Pursuing Life

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Perhaps the most common concept of the Christian salvation is that we are saved so we will go to Heaven when we die. This is a tradition. It is not the concept presented in the New Testament. While assuredly there is a literal Heaven and a literal Hell, the topic of the New Testament is the pursuit of the Life of God that comes to us through the Lord Jesus Christ.

(5/1/2005) Well, if making our eternal residence in the spirit Paradise is not the reason be get saved, is not the reason we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, then exactly what is the goal of the new covenant?

The goal of the new covenant is to move us from the sinful bondages of the adamic nature to the love, joy, and peace of the Holy Spirit.

But aren’t eternal life and Heaven basically the same thing? No indeed they are not! The Heaven where God, Christ, and the saints live is a place in the spirit world. Heaven is an actual place where the saints go when they die.

Eternal life is not a place. Eternal life is a form of life, just as is true of flesh and blood life. One can be in Heaven and have eternal life or not have eternal life. For example, Satan never had eternal life, so far as we know. Yet he was one of the cherubim that guarded the very Throne of God. The angels are in Heaven and they do not have eternal life.

How do we know that angels do not have eternal life? Because eternal life is found only in the Lord Jesus Christ, and it is not given to angels to possess Christ.

Adam and Eve were not created with eternal life, only the life of flesh and blood. In order to have possessed eternal life they would have had to eat of the Tree of Life, which is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only Tree of Life; although if we lay hold on eternal life as we should, faithfully following the Holy Spirit, the day shall come when we also are trees of life, life-giving spirits.

Into the midst of dead mankind strides the Tree of Life. Mankind is dead because the only life the people have is the corruptible life of flesh and blood. Their bodies burn cells in the presence of oxygen, and from this burning they derive warmth and energy.

"Eat My flesh and drink My blood," invites the Son of God. "These are true food and true drink. Those who learn to live by My body and blood shall live by Me as I live by My Father, and I shall raise them in the last day."

Flesh and blood cannot possibly enter the Kingdom of God. We enter the Kingdom of God as we eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Lord Jesus. There is no other source of Divine Life.

I say all this to emphasize that our whole purpose in existence is to pursue the Life of God that is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Apart from Christ we remain dead. True we are thinking, speaking, and acting. But such behaviour proceeds from our human mind, which is hostile toward God and therefore prone to grievous bondages.

If we are wise we will pursue the Life of Christ every moment of every day and night of our time on the earth. The gate is small, and the way is difficult that leads to life; and few Christians find it, it appears.

The Apostle Paul had set as His goal to attain to the resurrection. This means he was laying aside all other ambitions to know Christ, the power of His resurrection, the fellowship of His sufferings.

To know and live in the power of Christ’s resurrection—this must become our goal.

What is resurrection? Resurrection is a Person. Jesus Christ is the Resurrection and the Life.

This means that when we have Christ we have the resurrection from the dead.

This does not mean that our flesh and bone will not be raised at the return of the Lord from Heaven. They indeed shall be. How wonderful it will be to be clothed upon with a body fashioned from Divine, incorruptible, all-powerful life! What love, joy, and peace will be ours then.

But that resurrection shall take place at the blowing of the seventh trumpet.

As marvellous as the resurrection at the coming of Christ will be, the important resurrection is that which takes place every time we deny the cravings of the adamic nature, choosing instead to submit each aspect of our thinking, speaking, and acting to the Lord Jesus.

Paul testified that he was crucified with Christ. Nevertheless he lives. But it is not Paul who lives but Christ who lives in Paul. This means that Paul’s thinking, speaking, and acting are proceeding from Christ, who is the Resurrection, living in him. This is what it means to attain to the resurrection from the dead. The bodily resurrection, which shall take place at the last trumpet, will prove to be a demonstration of that which already has been completed in the saint.

The problem with the current "ticket" doctrine (accept Christ and when you die you will go to Heaven) is that it misses the program of redemption. While we are waiting to die and then present our ticket to Saint Peter at the gate, our opportunity to pass from spiritual death to spiritual life shall have passed us by.

We may desire to live in Paradise. God desires that we first become filled with eternal life so we practice iron righteousness, fiery holiness, and stern obedience to Himself. We shall enter Paradise as soon as the life and laws of Paradise have been created in us.

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