The creation of the "house from heaven" in response to the conversion of the inner man. We have mentioned previously that our glorified body consists of the clothing of our revived flesh and bone body with a house of eternal life (II Corinthians 5:1-5), and that this heavenly house of eternal life and aggressive righteousness is our reward that will clothe our converted inner man when the Lord appears (II Timothy 4:8).

We would like to stress now the concept of compatibility. While we are living in phase A of our inner man, in the adamic soul, our flesh and blood outward man is suitable as an expression, vehicle, and covering for our inner man. The soul can take delight through the body as it contacts the world through seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting. Also, the fleshly mind can enable the soul to imagine, to create, and to conceive both its goal and the path to that goal. Phase A of the inner man is compatible with phase A of the outward man.

But as soon as the process of converting the inner man commences, and the lusts of the body and the lusts and ambitions of the soul are brought into judgment by the Lord, the flesh and blood body no longer is a suitable expression, vehicle, or covering of the inner man. The inner man groans for deliverance from the miserable, dead carcass it is forced to drag around. The flesh and blood body has a life and personality of its own. It is a lustful animal—incompatible with the transformed inner man.

O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? (Romans 7:24)

And not only they [the material creation], but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. (Romans 8:23)

For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: (II Corinthians 5:2)

We seldom or never hear of the believers groaning for the change in the body. The reason is, current Christian teaching assumes that the plan of salvation consists of saving the believer and bringing him to Heaven as he is. Current teaching does not envision the creating of man in two stages but in one, the adamic man. While lip service is paid to the idea of a new creation there is little practical attention and effort directed toward the crucifixion of the first man and the birth and growth of the second. The modern emphasis is on preserving the first-stage man and bringing him to Heaven to live forever in a mansion, wearing his golden slippers.

The pre-tribulation-rapture error in particular leaves the impression that God will lift the whole adamic person and bring him into Paradise with his loved ones. We see pictures of men in business suits and little girls in party dresses rising from the surface of the earth to meet the Lord in the air and returning with Him back to Heaven.

Such an assumption gives little basis for groaning for a change in the body.

To be continued.