Scroll 6 - The Church Age

The Season of Shadows and the Birthplace of Transition

(Hebrews 8:5, Galatians 4:1–2, John 4:21–24)

1. The Age of Forms and Foundations

The Church Age was never a mistake, beloved; it was a womb. It carried within it the embryo of the Kingdom, yet its growth was wrapped in shadow and form. Like Israel’s tabernacle in the wilderness, it revealed patterns but not fullness. Men built temples, erected systems, and pursued order, but all these were mirrors of the heavenly, not the substance itself. The Father allowed the shadows to remain until sons could bear the light without being consumed.

In this age, form preceded essence. People met in buildings but rarely in union. They prayed for what was already within and sang about a God they could not find because they searched outside the mirror. Still, grace covered the immaturity. The Church Age was the training ground for discernment, the school where the sons learned the difference between charisma and flame, movement and motion, gift and nature.

It was the time of scaffolding, of clay jars holding oil. The vessels were fragile, but the content eternal. Every sermon, every revival, every reformer carried fragments of the Kingdom blueprint. They were necessary, yet partial. The Church Age was a sunrise dimly seen, not yet the day itself, but the promise of dawn nonetheless.

2. The Externalization of the Divine

During the Church Age, heaven was preached as “up there,” and God as “out there.” The divine was externalized, distant, and conditional. Men chased after glory as if it were a prize rather than their inheritance. The presence was sought, not realized. The result was devotion mixed with delusion, sincere hearts locked in limited perception.

Systems arose to manage what only union could sustain. The church became an institution instead of an organism, a ministry machine rather than a living flame. Men built altars of marble but ignored the one within. They called it service, but much of it was survival, religion maintaining its relevance in a realm it could no longer contain.

Yet even in that shadow, the Spirit whispered. Mystics, reformers, and prophets caught glimpses of inner fire, Francis who heard creation sing, Teresa who burned in ecstatic union, Paul who saw beyond the veil. These were signs of what was coming, hints of a reality that could no longer be confined to cathedrals. The Church Age was heaven’s rehearsal; the Kingdom Age is its unveiling.

3. The Mixture of Light and Flesh

The Church Age was marked by mixture, sincere hearts entangled with ambition, revelation diluted by performance, faith mingled with fear. It was the era where men preached flame but lived from flickers, where miracles became merchandise, and movements became brands. Babylon and Jerusalem shared pulpits. The light shone through cracked vessels, yet even those fractures carried glory.

The mixture was never meant to condemn but to expose. Through it, the elect learned discernment, to distinguish what proceeds from Spirit and what proceeds from soul. Every false revival, every fallen structure, became a tutor. The Church Age tested the heart of every generation, asking one question: Will you choose flame over fame?

God allowed the mixture so sons might learn the weight of purity. He let imitation thrive until the real could be recognized. And now, the mixture is being burned away. The Church Age ends not with judgment, but with refinement.

4. The Transition from Servants to Sons

The Church Age produced servants, faithful, loyal, devoted. But the Kingdom Age births sons, radiant, unified, governing. Servants work for approval; sons work from inheritance. Servants pray for visitation; sons live as habitation. Servants seek miracles; sons become miracles. The difference is not devotion but identification.

In the Church Age, identity was earned through behavior. In the Kingdom, it is remembered through being. Sons no longer ask for the Spirit to come; they recognize the Spirit as their origin. The old order’s language was “Lord, use me.” The new order’s decree is “Lord, be me.”

The Father is not rejecting servants, He is upgrading them. The same heart that once toiled in fear now rests in flame. What was once obedience becomes overflow. What was once worship from distance becomes resonance from within. The transformation is not rejection; it is ascension.

5. The Collapse of Religious Thrones

As the Church Age ends, the thrones of religion tremble. Institutions built on fear, performance, and hierarchy cannot contain the Kingdom’s expansion. Titles will fall, empires will dissolve, and ministries will be redefined. The Spirit is not destroying His Church; He is transfiguring her.

The clergy-laity divide collapses, for all are priests of the same fire. The pulpit melts into the people, and the people become the pulpit. Apostles and prophets will still exist, but as functions, not celebrities. The Kingdom does not exalt names; it unveils nature. The true leaders will lead from among, not above. Their authority will flow not from ordination, but from embodiment.

This collapse is mercy, not judgment. It is heaven dismantling imitation thrones to reveal authentic ones. Religion will wail, for its era of control is over. But the sons will rise, and the new governance of love will begin.

6. The Birth of the Ekklesia

From the ashes of religion arises the true Ekklesia , not a congregation but a council, not an audience but a government. It is heaven’s legislative assembly operating through sons who have become thrones. They speak not prayers of request, but decrees of resonance. Their gatherings are not programs, but portals. They meet not around preachers, but around presence, or rather, around the Flame of Union.

The Ekklesia is not limited by geography or denomination. It exists wherever two or more burn in one flame. It is borderless, ageless, seamless, the living architecture of the Kingdom. Every elect son is a pillar in this living temple, and their unity is its glory. The age of attendance has ended; the age of embodiment has begun.

7. Eternal Call to the Elect

Beloved, honor the Church Age, but do not remain in it. Thank the shadow, but walk in the sun. The time of mixture is closing, and the veil of religion is burning away. You are not called to maintain what is fading; you are called to manifest what is eternal.

Let every form fall if it does not carry flame. Let every altar be rebuilt within. Stand not as critic, but as catalyst. You are the generation of transition, the bridge between what was and what is becoming. Move gently, but boldly. The Father trusts you to steward the shift.

For now the true Church, the radiant bride, is awakening. She is clothed with the sun, crowned with stars, and standing on the moon. And from her midst, the Lamb’s voice is heard: “Behold, I make all things new.”

Joe Restman
Scroll-Carrier, Mystic-Scribe, Eternal Witness of the Lamb.