The body and blood of Christ are our resurrection life!
The body and blood of Christ are our resurrection life!
It is an inner travail. When we are successful there may be a sense of relief. This is because that which has been brought forth in us has been snatched up to God and His Throne.
Of course, He who has been formed is still in us as well as at God's right hand. The idea of Christ being formed in us means our character no longer is adamic. It is a new creation. The old nature is passing away. The Nature of Christ is now in us, and that new Nature, while it now is part of us, is no longer at home on the earth, only at the right hand of God.
This is why we are to set our hopes and thought on things above, not on things on the earth.
May I take a minute to explain that the development of Christ in us is, as I said, a transformation of our character. It is a new creation.
This is different from the Father and the Son coming to dwell in us. The actual Persons of God come and dwell in that which has been formed in us. God Himself is coming to dwell in "Christ" that has been formed in us, we might say.
Jesus replied, "Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. (John 14:23)
Notice that what has been formed in us is a ruler; or should I say, The Ruler. It is ourselves; and at the same time it is Christ. We and He have become joined in the Spirit, just as He is joined to the Father.
Because Christ is being brought forth today, we are attacked by all sorts of satanic forces. This is so God can be assured that when He places us in a position of responsibility under the Lord Jesus, we will not be led astray by the temptations and deceptions of Satan. We absolutely through Christ must overcome all these if we are to govern with the Lord.
There is a prophetic "week" of years. The week is divided in half. The first half will be given over largely to the "two witnesses." The second half of the prophetic week will be governed by Satan and his Antichrist.
Hence such expressions as "1,260 days" (three and one-half years).
"Forty-two months" (three and one-half years)
After the Ruler has been brought forth:
The woman fled into the wilderness to a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days. (Revelation 12:6)
The 1,260 days (above) are the last half of the "week."
The "two witnesses," of the eleventh chapter of Revelation, will bear their testimony during the first half of the week:
And I will appoint my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth. (Revelation 11:3). This is the first half of the week.
As I stated previously, the Christians who brought forth the Ruler will flee into a wilderness area God has prepared for them. They will be taken care of during the time that the witness has been silenced and Satan and his Antichrist have their way in the earth---the last half of the week.
Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. (Revelation 12:7)
I wonder how many Christians who long to go to Heaven think about the verse above?
If my understanding is correct, the world of the spirit is huge beyond understanding. All the dead from the beginning of the creation are there, in addition to the spiritual beings that Christ has created—angels, and so forth.
Located in that incomprehensibly large area are mountains. One of them is Mount Zion. It is Mount Zion that is the place we ordinarily term "Heaven," not the entire spirit world.
But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. (Hebrews 12:22-24)
The above is the home of God's Royal Priesthood, His elect, His Church. It will be an area of instruction for the royal priests until they are ready to descend to the new earth and help the saved people from the nations learn how to relate to God.
If I am correct, in the spirit world there are many villages outside of Mount Zion where people live who are not of the elect, people who were not sent to the outer darkness or to Hell.
When the Bible says war broke out in Heaven, which will take place soon because it is part of the third day of redemption, it will not be in Mount Zion or in the habitations of the remainder of mankind. Rather it is a struggle between God's angels and Satan's angels.
But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. (Revelation 12:8,9)
We will see in a moment why Michael suddenly received the strength to force Satan and his angels from the area in the spirit world that they have occupied for an unknown period of time. They have been forced down to the earth.
I wonder how the coming of Satan and his angels to the earth will affect our way of life? Have you ever given thought to that?
Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Messiah. For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. (Revelation 12:10)
What a giant step forward in the war against evil this is!
It is apparent that the salvation, power, the Kingdom of God, and the authority of Christ, cannot come until Satan and his angels are removed from their place in the heavenlies and forced down to the earth by a greater power.
Previously they had been free to accuse us before God, pointing out every imperfection in us.
We may not like the idea of Satan coming to the earth; but the inhabitants of Heaven are rejoicing mightily!