Five Operations of the Holy Spirit Part 36
Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: . . . . (Philippians 3:13) One of the major problems that troubles us Christians is that we count ourselves to have laid hold on Christ, to have won Him, to know Him in His fullness, to have arrived already at the prize of the resurrection from among the dead.
Because we have confessed Christ as our personal Lord and Savior, have been baptized in water, have spoken in tongues, have won others to Christ, and have served in our church, we are under the impression that our task now is to wait until He comes and carries us off to Heaven.
Paul had received Christ as his personal Lord and Saviour, had been baptized in water, had spoken in tongues, had won others to Christ, had served many churches, and had participated in every other aspect of Christian discipleship. Yet he states, "I count not myself to have apprehended."
What is it that we are to grasp? We are to lay hold on the righteousness that is of God by faith and not by keeping the Law of Moses; the fullness of the knowledge of the Person, Christ; the power of His resurrection; the fellowship of His sufferings; and transformation into His death, which includes the weakness and humiliation of rejection and seeming futility. We are to lay hold on the resurrection from the dead.
When Paul is speaking about the resurrection that is from among the dead he is not referring to dying and going to Heaven or being caught up to Heaven. Being caught up to Heaven is not resurrection but ascension. There is a difference between resurrection and ascension. The Lord Jesus did not ascend to Heaven until forty days after His resurrection.
Ascension is movement from the earth to Heaven or from any position to a higher position. Christ ascended from the heart of the earth to the surface of the earth, and then on up to the highest throne of glory in the heavenlies. Resurrection is a different matter. Resurrection has to do with the bringing forth of life from death. Everything and everybody of God's first creation must eventually die and pass away.
In the beginning Christ created the heaven and the earth, and all creatures on the earth and that fly in the firmament of the heaven. They will all pass away. Christ will never pass away. Christ will roll up the heaven and the earth as a worn-out shawl and discard them, but He Himself and His Word will never pass away.
God in Christ is working in the lives of some of the people of the first creation, in you and me for example, and is instilling in them Divine qualities that result in their transformation. The instilling of the Divine qualities results in death to the first nature but a resurrection of the personality—that is, a bringing back to life of what died although in a transformed state. A new creation is coming into being.
This is resurrection. It is not ascension to Heaven, which is another matter, but the bringing back to life of what was dead. Because death is the result of sin, resurrection has to do with overcoming the effects of sin. Ascension, on the other hand, is an expression of Kingdom authority and power.
Resurrection occurs as a death and life struggle takes place in us. Each day we pass from life to death to life. This is the spiritual dimension of the resurrection. The change in our body that will occur at the coming of the Lord is the crowning achievement and expression of the process of resurrection that begins in us at the moment of being born again.
The change in our body is important but it is a simpler transformation than the change in our nature. It is easy for the Lord to fill our mortal frame with Divine life, converting our human energies and substance over to Divine energies and substance. Such conversion will take place in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.
The dimension of the resurrection that is taking place now is far more complex than the resurrection of the bodies of the saints. It is the transformation of what we are in essence in our soulish personality into spiritual resurrection life. It is a relatively long, painful, sometimes boring, impossible-to-understand process that includes many aspects that are not enjoyable and some that are enjoyable. The future of the faithful saint is joy indescribable and full of glory!
The present, spiritual aspect of the resurrection does not take place in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. It would be far less painful if it did. Rather, we are ground to powder like the holy incense of the Tabernacle of the Congregation, mixed with Divine Substance that also is ground to powder, and then the whole is beaten together and salted with love until the new resurrection nature comes forth.
Paul was seeking to arrive at the new resurrection nature. This is the object toward which he was pressing with all his strength.
The resurrection of our body is related to the resurrection of our inner nature in that the more we have been resurrected in our inner man the more glorious the resurrection (bringing back to life) of our body will be.
Our present afflictions are working for us "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." The weight of glory is the "weight" of our transformed body (II Corinthians 4:17). By suffering we are being prepared to reign. The greater the cross we are willing to bear (but only as the Lord leads) the greater the crown we will be able to wear. The cross and the crown go together.
Paul did not count himself to have grasped the fullness of resurrection life. Neither have we grasped the fullness of resurrection life. If we are sitting back and waiting to die and go to Heaven we have been tricked off the course. We have quit our pilgrimage. We are not moving on toward the fullness of the knowledge of the Lord.