Your consciousness and will shall remain intact although your will repeatedly shall be brought into harmony with the will of almighty God through Christ. The kind of creature you are, in the universe of God, will be changed from a living soul to a life-giving spirit.

Will this happen to me so when I die I can be admitted into Heaven?

Not primarily. All this will happen to you so you may fulfill the particular destiny to which you have been called: such as, being an integral part of the eternal Temple of God, a member of the Body of Christ, of the Wife of the Lamb, God's eternal servant, a witness, prophet, priest, and king throughout His universe, a judge of men and angels, and so forth.

God's eternal purpose in the Church will be fulfilled in you according to the particular calling that rests on you—a calling established from the creation of the world by the Father.

Whether or not you attain your predestined place in the Kingdom of God depends on your willingness to submit to the Spirit of God as He effects your transition from a living soul to a life-giving spirit. None of the eternal roles and tasks of the Kingdom of God can be accomplished by living souls. Flesh and blood cannot enter the Kingdom of God (I Corinthians 15:50).

The Transition to the Life-giving Spirit

Our transition from the first man to the second man cannot be accomplished by dying physically. One of the errors of present-day teaching and preaching is the belief that our necessary change from ungodliness to godliness will take place as a result of our physical death.

Both reason and the Scriptures will demonstrate that physical death cannot bring about any change from a living soul to a life-giving spirit.

Physical death merely separates our spirit and soul from our body and leaves the body to decay in the ground. No change takes place in our spirit and soul on the basis of their being separated from our body.

If change does occur in our spirit and soul on the basis of being separated from the body, such change is not mentioned in the Scriptures.

God will not resurrect our mortal body and clothe it with eternal incorruptible life until our spirit and soul have undergone the change from soulish, mortal life to resurrection life. First, the inner man attains resurrection. After that, the outer man is redeemed. Otherwise, chaos would result as willful individuals, subject to the adamic temperament, flew about the universe in Divinely endowed bodies.

Can you imagine a self-willed, disobedient believer clothed with a body like that of the Lord Jesus!

This shall not happen. The believer must experience the inner transformation from the first man to the second man before it is wise—or even possible—for his personality to be housed in an immortal body of Divine capabilities. The new wineskins are for the new wine.

This is why Paul spoke of the need to "attain" the resurrection from the dead (Philippians 3:11).

To be continued.