Inheriting Sonship: The Blessing of Abraham and Anointing of Kings

© Paul Mortimer, 2019
Published by Being Changed Books
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, adapted, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the author.
The rights of Paul Mortimer to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-1-9160947-0-3 (Paperback)

Dedicated to Melanie, the chosen lady and her children whom I love in truth and not only I but all those who know the truth, and in memory of Mick and Irene Mortimer whose love never failed

Contents

Part 1: The Culture of Abraham the Hebrew

Part 2: Introduction To Ancient Hebrew Culture

Hebrew Understanding and Thinking

Hebrew Understanding and Family

Hebrew Understanding and Community

Hebrew Understanding and God

Part 3: Ancient Hebraic Cultural Understanding of the Fall and Redemption

Part 4: Ancient Hebraic Cultural Commentaries

(This section is only available in the published versions of this book. It contains ancient Hebraic cultural interpretations of John 14-17, Acts 1-5, Ephesians, Galatians, Colossians, Hebrews and First John with Youngs Literal Version of those passages)

Part 5: The Eternal Purpose of God – Inheriting Sonship

Son

A person bears the name the “son of God” by becoming the visible image or reflection of the invisible God by the personality of their life’s breathings or name completely filled by a perfect knowledge of the indwelling presence and love of the Holy Spirit of God’s fatherhood.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Alan Dickinson for the Father’s anointing and crown of sonship upon his own life that changed my name and unsealed the scroll of my destiny. Thanks also to Ian Clayton for the gateways of encounter and opening my eyes to the glories hidden in the Hebrew scriptures. Thanks to Peter Wigglesworth for his help and advice, to all of my friends and family for their love and support and to The Bay Church, Whitley Bay for hosting the presence of God by establishing a culture of love and honour. Thanks also to Nehemiah Gordon and Jeff Benner for their studies into the ancient origins of the Hebrew language and scriptures.

Please Note: Sons and Daughters

Within ancient Hebrew culture, daughters and sons were seen differently and had different roles within the community. The emphasis on sons was because a son established his father’s house, whereas a daughter was given away to establish the house of a different father. In our culture today we do not have that distinction and inheriting sonship applies to daughters just as much as sons. It is impossible to reconcile the cultural beliefs of the ancient Hebrews with modern culture and religious tradition but for those who are truly changed by the inspiring fatherhood of God from any age or culture, their behaviour will be the same. Scriptures are all from Young’s Literal Version unless otherwise indicated.

Foreword

I have had the privilege of knowing Paul for many years and I remember the day he walked into The Bay Church for the first time and immediately caught my attention. He looked quite unassuming, distant, not interested, and as the meeting went on I watched Paul’s spirit begin to change and come alive in a new way for him as the presence of God began to impact his heart. From that day to this, his journey has continued as he discovered what it is to be a Son of God and the impact that has made on his life has been incredible. Once you start a conversation with him you get to see the fire in his spirit, his intimacy with the Father and the revelation he has received in his heart. Although this is Paul’s first book that he has published, he did write another book which was a commentary on the Book of Revelation. He covered it from beginning to end and the insight he received was amazing. He has now gone on to write this book on sonship looking at Abraham as the Father of Fathers. He helps us to understand the culture in which sonship was set from a Hebrew perspective, right through to Jesus himself. There are many things I could say about this book, but one thing I would like to say is this, the depth of revelation that Paul has received that is contained within these pages should be embraced by all, ‘for anyone who has an ear to hear, let them hear what the Spirit says’.

This book had been an inspiration to me, it has given me insight into the culture and time when the Bible was written and has put into context the understanding of biblical sonship.

I highly recommend this book and suggest that when you read it you allow the Holy Spirit to take you on a journey of revelation, understanding and wisdom.

Very Reverend Alan Dickinson OSL, Senior Apostolic Leader: The Bay Church, Whitley Bay

Preface

In English, the word “educate” comes from the Latin “educere” which originally meant to bring up, rear or educate a child. Education is obviously a good thing, but it depends upon exactly who is doing the educating, where such teaching actually leads and what kind of child or son is raised or brought up. Because of the Fall, the natural fallen heart is under a veil. It can be educated but it cannot see, know or understand God unless of course God chooses to reveal himself. The word “revelation” comes from the Latin “revelare” which meant to uncover, disclose or unveil, “velare” being the Latin for veil. The teaching of natural man with natural words spoken with natural breath is education. Education is the head to head teaching of religion, it changes heads but cannot remove the veil that covers people’s hearts. The teaching of God with supernatural words spoken by the supernatural breath of God is revelation. Revelation is when God Himself does the teaching, heart to heart. He personally removes the veil and changes peoples hearts. John said in 1 John 2:27 (KJV) “But the anointing which ye have received of him abides in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teaches you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it has taught you, ye shall abide in him”. Inheriting Sonship is a series of three books that came by the revelation of relationship and not by the education of religion.

The Old Testament was written in Hebrew to those who were culturally Hebrews and ancient Hebrew culture was hugely different to our culture today. The Hebrews were a people for whom fatherhood and sonship were of primary importance. In Genesis, Abraham was described as a Hebrew and God chose Abraham out of his own father’s house for him and his heirs to receive from God a father’s blessing. It was this same blessing that was for all the families of the Earth, poured out on the Day of Pentecost. What was important to Abraham was important to God but with eternal significance of mind-boggling proportions. God chose, blessed and anointed men like Abraham and King David so that one day God Himself would be born as the man Jesus who would establish the blessing of God’s fatherhood for all – sons and daughters, the old and the young, the rich and the poor – indeed everyone. Just as wise miners prospecting for gold dig where gold can be found, an understanding of the cultural framework of the people about whom the Bible was originally written has a value of incalculable worth for those receiving within their hearts Jesus, the gold of God’s glory.

Within ancient Israel, Prophets, Priests and Kings were chosen by God to be anointed with fragrant anointing oil in the name of Yehovah God to give them overcoming power to accomplish His purposes not their own. The name of Yehovah was His behaviour, character or personality that was an expression of His eternal life’s breath or Holy Spirit. Prophets were anointed to speak the living word of God, priests were anointed to mediate and bring the blessing of God’s forgiveness and mercy, and Kings were anointed to bring the salvation of God’s overcoming victory. Those who were anointed did not have the power within themselves to accomplish God’s purpose. Unlike spoken words that die away in the ears of the listener, the fragrance of the anointing oil represented the authority of the blessing or grace of the continual presence and overcoming power of the sovereign word of the personality or almighty breath or Holy Spirit of Yehovah spoken over the anointed ones. The personality of God continually entered in to their own personality to enable them to achieve their sovereignly chosen purpose and destiny in God. In the same way, this book series “Inheriting Sonship” will enable you to receive the crown of anointing that reunites within your own life God’s Word with His Holy Spirit to empower you to overcome in life and to ultimately obtain the fulfilment of God’s amazing purpose for you. These books will show you that you can become a Son of God together with Jesus and through the presence of the life’s breath, or Holy Spirit of God’s fatherhood indwelling your heart, you can become the reflection and visible image of the invisible God just as His Is. Through that and together with Jesus, as a Son of God, you will be qualified to experience the First Resurrection and as such eternally inherit all things.

The first book in the series “Inheriting Sonship” is “Inheriting Sonship: The Blessing of Abraham and Anointing of Kings”. When Abraham the Hebrew told Terah his father that a god that Terah did not know told Abraham to leave his father’s house, to go to a far off land to be blessed and be a blessing, his father would have taken this as an unspeakable insult. It would have resulted in a cataclysmic eruption with a magnitude rivalling that of Krakatoa. It would have left his father in a state of bewildered frenzy and Abraham with ringing in his ears. This is because for the Hebrews, fatherhood and sonship were of primary importance and within their culture, a true son was the house of his father. This is because he was the image or reflection of his father, he bore witness or testimony to the blessing of his father’s name in the next generation of sons. This was that their hope of eternal life. They knew nothing of the relatively modern gospel of escaping hell and going to heaven when they died. The word sonship comes from the word “son” combined with the word forming element “-ship”. Sonship means the power, condition, action, quality, position, or mandate of a son that enables him to act as a representative and under the authority of his father. Someone bears the name the “Son of God” and occupies the office of “Sonship” when they become the visible image or reflection of the invisible God. This happens when they have a change of fathers, a change of heart, a change of life’s breath or spirit, and therefore a change of destiny. The personality of their life’s breathings or name is completely filled by a perfect knowledge of the indwelling presence and love of the eternal life’s breath, blessing or Holy Spirit of God’s fatherhood. This is the blessing of God as a Father upon Abraham, His adopted son. It was this blessing that was poured out upon the true Sons of God on the Day of Pentecost.

The second book in this series is “Revelation of Sonship: Judgement Day”. The biblical prophets spoke prophetically in Hebrew to those who were Hebrews. Their words were understood within the framework of their culture in which they spoke. The Book of Revelation was given prophetically by John and seen within the context of ancient Hebrew culture, the mysteries surrounding the eternal purposes of God and the Day of Judgement can be understood. Adam was the original Son of God. Although he was created from the dust of the Earth he held the glorious office of “Sonship” by his heart being personally filled by the life’s breath or Holy Spirit of God’s fatherhood. When Adam and Eve established the serpent’s lies as true within the breathings of their personality, they disobeyed God. They ate forbidden fruit and gasped out the life’s breath or Holy Spirit of God that indwelled their hearts. Being cast out of the paradise of Eden, they were no longer the “Sons of God“. They rejected a relationship with God and entered into a relationship with that which was good or evil, blessing or curse. They lost the title deeds of dominion upon the Earth and in the same way God lost the title deeds and His dominion within their hearts. They became “I am as god” puppet kings, subjects of the prince of the power of the air, the “I am as god” rebellious breath or evil spirit that is at work within the sons of disobedience.

The Book of Revelation describes in detail how the man who never sinned – Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of Abraham, Son of David, and Son of God opens the seals of the title deed of dominion and Sonship originally given to but then lost by Adam. What has been sown must one day be reaped and the full extent of the catastrophic sowing of Satan’s words of lying breath or demons into their hearts, the loss of their dominion upon the Earth, and the loss of God’s dominion within their hearts and was not apparent. Before Jesus returns with his Bride or corporate Son or City of God to re-establish the paradise of God’s Kingdom upon the Earth, the Son of Destruction or ultimate sinner must first be revealed. Just as there were two trees in the centre of the garden of Eden, there are two different kingdoms, two different generational seed lines, two different hearts or personalities, two different sources of inspiration, two different ways of behaving, but three different destinies. Each kingdom has its own “Ultimate Son”, the Son of Destruction (or Antichrist) and Jesus, the Son of God (or Christ). It is the revelation of this Abomination of Desolation or Antichrist and his destructive kingdom, the opening of the seven seals, and the confrontation between these two Sons, Son of Destruction and the Son of God and their respective kingdoms that constitutes the Day of Judgement.

The Book of Revelation is an unsealed book that is meant to be understood. It was given by God to Jesus Christ, to show his servants that which must soon take place. To those who do understand it and take to heart what the Book of Revelation actually means there is great blessing because people live what they really believe. Death is temporary, resurrection is permanent. The heart that people die with they will rise with. Behaviour in life will become inheritance in resurrection and this is the basis of God’s Final Judgement. Those who live in relationship with what is good or evil, blessing or curse will be judged by that relationship and this will be the basis of God’s Judgement of the Great White Throne at the End of Days. God has a different destiny for those that He has sovereignly chosen to become the person of His Son. The Sons of God are the ones who are counted worthy to experience the First Resurrection, but in order for them to enter into that destiny and therefore inherit Sonship, they must first overcome.

The third book in this series is “The Way of Sonship: Anointed to Overcome”. In light of ancient Hebrew culture, this book explains what it means to walk with Jesus, to bear the name the “Son of God” and to truly overcome. It is commonly taught within the religion of tradition that what matters to God is beliefs or faith in what is traditionally taught: that because of the work of redemption, God is no longer interested in how people behave. It is clear from Jesus’ letters to the seven churches in the Book of Revelation that this is simply not true. As far as Jesus is concerned, the way people behave is what they really believe. People live from their hearts and not from their heads, the hearts that people die with they will rise with and there is no repentance in resurrection. In His letters, Jesus repeatedly used the words “repent” and “overcome”. Jesus said in Revelation 21:6-7 “It has been done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End; to him who is thirsting, I will give of the fountain of the water of the life freely; he who is overcoming shall inherit all things, and I will be to him—a God, and he shall be to me—the Son”. Within ancient Hebrew culture, the things people both said and did with the breath of their lives were their words. The collection of their words as they walked on the pathway of life were their ways, and the collection of their ways and everything else about them constituted their name. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through Him. Those that are baptised or immersed into the name of Jesus will experience a change of Fathers and therefore a change of heart. They will bear the name the Sons of God by becoming the visible image or reflection of the invisible God just like Jesus Is. As the Father fills their hearts with His very own life’s breath or Holy Spirit, the Father will see His own image or reflection in the way the true Sons of God are inspired to behave.

The Sons of God will not be judged at the Judgement of the Great White Throne which follows the general resurrection at the End of Days. The wrong things that they do will not be openly declared at this Final Judgement for all the world to see but are a personal matter between Father and Son and dealt with by the corrective discipline of a loving Father, day by day as they walk through life together with Jesus. At the End of Days, the Sons of God will enter into the rest of God and experience the paradise of God’s fatherhood eternally dwelling within their hearts. Just as flames of fire have authority over anything flammable, the second death will have no authority over them because there will be nothing in their hearts worthy of God’s judgement fire. Their consciences will not condemn them because they did not live according to the flesh, but according to the life’s breath or Holy Spirit of God’s fatherhood. The outward sign or seal of their purity of heart was the worthy way in which the blessing of God had inspired them to live. Their behaviour in life will become their inheritance in resurrection. God was their behaviour in life, God will become their inheritance in resurrection. God will eternally reward these Sons of God with Himself. This is what it means to inherit Sonship.

These books came by inward revelation rather than outward observation. May the eyes of your heart be enlightened so that same revelation becomes yours and brings you blessings forever.
Paul Mortimer 2020

Prayer

Dear Jesus, you taught that behaviour in life will become inheritance in resurrection. I do not want to stand before the Great White Throne at the Final Judgement of Almighty God after the general resurrection at the End of Days and reap back from God the wrong things that I sowed during my lifetime. On that dreadful day I do not want to have all of my shame and secret sins exposed for everyone who ever knew me to see. Thank you that you embraced my identity as a self-centred sinner on the cross so that I do not have to reap such a bitter harvest. I turn away from my sins and believe that you died for me on the cross. Just as you gave your life for me, I now give you my life. Please now change the nature of my heart and fill me with the life’s breath or Holy Spirit of the paradise of God’s fatherhood. Then, just like you, I will be able to overcome and inherit Almighty God dwelling within my heart forever. Amen.

Introduction

Anyone lucky enough to be invited to dine with a king would normally be primed beforehand of certain cultural rules or manners of etiquette that should be followed. For example, no one should sit until the king sits or pick up their knife and fork and start eating until the king does. People could also be advised to eat as quickly as possible because as soon as the king stops eating, everyone else should do the same. Anyone eating after the king has stopped could be considered uncultured or rude or just plain ignorant. Had Abraham somehow been invited to dine with a modern king, leaving aside the obvious difficulties in language, he would have needed an extensive primer in good table manners commonly taught to small children. Things like how to use a knife and fork, not over-filling one’s mouth, not speaking with one’s mouth full and not being greedy by piling up one’s plate with food. Abraham certainly would have had good manners within his own culture, but his own cultural good manners would not have primed or prepared him culturally to dine with a king. If a modern king had somehow been invited to dine with King Henry VIII, who died in 1547, he would have found King Henry’s cultural etiquette and eating habits very different from his. The various gastric upsets which followed the meal, which were considered polite and even necessary to indicate an enjoyable meal, would to the king have been considered extremely rude. Such rude behaviour within the context of the Old Testament in Hebrew would have been described as “a stink in the nostrils” because within ancient culture, the people actually thought with their senses. Of course, “a stink” would have been literally true in the case of King Henry because regular washing and bodily cleanliness was not so much a part of his culture. By our standards today, King Henry was literally “a stink”. We can actually use the expression “to cause a stink” in our culture, and those who continue to eat after the king has finished eating were in effect doing exactly that.

In Genesis 43, when Joseph was the Vizier of Egypt and entertained his brothers for a meal, he ate separately because it states that it was an  abomination or stink for the Egyptians to eat with the Hebrews. One wonders what kind of disgusting table manners the Hebrews followed that the Egyptians found so offensive. Maybe they didn’t know how to use a knife and fork? Maybe they used their fingers to eat or licked their plates clean, talked with their mouths full or even took food from other people’s plates? Whatever the reason was, it is clear that the culture of Abraham who was born more than four thousand years ago, was different to our culture today. Abraham had a very different understanding of so many of the things of God that we think we understand, but we don’t because we don’t think the way he thought. The art of communication is being understood and it is often said when people don’t understand that they grasp “the wrong end of the stick”.

Instead of looking back through the pages of history with the distorted lenses of our modern culture and the prescribed spectacles of orthodox religious tradition, Inheriting Sonship will enable you to stand with Abraham and in the light of his culture look forward in clear sight to see and clearly understand the gospel or good news of God the way he saw it. In our modern church culture today we have a very clear understanding of what we think the gospel actually is – that Jesus died for our sins on the cross, according to the scriptures, so we can escape the fires of hell and go to heaven when we die. This was not Abraham’s good news. The ancient Hebrews had no such world view and for them there was no hell. Abraham did not go to heaven when he died, instead he was gathered to his people by resting in the grave. Abraham had to wait for Jesus his son and heir to rise from the dead before he could join him in heaven. For Abraham during his lifetime, escaping hell was an unknown. What mattered to him was his sonship and the life-changing fatherhood of God. From Abraham’s perspective, the words that Jesus spoke to Nicodemus in John 3:16 about being saved and not perishing would have been understood in a completely different way to what we understand today. When Nicodemus heard these words he was not thinking about being saved after death from hell. He knew nothing about our modern concept of hell, he was a Pharisee who believed in resurrection and who knew a lot about those who were judged, condemned and perished in life. For the Hebrews salvation was being healed, delivered and being saved from the oppressive hand of their enemies. Death was seen as an enemy, described by Peter in Acts 2 as pain or sorrow which was conquered when Jesus rose from the dead. From an ancient Hebraic cultural perspective, escaping the fires of judgement was a result of, and obviously a very welcome by-product of, being inspired by God’s fatherhood to behave like and bear the name of a living “Son of God” instead of behaving like a dead “son of Man”. This is God’s eternal purpose and from Abraham’s perspective, our modern gospel of just going to heaven is somewhat “off beam”. Whilst this is wonderfully true, God has something much more glorious for his sons than that. Someone somewhere missed the point and got the wrong end of the stick. In fact many people have got the wrong end of many sticks and some have firmly grasped the right end of the wrong stick entirely and end up using those sticks to enthusiastically correct anyone who doesn’t heartily agree with their own particular dogma, creed or religious philosophy. This results in a gospel that from Abraham’s perspective is something completely different. For many there will one day be trouble at the proverbial mill because the cross beam has truly gone out askew on the theological treadle. Jesus died on the cross to change hearts and therefore people’s character or name and destiny to be his, not to reform or even perfect belief systems and head knowledge which could end up being in reality a theoretical red herring.

Within the framework of ancient Hebrew culture, the call of Abraham out of his father’s house in Genesis 12 was completely unprecedented and culturally impossible. Before Abraham was born, the body of Terah his father was Abraham’s house, dwelling or home and Abraham as Terah’s seed or son was given life by Abraham’s mother. Once he was born, Abraham’s father gave Abraham provision, protection and purpose. Terah was Abraham’s first-love and strength, and the strength of Terah was the moon god Ur-Nannu, the tutelary or protective deity of Ur of the Chaldeans. In turn, Abraham and his brothers were Terah’s house and inheritance and Terah’s hope of a witness or seed within the next generation of sons. For Abraham to tell his father that a god his father did not know appeared to him, and told him to literally walk out on Terah, to be blessed and be a blessing in a far off land, would have been seen as an unspeakable insult causing a cataclysmic eruption with a magnitude rivalling that of Krakatoa, leaving Terah in a state of bewildered frenzy and Abraham with ringing in his ears. It was only after his son Haran died in the face of his father in Ur that Terah decided to follow Abraham in his call to journey to the land of promise. However, Terah didn’t get very far and decided to settle in Charan whose tutelary deity was also Terah’s god. Abraham had to wait for his father to die before he could finally leave and enter the land of promise. In Genesis Abraham is described as a Hebrew. The word used was related to the word Eber in Hebrew which means to cross over, similar to the meaning of the word “ecclesia” in Greek. Abraham was chosen by God out of his own father’s house, culture and religious tradition of his day to cross over into the land promised to him by God. God promised that he would be blessed and be a blessing. This was a father’s blessing or gifting and Abraham experienced and established for himself and his true sons what was in effect the gift of God’s fatherhood, God’s provision, protection, purpose and presence in his own life and house, not when he was dead. Within ancient Hebrew culture, sons derived their character, behaviour and name from their fathers, and for Abraham the fatherhood of God changed his behaviour and therefore his name from “son of Man” to a “son of God”. An understanding of ancient Hebrew culture can help us to see how this name-changing blessing of God’s fatherhood enabled God to become Abraham’s first-love and for Abraham to prosper, succeed and inherit sonship when the Israelites, who were meant to be his sons failed. It also helps us understand what God meant when he promised to Abraham that “all the families of the earth will be blessed through you”.

Adam was originally created as the image and shadow of the invisible God, to reflect the image or likeness of God into the natural world by being filled with God’s very own life’s breath or Holy Spirit (in Hebrew literally the breath of the Holy One). Unfortunately, Adam chose to reject his destiny as the son of God by eating fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He gasped out the breath of God’s life and was left with only his natural breath that could not sustain him forever. Adam fathered this mortality into his fallen sons who were in the house or dwelling place of his body when he sinned. God made covenants with both Abraham and King David to restore the blessing of the kingdom of God’s indwelling presence or Holy Spirit within the hearts of the sons of Adam and to crown them with his anointing. Then God himself came as the man Jesus who as the son of Abraham and son of David received these promises from God who remembered the promises made to Jesus’ fathers when he rose Jesus their son and the heir of these promises from the dead. The blessing of Abraham and the anointing of King David were a foreshadowing of the redemption and restoration of Adam’s lost kingdom and crown that Jesus received from God and poured out at Pentecost. Just as natural words are spoken with the power or strength of natural breath and they work together as one to achieve the purpose for which they are spoken, through the power of Pentecost, God again spoke his word with the almighty power of his divine breath (or Holy Spirit) into the hearts of his sons to achieve his original purpose of sonship, and when God’s word “son of God” is reunited with the breath of God that originally spoke those words, the result is blessing, revival and healing power of the resurrection.

[Go to Part 1]