Since many of the personages of the spirit world are unbelievably horrible, it is not enough just to leave the physical and live in the spirit realm. We must insure that we will enter the area inhabited by the holy angels who do God's will. The only guarantee we will be received by the desirable angels is that we are pleasing to Christ. He is in control of all.

Dying does not of itself bring us peace or make us holy. Only the Lord Jesus can sanctify us.

If it is true, that Satan originally was one of the two cherubim who overshadowed the Throne of God with their wings, then sin and rebellion originated around the Throne of God in Heaven and will not be overcome simply by our dying and going to Heaven. Sin originated in the realm of spirits and will not be removed just because we have entered the realm of spirits.

Sin came to us from the heavens, and our redemption also comes from "heavenly things." The Lord Jesus had to sprinkle His own blood upon us and also before the Presence of God in Heaven (Hebrews 9:12,23). Even the heavens have been defiled.

It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. (Hebrews 9:23)

The heavenly things had to be purified with the blood of the Lord Jesus.

God always creates the heavens before the earth. The work of Christ over the past two thousand years has been that of developing righteousness in our spiritual nature, which is at the right hand of the Lord. We already have come to the heavenly Zion. This is the location of the spirits of righteous people made perfect (Hebrews 12:23).

God's entire plan of redemption depends on the creation of a company of sons who, through Christ, are made righteous in spirit. They have struggled ceaselessly against wicked angels of high rank, against evil, unclean lords in the heavenlies. They have conquered them through the blood of the Lamb, through the word of their testimony, and by loving not their lives to the death.

The heavens are being planted by Christ who is creating His love of righteousness and hatred of sin and rebellion in the members of His Body. The resistance to sin being formed in the overcomers is the wall of the new Jerusalem. It is Zion—the fortress that protects Jerusalem.

This is the area of the greater David (the Lord Jesus) and His mighty men—mighty in righteousness and spiritual warfare.

It is impossible to overemphasize the importance of the creation of righteous, holy, and obedient conduct in the saint, in the Christian believer. This is the first work of Christ. Apart from righteousness of personality and behavior the will of God has not been accomplished in the believer and cannot be accomplished through the believer. Redemption has not taken place.

To be continued.