We have discussed God's invitation to salvation and the provisions He has made for our success. We have thought also about our response to God's invitation and our appropriation of the Divine provisions that result in our being judged worthy of eternal life.

Now it is time to consider the transformation of our personality. As God finds us worthy He transforms our personality. It is impossible for us to participate in the first resurrection from among the dead unless our personality has been changed from death to life. The body of life will not be placed on a dead spiritual nature.

The Transformation of Our Personality From Death to Eternal Life

The demolishing of our sinful nature. There are two dimensions of our passing from death to life in our spiritual nature. The first dimension is the complete demolishing of the sinful nature that dwells in us. The second is the formation of Christ in us, and the coming of the Father and the Son to dwell in our transformed inner man.

Both of these works are of God as we continue to cooperate with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit brings us through the previous steps we have described so we may be worthy and competent to experience the transformation of our inner personality. As our inner personality is transformed, our worthiness and competence are increased so that the destruction of evil and the forming and dwelling of Christ in us are strengthened and accelerated.

It can be seen that we either are in a cycle going downward, in that what we are and what we do interact to insure our loss of inheritance or possibly our complete destruction in the Lake of Fire; or else we are in a cycle moving upward, in that what we are and do interact to insure our achievement of eternal life. In this is fulfilled the saying that to those who have will more be given and from those who have not will be taken away even that which they possess.

The rewards go to the conquerors, and the rewards make God's conquerors even more capable of conquest. The sin and rebellion that increase in the sinner bring further judgment and death upon him.

In the eighth chapter of the Book of Romans, Paul continues his discussion of the process of redemption. In the earlier chapters of Romans, Paul had stressed that the works of the Law of Moses no longer are adequate for our justification (righteousness) now that God has given His Son as an atonement (forgiveness and reconciliation) for our sins.

Let us examine how the Apostle Paul describes the progression from our present state of spiritual warfare to the climax, which is the redemption of our mortal body.

And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. (Romans 8:10)

Here we find our present condition. Our physical body is dead because of the sin that abides in it. Sin always results in death, in separation from the eternal Life of God.

To be continued.