If the individual has lived by the body and blood of Christ, then the Spirit of Life from God will make alive his mortal body at the coming of the Lord. But if he has not lived by the body and blood of Christ, then the Spirit of Life from God will not make alive his mortal body at the coming of the Lord, even though he believes himself to be a Christian. The door will be shut in his face. This is what the Bible teaches.

The church in Laodicea was the only assembly concerning which the Lord had nothing good to say. Yet the greatest of the promises are made to the overcomers of this assembly.

The Lord knocks at the door. If we open the door He comes in and dines with us. We dine on His body and blood. He dines on the praise and worship coming from our personality.

As we continue in this most holy relationship He takes His place on the throne of our heart. In this manner we sit with Him in His throne as He sits with His Father in His Father's throne.

If the Lord saw us only through His blood, the second and third chapters of the Book of Revelation would make no sense. None of the seven churches could be charged with any shortcoming because God would see them only through the blood. All Christians would receive the same reward because their behavior, whether good or bad, was not significant. It would have no bearing on their destiny in the Kingdom of God.

We can understand readily that the concept of God seeing us only through the blood (a concept not found in the New Testament) completely destroys the actual work of the Kingdom in our life. In fact, there is no work of the Kingdom. There is only a schizophrenic state in which we consider ourselves to be a new creation in which old things have passed away and all things have become new.

The truth is, there is no new creation (except in our head). The old has not passed away. Nothing has become new. We are still the same old person that we were. It is just that God sees us differently because we have taken "the four steps of salvation."

This is to make the Kingdom of God a house of cards. There is nothing here, no redemption, no change into the image of Christ, no pressing forward to the rest of God, no striving against sin, no house from Heaven produced by our response to the continual death and resurrection we are supposed to be experiencing.

There is no parable of the ten virgins because it does not matter how we live.

There is no parable of the talents because it does not matter whether or not we use what has been given to us.

There is no "depart from me, I never knew you" because God cannot see our wickedness.

There is no falling away from the faith because whether we stand or fall makes no difference. God sees us only through Christ no matter what we do.

To be continued.