The Daily Word of Righteousness

The New Creation and the Resurrection, #12

Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" (John 11:25,26 NIV)

There is a world of difference between the death of a son of Adam, and the shedding of his incompatible fleshly body by a life-giving spirit, a son of the resurrection. It is possible to attain the early resurrection from among the dead and to experience not death but an entrance into life as this imprisoning body is cast aside as the chain which it is. Our corrupt mortality no longer is of use to us or to the Holy Spirit until God raises it and clothes it with immortality.

One of the torments of the present age is that the godly are compelled to dwell in an environment occupied largely by those who are in rebellion against God, while the ungodly are plagued by the presence of the saints.

After they die, the righteous pass into a realm peopled with those of like desires, while individuals who love the world and Satan and who are unwilling to give to the Lord control over their life are confined to areas where they cannot harm others who have chosen to serve God. This is true, as we understand it, whether or not the individual makes a profession of faith in Christ.

He who lives and believes in Jesus will never die. How wonderful to walk out of the world in victory, coming into a richer, fuller, Presence of God in Christ, retaining our spiritual consciousness, our power, our life, with avenues of fellowship and service opening up before us. There is much profit in serving the Lord.

When Jesus returns, those who have attained the resurrection will return with Him. The remainder of the dead, those who have not been changed from Adam to Christ in nature, will not receive back their bodies until the thousand years have been completed (Revelation 20:5).

On the earth there will be many nations of flesh and blood people. Some of these will be destroyed in the fury of the Battle of Armageddon. Others will be saved and given to Christ and His saints as their inheritance.

The spirits of the people slain in the Battle of Armageddon will pass into the spirit world to await the final judgment.

The nations of the saved, which will still consist of flesh and blood people, the sons of Adam, will be governed by sons of the resurrection, now in their bodies of glory and power. Those nations, and especially the flesh and blood nation of Israel, will have the opportunity to partake of the Divine Life that is in the saints, to begin the transition from adamic life to Christ Life.

It will be given to the nations of the saved to enter eternal life, into the Kingdom of God, into what has been prepared for mankind from the creation of the world.

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: (Matthew 25:34)

To be continued.