The Daily Word of Righteousness

The Release of the Material Creation, #2

And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. (I Timothy 3:16)

Clothing God with a Material Form

The Kingdom of God is the clothing of God with a material form. The revealing of the invisible God in material form began with Christ, will continue with the resurrection of the overcomers, then with all Israel (all of God's elect), then with the nations of saved people, until finally the entire material creation is one glorious expression of God.

The only material form of God in the present hour is the Lord Jesus Christ. When the Kingdom of God has been completed, all the material creation will reveal God through Christ, to some extent. However, Christ always will reveal God most completely; and next to Jesus in perfection of the manifestation of God will be the Bride of the Lamb.

Some will reveal God thirtyfold, some sixtyfold, and some a hundredfold.

There was a tragic rebellion among the angelic lords of the heavenlies. Therefore God has created man to govern the works of God's hands. Man was created to rule, to have dominion over all things (Hebrews 2:6-8).

The Kingdom of God is neither solely spiritual nor solely material. The Kingdom of God is material in outward form while its life is the Life of Christ.

God does not consider man to be man apart from his material body. The Scriptures have little to say about the condition of man during the interval of time between his physical death and the resurrection of his body from the grave. There is much Christian tradition concerning how marvelous the spirit realm is and how happy the saints are who have died. But the Scriptures do not have much to say concerning the state of the dead. This is because man, unlike angelic beings, has a material form, and he is not "man" again until he is raised from the dead.

The human form was made subject to pain, loss of function, and decay. God's love for His children moved Him to subject our material form to corruption and decay. Were our body not subject to decay it would be necessary that God condemn us, as He has the fallen angels, without hope of reprieve (Romans 8:20). God did not subject us to pain and death because it gave Him pleasure to do so but in the hope that one day He may be able to restore to us our body—and Paradise on the earth.

God always deals with man with the physical body in mind. At the last day all men will be raised. People will be rewarded in their bodies and punished in their bodies. Because of the temporary nature of physical death it sometimes is referred to in the Scriptures as "sleep" (see Daniel 12:2; John 5:28,29).

To be continued.