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Chapter 1
The Clamour
of Earth for the Blood of Heaven, Inveterate:
And the Life of God for the Life of Man,
Triumphant
1 THE ENCHANTING EARTH
How angry a
site the earth has become, and for how long! Revelation 12:12. The devil,
unable to sustain his pre-emptive strike in heaven, cast to earth, has harried
humans, sought to murder Christ as a child, accuses the elect of God day and
night, and is most angry because he knows that his time is short. Just imagine
actually BEING a man or woman who, after making hay while the sun shines,
having piled up your millions, or billions, and having sold your soul in the
process, as a valuable which was useful, when yielded to the trade, finds that
death is near.
What
comfort in that earthy thing, when it has no celestial connection!
As time
passes, it is no more like a vast holiday coming, at the end of the student year,
to a site by the beach perhaps, in which you can think and roam in mind and
body, and find the stimulus of the Lord’s creation to thrill your imagination
and His word to dress your soul. No! that is for the
Christian; but for the earthy man or woman, it is different. As wasting
faculties subside, and the fires of life burn low, as the occasional log falls
off from the fireplace, some organic malfunction, some loss of vigour or gain in weight, there is an announcement, an
annunciation: your time is nearly over and you judgment
runs to meet you, apace.
Yet the
earth has her ways. Is there not a defence ? declares an aroused
devil. Why
not have false prophets!
Why not erect our own
religion? Find your own
haven, call it what you will, his Darkness chants, and there are
many who listen. In
hell, the devil concludes, I’ll be there, and who’ll call that hell
? He seems to wait to see if any wimps whimper, but the macho
rules.
Back in
hell, however, the thought continues.
What sort of
speech is there, or how might it be considered ? Is it
not something like this? What shall we do ? Involve them! Then
they poor deluded mortals can be MOST religious on the way to hell, so that
those who come will be so pre-occupied with the rigours
of fraud, that they will no more think of the true, be in awe of the authentic,
busy as butterflies, dazing away their day, or flitting furiousl;
and it is a short one, soon over.
A
sniggering smirk erupts into a thunderous, cavernous splutter of approval.
The idea
seemed good, and the world adopted it. Earthy religion! They did not see the
infernal edition of the Call! Excellent! hell resounded with a disdainful triumph: work your way to heaven, exert great
self-discipline in avoiding God, call your vocation religious anyway, and then
when the bubble bursts… well, quite frankly that is much too late. The plan
is approved, sealed, authenticated before the infernal Board, and set in
motion. There is no sound or noise however echoing up to the earth from the
infernal commotion; after all, it is a spiritual thing.
II
The Song of the Enchanter
The Song of the Evil, which thrills the soul of those
who find there their style ?*1A It is not given too openly,
but as in some secret societies, it grows on the deluded, until they more and
more sound like the basis beneath.
The Song ? It goes rather like this.
‘You must first of all be ONE. This is an ultimate; and if in the meantime, you must be many,
elaborately construct links, even with phrases which frankly smudge the
real differences and give only a plausible and false conception of the division
which lies underneath. After all, if you are going to follow an EVIL SPIRIT,
then you cannot expect the fruits of the Spirit of God, who is good.
‘Secondly, make ‘goodness’ seem cheap,
old-fashioned, especially fuddy-duddy, certainly virtuous, but then make it
seem that since we have to conquer the stars and live in space, as we make this
particular earth so obviously impossible, or will do so before long, we will
have to have some arrogance, some indomitability
before all things, including ourselves. It must come even before our own
natures and anything which could be called wisdom. Wisdom ?
what is that, thus goes the song, for what you
need is thrust. Thrust or bust; forget about being just.
‘Thirdly, don’t be looking for order, for that
only leads to God. Look for chaos, have even pop singers say things like this,
“All I knew that in my productions, songs, what I needed was the most CHAOS!”
Worship it. It dulls the senses, deadens the spirit, abuses thought, has the feeling of strength and the rebellion of spiritual
buccaneers.
‘Do we not all agree ?’ The applause in hell is thunderous; so it
might be imagined.
‘It is a good substitute for God,’ the wail of witlessness continues, ‘who after all dispenses it, being a great designer.
Therefore also attack design. That only leads to the Designer. Make it appear
HE has designs on you, so that it is GOOD to avoid Him, ‘escape’ His servants,
and all churches which actually believe in Him.
“After all, that is a far lesser percentage
than it used to be, since they now freely invent a god who likes disorder in
churches, doesn’t mind if you carry on verbally in an incomprehensible way never
explained, even though Paul in I Corinthians 1 and 14 made it clear that his
message was to ALL churches, and that ALL things in a church must be EXPLAINED,
understood, edifying.
“Just don’t worry about that! Act as if the people
cannot read. They just want to be led!
“To do this, attack the Bible, or else use it as a form of belief, like a legal
form, inscrutable, for others, not really to be studied and DONE! (Thus fulfilling
II Timothy 3:5 in its prediction.)
‘The Bible ? Make it
appear invasive, intrusive and the work of an angry God on the one hand, and a
genteel one on the other, so that they both can go. Use the one tack or the
other, depending on the case. We trust that is obvious ?’
An infernal stare cavorts strenuously from fiery countenance of the spiritual
Sergeant-major.
‘Don’t look too much at Revelation, since
there as in II Thessalonians 1-2, and I Thessalonians 1, like John 3:36 and so
on, you see that He can be very angry in the New Testament also, and don’t pay
much attention to Deuteronomy, since there you see that He can be amazingly
patient and compassionate too, and above all NEVER study both the Old and New
Testaments together, for like a left and right hand, they work well in concert.
You can do this by making disparaging references to history, or even
dispensational sallies; for history is something which they don’t seem to like
teaching too much in this country at least*1, since it interferes with MODERN
indoctrination of various kinds, and in two obvious ways.
Since this speech is long, we shall continue the account in
mere black print.
‘How does it do so ? Do we hear a
question on so obvious an issue ? You CANNOT expect to
be LEADERS of the spiritual invasion if you are so thick.
‘First, it teaches lessons which it is better to forget, if
you want to conquer the stars – we have to CHANGE in various ways, which you do
not need to specify as yet, since many will not like them. Just hint that they
are sure to be great, since human beings are great. Vanity is as near to the
heart of man as cholesterol to it, when he eats to excess.
‘Of course, this leaves you with a problem. Obviously they
are NOT great nearly always, so to create a cunning lie, let them think that
they will evolve into greatness,
despite the present preoccupations, which you COULD sometimes at least, make to
seem slight and to be evolved away. Especially don’t get into serious
discussions on evolution, for since it does not happen, it needs to become a
habit of thought, evacuated from observation.
‘You will learn how amazingly easy it is to talk about
organic evolution while NEVER having any to show, even though the opposition
can ALWAYS have it negated in terms of scientific method. They WANT it, the
ones we lead, so they have it. It is like naughty kids who WANT to go out late
at night, so that the danger of dope, theft, attack, malice, riotous affairs,
sex leading to crippled lives or slow death, does not worry them. They see only
the fantastic escape, the delirious joys and never dream of the drab realities
of broken lives, or the common banalities of belligerence against life. They
DESERVE to be broken, but we who love the lie, we will not be broken. One step
ahead: well remember, the only alternative is God! Need we say more ?
‘A good way to handle this sort of
difficulty with facts, is to laugh at it. It is only
foolish little never-get-to-the-stars people who are tricked or trapped. Use
that line!
‘Then, when people are so denatured that they positively
SINK into more and more unity with more and more apparently impossible other
groups, move fast. Talk of the power of the assassin, the work of the
terrorist, able to penetrate to the heart of a powerful country and laugh at
it. Make them WANT it, this supervision
by some BODY, and soon you will see results. This is so, even
though the Moslem business (too clearly dangerous with its religious lusts,
territorial lusts and forcible subjections in the interests of submission of
some people to others who call the shots on the ground of no rational basis)
will go (there are limits). Better is to come, and we are it!
‘The Roman religious saga is finished likewise, because it
too INSISTS and IMPELS when it can, and the COMMUNIST one cannot prosper, since
it fails to realise that because you CANNOT in the
end avoid the facts of religion, for man is made for God, you MUST ADAPT them.
They have been very stolid!
‘Thus you sing. These things could be looked on as necessary
preliminaries – that could give such parties a sense of importance. But unity,
you have to have it for peace and prosperity, since the world now has so much
power that any madman can work considerable mayhem. No, these old role models
for the satanic power which WILL and must ORDER people and events,
will pass away; but you can use the sense of submission which they breed, to
make a more charming one, a new species of submission, one you will have to hard-sell.
If you can have a pope – and remember, they used to manage whole armies – via
spiritually vassaled kings of course – what can you
not have ? Have then ambition!
‘Seek to bring their thoughts to united
nations as necessary, international power base as obvious and so forth.
In that way, as with Hitler, the OBVIOUS advances will all allow much to be
swallowed until it is too late for them to reverse. It is then that we can make
our better search than in his woeful day, for international and FINAL
DOMINANCE!
‘In case you are wondering WHY you should do all of this,
well if you do not like the truth, it is best to invent the lie. Lying is not
so bad really, when you get used to it, and it then becomes a power contest. If
for example you could kill God, the truth would be that He is gone! See. Now WE
can all work this together and then in the end, we will find who has the power
without all these morals, and the creation and redemption and so on; and the
power wins. You know, it is like a game.’
That is the END OF THE
SONG. It has a name. The
LIE SONG. You see something of its basis in character in John 8:44-45,
II Thess. 2:4-10, Revelation 6.
Of course
they cannot kill God since death is not available to Him, any more than rust is
available to wood (cf. Acme, Alpha and Omega Ch. 8, SMR Ch. 1). That
however does not alter the propaganda effect. The idea can gain some ground
since when God became man in order to enable death to be broken and its reason
to be covered so that eternal life could adorn the poor sinner called man, that
man, Jesus Christ did die! To be sure, He meant to die, and it was only in the
human format that this occurred, and that His Spirit went instantly to His
Father. Yet ignorance can confuse the untaught.
That He
meant to do so, to die vicariously, and came to do so is covered by
cultivated ignorance, which is marvelously forwarded in the education system
which, either by omitting the study of Christianity, or the Bible altogether,
or treating it with frothy philosophic flummeries, while claiming children are
too young to understand while they slip in their heathen irrationalities, can
become like the Statue of Ignorance. There it is, holding its arms aloft, with
a light of darkness, beckoning to all! And many follow its chilling death.
It could be
put in
A Person
who can die, not merely in a format, but altogether and so become extinct, of
course has to be in a system which can be altered in a way effectively contrary
to his life.
But God,
having made all systems, and being no part of any created system, and not even
being material at all, is not penetratable by spikes
or atomic bombs or knives, and cannot be drugged since this is an alien
substance entering a system on which you depend, and He is not created and so
does not have a system on which He depends, but is just inherently alive as He wills
to be, dependent on nothing*2, able to take any form, but ultimately,
confined to none of the changing modes of created form at all!
It is
because of His presence that anything can so much as be, or continue (Hebrews 1:3,
11:1), having rational ground for its manifestly derivative, order-containing systematics, while observably unable to create the same, no
not with a thousands helps (cf. TMR Ch. 1,
Secular
Myths and Sacred Truths Chs. 1, 7).
The ground of anything and everything created is what lacks all occasion to be
invented, being eternal; and without that, eternally you have nothing,
including the time by which to signify eternity! An eternal series still needs the creation of
the series, moving in a system to appointed modes; and a nothing has no future
in which case we should have no present.
Systems on
which you rely uniformly come from somewhere or someone else, and when it is of
God you speak, there is no other place or person. The rest is all created. HE
DOES HAVE the power to create, and does not have the vulnerability to be
created, since all depends on Him, capable of nothingness in an instant if He
so desired, like paper thrown into the waste bin, thence to the furnace.
Knowing all things being dependent on none, He is what He would be, capable of
all survey, and does not move: there is nothing to which to move, for desire or
for need. He has it all and always has had. Such power is not the issue: it is
the heart of Him who has it. In Christ, this with the power attached, is
clearly revealed, as in the Bible for millennia.
Kill God ?
Why, as the world has been taught for several millennia, both before and after
He came, whether in prospect or retrospect: He even came to earth for
sacrificial death as part of a plan of salvation, and still triumphed in His
eternal life, throwing off death as we throw off a cold. It makes man look so
small; but then he is.
Still the
idea of a take-over is so very attractive to the sort of mind-frame which
wanted to kill Christ, and wants every day of the week to change Him and change
His name, and perhaps give it to the Devil’s Messiah, waiting breathlessly in
the wings. As to him, he’ll come; but also go (Revelation 13-20).
This song
of Evil, sketched above and inset, of
course is precisely in accord with prediction and stipulation in the Bible, and
you find parts of it in II Thessalonians 2, II Timothy 3, I Timothy 4, II Peter
2-3, Matthew 24, John 14, 16, Revelation 12, 19 and so on. Even the lusty
singing of the Lie Lovers is in one way, pre-recorded. The finesse, for
comparison, in terms of a rollicking triumph over all opposition and mockery of
their pretension and pride, makes even the lightning seeming Gulf War of 1991
look cumbersome. Indeed, that war was one more fulfilment
of prophecy, not least in this, that the
TROUBLE to come to those seeking to take Jerusalem, as Saddam Hussein indicated
of himself, was forecast to be extreme (Zechariah 12, 14 cf. The
Impregnable Tower Ch. 8). In this, that
Alas
Hussein’s land is not the only nation involved in that subversive business,
seeking to take a place God has given to one people (the Jews, whom He
disciplined MOST sharply), and seize it for others, even those who already have
grabbed most of the Palestine promised internationally to the Jew after World
War I, and during it! (Cf. Galloping Events Ch. 4, Regal Rays of Revelation Ch. 1.)
III
TEEMING WITH MEANING
The
These
things being so, and all things being of One Master, it is not surprising to
find all things fit together on this basis. Even the opposition is predicted in
its mode and action, detailed in its song type and degeneration, long before
the onset is complete!
Thus, one
of the points to be noted about God is this, that He does not alter what He has
to say in His written word. No one else is in this position. Buddhism does not
have a God, except what they make of Buddha, who did not believe in one;
Hinduism has stacks of them, Confucianism does not really probe into it, Shintoism is to busy with ancestors, Communism likes to
expel Him until they need the cash; the Koran does not provide any sign of
having one who DOES what he SAYS, as noted in Ch. 10
of Great
Execrations, Great Enervations, Greater Grace. Indeed, the use of force
in faith has also been documented in the references there, and this as shown in
SMR Ch. 1, is contrary to all reason; for it
simply miscalls faith and while it may be protested that officially, this does
not happen, the Koran shows that it does. History adds its multitudinous
laments to the same effect, in nation after nation.
You need
liberty for love and conviction for faith, and not the lashing or deadly
dispatch of some criminal court, where the Islamic world seems fascinated with
placing people who dare to criticise the Koran or
Muhammad, when they are in their lands.
·
ONLY
THE BIBLE meets the specifications of reason, the testimony of truth, the scientific method of assessment, which is only one but one good
way of checking claim with reality (cf. SMR, TMR).
ONE of the ways in which it does this, is
·
the
harmony between
·
the
staggering claim that it is from the ONE GOD and
·
the
startling ways in which He always and without any exception, indifferent to the
stage of history concerned, makes what He says happen, even if it be two or
more millennia later.
Another is
found in the basic factual specificities which He gives, as in the crucifixion
and resurrection, before they happened (cf. Joyful
Jottings 22-25, SMR Ch. 9),
things relating to the plan of salvation, admittedly central and crucial, and
hence of inordinate interest to the opposition, and yet for all that, on course
and never diverted, not even in the life of Christ, clad in human format and
hence exceedingly vulnerable. It is found even in the nature of the Messiah who
had to come to perform a role wholly impossible without infinite power, in any
case, and live beyond the power of man, and then die, doing it on time. He even had to remove His own
body as well, for had it been found, God would have been wrong. How simple!
Just guard it and produce it. All you needed was the power to oppose God
successfully…
It was all
open, stated, stipulated, and contrary to the tides of power as it then was; it
was carried through, to the death and the inescapable body, it was this that
fell purposefully as a sacrifice into men’s hands, only to leave them! God
mocked (as in Psalm 2, where He predicted that He would so mock) their pride
and vanity, their hatred and their insane paranoia, seeking to take over from
God. In addition, He had to do it with chronological exactitude to fulifil the prophetic specifications! (cf. Highway
of Holiness Ch. 4).
Another way
in which He attests Himself, His word and His way for man, it is the unchanging
word which it gives, as to what YOU must do, whom YOU must receive, and how YOU
should live. (Cf. Barbs, Arrows and Balms 17, 20, TMR Ch. 3.) It is not just that it
does not change, but that it COULD not do so,
being from God: it could not mutate in its statements of principle and
program, and so it is made exceedingly vulnerable. ONLY ONE failure in the
Messiah in His announced actions as in Mark 2, would be the end, even if at the
beginning; and this condition applied to the end, even to the death. SO only
one alteration of divine morality would bespeak an altered being. What God
does, He does for ever. No one else is like that. It is as simple as that.
There is nothing else testable, immutable, vulnerable, and precisely right at
all times, whether in prospect or retrospect, in moral soundness that does not
change or in fulfilment that makes changes of format
or function or fortune for this or that nation, as it will. It speaks; they do.
The world is subordinate; but it loves to be insubordinate: yet in its most
lunging lusts, it fails to alter either the prediction or the morality of God!
If, after
all, you have specified an UNCHANGING being who knows ALL things, and in particular the end from the beginning,
who from Moses on shows that He plans to
SPECIFY for all time, what is to be, then it is necessary for this to be
CONSISTENTLY FULFILLED, if reason has anything to do with it; and this is
itself one way of checking. We are not given minds in order to use them to say
why we want this or that, and then to ignore their existence when our whole
lives are at stake! IF God were to have to revise His words, as ‘science’
(really what people are working out) does so that in ten years a vast change is
discernible in it, then He would not be God, but someone who has to WAIT AND
SEE. As to Him, He prepares the way, predicts the stages, informs the distant,
displays to the day when it comes; He makes patterns and programs, and then
fulfils them, teaching as He goes, and finishing His work with zeal that is both
loving and untutorable.
The
humility before this authenticated presence which should be natural to science,
once was more so, and now is less so, the more hairbrained
ideas leading to the expenditure of billions of dollars, contrary to God’s
always verified word and witness, while the real challenges are left but thinly
approached. It is well that so many of the most original scientists have been
Christians, men like von Braun, Babbage, Faraday, Sir Isaac Newton, Maxwell,
and many others (cf. Beauty for Ashes Ch.
3, Wake up World! … Ch. 1).
Since God
claims that He is not changeable and has total survey and understanding of all
that He has made, and this is beyond all
creation, in the realm of its comprehensive controller, and there is only one
who can be that and KNOW what is to be (because, you see, of the trouble with
the others, if there were any), then His word in consistency, HAS to show no need for revision. It HAS to
be without competition in quality too, and this is ONE of those required
qualities. This is found in its unique validity as well (TMR Ch. 5, SMR Chs. 1,10), which accords well
with its unchanging overview.
This
immutability of the message to man is to be most carefully distinguished from a
STATED procedure of lessons. In a University, if you have English I, English
II and
English III, this does not mean that they are finding out what is to be,
and changing it. It is a STATED course to enable you to grasp it all in the
end, by stages of instruction. So in the Bible, Moses in Deuteronomy 18
announces that his domain is to be superseded, not by rejection, but in
authority, by another who MUST be received, and His various attributes are made
clear from Genesis 3 onward (cf. Barbs, Arrows and Balms 17), as is the Gospel associated (cf. also TMR Ch. 3). It is the Messiah
(beautifully presented in Psalms 2, 16, 22, 40 and so
on, as in Joyful Jottings 22-25).
It is all
one in principle as you see in Romans 4, always faith in God, repentance into
salvation, sacrifice to cover sin, first animal, as pageant of pictorial
illustration, then Christ as the fitting cover, God as MAN for man, covenant
and calling. What then would one expect ? God who made mind, did not make it in
order that it be not used, just as you do not make wheels for a car in order
that they should not turn. Anyone can
CLAIM that God said this or that, but ONLY GOD can prove it!
This He
does,
Ø firstly in announcing what He has to
say,
Ø then in calling attention to the
fact that without competition only He can make history FOLLOW what He says,
Ø then in advising of the coming in
PERSON in format as a man,
Ø then all the details needed to
identify Him when He came,
Ø then requirements so profound that
only God could meet them,
Ø then the date at which the highest
requirement would be met, dying for sin and rising from the dead,
Ø then in defeating all endeavours to keep the corpse captured, then in sending His
Spirit, all as announced in the Old Testament (e.g. Joel 2 quote in Acts 2),
performed in the New,
Ø then in directing the course of
history, the persecution of His Church, as foretold (cf. John 16:2, Matthew
10), the numerous false prophets (Matthew 24:24), the sensational ending of the
Age and so on, as traced in SMR Ch. 8, Answers to Questions Ch. 5 and often elsewhere.
What more then ?
Ø Then, with the added irony that
man is BROUGHT LOW just as he seems to be sailing high with all his knowledge (Daniel
12) and predicting this (Matthew 24:22), God keeps spread out the same Gospel.
Judgment is required for sin, Christ bearing it for those who receive Him; and
as the world does NOT receive Him, as a system, so systematically it is
harrowed, harassed and unholy, till even its devotees become less than
fascinated by those (to them) awful ingredients, the facts of mortality,
enhanced by hatred, malice, trickery, treachery and the like, till the new
powers for which man longs and sacrifices his peace, become the new ingredients
of shame.
Ø But God, He does not change; His
word does not change; His Gospel does not change. It does not need to do
so. When you have the truth, that is the
way of it and verification of it: one MORE verification. Indeed, Isaiah puts it
like this: To the law and the prophets. If they do not speak according to this
word, there is no light in them (Isaiah
How could it
be otherwise, since there is one God, and His plan involved His eternal Word,
incarnate!
That too
follows, and not only is the Gospel is forbidden to change (Galatians 1,
Proverbs 30, Revelation 22, Ephesians
IV TEAMING WITH THE TRUTH
What is now needed is this: to look at some of this
unchanging truth, this grace of God in the Gospel and consider its consistency
and sweep, as becomes and is fitting for the God who made man in the first
place, and did not do so without knowing the end, and that it was worth it all!
For this purpose, let us look at I Corinthians 15.
First Paul declares the Gospel which focusses
the ONE WHOM God sent, the WORK He did, the BREACH of death itself which He
then performed following His other earlier miracles, this being the
authentication of His call, claim and status, wrought at the date prescribed
centuries beforehand (Highway of Holiness Ch. 4). He gives His NAME, Jesus Christ, the Saving
Messiah. Long did the world wait, long attend the prediction, but it came at
the time stated, neither before nor since, and since the Prince of Peace was
dispatched as far as man could do so, His peace is not found in the nations,
nor will it be till His return, as He has declared (Matthew 24). What God does,
He performs without compromise; but then so does mathematics. If it is wrong,
it does not work.
In this Corinthians chapter, the apostle then proceeds from
the bearing of sin by Christ, to the consideration of the nature of the
RESURRECTION. Death is a fatal sort of thing, but not final, any more than
birth; for with that, though it is
marvel and wonder, it does not end motherhood, for something more is available,
in more children. Here something more remains, in judgment and eternity. Human life
is a beginning, wrought by God with precision to the infinitesimal, and its
end, it is as extensive as the beginning is intensive; and He has made a
provision is for it to be endless as life where vitality and reality do not
separate.
Yet this cannot be so without Him, for HE ALONE is endless,
leaving time a mere creation, like the twiddle of the dial, and indeed as in
Revelation 20, as its time comes near, the heaven and the earth flee away, no
place being found for them, any more than
a Sunday School platform, erected for an anniversary celebration in a
church remains when the testing time of presentation is past!
When a Personal Being is in control of life, and made it, it is not too difficult for that
Being to manage its manifestations and overcome this or that: though in this
case, sin or rebellion against God Himself being the sin, so that many both
have acted and do act as if He were absent,
there is a payment of grand scale for remedy. Why is this ? It is
because man, in so spoiling life completely as with an unserviced
car, required a lot. It is (relatively) easy to make a new one (like a new
car), but intensely laborious to re-create the smashed one.
Love is interested, for man is not matter, being instead of
a wholly different order which instead of mere servitude, has capacity that can
strike a law, break it and enjoy it all the more if it understands it. This he
has for a time, rather than follow the flatly directive leader, as with the
contrivances of matter within (cf. Repent or Perish Ch. 7, It Bubbles …Ch.
9, Galloping Events Ch. 7, News 152, 100).
Because of divine concern, it was Christ Himself who had to
come to bear the problem and in Himself, attest the solution, life that is
incapable of further death (as in Revelation 1:18-19). This He promised (as in
John 3:16), the method He outlined (as in Matthew 20:28), and the prophets who
went before also indicated the phases of it (as in Luke 24:25-26 cf. Isaiah 12,
322, 42,49, 50-55, Hosea 13:14, Psalm 2
and so on, covered in specialised studies earlier – see scriptural and topical indexes).
Here in I Corinthians, then, you see that the Gospel does
not concern itself with YOU as the centre, but with God as your Creator and Saviour. You NEED HIM,
and if you do not desire Him, then you do without Him, and this, with the appalling consequences of
so regarding your own life, and deploying it in your own interests.
v
He has done what it takes; it is for
you to take what He did,
v
and receive Christ who did it,
v
who
defines the revelation of God
v
and
exhibits the nature of God in the name of God, being God as man.
That is who He is; reject Him and you have no God, that is,
as your friend.
The plan is simple, like the case with some other wars, but
costly, also like them, and far more so than they; and it is triumphant, never
resorting to force where faith is the way,
and never treating man’s faith and heart as a mere dominated thing. Love
however is twofold in those who are Christ’s, for you do not come to the God
who IS love (I John 4:7ff.), without it! and it delights in finding like
treasure, the will of God, and then doing it, with the fidelity of a well-shot
arrow and the cherishing joy of a hearty appetite.
In I Corinthians, Paul then proceeds to consider the nature
of the resurrection. Before we proceed, let us see the outline in I Corinthians
15. We have considered Step ONE, so far.
SEEING THE DEVELOPMENT IN I
CORINTHIANS 15
a)
the Dynamic Difference I C. 15:35-38
b)
the Difference in Form I C 15:39-41
c)
the Divine Difference I C 15:42-49
When you
are healed, you are strong.
When you
are strong and grateful,
Then you
are energetic for your Saviour,
Knowing
the value of His life,
Of your
own work for and in Him therefore,
And that
it is valued by Him.
STEP TWO
Let us take the thrust of this and see it with some of its
implications.
HOW, Paul exclaims, can some of you who use the name of
Christ be so stuck in the philosophy of naturalism, of futility, or so confused
that you speak as if there is no resurrection! Have you not thought at all ? IF
there is no resurrection, this is not some vague philosophic premiss, but a denial that Christ rose, for the general
covers the particular. If that were so, then all preaching of Christ would be
meaningless, indeed fraudulent, the operation futile, and this frail life of
the flesh would be used in ways which leave it worse than nothing. People who
do good, would suffer, and the evil become rich as is normal, whereas it would
be uninstructive to any, a mere misnomer.
However, this is not so, and it is not for this reason that
people allow the follies of this world and seek to do good. It is because there
is in man something more significant than the means of life: it is life itself,
and its Maker is the most significant of all. It is necessary to consult with
Him! The finding is not obscure (cf. Spiritual Refreshings
… Ch. 5).
STEP
THREE
Then it is that finding and realising
past urbane patter, that Christ has indeed risen from the dead, one finds a
Captain of the Vitality Industry who has already won, and one is to follow when
the date is ripe, just as He came when the date was ripe and right (cf. Highway
of Holiness Ch. 4): for with God, everything is
in its time, its place, its sequence, its situation, as ordered with counsel
and prepared with wisdom. In so doing, He has provided a pattern and a triumph.
Death has caused innumerable tears, and many a broken heart; but it is not the
end when the Lord of life is concerned, as He is. It is a beautiful part of His
amazing accomplishment that the very way in which justice was satisfied (for
God is just cf. Barbs… Appendix 3, SMR Ch. 1), is the mode of expression of love, that
the seemingly impersonal is the height of the personal, His call to come the
pinnacle of pity, while the implementation of deliverance is the tower of
mercy, and the pathway of peace is the expression of truth
(II Corinthians 5:17ff.).
Thus it is necessary to understand the beginning in order to
appreciate the end!
Christ is the leader of those to be resurrected in Him, just
as the first man, Adam, was the leader of those to die with him in his fault of
sin, transmitted inexorably to the human race (cf. Romans 5). Adam is the first
man, when God commenced the race, and for terminal purposes, Christ is the LAST
man, for in Him manhood finds not merely perfect expression but the ONLY
deliverance available, and that both of and by God. By sending His Spirit, He
endues those who are His, who come to Him in faith with repentance of heart,
with a life which does not end.
However there is more than a minor technicality in the chronology.
The case is this: First sin with its death, then resurrection with its triumph;
for when Christ comes not to save but to collect, this in its time, then those
who are His rise to meet Him who broke the death barrier, with its double boom
of death and judgment. Christ came as Messiah to accomplish this free salvation
(as in Romans 3, 5) and He does not finish this total schema until the death
treatment is finalised, not only in the principle, by
removing the guilt of sin for believers, but in practice, by restoring their
lost bodies, in a form fit for eternity.
STEP
FOUR
If it were otherwise, why on earth should people be baptized
with the conception of filling up the ranks of the departed Christians with new
recruits, bent on the same eternally significant task, bringing honour to the memory of those who fought the good fight in
the name of Christ! Why indeed, for some
less cause than eternal life in the beloved God, should Paul spend his entire
converted Christian life in constant danger, so that it is not too much to say
that he “dies daily”! (On this, see I Corinthians 4 and II Cor. 4, for no little detail of what that means!
Those who are Christians should KNOW from personal experience… You cannot be
alive without knowing it, whether spiritually or physically.)
If there is no life to come, why not just sink the shaft
into pleasures and profits, meaningless, unsure, unsafe and vain, or do the
dance of the derelict as you see in so much of the wild orgies of gurus of the
microphone! Why put value into what lacks it ? Why not show your frustration in
such ways as those, like rockets lost to the control tower, spinning wildly
before disintegration! Why not even show resentment while you are at it, one
might add, and debase yourself willingly, to add to your guilt ?
However company enough of that type is available, the last
word in practical cynicism, and in its unbelief it both spoils itself and
infects what shares life with it! (Cf. SMR Ch. 3.)
STEP FIVE
Suppose
we investigate the ramifications. Someone might ask, What sort of a
body then do they have, those resurrected ? You may recall the scribal terrors
who asked Christ whose wife a woman would be, who on earth had 7 husbands. The
answer was that in the resurrection and indeed in heaven, there is no
sexuality. It is not a physically procreative site.
THIS, our life on earth, is a test, that to come is a
triumph, not wrought by us, but made available to us. This is clothed in the
temporary, that is fitted for eternity. It is rather like considering a joy
flight on earth, and contrasting this with a space probe set to go for 30
years; except that you have to extend that to infinity! and the company is God.
Comparisons
and principles ?
First
there is the DYNAMIC DIFFERENCE. Take a seed, Paul
declares. It has one form, as a seed, when it is potential, and another when it
is actualised, as grain on its waving stalks. One
little thing is transformed into a staggering beauty.
Then,
there is the DIFFERENCE IN FORM. Flesh, or if you like, the format of things created, the
creation, it has different clothing for its form. Birds, fish, man, all possess
significant differences in structure and operation. Not only so, but there is the terrestrial, on
earth, and the astronomical, in heaven,
and there is a ‘glory’ or beauty and special set of properties provided for
diverse created objects.
Just as created life has already vast differences in
function, form and format, so there is yet more diversity, and that also within
some forms of life. Is it possible then to be surprised at the Master of
multiplicity when He brings sublimity to the seed of the human, in its time! HE
has shown who He is and what He can do in Christ, in the prophets, in the past;
He has plighted Himself to what He will do in the future and done it in Himself
in our format, the test vehicle, as man might think, though sovereignly
assured, nevertheless showing in the flight the power of its launching.
Thirdly,
there is the DIVINE DIFFERENCE. Thus man is “sown in corruption”,
to preserve the thought of a seed, but adding that of sin, and “raised in incorruption”, in which form it is
now without the facility and functionality of sin, death, decay and decline. Likewise,
it is sown in dishonour, raised in honour, in glory indeed, while its early weakness, so
manifest in the terrors of this world, leads to its being raised in power.
When it is “sown” or placed upon this earth, it is FLESHLY,
and earth in the sense that its physical componentry
was derived from the chemical elements on earth, used in the construction, if
you will, of the human tower*3. It is of the order of those programmatic
physical bodies, those sustainable minds and those created spirits, to take the
case of a man, which are spread out for continuity at that level. It is raised
a SPIRITUAL body, however, in which the contrast is not only seen with the
sinful and temporary thing that was, but in the eminence of the closeness to
God, as a direct correlate of God, a child of God drawn close, created but
recreated, as in spirit, now in body; and now not merely IN His image, but
sharing His companionship without default.
It is still a body, for it is not the natural which is
contrasted, as an order, but the human type of format within it, both liable to
sin and to mortality. It is a spiritual body.
Yes as a body, it is one contrasted with its earlier
confinement to its place within its particular relationship to the natural
orders of our sphere, here those which involve decay, attrition, yes and
contrition very often. Now, with the availability of God through the Gospel in
place, this new body becomes lost in a new intimacy, raised not only from death
but to life that is consummate, unconditioned by considerations of weakness and
woe, one in which it is now of the spiritual order, where God is seen face to
face. Man does not cease to be created, but he does cease to be conditioned in
any way by his fall.
Not in a little was this accomplished. Let us review the
thrust in time.
The first Adam was what ? a living being. There is a
contrast now however to be fully realised. There is
the Second Adam, another new thing on the surface of this earth. This ? It is
not some extension of Adam, but an invention of God, the placing of His
everlasting Word incarnate in flesh, via a woman for the format. It is Jesus
Christ. There are the two pivots: Adam, natural order, plus sin adds to death.
Jesus Christ, supernatural and celestial order, divine indeed, plus plan of
salvation by Him, adds to eternity with a body of individuality not lost, but
sustained.
Lose your life, said Christ, and SAVE IT! (Matthew
16:24ff.). Give up your temporary hold for yourself, and gain an eternal blessing
in life, from Himself, able to give it, having paid for it in justice, given
Himself in grace, and so achieved the perfect blend of mercy and holiness (cf.
Psalm 85:10ff.).
In this sense, as Christ now applies this life through His Spirit,
the first man became a living being, the second Adam became for man a
life-giving Spirit (cf. Romans 5, 8).
The First man was of the earth, EARTHY, the second man is
the LORD from heaven. We have not been left in natural hands, but supernatural
ones have come to the rescue. The image, form, format, nature of the first man
is what came to us, in our earthly equipment; the image of the heavenly Man, is
what awaits. As I John 3 puts it, what He is, is what we are to become, since
He has broken death as man, and provides life from God for man, which endures.
His resurrection is the laboratory model. We follow on. God makes the
difference.
STEP SIX
This
brings up an important point. We CANNOT, constituted as we are, inherit eternity, in some
merely natural way. It is to be in our
resurrection format, just as our trial life was in our fleshly format. Flesh
with its heritage of ills is not the only natural thing, the only nature that
God creates! There was nothing merely natural about Christ’s resurrection, nor
was it limited in any merely natural way, when upon this earth. Thus “flesh and
blood” CANNOT inherit the kingdom of God. To BE THERE, you have to HAVE WHAT IT
TAKES.
How is this to be done ? Paul now divulges a crucial aspect
of the truth. We shall not all, who now live, die. Often has this author
considered the sheer delight of skipping the death that is still waiting, and
being transformed on the spot, and lifted to the life celestial in the general
resurrection. It does, in a purely imaginative way, remind one of skiing!
Certainly, says Paul, SOME will be in that position, for Christ is to come as
He did as a babe, now a King, at a TIME.
In other words, there is to be a generation when some will
be changed on the spot, transformed and transmuted; for when Christ comes, this is the order of
events. As I Thessalonians 4 tells us, the dead in Christ, those already passed
on from this earth, these will be resurrected first, then those who remain at
that time, Christians still alive on earth will follow in that divine thrust
known as the general resurrection. HIS ? It was particular. This ? it is
general.
The transformation is to be instantaneous, announced by
trumpet, far better than those wailing air-raid sirens of the endless procession
of wars on earth; and then ? Then the “dead shall be
raised incorruptible”. We hear of incorruptible people on earth, and
marvel with joy if they seem honest all their lives, though there is not one
who is without sin; but this to which the Christian through Christ’s labours is heir, it is not mere failure to fall into some
specially vicious moral pit, some clear-cut and manifest failure. No, it is to
be FREE from FALLING altogether.
“We shall all be changed” as is clear, for since there is no man who does not sin, it is given to men to die once (to be raised in immediate, spectacular instantaneity for those alive at His coming, or this following waiting before He come, yet still in His spiritual presence – Philippians 1:23), and after that the judgment (Hebrews 9). What then is it like, this change ? It is rather like putting on an overcoat (the image underlying II Corinthians 5), so this “corruptible must put on incorruption” , and not only so, but this vast human enemy, the seal on sin, death itself, it has to go. Thus this “mortal shall put on immortality” so that no more is it accessible, this death, this vulnerability, this fatality. It is like putting in a space suit, so that the cold is excluded, but this in an order of life which is categorically different, not just in degree, but in kind.
“We shall all be changed” as is clear, for since there is no
man who does not sin, it is given to men
to die once (to be raised in immediate, spectacular instantaneity as above, or this
following waiting before He come, yet
still in His spiritual presence – Philippians 1:23), and after that the
judgment (Hebrews 9). What then is it like, this change ? It is rather like
putting on an overcoat (the image underlying II Corinthians 5), so this “corruptible must put
on incorruption” , and not only so, but this vast human enemy, the seal
on sin, death itself, it has to go. Thus
this “mortal shall put on immortality” so that
no more is it accessible, this death, this vulnerability, this fatality. It is
like putting in a space suit, so that the cold is excluded, but this in an
order of life which is categorically different, not just in degree, but in
kind.
When all this has happened, the prediction of Isaiah will be
fulfilled, “Death is swallowed up in victory”
(Isaiah 25:8). In fact, this with Isaiah 26:19 shows the case that Christ is to
cover, envelop and provide for those who are believers who have passed on, for “My dead body shall they arise”. So did the
prophets show these things; but it is only when the appointed one, the anointed
one, the Messiah has done them that it is necessary to indicate with new detail
the whole implications and schema involved.
STEP
SEVEN
In view
of these things, it
is good to reflect with Hosea 13 (in the testimony beforehand by some 7
centuries, of that prophet) that in this way death can be addressed,
apostrophized:
“O death where is your sting! O grave (or hell) where
is your victory!”
Death, it must be clearly recognised
by the Christian, is no longer an issue. Like going to school, you have to do
it; but in this case, except Christ Himself should return before you die when
it is all concentrated: it passes. The time comes, sooner or later, when this
phase is over, and the eternal life continues in the presence of the One who
with this marvellous plan of salvation, instituted
life with confidence, and concluded it with this triumph.
·
It
does not belittle sin: that DESERVES death.
·
It
does not compromise with it either, for holiness is mandatory, and that out of
love, for as in households, dirt does not help anything.
·
It
does not disperse love, but diffuses it, for God is able to life those who
fall.
What then is left ? Thanks, that is what is left. Thanks be to God who GIVES us the victory, Paul
exclaims; for all required is DONE ALREADY, and we, we need to accept it and
receive Him, thus having a current and spiritual transformation (as in II Cor. 5:17ff.), in preparation for the physical aspect to
come, that is, as Paul puts it in Romans 8, “the
redemption of the body”.
v
So does all the plan of salvation, the scope of earth and
heaven, the love of God, the justice of God, the judgment of God, the gift of
eternal life, the nature of the resurrection, the order of things, all cohere.
It is not a life without meaning, telling us that this is so on the part of
people without meaning whose meaning assessment therefore must likewise and in
the self-same way be without meaning, and hence irrational,self-contradictory
and arbitrary nonsense.
v
We are not in this logical impasse. Logic works so well because
God who made us, instilled it both into us as workers, and into the inanimate
as the worked. It all works*4 because One God made the design for the analysable and the analyst in one Mind, His.
v
We are not left with mere stuff thrust into our necks by arrant religionists,
materialists or other plagues, on pain of the severance of the same; for how
then would mind test with what it is given, instead of being merely sedated! Is
sedation any way to live ? or die ?
v
It is the mere precursor
to death, unless you are awakened! (cf. I Corinthians 6, Isaiah 42:18ff.).
NOTES
*1A See for kindred
presentations: Tender Times for Timely Truths Ch. 8
and News 87, with
The Kingdom of Heaven Ch.
8 and Barbs, Arrows and Balms 8.
The Australian, January 27, article by Jonathan King,
Historian.
From experience, he
forms the view that there is “a small politically correct brigade bent on
changing Australia in its own image.” Although, he affirms, many NSW students
must do a mandatory 100 hours in history, they rarely hear of important leaders
and achievers leading to the development of the nation (he specifies a group in
view). There is more. “Not surprisingly, students’ ignorance of our history is
becoming so appalling that one school leaver thought Gallipoli was a surfing
beach in Queensland, another thought it was where we defeated Hitler. Few even
know when, now or why their continent was settled.”
The author found a similar
phenomenon in the Education course he took, where he had to OPT for a SPECIAL
individual course (taken alone) in order to get the History of Education, which
proved utterly fascinating. There was so much talk on the elevated conceptions
of those most advanced (i.e. now), that the follies of much of our educational
system, with its downgrading of literary precision, vocabulary and grammar,
high achievement and its survival emphasis, is left as a sort of standard, as
if the Twin Towers in New York, in their present state, were the last word in
architecture, because so recent.
It is intensely understandable, this
tendency to avoid the former things. To study the past requires principles for
evaluation, whereas in fact many simply make themselves or the current state or
stage of their culture, the criterion; and it stirs thought on good and bad
points, emphases and results in the past and stimulates application to the
present. All of this is good or beneficial towards objective understanding, and
that is a positive enemy of a delusive revolution in thought, which comes to
this, that what is, is good, and can be made better, and is always better than
what was.
This simplistic self-adulation
leaves the teacher of English for example, more than appalled: for the
comparison of the high level of literary craftsmanship and critical skills
demanded formerly, with the current stresses, at times resembles a comparison
of Gothic Cathedrals, or the British Houses of Parliament, with a 50 story
air-conditioned, geometrically blocked sky-scraper, awaiting Al Qaeda’s next emulous move.
Truth is not content to be the
content of the current state of a man’s or a culture’s mind. It requires the
knowledge of God, and a means of assessment, that is above and not in the
prison of a mentality so circumscribed, that current man can scarcely even
survive, and seems in many cases so pre-occupied with this ‘art’, that rats
might seem for many a suitable comrade in arms.
This is not to downgrade
contemporary man at all, but to summon to the bar of thought, the cultural
sleaziness which is downgrading his conceptions, and to highlight the need to
turn from the servility for which, many private schools, positively
proliferating in this nation, try to provide some relief.
After all, if you are going to bring
the race to its knees, it is best to keep them off them, at the outset! If
however the interest is their deliverance, it is a far better thing that they
use them, and that ? for kneeling, not before the monster fabrication of
arrogant human racism, but before the living God*5, its source, and doing so
minus arrogance, that enormous plus which is for man a major minus, making the
USA’s national debt in trillions, seem as nothing by comparison.
See TMR Ch. 7, Barbs, Arrows and Balms 29, Acme, Alpha and Omega … Ch. 8, SMR Chs. 1, 10.
An excerpt here from Light of Dawn Ch. 3 should provide further
perspective and data to the point.
Thus in I
Corinthians 15, we find not that
there is to be a body which is
·
fusikos (1) and one which is
·
pneumatikos (2) , but one which is
·
yucikos (3) and one pneumatikos.
Not the
natural, but the nature of life as it is, it is which is to go. The yuch not the fusis is to become obsolete.
Things do not lose the state of being created in a realm, an order with a
nature donated to them, in order to become spiritual, as far as the body is
concerned, we find therefore in I Cor. 15. Rather it
is the natural man, which is paralleled in this chapter by such expressions 'in corruption' (I Cor. 15:42), 'in dishonour' (I Cor. 15:43), before we find our interest in v. 45, "It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body."
It is not
therefore a natural order which is to be omitted (as in 1 above). It is not
this term concerning 'nature', which is used in his exclusion. Rather, it is
the term depicting a debased, dishonoured and
potentially carnal body which is to be omitted. It is not a body of
individuality and coherence, reality and distinguishing features which is to
go; it is one which is inherently susceptible to decay, pain, mortality,
corruption and death. Hence we read later (I Cor.
15:50): "... corruption does not inherit
incorruption."
'Flesh' is characteristically used in such contexts by Paul to mean the
abased, spiritually diseased and inherently depraved, the sinfully lost, the adventurist-style divorcee from God, and its associates (as
in Romans 7:18,25, Galatians 5:17 - where 'the
flesh lusts against the spirit'). To be sure, this is sarx in these cases, but yuch, the
soul,
is its correlative, its parallel, the specialised expression of which sarx is the generic.
'Flesh'
as such is something created, but the term tends to suggest especially in Paul,
quite simply its fallen state, and what this implies in various contexts.
'Soul', being that which is to be saved, potentially at the first susceptible
by donation to eternal life, but alienated from this and so settled in 'flesh',
is not inherently at all evil. However, in this domain, dimension, historical
situation, it is depleted of its proper vitality, dynamic and desire, and can
with passion indeed, pursue what is far other, often with self-righteousness,
to show the disease in intensively spiritual terms, where whoredom and the like
does not so much appeal.
As Thayer
points out in his Greek Lexicon (one which is distinguished by considerable
flair for words, and far from wooden), Paul might have used fleshly (sarkikos) instead of yucikos (3 above), but
appears to have used the correlative to 'fleshly', instead of that word
itself, because quoting from Genesis 2. There, he had just used 'living soul'
(Genesis 2:7 - 'living soul' employing yuch swma), and he continued in parallel
without change.
Of course,
it is not for us to guess why Paul used any given word, but the continuity of
terminology, using what he quoted before as to vocabulary, in pursuing the
theme, would normally be regarded as sound technique, lest confusion arise, and
people begin to wonder whether he had changed or adjusted slightly the topic.
In this way, no confusion is even possible. In that sense, Thayer's point is a
just one.
It is,
then, the dishonourable, the corruptible, indeed the
corrupted which is to have no part in the kingdom of heaven, and this is what
is declared in I Cor. 15:50, explicitly in the
context of terms used. The addition of 'blood' in this verse, is merely a
metonymy, the extension of the nature of things fallible, corruptible and
mortal, and in this case defiled and degraded, into its human format more
fully. THIS, the apostle instructs us, is to be replaced by what is a body
immortal, incorruptible, honourable, free from
defilement or its opportunities, its scope or its doom, its degrees or its
character entirely.
In fact
Paul is at enormous pains to exclude two things: any thought of impurity
continuing in any degree whatsoever into the eternal state, and any conception
of evaporation of nature, so that it ceases. There are, he declares, asseverates,
pronounces with depth and continuity, DIFFERENT SORTS of bodies. He proceeds
through a sort of litany of physical components of nature. This is used as a
ground for the differentiation of types of body applicable to man. It is not
that the natural is gone; it is that the corruptible is annulled. It is not at
all that there is cessation of distinctive natural character, but there is a
DIFFERENT one. It is one comparable to the current realm of nature in one
point, that it is of a diverse but analogical sort.
Indeed,
'foolish one' he expostulates of the would-be confused person, unable or
unwilling to realise the point (I Cor.
15:36ff.). To what does this constitute a part of the reply ? It is to a
putative question:
·
"How are the dead raised, and with what body do they come
?"
·
His answer:
·
"Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies.
·
“And what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be, but mere
grain - perhaps wheat or some other grain. But God gives it a body as He pleases,
and to each seed its own body. All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is
one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, and
another of birds. There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies ...
·
“So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in
corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonour,
it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power."
It is apparent therefore that the apostle
exceedingly degrades any concept of NO body, or some odd sort of body which is
really not a body at all. It is the precise opposite which he pounds,
expostulating extensively, crisply and dramatically against any such
misconception. It is the same SORT of thing in this, that there is a decisive,
individual and distinctive relationship between the one and the other. The
difference is NOT a loss of information, form or reality, but a specific and
highly specialised increment of excellence, indeed a
replacement of the inglorious trend and type with the glorious type, both as
intimately related as bodies, however, as are seed and grain. This is his
message.
The evil
susceptible is EXCLUDED from heaven (I Cor. 15:50).
It is not even relevant. There has to be a profound and total change of the nature
of the being for it to be clothed with this species of immortality body. THAT
is why it is called for; its destiny would not admit anything less. The
difference is categorical, not in the realm or domain of the body, as body:
THAT is the thing which is invariant in CATEGORY. The change, however, within
that conceived category, it is absolute, from the downward to the upward, from
the degraded to the restored, the ordinary to the extraordinary, the ugly to
the beautiful, the vulnerable to the invulnerable, the judged to the
acceptable, the bordering on dysfunction, to the endlessly functional.
Its
difference, divergence, diversity, it is in an entirely and far more delightful
direction, then, than mere alteration; but still in the style and form of BODY.
It is still the species within the category which is at point; but the
celestial species is above; the terrestrial is fallen below and sinks yet more
to judgment.
The
celestial: It is a glorious species of body for a glorious realm to be
inhabited ONLY by people whose 'flesh and blood' defilement type bodily and
spiritual domains are replaced by a spiritual body type involvement, parallel
to the personal change made.
Thus the
LORD (I Cor. 15:48-49) imparts in this way a body to
those who are 'heavenly', adapted, regenerated and called, justified and to be
gloried (Romans 8:29ff.). As Paul declares, it is "eternal in the heavens" (II
Cor. 5:1ff.). As people are predestinated, so their bodies also are to be are
secure, like their destiny itself (I Peter 1:4-5), and as to this, it is
neither fading away, not defiled, incorruptible and reserved in heaven for
those who, being His, are kept by the power of God to salvation to be revealed
in its consummate artistry and completion in heaven, though now already so sure
on earth (Romans 5:10-11, John 10:9,27-28, Romans 8:23, I Thess.
5:9-10, I John 5:12ff.).
It is
from this that the apostle is led to advise us that 'flesh and blood' paralleled by 'corruption' in the same sentence,
cannot inherit the kingdom of God.
It is
precisely then that he tells us a mystery, in which there is to be a twinkling
of an eye change, and it is one rather a parallel to the Genesis 1 revelation
of the creation by the word of God, as reflected by Paul in II Cor. 4:6, where he wrote:
·
"For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of
darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ",
·
while further declaring of the Christians who are so indeed,
·
"Therefore from now on, we regard no one according to the
flesh... Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, old things
have passed away: behold, all things have become new" - II Cor. 16-17).
Thus
fleshly modes of knowing ANYTHING are replaced by a universe of discourse, of
vitality, of spirituality in which, like children taken for the first time into
an airplane ride, the contours of actuality come with staggering impact on the
new-born eyes.
*4 See Repent or Perish
*5 See Barbs…Appendix IV, The Living God,
News 100.