Attaining to the First Resurrection

The first resurrection from the dead is Christ. He is being formed in us now. If He is not, then we are not attaining to the first resurrection. Either we are gaining the first resurrection today or else we are losing the first resurrection today. The Day of the Lord will not cause a change in our personality; rather, it will be an unveiling of that which has been wrought patiently throughout our pilgrimage on the earth.

If we are seeking the things that are above, if our attention, our love, our interests, our hopes continually are focused on the Throne of God, on Christ who is at the right hand of God, then we are attaining to the spiritual dimension of the first resurrection from the dead.

That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection [Greek, out-resurrection] of the dead. (Philippians 3:10,11)

The atoning death and triumphant resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and the resurrection of the saints from the dead are the foundation of the Christian Gospel. They form the great hope that "whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).

To a much greater extent than often is preached, the resurrection of our physical body and the accompanying rewards of power and glory are the "life" promised in the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.

When we come to Christ for the first time in repentance of heart and mind, our confession of faith in Him is our entrance into the race for eternal life. Our initial experience of salvation is by no means the fullness of eternal life, it is only the beginningCa firstfruits.

While it is true that we pass from death to life at the moment of sincerely receiving Christ, nevertheless it is also true and scriptural that we are pressing toward the attainment to eternal life—particularly eternal life in our body (see Philippians 3:10,11 above).

First Corinthians, Chapter 15, which may be the most important passage of Scripture concerning the first resurrection from the dead (the resurrection of the victorious saints), states that while the life Christ came to bring us comes first to our inward nature it also has much to do with the life that will enter our dead body at the return of Christ to the earth.

It appears that in our day the salvation of our spirit and soul has been emphasized almost to the point of totally ignoring what the Scriptures teach concerning the resurrection of the body.

Notice carefully:

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming. (I Corinthians 15:22,23)

"They that are Christ’s at his coming."

Think of the statements in the above passage. Physical death, the death of our body, as well as of our spirit and soul, came into being on the earth through the disobedience of Adam and Eve.

But the obedience of Christ reversed this calamity. Eternal life will be given to those who believe in Him. The Divine Life will come first to their spirit and soul. Then, at the coming of the Lord their body will be redeemed with eternal life.

And not only they [the material creation], but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. (Romans 8:23)

"The redemption of our (physical) body."

First Corinthians 15:23 declares that the coming of our eternal life is in the future, being an inseparable part of the coming of Christ in the clouds of glory.

"Afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming." It is at His coming that we will be "made alive."

What kind of eternal life will Christ bring to the saints at His coming? It is the fullness of eternal life in our body. We understand this from the statements in the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians.

There are many passages in the New Testament writings explaining that if we would attain to life, that is, if we would arrive at the resurrection from the dead, we must walk continually in the Spirit of God and not in the appetites of the flesh. Resurrection life, while it will be brought into worldwide view at the coming of our Lord from Heaven, is a state at which we must be arriving now (Philippians 3:11).

This is not to imply we are being resurrected in our body in bits and pieces for that is contrary to Scripture (I Corinthians 15:52). But it is to say we must be attaining to the spiritual aspects of the resurrection on which our physical resurrection is based. If we do not take the necessary preliminary steps there is no possible chance we will participate in the first resurrection.

It is not that God will show His disapproval of us by not permitting us to rise to meet the Lord in the air. Rather, without the preparatory processes we will be unable to experience the change from mortality into immortality. Such physical transformation is impossible until the supporting spiritual transformation has taken place in us.

The following steps are not necessarily sequential