One day the whole world will be filled with the Spirit of God, for this is how God intends for people to live. The present world is a testing ground, especially for God's future rulers, to see if they are worthy to wear the crown of eternal life.

God's elect have been given the Spirit of God in advance of the rest of the physical world. But as yet we have the Spirit only in our inward nature. So now we are groaning along with the rest of the world, waiting to be adopted. The redemption of our physical body is our adoption as a son of God. The redemption of our body is the filling of it with the eternal, incorruptible Life of the Spirit of God.

Our inward nature is born of God, of the Divine Nature. But our body must be adopted. Paul said he was waiting eagerly for the redemption of his body so he would be free from the sin and death of the present body and could worship and serve God in a body filled with God's Life. What a wonderful hope!

Why don't we hear more about this today? Have we gotten off course in our preaching? Are we teaching and preaching "another gospel"?

Let us think for a moment. What kind of future is being preached in our day? What is now the "blessed hope" of the Church?

At some point in the first century the hope of the redemption of the body changed to the hope of going to Heaven to live forever. Obviously these are not the same thing. The redemption of the body is a change of what we are. Going to Heaven is a change of where we are.

The last enemy that shall be destroyed is not our residence on the earth but physical death. Going to Heaven is never presented in the Scriptures as being an act of salvation, as redemption. But the resurrection is found in both the Old Testament and the New Testament.

We do not need a redeemed body to live in the spirit Heaven. But we indeed do need a redeemed body to live in the Kingdom of God on the earth.

The purpose of salvation is to change what we are so we can be restored to eternal life in Paradise on the earth. If God were to bring the Christian people in their present condition into Paradise, whether Paradise in the spirit realm as in the present hour or on the earth when the Lord returns, Paradise no longer would be a pleasant place to live. It would be filled with hatred, anger, slander, and covetousness as are numerous Christian churches today. Death does not change what we are and entering the spirit realm does not change what we are.

So how did our hope of a redeemed body change into residence in the spirit realm, in the realm where sin began? Probably from the influence on Christian thinking of Gnosticism and other philosophies and religions.

To make matters worse, an unscriptural "rapture" has been added to the unscriptural hope of living forever in Heaven.

To be continued.