My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you, (Galatians 4:19)
The ministries of the Body of Christ travail until Christ is formed in the members of the Body. It is not Christ-likeness that is formed in us, as though our adamic soul could be changed into the image of God. Rather, it is the substitution of the Divine Nature and Substance of Christ for our adamic nature. We are being converted, not only in image but in actual substance and spirit.
To have a personality like that of Christ is God's gift to us, a gift given on the basis of our making the choices God requires of us.
I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness (Romans 6:19).
Adam cannot imitate Christ. Adam must die and the very Substance and Life of Christ must take his place. Only then can the individual please God, becoming the brother of the Lord.
God is pleased when He sees His Son in us. The Lamb is pleased when He beholds the Bride who has been formed from His own body and blood.
Our light affliction is the tool that God uses to bring our adamic nature down to futility and death in order that the Life of Christ may arise. The result of Divine Life coming forth from Adam's death is the robe of a new, righteous personality which is being fashioned before the Throne of God in Heaven and which will be given to us as a reward at the coming of the Lord from Heaven.
What was Paul looking at and considering?
The invisible, eternal glory of the Kingdom of God.
Why did Paul keep his attention on the invisible things of the Kingdom of God rather than on the visible things of the world?
Because the things of the world are temporary while the things of God's Kingdom are eternal, therefore of infinitely greater value.
What is our "earthly house of this tabernacle"?
Our physical body.
Why do we not worry about the destruction of our physical body?
Because we have "a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."
Our "house not made with hands" is the "far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" of the preceding chapter. It is the abiding place (mansion) of which Jesus spoke (John 14:2).
Our momentary, light tribulation is achieving for us a solid, eternal glory. This solid glory is our spiritual house that is before the Throne of God in Heaven.
The same thought is stated in I Corinthians 15:44:
It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
The weight of glory is our spiritual body, our body of eternal life, our crown of righteousness and life.
A farmer sows seed. The disciple sows his physical body. The farmer reaps wheat. The disciple reaps a spiritual body of righteousness, a robe of eternal life.
Our spiritual body, our house from Heaven, is being formed now. The disciple allows God to bring him down into difficult, painful places. The believer is perplexed, cast down, weak, denied what he or she is longing for, compelled to do things that are disagreeable, sometimes persecuted so severely as to result in his or her physical death.
Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. (John 6:54)
There is a portion of eternal resurrection life assigned to each difficulty, each pain, each perplexity, each oppression, each weakness. This eternal life raises and strengthens the inner man of the saint. At the same time it creates before the Throne of God a spiritual body adapted to our strengthened inner man. The development of our inner nature is linked to the new body in Heaven-one complements the other.
Eternal, indestructible resurrection righteousness and life are having their rise in two places simultaneously: one, in the inner man of the saint on earth; two, in a body fashioned from resurrection life that will clothe the strengthened inner man of the saint at the coming of the Lord from Heaven.
Here is the righteousness and justice of God. We are reaping exactly what we are sowing on the earth. If we are sowing to our flesh, no house of life is being constructed for us in the Presence of the Father. If we are sowing to the Holy Spirit, a house of eternal life is being constructed for us in Heaven.
We shall be clothed with our own righteous works. If we allow God to bring us into the fellowship of the sufferings of Christ in the present world, then we will come to know the power of His resurrection in the ages to come. If we choose instead to walk in the lusts of our body and soul we will reap corruption. We will be a naked spirit in the Day of the Lord, perhaps saved, perhaps lost to the Presence and purposes of God for eternity.
What was Paul's desire?
To be clothed with his house from Heaven.
Paul expresses the same longing in his letter to the saints in Rome:
And not only they [the material creation], but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body (Romans 8:23).
What guarantee does the saint have who serves the Lord Jesus?
He shall not be found naked in the Day of the Lord (Revelation 19:8).
What does the saint on earth greatly desire?
That his flesh and blood, his mortal body, may be swallowed up by his body from Heaven-the body fashioned from incorruptible, indestructible, resurrection life.
What does Paul mean when he says, "not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon"?
Paul was not longing that he would be "unclothed," that is, lose his physical body. Rather, he was desiring earnestly that his flesh and blood body would be clothed with his body of eternal life from Heaven.
This is an important concept. When we are new converts our goal is to go to Heaven when we die so we may enjoy the beauty and wonder of the spirit paradise.
As we mature in the Lord we begin to understand that God's purposes are in the earth rather than in Heaven. God's Kingdom is coming to the earth. Our longing changes from desiring to rest in the spirit Paradise to that of being clothed with the indestructible power of resurrection life. We want to overcome every enemy of Christ in the earth and establish His righteous rule on the earth.
The earth and its peoples are the inheritance of the Lord Jesus Christ. Because they are Christ's inheritance they also are the inheritance of the overcomer.
To be continued.
Copyright © 2013 Trumpet Ministries Inc.
Suffering and Glory - PART 2
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