We Must Attain Life and Live in Victory if We Hope To Participate in the Parousia

As we have seen, it is the dwelling of the Life of Christ in us that provides us with the competence and eligibility for participation in the parousia. The victorious saint always is pressing toward the development of eternal life in his personality, toward the resurrection from the dead.

We have noticed also that eternal life comes to us only as our fleshly nature, the first Adam so to speak, is slain. It is as we are changed into His death that we attain to life:

For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh. (II Corinthians 4:11)

Again:

Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die: (I Corinthians 15:36)

The first creation died with the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. As far as God is concerned, the creation described in the opening chapters of the Book of Genesis is dead. There is no way of making any part of it acceptable to God. Everything must die and be born again in Christ.

We Christians are the firstfruits of the born-again creation. If we are to attain the new, eternal life of the Kingdom of God, our first personality must die. The eternal life we are seeking comes only as we die and are born again from the dead.

The parousia is the shining forth of the Kingdom of God, that is, of people who have died and been raised from the dead in Christ. The process of death and resurrection does not begin when our mortal body dies; it commences when our invisible spiritual nature, our spirit and soul, dies to the world, to sin, and to self-will and is raised again in the Lord Jesus. The resurrection of our body to glory cannot take place until first our inner, spiritual personality has been resurrected.

This is why an individual can be saved from destruction and yet not be glorified in the parousia. To be "saved" in the elementary meaning of the term is to escape destruction in the Day of God's wrath. To be "saved" in the fullest meaning of the term is to be in the image of the Lord Jesus and to be in union with the Father through Christ.

To appear with Christ in the parousia requires more than salvation from wrath. Appearing with Christ is the direct result of gaining the victory over the world, over Satan, over indwelling sin, and over self-centeredness and self-will.

There are two separate issues presented in the Scriptures. One issue is that of salvation from wrath, that is, of not being destroyed in the Day of Christ. The other issue is that of the Church, of those people whom God has called out of the world as a firstfruits of mankind in order to represent Himself to the nations of the saved.

If the Church and the nations of the saved were the same set of people, over whom would the saints rule? Whom would they serve as priests? Also, if the Church and the nations of the saved were the same set of people, the sixtieth and sixty-first chapters of Isaiah, the twenty-first and twenty-second chapters of the Book of Revelation, and numerous other passages of the Scriptures would make no sense.

To be continued.