

The end time truths being revealed here are seen in many other places in the Bible in type. The Lord will give what I call a key, a nugget of truth revealing a type, and then using this key I can study it throughout a large section of Scripture and find the message always in context. And looking further at Jacob’s prophecy, we need to understand what ships are in their type:

And he shall be for an haven of ships

We talked about haven being a cover or a cove as a sheltered bay and how the natural body covers the spiritual body; that it is hidden and no one knows it is there. It is behind or covered by our natural body. Now we can add to this understanding by applying a spiritual definition for the word “ships.” According to Emanuel Swedenborg, “ships signify knowledge of what is good and true from the Word serving for use of life.” (Dictionary of Correspondences: The Key to Biblical Interpretation by George Nicholson)

The following reveals some of the ways the spiritual body (our haven) that is inside of our natural body (and perhaps joined to it, I don’t know) works to help us know what is true and good (the ships) and how it works together with our thoughts:

 I have a thought about something. If this thought is true, the Lord (who is the Word) will often confirm it by letting me feel his warmth like the sun on my face. If I think about something that is false or something God doesn’t want me to do, I may feel a tickle in my nose such as what precedes a sneeze or I may actually sneeze. In this way, I learn about what is true and good as opposed to false or evil. (I want to make perfectly clear this is no substitute for regular and systematic Bible study that God wants all his people to do. This is in addition to it.)

If I start to say something I shouldn’t, the Lord can make me instantly very hoarse to the point I cannot even speak. I cannot get my voice back until I, in my mind, determine not to say what I had intended. Then the hoarseness immediately leaves. This is one way the Lord fine-tunes us or gently judges us in the little particulars of life in preparation for more of his fullness coming into us.

There is a way in which the awakened spiritual body is a spiritual cover for the natural body. The word “ships” here means “a vessel” the Hebrew word is ‘oniyah meaning “a ship, men of ships,” so we can see here that a ship can also be a person, or it can be a natural body.  

As the spiritual body is awakened, the natural body begins to feel quickened; there is new health and vitality that comes into the natural body, because as I said in my testimony of my experience, God speaks to me through my natural body (and also in dreams and an occasional vision). If I start to do something I should not do, if I have a thought that is not a righteous thought, I will get a reminder from God in my body. He might give a little jab of pain in a tooth, a pain in a muscle, an eye might start to itch, I might sneeze a few times, my voice might get hoarse, and this is a way of judging me instantly for anything I’m doing or anything I’m thinking. As I repent and change my behavior, over time there is new health and new vitality coming into my body, and this is the beginning of putting on immortality. However, the sin nature as inherited from the fall will have to be dealt with by Jesus because it can only lead to aging and physical death.

The Scriptures say we are to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe in doing so we are putting on immortality even as 1 Corinthians 15 says that this mortal must put on immortality. I believe this is a process I have been going through. I have not arrived. To look at me I look like anybody else, but I must say I am very healthy. I feel stronger and healthier than I have ever been in my entire life, and I am considered a senior citizen. God is doing wonderful things in my life and in my body.

A few years ago I gave up playing my guitar because I had pain in some of the joints of my fingers. The pain is no longer there even though I am, of course, older. I had a dream two nights ago in which I believe the Lord was telling me to get the guitar out and begin playing again. It is great for small group worship.

Zidon

 Continuing with Jacob’s prophecy, the last clause he spoke over Zebulun was:

his border shall be unto Zidon.

The Hebrew word for “border” is yerekah and it can also mean “part” or “side.” Yerekah is the feminine form of the word yarek which means “the body.” And so I’m taking this to mean “his body shall be unto Zidon.”

Zidon in the Old Testament is the same as Sidon in the New Testament. I’m going to be taking my spiritual interpretation of what Zidon means from the New Testament. Sidon was a place Jesus spoke well of. Let’s look at Matthew 11:

Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not: Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment, than for you. (Matt 11:20-22)

Here we see Sidon as well as Tyre having something to do with the day of judgment, and certainly it is in the day of judgment (obvious to many of us that today IS the day of judgment) that the spiritual body is being awakened. It is a favorable judgment when your spiritual body is being awakened, but those who have not sought the Lord are going to experience some pretty harsh judgments I believe.

And now let’s look at Jesus’ words in Luke 4:

But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. (Luke 4:25, 26)

If you will remember the story, there was no food and the woman was getting ready to bake the last little bit of flour she had for her and her son and then they were going to die. Elijah provided miraculously for her all through the time of the drought. Also while he was there, the woman’s son died, and Elijah raised him from the dead. So here Sidon can be seen not only as having to do with judgment, but also with God’s provision for some of his people. Additionally Sidon was the site of some of Jesus’ miracles. I believe we will be experiencing miracles also as we progress deeper into these end times.

Elijah raised from the dead the physical body of the widow’s son. Here with Zebulun we are seeing the spiritual body being raised from the dead or awakened from a deep sleep.

When Jesus went to the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, a woman from there came asking him to deliver her daughter from an evil spirit. Jesus was silent, but the woman continued to entreat him. His disciples encouraged Jesus to just tell her to go away, but Jesus spoke to her. He told her he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, but the woman persisted whereupon the Lord said it was not right to give the children’s bread to the dogs. Her response was that even the dogs could eat the crumbs from under the table. Jesus was pleased with her faith and he healed her daughter by delivering her from the evil spirit. Many people from Tyre and Sidon followed Jesus and were healed and delivered in his meetings.

Considering all these things, I believe that Sidon in type has to do with the end times, the judgment of the end times, God’s provision for us, the raising of the dead or the raising of our spiritual body, and I believe we will see other miracles also. All these things will be taking place as Jesus is working in us and preparing us for the great ministry of power that he has for his people in the end times.

I believe the awakening of the spiritual body is the beginning of a process that deepens our relationship with Jesus and will eventually lead to our own deliverance, healing and even miracles. These things that God did in Sidon will be our experience also as we progress further into the putting on of immortality.  

His border shall be unto Zidon means our body (border) will experience deliverance, healing, miracles and the favor of God in the day of judgment. The awakening of the spiritual body has a lot to do with the healing of our natural body as God works in us to bring about his glorious plans for his church in these end times.

For greater clarity, I would like to briefly summarize this spiritual interpretation of the prophecy Jacob spoke over his son Zebulun—a deeply buried prophetic word reserved for those of us living in the day of judgment who choose to go all the way with Jesus into his fullness.

Zebulun shall dwell at the haven of the sea. The spiritual body (Zebulun) dwells in a covered, sheltered place behind the natural body where no one can see it or even know it is there (haven) until Jesus awakens it and the person begins to feel a gentle movement similar to the peaceful waves from a calm sea delicately washing one’s body (of the sea).

And he shall be an haven of ships. After Jesus awakens the spiritual body (haven) he begins to instruct us about goodness and truth (ships) in the little details of our everyday life via his touch upon our bodies. In this way, as we are able to turn more and more away from sin and towards the Lord Jesus Christ, our natural body begins to feel new health and vitality.

And his border shall be unto Zidon. With the awakening of the spiritual side of our being (border), we can expect to experience healing and deliverance in our own body and even miracles as we walk in obedience to the personal instructions we receive from Jesus every day.

There will be more about Zebulun in the next article.