Our dead body remains on the earth, working, playing, reproducing, sleeping, eating. This is the life of the adamic animal. The adamic animal remains forgiven provided we are pressing forward in Christ. Everything depends on our living in Christ, abiding in Christ!

If we are gaining ground in Christ each day, then we are laying up treasures in Heaven. These treasures include the increments of eternal life that we are gaining each day of our discipleship. They now are at the right hand of God in Christ. They are an integral part of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Let us turn to the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John. Perhaps the clearest discussion of gaining eternal life now, of gaining the Being and Substance of Christ now, is found in this chapter.

Here we find the Lord invites us to live by His body and blood, stating that these are eternal life.

Jesus said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me." (John 6:53-57—NIV)

It is stated clearly in the above passage that the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ compose our eternal life, and that there is a relationship between gaining inward resurrection life now, and having Christ raise us up in the Day of the Lord.

Our body, as we have explained, is dead because it is void of the knowledge and Presence of God. Now the Lord Jesus is offering to feed our inward nature with the knowledge and Presence of God, which is eternal life, which consists of the Lord's body and blood.

How do we learn to eat Christ so we can live by Him as He lives by the Father?

We eat Christ by looking to Him for every aspect of life. Every time we turn away from our sinful nature and choose to obey the Lord, He feeds us with His very Life.

The Lord tells us, in the sixth chapter of John, that if we eat His flesh and drink His blood He will raise us up, resurrect us, in the last day. This is the resurrection to eternal life.

The Apostle Paul was seeking to attain the resurrection to life.

And so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:11—NIV)

We know Paul was not seeking just to be resurrected, for all shall be resurrected. Paul was pressing toward the development of Christ in his inward nature so his body would be filled with Christ in the Day of the Lord.

To be continued.