THE FIRST RESURRECTION
“And
I saw thrones, and they sat upon them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for
the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image,
neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they
lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years…this is the first resurrection” (Rev. 20:4-5).
Of
all the dreams the heart of man has ever entertained, none has been more
desirable, precious, and worthy of attainment, regardless of the cost, than the
dream of immortality. Let’s be honest;
if there was an elixir that was developed guaranteed to give immortality to our
physical bodies, we would all buy it and drink it! Kings and emperors who have conquered the
world would gladly have exchanged the power, glory, and wealth of their
kingdoms for immortality. But all the
wealth of all the nations that lay prostrate before their victorious armaments,
even combined with all the riches amassed in their vast treasure houses, could
not buy them so much as one single second’s extension of time.
“It
is appointed unto man once to die,” say the Word of God. And, short of the coming into the world of
Jesus Christ, nothing would ever have changed that! It is as inevitable as God Himself can make
it. Millionaires may offer their doctors
vast fortunes to prolong their lives a month…a
day…at least an hour…or even a few minutes.
From time to time I have seen the advertisement of a new drug which is
touted as a major breakthrough
in the fight against some dread disease, which is exceedingly expensive,
costing thousands of dollars per treatment, only to discover that in the
studies that were done it prolonged the victim’s life by a mere three or four months. But there comes a time when all the money in
the world cannot stay the hand of death.
The word “death” has many meanings to many people. And it also has various applications and
significances in the scriptures. To some
it means the final and futile end of all their efforts — the leaving behind of
all that they have striven for all their lives.
There were no pockets in the ancient burial shroud, for those departing
this world take with them only what they have in their hearts. All other treasures — no matter how valuable,
or what the cost to the individual
accumulating them — are left behind.
Then, too, there is the sorrow of departing with loved ones. This is death’s most devastating blow — the
absence of someone we love so dearly.
And, if this were the end, we would be most miserable indeed.
BUT IT DOES NOT END THERE!
The
resurrection from the dead is indeed
a thing which seems incredible to the mind of the natural man. Yet almost two millenniums ago Jesus of
Nazareth proclaimed by the Spirit of God these startling words: “I am the
resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet
shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die” (Jn. 11:25-26). This, of course, is the greatest thing
anybody could ever know and this assurance centers in Jesus Christ and His
resurrection. This is the hope and the
only hope of all mankind! Until Christ
came into the world men had no hope. We
do not realize that today. We think that
people have always had hope. But that is
not so! Except for those few people who
clung to the promises of God given in the Old Testament, most of the world,
more than 99.9 percent of them, dwelt in
absolute hopelessness. There was no
substantial promise; there was no concrete evidence; there was no man in any
civilization, culture, or religion that had ever conquered death or risen from
the grave; there was nothing but the vain wish which was so often the father of the
thought that perhaps people who died lived still in another world, or should
come back reincarnated in another body, and thus live again. Everywhere, people watched with great despair
as their loved ones were lowered into the grave. “If a man die, shall he live again?” was the
burning question left unanswered. There
were nothing but shadowy unsubstantial wishes
that filled the hearts of men. And in
the night watches, those cold doubts came swirling into the heart and mind,
chilling the soul; thoughts that came right out of the sepulcher and the tomb.
But
then…Jesus came and all was changed!
Life and immortality were brought to light by Christ and His
resurrection from the dead. The dark
door of death was broken down, and One stepped back into this world from that
dread realm. This was no vain
speculation; this was a CERTAINTY!
Hundreds of credible witnesses saw Him, talked with Him, touched Him,
held Him. This was no mere argument but
a resurrected Christ! This was nothing
like the pale hopes of the Egyptians
who thought that their people would come back and through some transmigration
of the soul would go into one sort of animal after another until finally they
made it back into human form again. This was nothing like the foolish hopes of
the Eastern religions and so-called Metaphysics
who trusted in the reincarnation of their souls into mortal human bodies again
and again throughout long ages, to bring them ultimately to perfection and oneness
with God. Instead of reincarnation the
Bible teaches resurrection. What a
difference! This was nothing like the
early Greeks described by Homer in the Odyssey, where Odysseus and Achilles go into the nether world and see those miserable
shades, the ghosts of people who had died.
What a terrible picture they paint, where all alike are miserable. Ghosts flit aimlessly about, some more
tormented than the rest, but none finding joy or satisfaction, until Achilles says, “I would rather be a poor paid servant in
a poor man’s house and be above the ground than be king of kings among the
dead.”
Jesus
Christ came and offered no vain speculation or philosophical argument, but
offered His living body as the One that had risen from the dead. Christ arose from the dead and that was the
greatest moment in the history of this world.
He declared, “Because I live, ye shall live also” (Jn. 14:19). What a wonderful thing that is, to live
forevermore! To live forevermore in a
new body fashioned like unto His glorious
body with no more pain, no more aches, no more arthritis, no more back
trouble, no more diabetes, no more clogged arteries, no more gout, no more
cancer, no more weakness, ageing, nor death!
All of that is gone. We shall
have a new body, fashioned after His own body of glory and power, a body of
immortality and incorruption, where the sting and the dark victory of death
shall be forever abolished. Aren’t you
glad!
Therefore
the Spirit saith, “We look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall
change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body,
according to the working whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself” (Phil. 3:20-21). Here we have the top of the ladder, reaching
into the celestial realm — the blessed end to which Christ and life in Him is
to lead. Beloved brethren! Let us lay aside all presumption and purge
ourselves of every form of deception. I
admonish you this day — do not allow any man to deceive you into believing that
he can in some way minister immortality into your mortal body — unless he
himself dwells in an immortal body! Some
have professed to be able to baptize people into immortality, while others have
said, “Come and follow me, grab onto my coattail, and I will lead you into life
and immortality!” Some have held
seminars to teach people how to put on immortality, some have attempted to
confess or meditate their way into life, while others have foolishly hoped to
live forever by eating health food. I
can tell you without any fear of contradiction that all the fruitarians and
vegetarians and food faddists of all previous generations are now lying silent
in their graves along with all who subscribed to any other “method” or
“technique” devised by man for putting on immortality. Jesus was the first man to break the
death-barrier and He did not do so by employing any of the methods listed
above! Some in our day have professed to
have already put on immortality, to have even now passed over the grave; but it
should be obvious to any thinking mind that the wrinkles in their skin, the
gray in their hair, the redness in their tired eyes, the daily need for food,
water, and sleep, the constant need for air, and the unchecked ageing of their
bodies give the lie to their confession.
I remember sitting in one man’s
living room who said that he was already immortal and could not die, and,
furthermore he recounted thrilling stories about him and his wife traveling
about from place to place caught up by the Spirit as was Phillip in the book of
Acts. Yet as I sat before him he was unable to rise from his chair because of
intense pain he was suffering, which he attributed to demons that were
attacking him because of his stand for truth.
I passed his way again a couple years later only to discover that he had
died and was now both dead and buried.
The
word cannot be broken: “For our conversation is in heaven, from whence we look for the
Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: WHO SHALL CANGE OUR VILE BODY…” How can corruption impart
incorruption? How can any man lift
either himself or others out of the pit of corruption by his own corruptible
boot straps? “To him that overcometh
will I give to eat of the TREE OF LIFE
WHICH IS IN THE MIDST OF THE PARADISE OF GOD,” saith the Lord. Let me present this Tree of Life: Christ,
risen, glorified, and exalted above all heavens! HE is the tree of life in the paradise of the kingdom of heaven on
earth! It is there in that paradise of
God where it is blessedly true that He “hath raised us up together, and made us
sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6). Oh, yes, we are seated together with Him in the heavens of the Spirit of
the Lord!
Once
we see that in that kingdom we have been translated
into we are living and walking in
heaven, understanding will soon dawn of what the apostle means when he says
that “our conversation is in heaven.”
The word “conversation” literally means “manner of life” or
“lifestyle.” The living out of our life
is a heavenly reality! We dwell in a
heavenly dimension! Having first placed
us “in heaven” the apostle then continues, “From whence we look for
the Saviour.” He is not saying that the
Saviour is coming from heaven, and when He comes He will change our vile body. Oh, no!
Heaven in the apostle’s statement is not connected to Christ’s coming,
it is connected with OUR LOOKING. “For our conversation is in heaven, from whence we look…” Can you not see the mystery? IT IS OUT OF OUR HEAVENLY LIFE IN CHRIST THAT WE ARE LOOKNG FOR THE SAVIOUR
TO CHANGE OUR VILE BODY! It has nothing
to do with Christ “coming” to change us.
It has everything to do with our heavenly expectation, that just as we
are seated with Christ in the heavens — so we are looking for Him to also change our vile body, that it may be fashioned
like unto His glorious body.” This
is not merely revelation, to be left for the future; for the full development
of our life in sonship we must seek to enter into and appropriate it. We
do this as we learn to triumph over death on every level. We do it
as we learn to look to Christ as the Lord of our body, claiming its entire
consecration, securing even here and now victory over the terrible dominion sin
has had in the body. “Sin, when it is
finished, bringeth forth death.” It did
so in Adam and
Eve, and it will also do so in us. We
appropriate His life for our whole man as we allow the powers of the coming age
to possess us, to lift us up into a life in the heavenly places, to enlarge our
hearts and our views, to anticipate, even here and now, the things which have never entered into the
heart of man to conceive.
Let
us now see how it is that “in Christ” all shall be made alive. The verse under consideration is
found in I Corinthians 15:22, and this entire chapter deals with resurrection. The word resurrection is so inadequate to
express the true thought or idea that the Holy Spirit is conveying to us. The common conception of this word carries
with it the idea of opening all the graves in the world and the arising out of them of the physical
bodies of those who have died. But since death is something more than dead
bodies, you can be assured, dear ones, that resurrection is something far
beyond bringing bodies out of tombs. To
have a false or limited view of the resurrection is to have a false and limited
view of God’s work throughout the ages until now. If our view of the resurrection is dwarfed,
then our whole view of God’s plan is dwarfed.
“For
as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” So we read that in Christ ALL SHALL BE
MADE ALIVE. The contrast is not between corpses and
walking bodies, but between the dying process and the life process in God. The Greek text
actually reads, “As in Adam
all are dying, so in the Christ shall all be made alive.” The terms “are dying” and “shall be made
alive” are in the incomplete tense in
the original, which denotes an action in progress. The long drawn out activity of death in
dragging men down to sin, sorrow, death, and the grave is put in contrast with
the endless activity of life imparting holiness, power, incorruption, and
glory. Both are a process! All who endured the first shall enjoy the
second. Here is a message for mankind which
should lift it above its misery! The
process of His life, and hence, the process of resurrection has already
commenced with us. It began the moment
we were first quickened by Him and will consummate when we have fully grown up
into Him in all things! Truly, “He hath quickened us together with
Christ…and hath raised us up” so that
“If ye then be risen with Christ,
seek those things which are above” (Eph. 2:5-6; Col.
3:1). We all know we have been quickened
and raised up and made to sit with Him in heavenly places, but we also know
that we still have a corruptible, mortal body.
The work of resurrection has therefore begun in a part of our being, and
is being progressively worked out until our total transformation is
complete. Yes, it is a process!
To
be “made alive” is more than some instantaneous event to take place some time in
the distant future. “Made alive” is not
a blasting open of graves and the coming forth of the bodies that have been
buried in them. “Made alive” does not
point to some event when people will be soaring off into the heavens. When Jesus stood before the tomb of Lazarus,
He rebuked Martha for looking for some manner of event in the far distant
future, for she had said, “I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day.” Jesus told her that the RESURRECTION AND THE
LIFE WAS STANDING THERE BEFORE THEM. “I AM the resurrection and the life.” Oh, saints of God, do you not see that
the eternal Father within the Christ was and is the resurrection? “I live by the Father,” Jesus declared. The resurrection was not some thing that happened to Jesus, not some event of which He was a partaker, not
some day marked by the calendar. The resurrection was and is A MAN! “I AM!” — there it is! “I AM the resurrection and the life.” To possess the Man, to put on the Man, to
come into union with the Man, to grow into the Man is to have the resurrection,
for the Man IS the resurrection. “In Christ shall all be made alive.”
This
is what Paul is
speaking of in the fifteenth chapter of I Corinthians. He bases his argument on the fact of whether
or not the Christ has risen from the dead.
In verse sixteen we read from the Diaglott, “For if dead persons are not
raised up, NEITHER HAS CHRIST BEEN RAISED.”
Please notice, and most other translations bear this out, Paul says, “If dead
persons are not (present tense) raised up…” He did
not say, “If dead persons will not be (future tense) raised
up…” He placed it in the present, that if the dead are
not raised up, then the CHRIST IS NOT RAISED. If Jesus the Christ is the only one so far raised from the dead, He
is most assuredly having a lonely time of it, and He too is looking with wistful eyes into the
unknown future, waiting for the graves to open.
But there is a note of triumph in Paul’s
epistle, and that epistle comes right out of Paul’s own personal experience, when he
proclaims in verse twenty, “BUT NOW IS CHRIST RISEN FROM THE DEAD, and become
the firstfruits of THEM THAT SLEPT.” Ah,
the word “sleep” is in the past tense, them that SLEPT. This can but mean that they are not sleeping
now, and Christ has already led forth from the dominion of death an unknown
host who are WITH HIM IN THE LIFE OF THE RESURRECTION! “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above.”
Truly
the resurrection is not a future hope —
it is a present reality. As those in Adam “are dying” so in
Christ men “are being made alive.” Men do not die in one day, but they “are
dying” and one day the process is complete and the body goes to the
cemetery. So in Christ men “are being
made alive” and they are not made alive in the totality of being in one single
day or in one spiritual experience.
Receiving of His life we find it to be a RESURRECTION LIFE. The word “resurrection” is from the Greek
word anastasis meaning — a standing or
rising up. It denotes much more than our
English word resurrection which we term to mean a restoring to life again. The Greek word means the WHOLE PROCESS OF
ADVANCING AND RISING UP UNTIL THE HIGHEST POSSIBLE REALM IS REACHED, and our
goal is nothing short of full conformation into the image of God that, when He
shall appear, we shall be like Him. Merely
coming back to life, to this miserable life we have known in corruption, is not
enough! We want to know Him in the power
of HIS RESURRECTION! Resurrection is the
process of standing up and advancing, it is arising from the
dust and the low realm of the earthy, to bear the image of the heavenly. Resurrection is the process of having our
life lifted up from the earth, to be raised in spirit, soul, and body into the heavenlies, joined in one in the fullness of the Spirit of
God. Our alienation and separation from
God, with all the dreadful attending sorrows, are already beginning to end in
this life as through Christ WE ARE MADE ALIVE!
The
hope of all the glory to come is the Christ that is in His body on earth
now. The hope of the resurrection to
come is that He is now our resurrection and our life! The Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from
the dead dwells in us now. Does this not
make us the body in which Jesus Christ is walking today? No longer the carpenter of Nazareth,
or the teacher by the shores of Galilee,
having God in Him, but now in this 21st century, He is living on
earth not only in one, but in a
multitude of bodies. “Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?” Jesus said, “The Father and I will come and make our abode with you.” Jesus Christ lives in every member of His
body! That is the mystery, that with our
limitations, our frustrations, our weaknesses, with the marks of the Fall still
upon us it is said of us, “Greater is He that is in you, than He that is in the
world.” We are members of His body, of
His flesh and of His bones. One of these
days, as He becomes more and more expressed and manifested in us, He will
“change these vile bodies, that they shall be made like unto His glorious
body.” Corporately He is arising more
and more in His body! Paul says, “We groan within ourselves, we who
have the firstfruits of the Spirit, waiting for the adoption which is the redemption of our body.” As glorious and wonderful and mighty as
it is to have the life of Jesus Christ made manifest in this mortal flesh, the
Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead expressing and manifesting
through these mortal bodies, we can never
be satisfied until this life of His within shall do such an ultimate work of
transformation that, as Paul said, “Behold,
I show you a mystery: We shall not all
sleep, but we shall all be changed in
a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.”
We
are moving into the days of the seventh angel of Revelation 10:7 sounding the
last trumpet. “For the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on
incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the
saying that is written, Death is swallowed
up in victory” (I Cor. 15:52-54).
The life of Christ in us will conquer all sin and death! It begins with a mystery and it ends with a
mystery. Whenever you begin with God you
must end with God. It begins with the
mystery of the unveiling of Christ in the church which is His body, and it ends
with the mystery when the trumpet blows and the mystery of God is finished and
this corruptible puts on incorruption, and this mortal puts on
immortality. It is a mystery all the way
through and the mystery produces a progressive change within us from one glory
to another, beginning in our spirit and working out into the soul, and finally
swallowing up the body. If you stop
short of the second mystery it would give the idea that because Christ who
conquered death lives in you He will conquer death in you and you simply
will not die. But do you want to live forever in the shape
you are in today? Yes, the life of Christ fills me with joy
and peace and victory today and He has given wonderful gifts of healing,
provision, and blessings of many kinds.
But there is something greater than this! In order for the full power and glory of HIS
RESURRECTION to be brought to its ultimate completion, our soul must be fully
saved and these bodies must be changed to be like HIS GLORIOUS BODY. It is necessary that that life and that glory
which has resided in these limited, mortal, dying bodies shall then have an
opportunity for a full expression in
a glorious, incorruptible, immortal body.
It is indeed
wonderful!
While
it is gloriously true that Christ has given His life to all men, to the whole
world, yet it is evident that there must be a progression in the development of
that life in the experience of every man until every vestige of the death realm
has been swallowed up, spirit, soul, and body.
To those who walk with Christ there is an ever-increasing consciousness,
growth, increase, unfoldment, maturation, and triumph of that life! The mighty working of His power within is
followed by this very precious and understandable result: “If the Spirit of Him
that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ shall
also quicken (make alive) your mortal (dying) bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you” (Rom. 8:11). I believe I now see more clearly than I have
ever done why it was that Paul,
who, as you and I do, still dwelt in the hellish bondage of a mortal body cried
out, “For this corruptible must put on
incorruption, and this mortal must
put on immortality…then shall be brought to pass the saying that is
written, Death is swallowed up in
victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”
We are, indeed,
terribly in bondage to the body of this
death, and with us the whole creation is groaning, waiting for the day when
the sons of God will fully come into their own and then deliver all creation from the bondage of corruption. I do
not need to argue with any man to prove our present mortality in the
flesh. If you must sleep to live, you are mortal.
If you must eat to live, you
are obviously mortal. If you must breathe to live, you are unquestionably
mortal. We are all aware of our constant
and unrelenting decay as the aging process etches its marks upon us. Our present mortality is naught but death,
although we live in the spirit. Think of
it! Meditate deeply upon it and cling to
this realm of death no more. Reach up, my beloved, with the blessed arm of
faith and embrace that bright realm above where that which is true in our
spirit reaches down and takes hold upon our outer man, where
this mortal puts on immortality, where death in all its aspects is swallowed
up of life, where in that final victory of His life within the sons of
God will upon this earth shout in triumph over both death and the grave!
The
process of resurrection implies change all
along the way. Human beings, it seems, have
always been afraid of change. When Sir Francis Drake
learned about the potato in Peru
and brought it back to Scotland,
people refused to grow potatoes because they aren’t mentioned in the
Bible. When street lamps were introduced
in Boston,
local ministers preached against them, contending that “If God had intended
this, He would have made the sun brighter and the moon more brilliant.” The use of painkillers was also exposed by
clergy who argued that bodies were created by God and should not be interfered
with by chemicals. Change, however, is
inevitable, and while some changes are bad, many of them are good. Not all
change represents progress, but without change there can be no
progress. Change is often unpleasant
because it means surrendering what is familiar and leaving behind what we once
valued. We often prefer to live by
man-made rules that we think are constant and unchangeable. But God wants us to be controlled by His wind,
by His Spirit! God’s Spirit living
within us HAS THE POWER TO CHANGE US FROM ONE
DEGREE O F GLORY TO ANOTHER!
Truly
we yearn for this change, for our desire is not to be unclothed, that is, to
put off this body of flesh, but clothed upon with that glorious body
of Christ out of the heavens that mortality may be swallowed up of life (I Cor.
5:1-5). Yes, we groan inwardly for this
transformation to take place. As I have
mentioned previously, I have met many brethren through the years who confessed
that they had already put on immortality, had already passed over the grave and
could not and would not die. I must be
very honest and frank with you, my beloved brothers and sisters. I have not one whit of a desire to live
forever IN THIS BODY OF HUMILIATION.
There is no more frightening thought, no more repugnant possibility,
than the idea that I might live forever, or even for a thousand years, in this
body of humiliation! Thank God, there is
to be a change! Hear it! “Who
will transform and fashion
anew the body of our humiliation
to conform and to be like the body of His glory and
majesty, by exerting that power which enables Him even to subject everything to
Himself” (Phil. 3:21, Amplified) What
a marvelous thing!
The
thought of merely adding immortality to this
body of humiliation, with no other change, the suggestion of such
limitation, that I might have to bathe, anoint my body with deodorant, brush my
teeth, gargle with Scope, and do the thousand other things mortals must do to ameliorate the
offensiveness of this flesh body, the hint that I might retain this base form,
that I might remain as I am with
only the added quality that I can’t die,
falls as far short of what I conceive of a body transformed and fashioned like
unto the body of His glory and majesty as hell falls short of
heaven! The body of incorruption shall
resemble this vile body no more than does the oak tree resemble the chemical
elements of the earth which were raised up into the substance of the tree by
the mighty working of the subtle and mysterious life-force sown in the earth as
a seed.
Sons
of God! If we would be fashioned like
unto Him, co-sharers of His glory and power and wisdom as the God-man, we must not simply
rest content with the faith that trusts in the cross and its pardon; we must follow on to know the fullness of the
New Life, the life of glory and power in human nature, injected into man
through the resurrection of Christ from the dead, of which the Spirit of the
glorified Jesus is the witness and the source.
Now, practically everything in relationship to our sonship depends upon
the clearness with which this great truth that I have stated is
recognized. The Holy Spirit of God
inspired the message of these words through the apostle Paul, “Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of
His Son, much more, being reconciled, we SHALL BE SAVED BY HIS LIFE” (Rom.
5:9-11). The double provision of Christ
is here clearly set forth: reconciled by His death;
saved by His life.
Oh, the mystery of it!
Christ’s
death
is the atonement, reconciling men to God, granting a full and free admittance
back into Eden’s
lovely garden from which our disobedient foreparents were once banished. But Christ’s life is the Tree of Life
in the garden, the source of the life which will work in us the complete
transformation into the divine nature. Sin,
sickness, sorrow, fear, and death are all part of a power in our life; let us fully understand that it can only be met
by another higher power. The power of sin and death works all
through our life. The death of Christ,
which is the atonement, reconciles us to God, but only the life of Christ can
come against the power of sin and death and deliver our life from destruction. Reconciliation places us, in God’s eyes, back
in Eden’s
garden; but the Tree of Life is the power that delivers
my life from the dominion of sin and death.
He redeemeth my life, by His life, from death! Christ’s life, not His death, living in our
life, absorbing it, impregnating it, transforming it, causes us to live. This is the meaning of the profound sentence
in which Paul
records the first great work of salvation and pointedly distinguishes it from
the second great work of salvation, saying, “If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled
to God by the death of His Son, much more, being
reconciled, we shall be saved (from sin and death) by His life!” The first is pardon, forgiveness; the
second is transformation into His image
and glory!
“We
shall be saved by His LIFE,” says Paul. Paul
meant no disrespect to the atonement when he said, “We shall be saved by His
life.” He was bringing out one of the
great facts of salvation. If God gives
atoning power with one hand, and power to save the life from destruction with
the other hand, there is no conflict between these. Both are from God! If you call the one justification and the
other glorification, God is the author of them both. If Paul
seems to take something from the one work and add it to the other, he takes
nothing from God. Atonement is from
God! Reconciliation is from God! Power to conquer
sin and death in the full glory of Christ’s resurrection is from God! Christ is all in all, the beginning and the
end. When the thing we want is deliverance from the
guilt of sin, which is condemnation, let us appropriate the gift God has given
to remove our guilt — the DEATH of Christ.
“In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of our sins” (Col.
1:14). When the thing we want is power
to redeem our life from sin, corruption, and death, then let us apply the gift
which God has given us for our life, the LIFE of the Son of God! “He that hath the Son hath life.”
With
my small and limited ability I cannot make the truth of the transforming power
of Christ’s indwelling
life to be a living reality in your
heart. But I can share words of
exhortation with the prayer that the Holy Spirit will quicken them within your
understanding thus releasing the power of life in your innermost being. There is a beautiful parable of this process
of life which comes to us from the experience of the children of Israel
in the wilderness as they journeyed toward their promised land. The story is told in the twenty-first chapter
of Numbers. The people began to murmur
and complain and they spoke against God and against Moses. “Why have you brought us out of Egypt
to die in the wilderness,” they asked, “for there is no bread,
neither is there any water, and we are tired of this manna.” Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the
people: and they bit the people and many Israelites died. The people came to Moses, and said, “We have
sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord and against you: pray to the Lord,
that He may take away the serpents from us.”
So Moses prayed for the people.
The Lord said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent of bronze and raise it up
on a pole; and everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall be healed and
live.” So Moses made a serpent of bronze and put it on a pole,
and if a serpent had bitten any man, when he looked to the serpent of bronze
attentively, expectantly, with a steady and absorbing gaze, he was healed and
lived.
When
an Israelite was bitten by flaming serpents in the wilderness, he never thought of applying manna to the wound. The manna was for his life. But he did think of
applying the bronze serpent. The manna
would never
have cured his snake bite, nor would the bronze serpent have kept him from
starving! Suppose he had said, “Now I am
healed by this serpent, so I need not eat the manna anymore. The serpent has spared my life and done
everything for me, and I am preserved.”
The result would have been, of course, that he would have died.
The man, to be sure, was cured, delivered from the judgment of his rebellion
against God, but he has to LIVE, and if he eats no manna his life must
languish, and end in destruction and death.
Without going to any trouble about it, simply by the inevitable
processes of nature, he would have become a dead man. Thus we see that it was not a choice between
the bronze serpent and the manna. He did
not require one or the other — he must have both! The serpent must first redeem him from judgment; and then the manna was God’s
provision to perpetually give him life, and
only in the strength and energizing of the manna would he be enabled to reach
his promised land — the fullness of God — if he continued on in faith. Now there is no contradiction between
these two things — the bronze serpent is from God and the manna is from
God. But they are different gifts for
different things. The serpent removed
the judgment, but could not sustain life; the manna gave life, but could not
deal with the sentence.
Now
to apply this to the truth under consideration.
The death of Christ, on the
one hand, is the bronze serpent. “As
Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted
up (on the cross)” (Jn. 3:14). Christ’s life, on the other hand, is the manna —
the bread of
life. “This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a
man may eat thereof and not die.
I am the living bread which came
down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever, and the bread that I will give is
my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (Jn. 6:50-51). In the light of these remarkable words we can
reach only one of two conclusions.
Either all who have believed
on Christ since that blessed day when these wonderful words poured from His
divine lips have partaken of Him, eaten of His living flesh, and have not died but have begun to live forever, or, NO ONE HAS EATEN OF
HIM FROM THAT DAY TO THIS, for all, saint and sinner alike, have continued to
go by way of the grave. Either Christ has given eternal life to all who eat of
Him, and there is a life — consciousness and being that transcends the grave —
or He lied and did not give His flesh for the life of the world, so that none
has ever sat at His table and received the life of which He spake. Do you really believe that God is that wicked
that He would send forth redemption and then withhold it for another two
thousand years? Let me ask you a
question, my friend. If you had the
power of immortality in your hand right now, would you wait another two
thousand years to share it while billions of mankind continued to go out into
endless nothingness? Wake up! my
beloved, let us get beyond the fantasies and fairy tales of a merely carnal and
earthly and physical understanding of truth!
“He that hath the Son HATH LIFE,” saith the Lord. “And we know
that we HAVE PASSED FROM DEATH UNTO LIFE,” add all who know and love the
truth.
Of
all the wealth of scripture truth nothing is more certain or clear than the
fact that our sins are not forgiven by bread,
nor are our lives nourished and supported by death. Our life is not made incorruptible and
eternal by Christ’s death, nor transformed from glory to glory from the power
of sin, death, and the grave by the atonement.
Our life is not redeemed from destruction by the crucifixion of Christ,
nor is it brought to perfection from day to day by the death of Christ. But we are saved, as the Holy Ghost sayeth,
“by HIS LIFE.” We cannot live upon
death. And after, by the atonement, we
are forgiven, and have entered by faith through the gateway into Eden’s
fair garden, the kingdom of heaven on earth, having acceptance before God, we
shall then be saved, delivered, changed,
perfected, transformed, and fully glorified BY HIS LIFE!
The
pattern for all this is clearly laid out in the opening chapters of Genesis. When man sinned, he was expelled from the
Garden, from the life of the spirit in the presence and power of God. When
the sinning and sorrowful couple left the Garden
of God,
the Lord placed fiery cherubim with flaming
swords at the entrance to Eden to prevent man from entering
back in, specifically to shut man up from the Tree of Life. That is clearly what the Hebrew text intimates. Now, some brethren have taught that in order
to enter back into Eden
we must pass through the flaming swords of the cherubim and have our flesh
nature burned away. But that is a
serious mistake! We do not enter back in
through the flaming swords. Oh, no! We are forgiven, pardoned, reconciled and
justified by the death of
Christ. Can we not see by that that upon
our pardon and reconciliation God removed
the cherubim with their flaming swords so that we could re-enter Eden
by His sovereign grace. It is grace that brings us in! “Just as I am without one plea, but that Thy
blood was shed for me; and that Thou bidst me come to Thee — O Lamb of God, I
come…I come!” That is the mystery. And why does He bring us back in by pure
grace? SO WE CAN BEGIN TO EAT OF THE TREE OF LIFE AND LIVE! You don’t eat the fruit of the Tree of Life
to get in; you are ushered in so you can have access again to the Life. And that is what will bring you to life,
perfection, and glorification!
To
sum up, therefore, it is one thing to be reconciled by the death of Christ, and
quite another to be saved by His life.
If forgiveness, reconciliation and justification could make men to be
CONFORMED TO THE IMAGE OF THE SON OF GOD then all the baby Christians in all
the carnal church systems of man would be well on their way to sonship.
The death of Christ can make one a justified believer, bringing him to life, but only the mighty working of
the indwelling
Christ, only a constant and continual eating of the Tree of Life which He is can
enable us to put on the mind of Christ and be transformed in soul — mind, will,
emotion, and desire — and then transfigured in body by the power of HIS
RESURRECTION. He redeemeth my life from
destruction. How? By His life!
This is the power of a full and complete salvation! Unspeakable are the blessings of the high and
heavenly realm of God’s incorruptible life which flow from the glorified Christ
in our spirit outward to the soul and at last to the body. Blessed Tree of Life! It is ours,
for Jesus is ours. Blessed life of the
ages! We have the possession within our
earth of its hidden power, and we have the prospect before us of its fullest
glory. May our daily lives, in all we
think and say and do, be bright and blessed proof that the hidden power dwells
within, daily preparing us for the glory yet to be revealed. May the eternal and incorruptible fruit of
our redeemed life within be the power to live to the glory of the Father, our
fitness to share the glory of the Son!
THREE STEPS IN REDEMPTION
As
we meditate upon these words of truth concerning the power of His resurrection,
surely we must realize that the process of resurrection touches the whole
man — spirit, soul, and body. We
are in a travail to partake of His fullness, being conformed to His likeness,
and the basis of this travail can be more fully appreciated when related to the
three parts of man’s being. Paul enumerated these
when writing to the Thessalonian saints: “And I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be
preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (I Thes. 5:23).
Everything
God created consists of many “parts.”
The geologist can explain to you the many “parts” of planet earth. The botanist is able to give you the names
and functions of the various “parts” of a flower. The astronomer will point out the many
billions of “parts” that make up the vast universe. God has also created man with many
“parts.” These are not just the physical
parts or organs of the body, but also parts of the mind or soul, and parts of
the spirit.
The
human body is that part of our being which we all know best. It is the physical, natural, earthly
tabernacle made up of members such as feet, legs, arms, eyes, ears, and organs
such as heart, lungs, and kidneys. But
we have other parts of our being besides these.
Do not think that the term “parts” in respect to our inner life originated
with me! The Holy Spirit spoke through
the prophet Jeremiah with this promise, “But this shall be the covenant that I
will make…after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward
parts, and write it in their
hearts” (Jer. 31:33). The “inward parts”
in which God places His law are not the kidneys, liver, or gall bladder! They are, rather, the inward parts within our
soul; not the inward parts of our body.
The passage above is quoted in the New Testament this way: “I will put my
laws into their mind, and write them
in their hearts” (Heb. 8:10). Here we see a slight, but important,
variation. Jeremiah says “into their
inward parts” but the writer to the Hebrews renders it “into their mind.” This comparison shows that the inward parts
are not of the body, because “mind” is not of the body. Our “brain” is of the body but not our
mind. A corpse has a brain — but no
mind! I have seen living people, heart
beating, all vital functions stable, but with no mentality — mind. The mind, therefore, exists only through a
union of physical brain with life essence. The Psalmist adds this testimony concerning
the inward parts of man, “Behold, Thou desirest truth in the inward
parts: and in the hidden part Thou shalt make me to
know wisdom”
(Ps. 51:6).
In
the creation account in Genesis we read that God formed man out of the dust of
the ground and “breathed into his nostrils the breath (spirit) of
life.” The result of the uniting of the
body with the breath
or spirit of life is said to be that man “became
a living soul.” Let us now note carefully the process by which the first
human soul was brought into being, as this will help us to understand more
clearly just what a soul really is. The
scriptural account of this we have just quoted.
The soul is here shown to be the result, or product, of a union of the
body, or organism, with the breath
of life — “man became a living
soul.” Here I would draw your attention
to two significant facts. The word “breath” in Hebrew is the
same word as “spirit.” And in the New
Testament the term “living soul” is in the Greek text zoe
psuche. Zoe is the Greek word for
“life” or “living” which in every case is used for divine life, God life, and eternal
life. Psuche, of course, is the word
for “soul.” The term signifies a divinely living soul, not created
through the union of the air of our atmosphere with the human body, but through
the union of divine spirit with the
human body. Thus, it was not the
infusion of earth wind or air into Adam’s
body that made him a living soul, but GOD BREATHED into his nostrils the SPIRIT
OF LIFE and man became a divinely living soul! The soul itself is not the spirit, just
as it also is not the body.
Now
a soul can die even as a body can die! “Behold,
all souls are mine…the soul that sinneth, IT SHALL DIE” (Eze. 18:4). The soul can also be saved from this death
(Heb. 10:39). Thus seen the soul is
really that which results from the union of organism (body) with the
life-giving qualities of the “breath
of life.” Scientists still don’t know
just what “life” really is! The “breath of life” is certainly something more than breathing in air. If breathing
in air was all it means then we could pump air into a corpse and it should
live. Life is more than that! The breath that
“God breathed”
into man’s nostrils is spirit. And the spirit is life, Jesus said. A
simple illustration is the electric light.
The mechanism of the bulb with its internal vacuum, filament, etc. is
not the light; neither is the electric current that flows through that
mechanism the light. It is the union of the mechanism with the
electricity that produces the
light. Destroy the bulb (body) or cut
off the electricity (spirit of life) and the light (soul) goes out. Thus, the soul of man is in reality his personality — existing in the four
primary parts of mind, will, emotion, and
desire.
This four-fold personality and expression of man’s being is produced
by the union of the intricately designed mechanism or organism of his
wonderfully made body with the in-breathed spirit of life. There must be life for man to possess soul, human personality.
When
man first came into being as a living soul from the creative hand of God he was
perfect in all his ways and for a time walked with God and lived by the spirit
and the word of God. They knew nothing
of evil; for they had never
experienced it and had no knowledge of it.
While they had flesh bodies, they did not walk in the desires or
emotions or mind or will of the soul — they walked in the overwhelming presence
and spirit of the Lord God. They were
totally yielded to God, God-conscious rather than self-conscious, living
in intimacy of fellowship and vital
union with their Creator and Father.
They did not live carnal, fleshly, selfish, self-centered, sensual,
demonic lives because they were so caught up in God that they were not even
aware that they were naked — that is,
their “flesh” (the carnal realm) had never
been exposed or manifested to them! They
lived under God’s spirit law, His every word, and GOD was in control of their
beings through His in-breathed spirit of
life. This means that both their
soul and body were yielded up to the will of the spirit. Their mind, will, emotions, and desires were
all dominated by the spirit of God within them!
But
then — they met the serpent! That
ancient serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, is not the carnal mind of man,
for man’s carnal mind is portrayed under yet another symbol in Eden
— the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The eating of the fruit of this tree added to man’s soul two new
dimensions — human reasoning and conscience.
This tree of the knowledge of
good and evil also brought into man’s life the experiencing of good and evil!
Both good and evil are carnal. Adam and Eve had never
before lived by either “good” or “evil”
— they had lived by LIFE! Life is in the
spirit. Good is something less than life
just as evil is the opposite of life.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil separated them from life and
awakened them to the carnal, earthly, fleshly, sensual, satanic realm. Even as the Tree of Life (Christ, the Spirit)
brings forth the attributes of God, the “fruit
of the spirit,” so the tree of the knowledge of good and evil produces the “fruit
of unrighteousness” unto death.
To be carnally minded is death! Every tree is known by its fruit. But let us ever be alert to the fact that the
serpent and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil are not symbols of the same
thing! The serpent is something
deeper than the carnal mind of the tree of knowledge. The serpent is the one who introduced them to the tree of
knowledge!
How
cunningly Satan appealed to Eve’s “inward parts,” those “hidden parts” of her
own soul, her own mind, will, emotions, and desires, which under the influence
of the spirit had lain hidden away, unknown, undiscovered by her until
now. These inner, carnal, selfish,
sensual, egotistical, reasoning, fleshly, twisted potentials within her had never been stirred
before. Satan commenced to draw out these hidden, unknown aspects
of her SELF, her soul, and began to awaken them within her consciousness. Suddenly she was confronted with thoughts,
attitudes, motives, emotions, desires, will…that she never knew existed. This is the power of temptation, for the apostle James eloquently describes it thus:
“Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be
tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man.
But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust, and
enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it
bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (James
1:13-15). And remember, my beloved, it
was not the serpent that enticed Eve. The serpent beguiled (deceived) her
(Gen. 3:13; II Cor. 11:3) but she was enticed by the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil — her OWN CARNAL MIND!
It
is all there in a nutshell in Genesis 3:6: “And when the woman saw that the
tree was good for food (the lust of
the flesh), and that it was pleasant to the eyes
(the lust of the eyes), and a tree to be desired to make one wise
(the pride of life), she took of the fruit thereof (the works of the flesh)
and did eat.” All of this was influenced
and instigated by the serpent!
And the thing we need to see in order to understand this great mystery
is that as long as man’s soul was under the influence of the Spirit he walked
in righteousness, power, wisdom, and life.
As soon as his soul came under the influence of another spirit, self came
into prominence. There was established
an affinity, a union between the serpent and man’s self-life, the serpent now
becoming “the spirit that now worketh
in the sons of disobedience.” And once man had eaten of the tree of the
carnal mind, the flesh, HE BECAME ADDICTED TO IT. And man has been eating that fruit ever
since, living in self, the soulical realm, after his own satanically inspired desires and emotions, out from under the
control of the life-giving Spirit. The
whole sin of man, then, was in departing from the Spirit, walking independent of the
Spirit, “doing his own thing.” This is
the sin of man today!
But
now, thank God, through the blood of His Son, God has brought us back into Eden
and made available to us that realm of spirit-life from which man was driven
out. Only this time there is a
change. An improvement! The first man was made a “living soul” and
walked under the spirit’s dominion as a living soul. But now the second man, the last Adam has come forth and
He is not a living soul but a QUICKENING SPIRIT. God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son, the
Quickening Spirit, into our hearts and a new man is being raised up within us,
a new Adam is
standing up in our lives! Our new man is
Christ brought forth into an individual
identity of power and expression within each one of us. Blessed Tree of Life! “He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.” The Spirit of Christ within you gives you
the potential to bruise the head of the serpent in that same blessed Eden
where Eve was beguiled. Oh, yes! Where did you think the serpent’s head would
be bruised? And the Spirit of Christ
within you now enables you to bring both your soul and your body under
His dominion that the spirit might reign producing life
within. Old Adam
was a living soul, but the last Adam
is a quickening spirit! Only as the
Spirit rules over soul and body can the soul be saved and the body be transformed!
Perhaps
now we can understand why the scriptures do not speak of saving spirits. Only “souls” can be saved! Redemption is not for the spirit, but for
soul and body. When Jesus died He cried
out, “Father, into Thy hands I
commend my spirit.” His spirit did not suffer and die on our
behalf. But Christ in the agony of Gethsemane cried out, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death” (Mat. 26:38).
And the prophet prophesied of Christ’s death, “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer
thine Holy One to see (bodily)
corruption” (Ps. 16:10). And then we
read, “But we are not of them that draw back unto perdition; but of them that
believe unto the saving of the soul” (Heb.
10:39). The Psalmist declared, “The Lord
redeemeth the soul of His servants”
(Ps. 34:22). Redemption is also for the
body: “Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to
wit, the redemption of the body” (Rom.
8:23). Your spirit doesn’t need saving
for it is the off-spring of God, therefore of His own nature. God cannot sin and God cannot die! Is it not self-evident that that which is not created but is the offspring of God likewise cannot sin and
cannot die.
Wonderful
words were spoken at the very dawn of human history, recorded in the oldest
book of the Bible, which state simply and powerfully the reality of man. “There is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them
understanding” (Job 32:8). Thus, “the Spirit (of God) beareth witness with
our spirit that we are children (offspring)
of God” (Rom.
8:16). The writer to the Hebrews reminds
us, “Furthermore,
we have had fathers of our flesh which
corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in
subjection to the Father of spirits, and
live?” (Heb. 12:9). Someone says, “Oh,
yes, God is the Father of the spirits of all those who have been born
again.” Yet the scripture cries out, “O
God, the God of the spirits of all flesh”
(Num. 16:22). Jesus taught all men,
before Pentecost and the “born again” experience, all the vast multitudes that thronged
Him, that God was THEIR FATHER IN HEAVEN.
Thus our true Father is not a man
on earth, but our Spirit-Father who is in heaven! Our flesh, however, body and soul, is the
offspring of the first man Adam,
the soul-man, and therefore must be
redeemed and brought back under the dominion of the Spirit, Christ. This
is how we truly become the BODY OF CHRIST! To live in the soul brings sin and
death. To live in the spirit produces
life eternal — not merely a length of life, but a quality of life. Both soul and body are raised into life by
the reigning of the indwelling
Spirit. “Now if the Spirit of Him that
raised Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the
dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies BY HIS
SPIRIT THAT DWELLETH I-N Y-O-U” (Rom. 8:11).
This
is the travail of this hour, in this new day of the Lord. The travail is that there shall be a company
of sons of God who, with Jesus, come into their full redemption — that
place where in spirit, soul, and body they are saved, transformed, and made
LIKE HIM. When this work is fully
accomplished the manifest sons of God,
for whom the whole creation is expectantly waiting, will be pure as He is pure,
holy as He is holy, glorified as He is glorified, to sin and die no more. The curse of death will be swallowed up and
full redemption will be a glorious and eternal reality. The way back into life is simply in returning by the same route that led man
into death! Jesus is our forerunner who has opened up the way
back into life. As we enter in with Him,
appropriating the full provision and victory He has made available, we become
the FIRSTFRUITS of His redemption and the forerunners for the residue of men,
the whole creation, which travails with us for the manifestation of God’s sons.
Man,
because of his naturalness, always begins in his consciousness with that which
is most obvious to him — the body. God,
in His dealings, always begins in the reverse order with that which is most
closely related to Himself — the spirit.
With man it is always “body, soul, and spirit.” With God it is always “spirit, soul, and body.” Redemption, therefore, being the work of God,
begins with the spirit, for the spirit is the first thing man abandoned in the
fall. The spirit is the key to
the salvation of the soul. Thus God begins His redemptive and restorative
process by moving mightily upon man’s spirit, joining with His Spirit, and
causing man’s spirit to STAND UP AGAIN IN POWER AND GLORY. This is what we call metaphorically the “new
birth.” Now the spirit must woo the
soul, and raise it up into life in union with the spirit. If you can receive it — THIS IS THE FIRST
RESURRECTION! Then spirit and soul
together shall swallow up the body into union with themselves until it also is
changed, transformed, fashioned into a body like unto HIS BODY OF GLORY! Oh, the mystery of it! Oh, the wonder of it!
To
be continued… J. PRESTON EBY
