For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:3)

And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. (Revelation 12:5)

When Christ is born in us He is raised to the Throne of God.

The believer experiences this birth and ascension. If he is faithful in serving God there comes a point at which he feels the surge of Divinity in him. He realizes he has entered the ranks of the victorious saints. He is given hidden manna to eat. All the persons, situations, and things that have attempted continually to turn him back into the world have failed. He has emerged victorious through the working of Christ in him. Christ has been brought forth in his personality and has been raised to the right hand of God.

The forming of Christ in us and the increased drawing toward the things of Heaven do not mark the end of the battle by any means. But from now on there is a sense of victory, of conquest, of entering the Kingdom of God, rather than the seemingly endless struggle to overcome the lusts of the flesh.

Adam never will rule during the ages to come. Only Christ will govern all the works of God's hands. It is only as Christ is formed in our personality that we become eligible for the rewards assigned by the Lord to the overcomer.

Satan always stands before the woman, the Church, and seeks to devour her Child as soon as He is born. Satan is not concerned about religious Adam but Satan is terrified at the Presence of the Lord Jesus. The Christian Church poses no threat to Satan. It is Christ and Christ alone who possesses the authority and power to destroy the works of Satan in the earth.

The numerous activities of the Christian churches seek to please people, to satisfy their need for religious-moral exercise. But only those efforts that bring Adam to the cross and elevate Christ in the individual are effective in bringing the Kingdom of God into the earth.

Satan attempts to perpetuate Adam through religious practices because Satan fears that somehow the Christians will discover it is only by Adam's death and Christ's Life that Satan can be destroyed and righteousness brought into the earth.

The transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly is an illustration God has given us of the Christian salvation. The insect has a larva stage when it emerges from the egg. This is the earthbound caterpillar. The second stage is that of the beautiful butterfly.

Is the caterpillar in the butterfly? Can the butterfly remember its life as a caterpillar?

How is a caterpillar "saved" from its earthbound condition? It is "saved" by entering "death" and becoming a different type of creature.

Perhaps most Christians would agree to the fact that salvation somehow must result eventually in our moral transformation. However, the error in Christian thinking is that the change takes place in Heaven or by the fact that we die. There is no scriptural evidence that dying or going to Heaven delivers us from our sinful nature. Sin originated in Heaven among the angels of God.

To be continued.