(tm) Christ is God’s beloved Son.
Back to The First and Second Resurrection
God desires that we hear Him, not that we develop some plan of redemption of our own or that we go back to the Law of Moses.
Christ is our Righteousness when we are abiding in Him, when we are living by His body and blood, when we are seeking Him night and day. We are not anxious concerning our past sins. They have been cast behind God’s back. Our seeking of Christ is the righteousness God desires and we shall be rewarded accordingly.
It appears the majority of Christian believers of today are not seeking Christ with all their heart. They are living with one foot in the world. They bear the image of the world in their hand and mind. They do the works of the world.
All such will be rewarded according to their works.
As the Scripture declares, every person will be rewarded according to his deeds (Romans 2:6).
We have stated previously that the eternal Life that comes to us from Christ always reveals itself in righteous, holy, and obedient behavior. Where there is unrighteous, filthy, and disobedient behavior there is no eternal Life of God. It is as simple and as straightforward as that.
Eternal life has more to do with quality of life than it does with duration of life. It has little or nothing to do with "going to Heaven"—an expression not found in the New Testament.
The equating of eternal life with duration of life and with "going to Heaven" has caused a misunderstanding of John 3:16 and John 5:24. These two verses have been interpreted to mean if we "accept" Christ we will go to Heaven to live forever.
This is not what they state and it is not what they mean.
The meaning of John 3:16 and John 5:24 is that if we believe in Christ in the sense of placing all our love and trust in Him, "hearing" His Word in our spirit and soul, we pass from spiritual death into spiritual life. We will not come under condemnation, because we have chosen to enter Christ.
Every day from that point forward we must press into union with Christ, continually nourishing the eternal life that has been given to us. This is the true Christian discipleship.
John 3:16 and John 5:24 do not mean that if we give assent to the words of the Gospel we will rise in the first resurrection; we will go to live in Heaven forever; that God will not take notice of how we behave after we have given assent to the facts of the atonement.
The devils believe and tremble. They have no eternal life. They know about God the Father and His holy Christ and they exist in terror of the coming judgment.
We must be laying hold on eternal life, on our union with Christ, at every moment throughout our lifetime. To not do so is to invite the forces of sin, corruption, and death to enter our personality. Seven unclean spirits more wicked than before will enter the house that had been cleansed.