View source for The New Creation and the Resurrection 11

''For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?'' (1 Peter 4:17) 

Notice (above) how the Apostle Peter describes the judging of the old nature of the Christians: 

In the sense in which we are speaking, God already is raising up Adam in our personality and is judging him. The process of bringing Adam to judgment and resulting death, and the replacing of Adam with the new Life of Christ, is the manner in which the Kingdom of God is being formed in the godly remnant of God’s people in the present hour. 

The new man is not judged. The new man does not sin because he has been born of God. The new man is the Lord from Heaven. 

It is only the first personality that is judged. As soon as that judgment has been completed, and the part of our humanity that God desires to preserve has been swallowed up by immortality, the work of redemption will have been completed in us. We now are part of Christ, of the Kingdom of God , and the Lake of Fire no longer has authority over us. 

The body that we have in the present hour is “married” to our soul. Our body is a suitable complement of our soul. However, our present body is not a suitable complement of our new personality. The body that is the complement of our new nature is reserved in Heaven for us. The new body in Heaven grows and develops in accordance with the growth and development of our new spiritual nature. 

We shall not be given our new body until the Lord returns. However, we can attain now to the most important part of the early resurrection, the development of the new man. 

There is a difference in kind between the Christian believer who has just come to the Lord but whose adamic nature is still intact, and the Christian believer whose adamic nature has been largely destroyed and who is beginning to live in the new nature. 

The immature believer still is subject to hatred, bitterness, malice, misery, unrest, anxiety, impatience, harshness, selfishness, treachery, brashness, indulgence in bodily passions, according to the type of person that he is. The more mature disciple is characterized by an increasing development of love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, generosity, faithfulness, meekness, and self-control. 

According to our present understanding, when the immature believer dies his spirit passes into the spirit world, there to await with others of his level of development the Day of the Lord. 

When the mature believer dies, his new personality is received by the Lord as a son. He then, after giving an account of his behaviour on the earth, enters the role that has been prepared for him. He is not left in the lower levels of the spirit world to wait for the Day of the Lord. He has attained the resurrection. He is a fellow of the Lord and continues to grow and serve in the Head. He dwells in the palace of God and eats at the Lord’s table with His mighty men. 

[[The New Creation and the Resurrection 12|Next Page]]