The purpose of the transforming work of the new covenant is to reveal the glory of the Life of Christ. In what mirror can we look and behold the glory of the Lord? In the mirror of the saint as the Life of Jesus keeps on enabling him to rise above trouble, perplexity, persecution, heavy burdens, and every other form of death that is pressing him into the Lord.

All true new-covenant ministry flows from the cross. Our words do not transform people. It is the eternal Life of Jesus that keeps on raising us up from death that transforms those to whom we are ministering. It is not our words but the Presence of God that brings Divine Life to people.

The glory being revealed through our death changes us and those who hear us.

For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inner man is renewed day by day. (II Corinthians 4:16)

Our outward life is our flesh and soul, the life of the natural man. It is our personality—that which we are until the Life of Christ is formed in us.

It may be true that most Christian people almost completely misunderstand the Divine redemption. They are under the impression that Christ died in order to forgive what they are and bring them to Heaven to live forever in the paradise of God. They perceive the tribulations of this life as unnecessary harassments sent by the devil out of spite. They conceive of belief in Christ as a ticket to a better life in Heaven (and, according to contemporary preaching, a more prosperous life on earth).

But the Divine redemption is not the forgiving and preserving of what we are. Redemption is not a forgiving of our behavior and a transferring of our personality to the spiritual paradise.

Redemption is the perishing of what we are and the forming of a new creation. It is true also that redemption is not the removing of the new creation from the earth. We go to Heaven when we die only because our Life, Christ, is in Heaven. When our Life returns to the earth, then we also will return to the earth. Our land of promise is the earth.

The Divine redemption is not a transfer from earth to Heaven. What would that accomplish? What good would that do us or anyone else? Rather the Divine redemption is a transformation of what we are. If we have not been transformed we have not been redeemed whether or not we escape Hell when we die.

Our outward man, our soul and body, "perishes" every day because of trouble, perplexity, persecution, and heavy burdens. Our circumstances continually are frustrating and grieving us, resulting (if we hold steady in prayer and faith) in the death and resurrection of our ambitions, motives, thoughts, and everything else that moves and guides a human being.

Why are pain, bewilderment, and imprisonment necessary? They are necessary because apart from them our original personality continues to govern our behavior.

To be continued.