The Temporary and Then the Eternal...

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Yesterday I went to the dentist. A crown on one of my teeth had broken. The dentist took it off. Then he inserted a temporary crown. He said, "Come back at a later time and I will remove the temporary crown and replace it with a permanent crown."

(3/13/2011). I was praying in the early hours of this morning. Suddenly it came to me: The temporary crown and then the permanent crown are an excellent example of what takes place as we endure the rigors of redemption.

So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. (I Corinthians 15:45)

I sometimes have wondered why God requires that we allow Him to crucify our first personality. We have so much good in us and so much that is evil. Why didn't God make us the way He wants us in the first place? Why go through this prolonged, painful process of crucifixion?

I cannot answer the question "why." But it is clear that this is the way God works. First there is the flesh. Then there is the Spirit.

The sun has one kind of splendour, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendour. So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man. (I Corinthians 15:41-49)

"The sun has one kind of splendour, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendour. So will it be with the resurrection of the dead." Paul is telling us here that when we are raised from the dead and assume our eternal form, we will reveal a splendour that we have not known while in our original adamic form.

We were of the dust of the earth. Now we are a "heavenly man." But we still are "Adam." This is true of both male and female persons.

We will be raised in an imperishable form. Here is John 3:16 fulfilled: "Whoever puts his faith in Christ will not perish but have eternal life," that is, immortality.

"All flesh is grass," the prophet proclaimed. So it is true. Our first form is of the earth and is temporary. Our second form, if we are remaining in Christ, is eternal. Our resurrection from the dead will result in our being a son or daughter of God—that which we always were meant to be.

I hope I can communicate in this brief essay the fact that our present life on the earth is not only temporary, it is an animal existence compared with the life-giving spirit that we are destined to be. Such a change requires that we remain in Christ, obeying Him at all times. The inheritance is "to him who overcomes."

"The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body."

Perishable; dishonourable; weak; fleshly. Such is our present body. If we remain faithfully in Christ, we one day will have a form that is imperishable; honourable; powerful; filled with the Spirit of God. Such is our great hope. I have written previously that what we have now is a guarantee on the full redemption that will be ours when we are raised from the dead. In several passages we find that we will not be "alive" until we have been raised from the dead. Notice carefully the following passage:

For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. (I Corinthians 15:22,23)

Notice in the above that we are not "alive" until Christ comes, that is, until we have attained to the resurrection from the dead.

Again:

I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (Revelation 20:4)

Now think about this. John is telling us about Christians who had not worshiped Antichrist. John says, speaking of the first resurrection from the dead: "They came to life." Obviously they had been spiritually alive prior to this time. But they were not "alive" in the scriptural sense until Christ returned.

I believe Christian theology has been influenced to a great extent by the religion of Gnosticism–so much so that we have lost sight of the fact that the good news of the Christian salvation is that we will regain what was lost in the Garden of Eden.

If I understand the Gnostic religion, it views the flesh as evil and the spirit as good. This is not at all true of the Christian salvation. The flesh itself is not evil, it is the spirits that inhabit the flesh that are evil. There is wickedness in our spirit also, and the program of redemption makes our spirit holy.

What was lost in Eden was immortality in the body. Christ has come to overturn this curse and restore immortality to us. This is our great hope, not that of a "rapture" in which we flee from the earth and live in a mansion in Heaven. How utterly ridiculous!

Notice Paul's hope and goal:

Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:23)

I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:10,11)

Now, what does all this mean to us as individuals? It means that we have a temporary form and an eternal form. The first is weak and perishable. The second form is powerful and eternal.

Seeing that such is the case, the wise person will always be looking toward the day when the Lord Jesus appears and changes him or her from a perishable, weak individual into a glorious, powerful, eternal individual.

We may think of ourselves as person A and person B, with A being the perishable form and B being the imperishable form. If we are to be changed from A to B when Jesus returns, we must be remaining in Him at all times, always looking to Him for every detail of our life.

The promises of glory found in the second and third chapters of the Book of Revelation are reserved for the victorious saints. I am convinced that our most difficult battle is that of learning to live by the Life of Jesus. It appears that we were born with a fierce desire to control our own life. I do not know of many Christians who have turned over their life to Jesus so they can say truthfully, as did the Apostle Paul: "I am living no longer but Christ is living in me." We all seem to be filled with self-determination.

But I am persuaded that our present life is little more than that of an intelligent animal—at least compared with life B. Therefore we should devote our attention to listening to Jesus so we may obey Him diligently and continually.

Given what we know about the two forms of man, the animal and the Divine, the wise person will see to it that he each day attains to the inward resurrection. We must prepare ourselves so that when Jesus appears we are qualified and competent to be changed into the form befitting the offspring of God So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. (I Corinthians 15:45)

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