THE FIRST RESURRECTION
(continued)
“And
I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto 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).
Many
passages of scripture remain locked up to man and cannot be understood with the
natural mind. I am certain that one such passage is found
right here within our text
where the apostle says, “…and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for
the witness of Jesus…and they lived and reigned with Christ a
thousand years…THIS IS THE FIRST RESURRECTION.”
The key here is the word “first,” the FIRST resurrection. The Greek word used here is protos and literally means “first,” or “foremost,” that
is, foremost in reference to time, place, order, or importance. It also implies that there are other orders
to follow, but this is FIRST, unique in its purpose and working. As Ray Prinzing once pointed out, it bears an
analogy to the birth process, and the special position that was accorded to the
one born first. “You shall set apart unto the Lord all
that first opens the womb. All the
firstlings of your livestock that are males shall be the Lord’s…and every firstborn among your sons shall you
redeem” (Ex. 13:12-13, Amplified).
Others can follow in due time, but they can never have that special privilege and
purpose of being the first to be born.
Do
I believe there is going to be a physical resurrection? Certainly!
Do I believe our bodies will get back up from their dissolution and the
grave? Absolutely! There have been times in my thinking when I
have thought that the resurrection is not a resurrection of bodies, not something that takes place
on a physical level. But you see, I have
to look at the pattern — the pattern
is Jesus — and His body got back up
from the grave! He’s the pattern, the
blueprint, the example, the forerunner, the prototype of man’s redemption and
destiny. I go to the Word — His body
arose from death and my body will arise from death. People’s bodies have already gotten back up
from the grave. At the resurrection of
Jesus we read that “…the graves were
opened, and many bodies of the
saints which slept arose, and came out
of the graves after His resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many” (Mat.
27:52-53). This has already happened as
a result of the Christ’s resurrection!
It’s a historical fact that dead bodies arose and walked out of their
tombs at the resurrection of Jesus and were seen by many. This is resurrection! I believe in the resurrection of the
body. Yet — I am not convinced our
present text
is speaking of that type of resurrection!
This is a resurrection of “souls.”
“I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus…and they (the
souls) lived…this is the first resurrection.” I’m not looking to come into resurrection
life after I die, my vision is to lay hold upon the power of His resurrection
as His life is raised up in me in the here and now!
I
believe the key to unlock the interpretation of the twentieth chapter of
Revelation is presented to us in this expression: “This is the first resurrection.”
If we can determine when and how the first resurrection occurs we
will progress greatly in our understanding of the entire chapter. In contrast to the first resurrection we need
to go back further
and discover when the “first death” occurred.
It makes spiritual sense that the “first resurrection” would be the
resurrection out of the “first death.”
The revelation of death was first presented to Adam in the Garden. “But of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in
the day that thou eatest thereof
thou shalt surely die” (Gen.
2:17). This is the death of the soul,
for something catastrophic happened immediately in the lives of Adam and Eve as soon as
they partook of the forbidden tree.
Someone may object, contending that actually their soul was magnified by the fall, and I will be
the first to admit that their soulical life was magnified; but it was magnified
only because it died to the life of
the spirit, it died to God, it died to truth, it died to righteousness and to all that is high and holy. The testimony of scripture is just this: “The soul
that sinneth, it shall die.” Can we not see by this that in the
day Adam and
Eve sinned, their soul died. The
sinning couple did not immediately die physically. The death of the body came many hundreds of
years later! The New Testament
vindicates this position.
Paul addressed the state
of the Ephesians before their salvation, stating that they were “dead
in trespasses and in sins” (Eph.
2:1). Can we not see by this that if it
is the soul that dies as a result of sinning, then the Ephesians who were “dead
in sins” were dead in their souls? Then Paul says of these same
saints that “God who is rich in mercy,
for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ…and
hath raised us up together” (Eph. 2:4-6). I’m sure that all will agree that what was quickened, that is, made alive, resurrected, was not their mortal bodies! Paul writes essentially the same truth to the Colossians,
saying, “And you, being dead in your sins…hath He quickened
together with Christ” (Col.
2:13). Unregenerated men are dead
men! Even our Lord said of them, “Let the dead bury the dead” (Mat.
8:22). I don’t think anyone would argue
that he was speaking of dead bodies!
These dead are dead souls.
Other passages also make the
point: “Thou hast a name that thou livest
and art dead” (Rev. 3:1). “She that liveth in pleasure, is dead while
she liveth” (I Tim. 5:6). “…shall save a soul from death” (James
5:20). “He that loveth not his brother abideth in death” (I Jn. 3:14).
This
is not a moment for fine words or eloquent speech. This is an hour for very plain speaking. The truth is that when man sinned it was not
his spirit that died. We have all believed that man died in his
spirit that day in Eden,
and most of us have taught it that way.
But as I have walked with God and been taught by the spirit of truth I
have come to understand that such a notion misses the point. Let us consider this thought of man’s spirit
for a moment. It is doubtful that in all
of scripture any subject is more prominent and yet surrounded with such great
mystery as the truth concerning the spirit in man. Now let me share with you a further
truth concerning the life, or that spirit which was breathed by the Almighty Father into
each of us. Many scripture passages, and the parables of
our Lord, call it a “seed.” The Bible
uses the illustration of a seed to tell us who we really are! You see, to tell a person in a darkened state
of mind, bound in sin-consciousness, in their present weak and frail human
condition that they are the manifestation of God on the earth, would be
absolutely impossible for them to fathom.
If they did understand such a concept, they would receive it into their
carnal minds, become puffed up and egotistical, distort, misapply, misuse, and
abuse it, becoming even a worse devil than they are.
The
seed of God is in every man, and the life of that seed is the spirit of man. But
you meet the drunk on the street, you see your unconverted, worldly-minded
neighbor, you rub shoulders with the people of the world, you watch the parade
of murderers, thieves, child molesters, rapists, and thugs of all kinds on the
evening news, and you don’t see God in anybody!
That is because God in every man is a seed. A seed doesn’t do
anything. It just is. It can lie on the shelf for fifty years and never express a
thing! You see no action, no manifestation of the
life within; all you see is the outer shell which reveals nothing of the power
that is on the inside. Seeds have been
found in the tombs of Egypt
that are more than three thousand years old, and they look today just as they
did when they were placed there, but
they have never produced a harvest. You see, my beloved, just as the seed (sperm)
of a man and the seed (egg) of a woman must conceive
in order to change, grow, express, and accomplish, so must the seed of the
vegetable kingdom be germinated in
order to be productive. The life is hid
in the seed, but it is covered by the outer shell and abides in a state of
dormancy and inactivity. It must be
subjected to two things: heat and moisture.
The rain falls upon it, the sun shines upon it, and suddenly there is
effected a mighty release! There is a stirring of that life that is
restrained on the inside, the shell that conceals that life bursts open, and
the life within springs forth, puts down roots, and grows upward; it breaks
through the earth and comes forth in mighty expression and manifestation of
itself!
Can
we not see by this that the spirit of man is indeed the seed of God but it is buried in,
encased by, the outer man of flesh, the carnal understanding, the natural
consciousness, and the inclinations of the flesh. It is here that we must tread softly and bow
reverently before the spirit of truth.
It is easy to say that in that long ago Eden man’s spirit died, and that man is spiritually
dead, and that therefore His spirit must be quickened, resurrected in order for man to again have spiritual
life. As logical as that sounds I have
been brought to see that it is not the
truth! Nowhere does scripture state
that man’s spirit died. There is not one single passage in all of
God’s blessed Book about dead
spirits. Oh, no! But a whole lot is said about dead
souls and dead bodies! Men are not
separated from the life that is in God because of something terrible that
happened in the spirit of man; rather it is due to what happened in his
soul and in his body!
Hear it! “But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them
that are lost: in whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the
glorious gospel of Christ…should shine unto them” (II Cor. 4:4). Surely you noticed that it is not their
spirits that have been blinded, but their minds — their SOULS! Again Paul
writes, “But I fear, lest by any means,
as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in
Christ” (II Cor. 11:3). Again we see
that the serpent did not corrupt Eve’s spirit — he corrupted her mind
— her SOUL! And now hear
this! “And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled” (Col. 1:21). This time too, we were alienated from God and
were enemies of God, not because of some dark tragedy in our spirit, not
because our spirit was dead — but it was in our mind — our SOUL! Perhaps we can now better understand the
words of Peter when he says, “Seeing ye
have purified your souls in obeying
the truth through the spirit…” (I
Pet. 1:22). We have purified, not our
spirits, but our souls — and our spirit is the very instrument and vehicle of
that soul-purification!
Yes,
God does do a wonderful work in our spirit, but it is not a resurrection from
the dead. He moves upon our spirit by His Spirit to cause it to be released
from the outer husk of the carnal mind and the self-life which have encased
it. The problem has not been with the
spirit, for the spirit is the very breath,
the very seed, the very offspring of GOD!
To say that the spirit could die is to say God could die. To say that the spirit could be corrupted
would be to say God can be corrupted. To
say that the spirit can be blinded is equivalent to saying God Himself can be
blinded. The spirit is the only part of
our being that was not created. It
was blown into our nostrils out of the very mouth of the Lord God Himself! Yes, the spirit within man has been covered
over, hidden, concealed behind the veil of flesh. The rising up, the springing forth, the release,
the revelation of the life that is in the seed comes by a mighty action upon
the outer part of the seed by which its power of restriction is removed. The inner life is released. And, thank God, the genetic code is intact! Everything that life ever has been, is now,
and ever shall be is right there in the seed!
When the life springs forth all that hindered is broken asunder. Every step of the revelation of Christ is an
unveiling!
There
are some conclusions which the Holy Spirit would mark indelibly upon our minds. With the inward witness of the Spirit I
cannot help but conclude that since the scripture presents to us the “first
death” as being that of the soul, then
it is this dead soul which must be resurrected first. Therefore, when the apostle reminds us that “Even when we were dead in sins, He hath quickened
us together with Christ,” we must bear in mind that it was not Christ’s
spirit
that was raised from the dead — it was His soul and His 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, for it was alive and
well in the hands of His Father in heaven.
But Christ in the agony of Gethsemane
cried, “My soul is exceedingly
sorrowful, even unto death.” 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.” His
spirit had been committed into the hands of His Father in heaven. It was His soul that was not left in Hades and
it was His body that burst forth from the tomb.
Think of it! If we are “quickened together with Him” then it can only be in soul and body that we, too, are
quickened. And when we study the various
passages that speak of us now being raised, now being quickened, now having
passed from death unto life, we know it is
not in our body that this reality is being accomplished — it is the dead
soul which is first made alive. Truly, THIS
IS THE FIRST RESURRECTION!
It
is erroneous to speak of the resurrection of the body and omit the resurrection
of the soul. Man’s body is not all that
dies or is dead. Death seized upon Adam in the very day when
he sinned, although many hundreds of years passed before his body finally went
back to the dust. Two Greek words are
used to speak of the resurrection. The
first is anastasis, generally
translated “resurrection.” The second is
egiro, translated as “raise, raised,
or risen.” A close examination of the texts where these words
are employed reveals that they are used interchangeably and both are
applied to both the resurrection of the
soul and the body. There is neither time
nor space to go into a detailed examination of these facts here, but the truth
can be readily apprehended by anyone willing to take the time and make the
effort to do a word study of these two terms.
When
Jesus came He found this world a cemetery — all
were dead. To these dead men Jesus
announced, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and
believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting
life, and shall not come into condemnation (judgment); but is passed from death unto life.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the
dead shall hear the voice of the Son
of God: and they that hear shall live” (Jn.
5:24-25). It should be obvious to every
enlightened mind that Jesus was not talking here about the resurrection of dead
bodies out of the cemetery, for that would mean that not one dead person in the past two thousand years has heard the
voice of the Son of God and lived! He spake of the resurrection of souls that were dead in trespasses and in
sins, dead to God — unresponsive to spiritual things and the spiritual
realm.
Yet
there are millions of earnest believers who know that they have been made alive
in Christ, but who would invent still another physical resurrection to take
place at some future date which they term “the FIRST RESURRECTION!” “First” infers that there could not be any
other before it. In his wonderful
revelation of the powers and realities of the kingdom of God
John
saw thrones, and sitting on them he saw the “souls” of those to whom authority
was given to act as judges. These were
also the “souls” of them that were beheaded (died to SELF) because of 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. And then he adds: “THIS is the first resurrection.”
Perhaps
the indignation
of some will be aroused because of this statement, but if you carefully
scrutinize the statements above surrounding this “first resurrection,” you will
be forced to agree that this passage is not even dealing with a first “bodily”
resurrection at all, for John sees souls,
not bodies. True, the term “souls”
at times in scripture denotes “people” or “persons,” that is, the entire being,
spirit, soul and body. An example of
this is found in passages like Genesis 46:26-27 wherein we read, “All the souls
that came with Jacob into Egypt,
which came out of his loins, besides Jacob’s sons’ wives, all the souls were
threescore and six; and the sons of
Joseph, which were born him in Egypt, were two souls: all the souls of the house
of Jacob, which came into Egypt, were threescore and ten.” But in this case you can substitute the term
“people” for “souls” all through the passage.
Try it and see! Now try the same
method with our text. Here in Revelation 20:4 you cannot do so! The phrase is, “the souls of them…” The only word in that phrase for which
you can substitute the word “people” is “them.”
“The souls of the people that were beheaded…” You cannot grammatically substitute the word
“people” for “souls.” So John is not seeing
people, he is seeing peoples’ souls, and these souls had been made
alive, caught up to the throne, and were now capable of judging and reigning
with Christ for a thousand years — in the illumination and glory and power of
the day of the Lord! Isn’t
it wonderful!
The
fact of the soul’s living and reigning with Christ in heavenly glory and power
being called the first resurrection is
not difficult to understand. Every
child of God has a soul as well as a body. The soul first experiences God’s transforming
love and power: it is raised first, here
in this present life for the elect of
the Lord, and the soul’s union with the spirit is the harbinger of that resurrection yet to come
when even our vile body shall be changed that it may be fashioned like unto HIS
GLORIOUS BODY! For some years now the Spirit has been speaking to
many of God’s called and chosen elect that it is now time for a people to lay
hold upon and apprehend even this bodily transformation — resurrection.
And during this same time the Lord has been preparing us for just such a
glory — transforming our souls, bringing forth souls that are adapted and
equipped to express themselves through such a body of glory as mature sons of
God — souls that have been fully saved, fully redeemed, fully quickened, fully
purified, fully transformed, fully made overcomers, brought into union with the
spirit, raised up out of the dust of the death realm and made to sit together
in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus! Oh,
yes, I know something about that! This
is not doctrine, theory, or conjecture, my beloved brother, sister, but a
present and powerful and living reality that God is working in my life, and in
your life! This is the power of the first resurrection! Any other kind of resurrection must take
place at a later time, in another order, and as the result of this first
one! That is the mystery.
The
first resurrection is just one of many events revealed in the book of
Revelation. This is not a book of outer
world events but it contains the keys to inner spiritual events that will
uncover Christ — Head and body.
Revelation is really another “gospel” written in signs and symbols
concerning the working of Christ in His people and which takes up where the
four Gospels in our Bible leave off. Another
interesting and significant teaching in connection with the first resurrection
is the statement which immediately follows: “But
the rest of the dead lived not again until
the thousand years were finished” (Rev. 20:5). Who are, or what is, the “rest of the
dead?” Can we not see that the “rest of
the dead” can refer only to that part of
each of us which has not yet been raised up into life — the mortal body.
That is certainly the “rest” of the dead in my life! And there are two conditions which must be
met for the body to be transformed.
First, the soul must be fully redeemed, transformed, and raised up to
live in His sight, for that is the first
resurrection. Second, the body
cannot be changed until “the thousand years are finished,” that is, until the
day of the Lord in our life is consummated
— until the day of the Lord in our life has fully and completely done its
work in us! The body can only be changed when we have
completely become new creatures in Christ Jesus by the release of our spirit and the
resurrection of our soul that has been dead and wasted because of our old Adamic nature. We are being made alive as a new people,
conformed to His image, because we have risen in newness of life and are
seeking those things which are above where Christ sits at the right hand of
God. This is the first resurrection!
This
new life is not something that is going to happen some day, somewhere. This new life has already happened and is
happening, first in our souls as we put
on that precious mind which was in Christ Jesus. We have the life of the ages now because we
have been resurrected into the kingdom
of God. “Who
hath delivered us from the power of darkness,
and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son” (Col. 1:13).
We do not have to go to the grave to receive this resurrection and
translation. Blessed be God! We are not waiting for our “rapture.” Nothing new must be added, and no specific
prophetic events must occur before we have this translated life. Our death to Self, our beheading, the losing
of our old Adamic head of the carnal mind, is but the gateway
to a larger, fuller, heavenly life — the more abundant life of sonship to
God. As we sign our death-warrant and
consign to the grave the “old life,” it is only to find that we are recipients
of a life infinitely more wonderful and glorious — as the firstfruits of His
redemption. Marvelous truth! Glorious fact! How it enriches! What treasures of grace, what a reservoir of
power, what radiance of glory — what a wealth of meaning! That is the matchless energy which works in
the believer — THE POWER OF CHRIST’S RESURRECTION!
The
words of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, spoken in the splendor of His
resurrection to the expectant hearts and attentive ears of His wondering disciples,
hold a significance far beyond the scope of human understanding. Perhaps the greatest words ever spoken were
uttered by Jesus when, at the moment of His ascension He promised His little
band of foot-step followers, “…ye shall
receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the
earth” (Acts 1:8). The Lord didn’t
say to these disciples, “Now fellows, be sure to arrange a beautiful,
impressive, and well-advertised Easter Sunrise
Service each spring to bear witness to my resurrection.” Oh, no!
He arose by the power of God and ascended up into heaven in the sight of
those men whom He had chosen and selected to carry forth His redemptive
ministry throughout all the known world
of that day. To these He left His
parting instructions, upon them He pressed the infinite purpose: “…ye shall receive power, after that the
Holy Ghost has come upon you: and YE
SHALL B-E W-I-T-N-E-S-S-E-S U-N-T-O
M-E!” The message is
clear — you will not merely witness, you will not only speak words, or bear a
testimony, or declare a message — but you will BECOME, you will, within
yourself, literally BE the witness!
Some
teach that the great mark of the resurrection was the empty tomb. People travel thousands of miles and spend,
annually, billions of dollars to go see that empty tomb in Jerusalem.
But the apostles never
referred to it! They did not
need an empty tomb for THEY THEMSELVES were the witness! Christ was alive in them! The very same
wisdom and power and authority which He had manifested for three and a half
years before His crucifixion was now manifested mightily through these men into
whom had come His RESURRECTED LIFE.
After healing the lame man at the gate of the temple, Peter was called
before the Sanhedrin and the record states, “And when they had set them in the
midst, they asked, By what power, or by what name, have ye done this? Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them, Ye rulers of the
people, and elders of Israel,
if we this day be examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, by what
means he is made whole; be it known unto you all, and to all the people of
Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, WHOM
GOD RAISED FROM THE DEAD, EVEN BY HIM doth this man stand here before you
whole” (Acts 7:4-10). The proof of the
resurrection of Jesus Christ was in the very fact that HIS POWER had made this
man whole. And this power was IN THE
WITNESSES. God wants a people today who
have the evidence of the resurrection within themselves, in their lives! The resurrection of Jesus is not a
historical fact to be commemorated, but a present glorious
and eternal reality to be demonstrated!
Ah
— it isn’t a day, it isn’t a celebration, it isn’t a sunrise service, it isn’t
the enthralling rendition of “He Arose,” by a dawn-kissed choir, or dyed eggs,
or Easter bunnies, which witness to the
resurrection of our wonderful Lord. MEN
AND WOMEN ARE THE WITNESSES, men and women born from above, transformed by His
grace, imbued with His mind, conformed to His image, filled with His Spirit of
power, living out His life. Christ is
alive! Hallelujah!
And I am, in the glory of my redeemed soul, raised up together with Him! It
is indeed
wonderful!
We
cannot over estimate the value of our soul’s resurrection — our soul standing
up in the fullness of the Christ-life.
Ray Prinzing beautifully expressed the truth of this when he wrote,
“When Jesus arose from the dead He was not only ALIVE IN SPIRIT, but HE WAS ALIVE IN SOUL —
that is, He had all His mental faculties together. Thank God we can be ‘renewed in the spirit of our mind’ (Eph. 4:23). Redemption is for the whole man, and
resurrection life is also for the soul/mind realm. There may be those days when the aging
process of the natural seems to leave you somewhat disoriented. But the hope is for resurrection, and HE will
finish this work in us, ‘For God hath not
given unto us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound
mind’ (2 Tim. 1:7). Sound mind —
literally one could say, to be calm, cool, and collected. A well-balanced mind is a part of the resurrection
process at work in us.
“‘And that, knowing the time, that now it is
high time to AWAKE out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we
first believed’ (Rom. 13:11). ‘Wherefore He saith, AWAKE thou that
sleepest, and ARISE from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light’ (Eph.
5:14).
“Awake
— ‘egeiro,’ gather your faculties together, and arise,
stand up out from among the dead. Thus Paul clearly taught that
there was an INWORKING RESURRECTION that could be experienced now, and then it
would be a steady ADVANCING until we are ‘changed
from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord’ (2 Cor. 3:18). ‘If ye
then BE RISEN with Christ, seek those things which are above…set your affection
(mind) on things above, not on things on the earth…’ (Col.
3:1-3). To be carnally minded is death!
Hence we need this resurrection, to RISE UP out of that state, to have
all our mental faculties attuned to the things above. Then it remains only for the body to be
changed. The process continues as we are
renewed into the mind of Christ, and He begins to gather all our faculties into harmony with
the spirit. And ultimately these inward
changes will be manifested in a CHANGED BODY.
‘Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection.’ There is an on-going resurrection
now, and it is the power of advancing until we are completely ‘found in Him’ (Phil. 3:9)” — end quote.
Can
we not understand that God cannot give us an immortal, glorified body until we
have a disposition and character that corresponds to, and expresses perfectly
through, such a body. Should God give a
glorified body to a person still walking in the carnal mind and human soulical
Self-hood, He would actually create a devil!
That fact reveals the true mystery of the first resurrection, the standing
up in Christ of the soul — our mind, will, emotions, and desires — thus
preparing us for the “rest of the dead” to be raised — our body — and fitting
us for the glory and power of that kind of body.
“The
game is played above the neck!” yelled the coach as he watched yet another
mental lapse out on the court. He was
simply expressing what others say in motivational talks to people who want to
transform their minds. Some people even
listen to motivational CDs under their pillow at night; they want their
subconscious changed so that they can change.
The truth is that much of what we are and what we become is influenced
by o u r minds. But it takes more than
motivational talks to truly transform the
mind. It takes the power of the FIRST
RESURRECTION! The mind that is
transformed by the Spirit focuses attention on things that are above, where
Christ is seated in the heavens of God’s Spirit. Your body may be changed at the sounding of
the trumpet, but it takes the transforming power of redemption now to change your disposition and character —
your soul. Paul
wrote to the Corinthians,
“You come behind in no gift.” They had
all the gifts of the Spirit, yet there was envy, strife, division, sexual
perversion, drunkenness even in their meetings — spiritual immaturity!
You
may have been saved thirty years ago, baptized in the Spirit twenty-nine years
ago, got a miracle of healing twenty-eight years ago, the gift of prophecy
twenty-seven years ago, and received the deeper revelation of kingdom truths
twenty-six years ago — but when stripped of all that experience you may find
that you are very carnal and spiritually immature. You have not grown in grace, you have not
developed in the image of Christ, you have not overcome the flesh, there is
still a childishness, a pettiness, with condemnation of others, pride, biting
words, wrong attitudes, anger, negativity, fearfulness, works of the flesh,
etc. Should the trumpet blow and your
body of humiliation be fashioned like unto His glorious body, but your mind is
unrenewed, your will is weak, your emotions unstable, and your desires fleshly,
how can you express the life and glory of sonship on the level of the glory of
your new and incorruptible body? You
would merely have a heightened and intensified ability to express carnality on
a higher level! You will have
experienced the second resurrection without having experienced the first!
God
will have a people today who have the evidence of the living Christ in their
spirit, soul, mind, body, home, automobile, family, job, everything that has to
do with them. The Biblical picture of
glory and heaven and spiritual things is beauty.
God instructed Moses to put garments of beauty and glory on the
priesthood. When Solomon built the
temple he made it beautiful and glorious.
God did not make a nasty sunset or an ugly rainbow. Even the snow is beautiful, and the grass,
the trees, the mountains, the seashore, and the heavens! Do not talk about Christ being glorified
unless part of that glory is shining and manifesting in you.
If this salvation does not help us right down here with our present
problems, pressures, weaknesses, sins, and diseases, if it does not help us now
to rise above our circumstances, prejudices, and traditions, it is not worth
anything. Some believe that salvation
happens to you after you are dead. And
many believe that resurrection only
happens to you after you are dead and buried.
But I do not hesitate to tell you, precious friend of mine, when you are
not experiencing the resurrection now, you will not be ready for it when you
are lying in a coffin! In the days that
lie before us, may there be a demonstration through all the elect of the Lord
to all who are in need, to the effect that Christ not only died for our sins,
was buried, rose again and ascended to the right hand of the Father, triumphant
up there, but may we open our hearts to the risen Christ, that that victory,
that triumph, that glory, and that life of God be manifested in us, now!
Paul
said that he yearned to know Christ in the power
of His resurrection. Then he also
said, “Christ is the power of God” (I
Cor. 1:24). There is nothing clearer in
the history of this world than that Christ is power. He has made new men and women of tens of
millions. He has turned them right
around and set their faces towards God.
That is the hardest task in the universe. To create a world is nothing compared with
re-creating one human soul. The
victories of Alexander the Great, Caesar, Napoleon,
were child’s play in comparison. Their
power could crush men into a feigned submission, but it could not penetrate the
inner nature and change the secret heart and will and soul. This is what Christ has done again and
again! Have you ever tried to reform any
soul held in the grasp of some delusion,
addiction, or sin? Motive after motive you
urge — the
injury he is doing to himself, his self-respect, public opinion, the love of
friends and family, his place in this world or the next — all in vain. For a moment the poor sinful feet make a
feeble struggle to lift themselves out of the mire, and then sink back
deeper. A sense of despair comes over
you: you feel as though there were nothing to which to appeal.
And
then one day a new heart, a new will, a new mind are given by the sovereign
operation of God; the man stands up in the glory of Christ! All has not yet been transformed, but a
mighty power has been raised up and a glorious new work begun. If you ask him the secret, he would tell you,
with Paul, that
Christ is the power of God unto
salvation! Now, believe me, there is
nothing worth calling power compared with the power that can accomplish
that. To break a man’s resistance; to reverse his
will; to turn the currents of his heart; to renew his mind; to purify his
emotions and desires; to make him love what formerly he hated; to set his soul
triumphantly superior to sin and weakness and sorrow and death; to translate
him into the kingdom of the Son and give him seating in heavenly places; to
make him a son of the Most High with a calling to glory and virtue: whoever can
work these revolutions is strong beyond all that the mighty of the earth ever
conceived of power. And Christ has done
it again and again, praise His wonderful name!
And He shall reign until all enemies are under His feet and the last
soul in heaven, earth, and hell has been re-created into the image of God. David spoke of this mighty power when he
said, “He restoreth my soul.” Ah,
that is just what God is doing in this first resurrection — He is RESTORING OUR
SOUL! That is the power of HIS
RESURRECTION!
Have
you considered the truth that lies hidden in these inspired words of the
apostle, “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. 15:53-54). There is not just one truth
in these words, but two. The apostle tells
us that this corruptible must put on incorruption AND this mortal
must put on immortality. Then
to drive home the significant point that there are two resurrections, the
first and the second, he reiterates again the dual operation of our
change into spiritual beings, saying, “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!” Simply stated, when
both of these operations of God are accomplished in us the resurrection will be
complete.
Paul
prefaces the above statements with these words: “Behold, I show you a mystery…” How totally inadequate do words
become in the face of a mystery so deep and profound as this! How weak are our explanations, how frail our
exhortations! Only the spirit of wisdom and revelation
from God can teach us these things as we ought to know them and may God grant
that the eyes of our understanding should be enlightened of Him to see that the
mystery and the power of His resurrection is being raised up within us to lay
hold upon our entire being until in our totality WE SHALL BE LIKE HIM.
To
be continued… J. PRESTON EBY
