The Greatest Mystery of All: Part 5, Manasseh, the Natural Body, and Ephraim, the Natural Mind
Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed (1 Corinthians 15:51).
(In this teaching I intend to reveal aspects of God’s plan for these end times that will include the truth that there are Christians alive today who will not experience death, not because they went up in some “rapture of the church,” but because they pressed into God such that they came into his fullness. First I will explain the significance of Joseph’s two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, according to their function in the context of the entirety of this revelation, and lastly I will explain the particular scriptures that led me to these conclusions. This is a very deep teaching and will necessitate being lengthy. I hope everyone will stay with me to the end because, trust me, it is true and this revelation came only from God. I also include dreams God gave to me and also to my husband along with some experiences that confirm my studies. The revelation detailed in this study of Jacob’s twelve sons is also substantiated in many of my other studies and books.)
In this series thus far we have learned about the spiritual body (Zebulun), the spiritual mind (Naphtali) and the holy imagination (Issachar). We have seen how they fit together around the Sea of Galilee where Jesus lived and ministered, and that in their types they are part of God’s plan to return to earth in his people as we enter the kingdom of God here on earth.
Now it is time to learn about our natural side—our natural body (Manasseh) and our natural mind (Ephraim). Manasseh and Ephraim were Joseph’s two sons whom Jacob met and blessed after he and his eleven sons moved to Egypt. Together, Manasseh and Ephraim are spoken of as “the House of Joseph.” In Scripture, Joseph is a powerful type of Christ, and here we see, Manasseh and Ephraim, the House of Joseph, being a type of a human being indwelt by Jesus Christ as his house. We are his representatives on earth only because we have a physical body (Manasseh) and a mind that relates to the natural realm of earth (Ephraim).
As we look at the map of the territories above, we can see that our natural body (Manasseh) is next to and just under our spiritual parts; however, only part of the natural body is on the west side of the Jordan river in the Promised Land (the kingdom of God). There is a part of the natural body (Manasseh) that does not cross over into the kingdom of God in the Promised Land. In type this is because there is a part of us that has to be removed by God in order for us to be in this new dimension.
This part of us that will be removed is the part that was cursed at the time of the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden. This is the part of us that causes us to get old, sick and die. Once Jesus removes this, we will be like Adam and Eve were before they sinned but with one important difference—we will know what sin and death are and will have overcome them by the power of the endless life of Jesus Christ within us. We will be mature. We will be indwelt by God himself. Adam and Eve were immature knowing nothing about sin and death. God was outside of them but he will be inside of us and we will be filled with wisdom and in a deep, loving relationship with God that will fill us with joy inexpressible and full of glory (Asher). Looking again at our map of the territories, Asher (happiness) is at the top touching our spiritual body (Zebulun) our spiritual mind (Naphtali) and our redeemed natural body (Manasseh).
The Scripture tells us that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God nor does corruption inherit incorruption,” so something is going to have to change about this part of our being or we cannot inherit the kingdom of God here on earth. The solution to this problem is seen in the next verse which states:
Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.
To sleep here means to die. We are not all going to die. We are going to be changed. The first step in this change is the awakening of the spiritual side of our being as we have seen in Zebulun (the spiritual body), Naphtali (the spiritual mind), and Issachar (the holy imagination). With this awakening comes a new way of communication with Jesus whereby he “fine tunes us” in the small particulars of our life and at the same time he is continually loving us in a way we can actually feel.
This is much like being a newborn baby. As the baby begins to mature, he has to learn what he can and cannot do. He is held and loved and nurtured by his parents as he grows up. Our newly awakened spiritual side also needs to mature and grow up, and Jesus is the perfect parent. At some point in this development there will come a time when Jesus will remove from our natural body the curse that causes us to get sick, grow old and die. When this happens, we will actually begin to grow young again as we experience the redemption of our body. Here are some scriptures regarding this wonderful change:
For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself (Phil 3:20,21).
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body (Rom 8:18-23).
And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you (Rom 8:10, 11).
Dreams
When I was writing my book on chapter 1 of Ezekiel, The Four Living Creatures: Entering God’s Kingdom in the Age of Terror, I could see there, in a figure, that we have a spiritual and a natural side to our being, that God would awaken the spiritual side, separate it from the natural side (to be joined at a later time), and he would bring to maturity the spiritual side. Then he would remove the part of our natural body that contains the curse of sin and death that came upon all living things at the time of the fall of Adam and Eve. After this the two bodies will be joined together. I have been experiencing some of these things but as of this writing, I am not yet experiencing getting younger; however, I do not feel old in my body.
During this study, I had a dream that confirmed some things I was seeing in the Word regarding our two sides and the removal of the curse from our natural body.
In my dream I was looking at a coffee table that was somewhat similar to the one we have. The top of our coffee table is hinged to its base such that when we want to eat dinner there, we can pull up the top of the table and it raises up towards our laps and is a suitable height for eating. The coffee table in my dream was only different in that there were two table tops hinged together, one on top of the other at the same distance as our coffee table is from its base when in the raised position.
In the dream I was shown that on the underneath side of the lower level of the coffee table were the signatures of all my grandmothers, great grandmothers, great, great grandmothers, etc. back so many generations they must have gone back to Eve. As I stood there by the two table tops that were in the raised up position separated by their hinges, I looked down at my hands and saw that I was holding a piece of the coffee table that would have been half of one level, but when I looked back at the coffee table it looked complete. It did not look like anything was missing and yet I was holding half of one level in my hands.
The interpretation of this dream is not at all difficult. The two levels represent the two sides of my being—the natural and the spiritual sides. They have been separated but are still connected one to the other. The signatures of my grandmothers had to be showing my heredity going all the way back to Eve, and, of course, a lot of what I inherited is the curse of sin and death which is the part I was holding that had been removed. The sin part is what I’ve been overcoming in Christ through all my years of walking with the Lord. The death part is something I cannot do anything about. I can eat a perfect diet, exercise and do everything humanly possible to be healthy, but if Jesus does not remove the curse of death from my body, I will die. Obviously the dream reveals that he will remove it. I will still be here on earth and I will look like a human being, but I will no longer be subject to sickness and death.
A day or two after my dream, my husband also had a dream. In his dream, he was going to be operated on and the bottom half of his body was going to be removed. He was happy about having this surgery. In light of all I’ve been writing here, the interpretation is clear. Jesus is going to remove the curse of death from his body also. This is Jesus’ plan for all his faithful followers.
I have had many dreams in which I looked much younger than I am now. In addition to the dreams, there have been several times when, during the course of my everyday life, I have had a question in my mind about the effects of aging in my body that God would immediately answer with his assurance that this isn’t going to happen to me. For example, I was crouched down in our attic (where you can’t fully stand up) looking for something and had the thought, I wonder if I’m going to come to the place where I won’t be able to do this anymore because of weakness in my body. To my surprise, the Lord immediately reassured me that this was not going to happen. I’ll always be able to get around up there.
I hope the reader can see that this will only happen when we have purposed to pursue a relationship with Jesus Christ such that we have been willing to deny ourselves, take up our cross daily and follow him. This requires laying down our life completely for him.
One of the most damaging things that militates against people having this most wonderful of all experiences any person could ever have is the doctrine of dispensationalism. Dispensationalism came into the church during the first half of the nineteenth century and includes the teaching of the rapture of the church. The damage caused by this false teaching (that started with Darby and was included in the Schofield Reference Bible notes) will be devastating for Christians in two respects.
The first is that people who believe this are far less motivated to give up all and press into the fullness of Christ in order to have the level of maturity necessary for Jesus to remove the curse from their life. Why should they if they are going to be lifted off the earth at any minute before things get unbearable here on earth?
The second devastating effect of this doctrine will be the dismay and disbelief that will sweep over its adherents when it becomes obvious that there is no rapture of the church and Christians are suffering just like everybody else and perhaps even more. Sadly many Christians may lose their belief in all the Scriptures. After all, if the rapture teaching is false then maybe the rest of the Bible is just a fairy tale.
Manasseh and Ephraim in Scripture
Manasseh and Ephraim were the two sons of Joseph born to him in Egypt after he suffered and then rose to power under Pharaoh. Pharaoh had chosen a wife for Joseph whose name was Asenath. Asenath, in the Hebrew language, means “peril” and “misfortune.” Her father was Potipherah whose name means “that scatters abroad” or “demolishes the fat.” (Fat in Scripture speaks of what is good or desirable.) Her father, Potipherah, was the priest of a religious sect called “On.” “On” means “pain, force, and iniquity.”
As we examine the meanings of these names, we can see that every single one describes some component of the curse we all inherited from our parents:
Asenath
Peril – Exposure to the risk of harm or loss; exposure to the risk of being injured, destroyed, or lost; Danger
Misfortune – a distressing occurrence; an unhappy situation
Potipherah
That scatter abroad – because of sin we get isolated and lonely, separated from loved ones
Demolishes the fat – good things in our lives disappear or become damaged or die
On
Pain – We suffer pain from diseases, injuries and emotional abuse
Force – we can suffer from the brutality of others against us, war, being controlled, etc.
Iniquity – wickedness in our heart; we do sinful things even though we don’t want to
It seems strange that Joseph, one who is probably the strongest type of Christ in the whole Bible, one who never did anything wrong, would be married into a family of nothing but iniquity and curses. In a figure, this is not strange at all because it signifies God (Joseph) and his desire to have meaningful relationships with human beings, people who are all lost in sin and iniquity. (For more on Joseph and his similarities to Jesus Christ, please see the addendum at the end of this article.)
With this background and the revelation that metaphorically Joseph represents Jesus and Asenath represents the curse of sin, we can see their offspring, Manasseh and Ephraim, as being the natural body and natural mind of human beings who were given life by God (Joseph) but are born under the curse of inherited sin (Asenath). As brothers historically, Manasseh and Ephraim are often spoken of together.
When Jacob spoke a blessing over the boys shortly before he died, rather than placing his right hand on Manasseh the oldest son for the greater blessing and his left hand on Ephraim the youngest for the lesser blessing, he crossed his arms by putting his right hand on Ephraim the youngest and his left on Manasseh the oldest. Joseph tried to correct his nearly-blind father and change the position of his hands, but Jacob resisted by saying, “I know, my son, I know. He (Manasseh) also shall become a people, and he also shall be great; but truly his younger brother (Ephraim) shall be greater than he, and his descendants shall become a multitude of nations.”
When you look at the map of their territories, you can see that Manasseh’s inheritance was far larger than Ephraim’s. If Ephraim was to have such a massive number of descendants, why would his territory be so much smaller than Manasseh’s? The answer lies in understanding their types.
Manasseh, as symbolically the natural, physical body would be only the people on earth at any given time. This is because, of course, the natural body dies, is buried and returns to either dust or ashes. So, although his descendants symbolically are limited to being only the people currently on earth, they have big demands and require lots of space to handle all the needs of a physical body. There needs to be space for planting of grains, orchards and vineyards, and fields in which animals can graze. Physical bodies need houses in which to dwell, animals need barns, and so on.
Ephraim, whose name means fruitful, is a natural mind. This mind is necessary for understanding corporeally the physical aspects of the natural earth around him. Out of this mind proceed inventions that make man’s work easier and more pleasurable, great works of art, inspiring symphonies and music of many genres, grand architecture, great books and many other things that remain on earth after the physical body dies. In this way, the descendants of Ephraim, the natural mind, are incalculable because its knowledge never dies but is passed down and added to throughout the centuries to all succeeding generations. I don’t believe God is concerned over the number of descendants from each tribe, but his concern is what they represent in his plan and purpose for all humanity, and that can only be seen in a figure as is being revealed here.
As I mentioned earlier, Manasseh’s territory (the natural body) is divided with part of it in the Promised Land and part on the other side of Jordan. The part that remained on the other side outside of the Promised Land represents all the aspects of the curse we inherited from our parents all the way back to Adam and Eve. With this part removed we will rise up into health and freedom such as we have never known. We will not die, and old age as we know it will cease to exist. In fact, if we are past the optimum age for strength and vitality in our physical body, we will begin to grow younger.
Scriptures to Consider:
No longer will a nursing infant live but a few days,
or an old man fail to live out his years.
For the youth will die at a hundred years,
and he who fails to reach a hundred
will be considered accursed. (Isa 65:20)(Jehovah is the one) who forgives all your iniquities
and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the Pit
and crowns you with loving devotion and compassion,
who satisfies you with good things,
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.(Psa 103:3-5)And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying:
“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man,
and He will dwell with them.
They will be His people,
and God Himself will be with them as their God.
‘He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,’
and there will be no more death
or mourning or crying or pain,
for the former things have passed away.” (Rev 21:3,4)
This is what those who are faithful followers of Jesus have to look forward to—not in the next century, not in the next fifty years, but in our lifetime, because TEOTWAWKI (The End Of The World As We Know It) is here.
Addendum – Joseph
It has been said there are one hundred ways Joseph’s life foreshadows that of the Lord Jesus. A few of these are listed below:
Both were despised
Both began their ministries at age 30
Both went into Egypt
Both returned from Egypt
Both were arrested
Both were falsely accused
Both were shepherds
Both resisted temptation & sin
Both were greatly loved by their fathers
Both were separated from their fathers
Both had great power & authority
Both were sold
Both showed great love
Both helped preserve life
Both were found alive
Both were reunited with brethren
Both showed compassion towards those who harmed them
