Also, in what way are we married to the Lamb?
Also, in what way are we married to the Lamb?
We will have to wait and see how all this will work out in practical living. I have no idea. But I do know one thing. God always moves from the less wonderful to the more wonderful. He has kept the best wine until now. This always is true in the Lord!
Seventy "sevens" are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin , to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the Most Holy Place. (Daniel 9:24)
God planted a garden in Eden. There were many trees in the Garden of Eden. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Adam was free to eat of every tree except the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God warned that "when you eat from it you will certainly die."
What is "life"? Life is power. Eternal life is the power that flows from having a close relationship with God and Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ, and those who are part of Him, also are trees of life, although His brothers and sisters are not mature as yet. But such is their destiny.
Eternal death is the opposite of eternal life. It is not related to God in any manner. When eternal life is not present, the person defaults to eternal death, because sin ( Satan; death) always is crouching at the door. </p>
Eternal life gives us the power to overcome sin.
For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. (Romans 8:13)
The Spirit of God is eternal life. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Resurrection and the Life, because He has the Spirit of God without measure. "Resurrection" is the giving of eternal life, the Life of Christ, to that which is spiritually dead. Resurrection and ascension are not the same thing.
The Apostle Paul was seeking to attain to the resurrection, not to the ascension. Those who are looking for a "rapture" may not realize that our goal is resurrection, not ascension. Our Lord is the Resurrection, not the ascension. One can be resurrected apart from ascending into the air or into Heaven.
I have quoted Romans 8:13 (above). It is referring to Romans 8:11:
And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you. (Romans 8:11)
It is the term "raised" (above) that leads to the idea that resurrection means ascension. However,"raised" means merely that Jesus came back to life.
Although it is not always mentioned in today's preaching, Romans 8:13 is saying that if we live according to our flesh, and do not put to death the sinful deeds of our physical body, we will die. This means our body will not be given life (resurrected) in the Day of Christ.
If we are conscientious in putting to death the sins of our flesh, as the Spirit guides and helps us, we will live. This means our physical body will receive eternal life in the Day of Christ.
It is well to keep in mind that the Lord Jesus did not come from Heaven to bring us to Heaven but to fill us with His Life, eternal Life. This is a massive error in today's Christian thinking. God did not give His Son that we might go to Heaven but that we might have eternal life; and that includes, if it is not directed primarily at, the Life of God in our body.
Killing our hope of resurrection by continuing in the sins of the flesh indeed is a fearful consequence. In fact, the very goal of our salvation appears to be that of providing us with an incorruptible body filled with eternal life.
In the day of our resurrection, when the Lord returns, some will receive a thirtyfold body so to speak, some a sixtyfold, some a hundredfold. The body we receive will have been produced by the diligence with which we have followed our Redeemer.
Just as today people are born with bodies that when mature will have different capabilities, so it will be in the Day of Christ. Our new body will vary from person to person according to our faithfulness to Christ during our discipleship.
Also, our role in the Kingdom of God that God has assigned to us will affect our new body.
Some will receive a corrupt body, reflecting their pursuit of the sins of the flesh.
Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. (Galatians 6:8)
Let's take a look at a passage that reveals the relationship between our discipleship and the body with which we are clothed in the Day of Resurrection.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. (II Corinthians 4:7)
The reason God placed us in our frail bodies of dust is that we might come to understand that all we are, have, and can do come from Him. After a long discipleship I have come to the conclusion that the greatest problem of mankind, and of the Christian churches, is self-will; self-glorification.
Even in the churches we do not pray and then listen to find out what it is Christ desires. We figure, I suppose, if we do a good work of some kind we are doing the will of Christ. The truth is, we may not be listening to Christ to find out what He wants. We may be assuming that we know.
Some fervent believer may have decided to go to a foreign country to preach the Gospel, and then he was slain by unbelievers. We may consider him to be a martyr. The truth may be that he was not obeying Christ by going. Christ had something else for him. This sort of thing may happen more often than we realize.
As far as the world is concerned, people want to do what they want to do. I do not understand why people are not more concerned about what God wants, seeing as how God gave them all they are, have, and can do.
If we are this way now, what would we be like if we had an all-powerful spiritual body instead of a "jar of clay"? In fact, it is our inclination toward self-rule that is the reason God does not give us, in the present hour, possession of an all powerful spiritual body!
God has promised us a marvelous, incorruptible body, if we obey Him during our present life. He keeps bringing us down to death so He may raise us to life and thus be glorified in us.
For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you. (II Corinthians 4:11,12)
What is God seeking by treating a person in this manner? God is breaking down our self-will, self-glorification, lying, fornication, and so forth so that we might live by His Life. God's strength comes forth through our weakness..
But I said we would consider a passage that reveals the relationship between our discipleship and the body with which we are clothed in the Day of Resurrection.
What does the death/life pattern of our discipleship have to do with our resurrected body?
For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. (II Corinthians 4:17)
Our troubles are achieving some sort of eternal glory.
For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. (II Corinthians 5:4,5)
Jesus said He was going (to the cross) to prepare a mansion for us. Now we see that God is fashioning us for the mansion with which we shall be clothed, as well as fashioning the "mansion" according to the manner in which He is fashioning us.
We see that our daily crucifixions and resurrections are achieving an eternal glory in the form of a body of incorruptible life. Our "mansion," that we thought would be waiting for us in Heaven, actually is a body that will swallow up our mortal body. What we have become in Christ will be seen when people observe our new body.
I like this better than an ornate house in Heaven. How about you? We take our "mansion" with us wherever we go.
Notice in the passage above that our mortal body is swallowed up by "life." That Life is the Life of Jesus Christ. It supplants our self-seeking, sinful soul. This is resurrection. It is not necessarily followed by ascension.
The "catching up" of the resurrected believers into the air, in the fourth chapter of First Thessalonians, is so they may join the army of saints who have come with Christ, and the army of angels, and then follow the Lord Jesus Christ as He descends to install the will of God, the Kingdom of God, on the earth.
This is the beginning of the Battle of Armageddon; and that is why there is the shout, the voice of Michael, and the trumpet of God.