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The promise of God is that if we live in the Spirit of God each day of our Christian pilgrimage we finally will come to the time when God delivers our mortal body "from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God."
Our physical body will be made alive by the Holy Spirit who, in the present hour, is dwelling in us. Our body not only will be made alive but also will be filled with love for the things of the Spirit of God, as is true now of our born-again inner nature.
Instead of a desire for adultery there will be a desire for God Himself. Instead of lust for indecent acts there will be a desire for holiness of conduct.
In place of the craving for things and the worship of the material creation will be the desire for God and the things of God. In place of hatred will come love for God and for His people. Occult practices will be replaced by faith in God’s Word; envy, by contentment with our place in God; fretfulness, by peace; strife, by the wish to better the condition of our brothers and sisters in the Lord.
Instead of drunkenness our resurrected body will seek self-control. In place of the spirit of heaviness will be the garment of praise. Grief and anxiety will be overcome by love, joy, power, and a sound mind.
Our inner man longs for these changes from sin to righteousness to take place in us now. And so they do as we bear the fruit of the Spirit of God. But the mortal flesh in which we are housed has some ideas of its own. It far prefers the fulfilling of its appetites and lusts. We must give ourselves wholly to the Son of God in order to keep our body in submission or else the body will take command of our thoughts and actions.
The clothing of our present body with the body from Heaven will abolish the bodily tendencies toward sin and will bring us immortality. The main idea of the coming of Christ is not that we will go to Heaven. We go to Heaven when we die, and the thought of it is enough to cause the heart of the overcomer to take up the fight with renewed vigor. But the meaning of the coming of Christ, as far as the overcoming Christian is concerned, is that of being clothed with the body from Heaven so complete and perfect righteousness of life is obtained.
When we die we go to Heaven, it is true. But the major blessing of redemption is that Heaven comes to us and fills us with the righteousness and life of Heaven. That is salvation! That is redemption! Let us, therefore, put to death now the uncleanness of the flesh and spirit so we shall be prepared for the change in us that is to come with the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ with His holy angels.
There are many reasons why a proper preparation must be made now if we hope to be ready for the redemption of our body when Jesus appears. We must, through the Spirit, "put to death the deeds of the body." Without such preparation it is impossible for us to have an abundant entrance into the "everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (II Peter 1:11).
First, it is not reasonable to suppose God will clothe us with a body like the body with which Jesus is clothed unless our spirit and soul have been made ready. If we are weak in the faith, undecided about serving the Lord, double-minded, unfaithful, we are not ready to be clothed with the power and authority of eternal life. The cherubim are still guarding the tree. Only the victorious saints have access to the tree of life (Revelation 2:7).
The body of glory is associated with authority and power over the nations—with the throne of Christ. We must be prepared to rule in and with Christ. Our inner man must be prepared and strengthened for the Divine Glory that is to descend on us. If the fullness of the Glory of God were to come on us in the present hour we might not be able to bear so much of the Presence of God Almighty.
We must be strengthened in the inner man before we will be able to receive the fullness of God. Otherwise, what is meant for our good might prove harmful to us.
Enoch and Elijah were translated into the Presence of God, and it appears this has been true of other saints as well (Matthew 27:52,53). Do we have enough faith for this experience?
The Scripture teaches us that Enoch was translated "by faith" (Hebrews 11:5). Is our faith strong enough for translation glory? If our faith fails in that Day we might look back.
Jesus has warned us about looking back. "Remember Lot’s wife." (Luke 17:32).
The point is, we need to be strengthened in faith now, bearing the fruit of faith in increasing measure, so when the trumpet of God sounds we will have the faith required for receiving the fullness of God’s Glory. Strong faith will be required for a successful response to the summons of Christ in that Day.
Then, too, we need to ask if we really desire to live this close to God all the time. Will we really enjoy dwelling in such close relationship to the fiery holiness of God Almighty? Is this what we truly want?
. . . who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? (Isaiah 33:14)
Perhaps we need to think twice before we rush into the Presence of God in the pursuit of the body of eternal life.
But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap: (Malachi 3:2)
The greatest reward prepared for the saint is nearness to God and the continual beholding of His Face.
And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. (Revelation 22:4)
If our goal in life is to abide in the fullness of the Presence of God forever, being clothed in a righteous and immortal body, we need to purify ourselves by the power of the Holy Spirit. If we do not, our actions testify that closeness to God is not our goal after all. We are seeking God with the mind and mouth but not with the heart.
God loves us too much to bring us into a situation where we would be miserable and where we would make others around us miserable. The atmosphere of Heaven is filled with perfect love and harmony. A spirit of gentle good will, of thinking the best about everyone, of meekness and selflessness of attitude, permeates every area of Paradise. Would we bring into Paradise our gossiping, our hating, our murmuring, our criticizing?
Love, peace, joy, and complete and perfect obedience to the Father characterize the saints in Glory, the Elders, the elect angels, and the other inhabitants of Heaven. People who rush about in the violent passions of the body and spirit would not enjoy the company of the inhabitants of Heaven. God will not seal the doom of an immature, self-centered person by clothing him or her with eternal life.
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