"That I may know him," Paul cries, after his years of Christian discipleship and ministry.

Hopefully, God will give many of us Christians such single-mindedness of purpose, such a burning desire, such a well-defined goal. Each of us can choose to be among God's elect, if we wish. We can choose to be one who seeks Christ with a whole heart (Joshua 24:15; Jeremiah 29:13).

The first resurrection.

Paul sought the fullness of the knowledge of Christ. The knowledge of Christ is not merely a mental understanding of a Person. It is an embracing of the Person, a knowledge that is union with the Substance, nature, and all other elements of Christ's Personality.

Such union with Christ results in resurrection to eternal life. Christ is the Resurrection and the Life.

There is a resurrection and ascension that will take place at the appearing of Christ. But that resurrection and ascension is not the general resurrection of the dead, the time when all come forth, some to the resurrection of life and others to the resurrection of judgment.

The resurrection and ascension that will take place when Christ returns is the resurrection of the firstfruits of His Body, of those whose life He is (Colossians 3:4).

It is an "out-resurrection," a resurrection from among the dead, from among those who are waiting for the Day of Resurrection.

The goal of the Christian discipleship is to enter Christ's Life and sufferings until they become our life and our sufferings. We cannot do this of ourselves. Such identification and union can be accomplished only by the Holy Spirit of God.

We must attain the first resurrection now—while we are living in the world. The resurrection and ascension that will take place when Christ appears will be the outward manifestation of an inner, spiritual resurrection that had taken place previously.

If it is your desire to be part of the appearing of Christ you must become one with Him in His life now. You must eat His flesh and drink His blood until you are living by Him as He is living by the Father. Those who live by Christ now are the eagles who will be gathered to the slain Lamb, the Carcass, when He appears in the heavens.

It is not possible that a believer who is not living by the life of Jesus can be raised in the first resurrection. The first resurrection is not for doctrinally correct believers, it is for those whose life Christ is.

Paul continually was seeking to know Jesus in the sense of becoming one with His Life, so when the members of Christ's Body are raised to meet Him at His appearing, Paul will be among them. Attainment to the first resurrection must be accomplished now, during our discipleship.

It appears we have a point of doctrine turned upside down. We think of Heaven as something to be attained and the first resurrection of the dead as being an external event that will provide all believers with a body like the Body of Christ whether or not they have lived as a saint in the world.

The truth, as we understand it, is the reverse. Going to Heaven after physical death is the birthright of all sincere believers in Christ. Unless we fall away from our faith in Him and go back into sin, into a rejection of Christ, we will go to a holy part of the spirit realm when we die.

To be continued.