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====Pressing Forward Into Eternal Life, 5====

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. (II Corinthians 4:8,9—NIV)

There is no way we can live in America and not have to fight every day in order to press forward into eternal life. The American way, in the present hour, is the way of spiritual death.

Paul says he wants to share in the sufferings of Christ. The sufferings of Christ have to do with the deferral of our desires, with perplexity, frustration, rejection, hostility from others, humiliation, sometimes torture and martyrdom. These are the sufferings of the cross.

Why would mentally and emotionally healthy people desire to suffer as Christ suffered? It is because resurrection proceeds only from crucifixion. We are not raised into eternal life except as our adamic nature is brought down to weakness and death.

If we are not willing to suffer the sufferings of Christ, to be made like Him in His death, we cannot attain to eternal life.

And then Paul makes a statement that simply does not fit our Evangelical beliefs.

And so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:11—NIV)

That Paul is speaking here of literal resurrection, of being raised from the dead, is suggested by the fact that at the end of the same chapter Paul mentions the bodily resurrection.

Who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so they will be like his glorious body. (Philippians 3:21—NIV)

Seldom do Evangelical preachers emphasize that the resurrection to eternal life, the resurrection that will occur when the Lord returns, must be attained. Consider also Paul's previous words in the third chapter of Philippians. The aged Apostle was laying everything aside that he might attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Paul did not mean he could attain to the resurrection of his mortal body prior to the sounding of the last trumpet. Paul is showing us rather that we cannot take for granted that we shall join the ranks of those who will descend with Jesus and install the Kingdom of God on the earth.

Today, in Evangelical preaching, the impression is left that every person who "accepts Christ as his personal Savior" will rise to meet the Lord when He appears. In fact, we have hastened the Day of Resurrection by referring to it as an any-moment "rapture" that will save us from suffering during the great tribulation.

This doctrine is, of course, without any foundation whatever in the Scriptures. The hope of the pre-tribulation "rapture" is the desire of the adamic man to escape trouble—nothing more than this. It has nothing to do with the pursuit of righteousness or eternal life.

The doctrine of the pre-tribulation rapture ignores the emphasis on laying hold on eternal life, on gaining the resurrection. It sets forth a totally unscriptural flight to Heaven of all who profess Christ regardless of their actual spiritual condition. A wider departure from the intent of the new covenant can scarcely be imagined.

If we desire to attain to the first resurrection from the dead, the resurrection to life of the members of the royal priesthood, then we must set ourselves as did the Apostle Paul to put everything aside that we might grow in the knowledge of Christ and gain Christ. We must learn to live by His resurrection power. We must accept the actions of the Holy Spirit that bring us down to the death of the cross.

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