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The Daily Word of Righteousness
The Release of the Material Creation, #17
Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. (Philippians 3:21)
The perfect gift of the Day of the Lord is a resurrected material form that expresses completely and perfectly our spiritual nature.
The believer in Christ who does not press forward as a victorious saint will suffer incomprehensible loss in the Day of the Lord. His body will reflect what he is in spiritual personality. His spiritual nakedness will be revealed in the nakedness of his material form. He will not reveal in his resurrected body the life, the glory, the authority, the union with God and Christ that are true of the overcomer. His body will be as weak as his spirit, as far from Christ as his spirit, as lacking in glory as his spirit. As we sow, so shall we reap.
Let us think about what will be true when the physical body is raised from the dead.
The Resurrection of the Dead
There are four classes of persons who will be raised from the dead. Hopefully our analysis will be of some aid in understanding what is to be the most important event of our lives:
The overcomers, the victorious saints.
Those who are of Israel, of the royal priesthood, of the elect, but who are immature in spiritual development.
The members of the nations of saved peoples of the earth.
The lost.
Our first point of understanding is, every person who has been born of woman will be raised from the dead. His or her body will be raised from the dead. One would imagine this to be an impossibility given the various kinds of death people die, but we must consider the greatness of God. God is well able to re-create the molecular structure of every person who has ever been born. So great is our God!
By being "raised from the dead" we mean the physical body, whether of an infant or of an aged person, whether having passed away in bed or disintegrated by an atomic blast, will be restructured and will come and stand before the Lord Jesus—the Judge of all men and angels.
By being raised from the dead we do not mean the spirit is raised from somewhere. According to our understanding, the spirit is separated from the body at the time of physical death. The body returns to dust, as the Lord said. The spirit goes to the area of the spirit realm where it belongs according to the judgment of Christ.
The soul and spirit of the rich man were in Hell, not in the grave with his dead body.
The spirits to whom Jesus preached before His resurrection were in "prison," not rotting in the ground or in the seas and oceans with their dead bodies (I Peter 3:19).
It is possible that in some instances the spirit of the person is chained to the location of his dead body. It is not unlikely that the punishment of some spirits is in the form of being chained to the material locations and consequences of their deeds. Whether or not this is the case, the Scripture is clear that every physical body will be restructured and will stand before the Lord Jesus Christ (John 5:28,29).
To be continued.