Our glorious new body.
John 7.37 On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. 38 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of their heart will flow rivers of living water.” 39 But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those [g]believing in Him would receive;
This shows for us the elect, that God’s gift to us is not just a quiet resolve inside of us but His things inside of us that come bellowing out explaining things of His spirit. Even as the disciples said in the book of Acts, we can’t help but to speak of the things we hear and see, reiterating the words of Christ who said “we speak when we hear and testify to what we see”, meaning a plurality in one of those who are in Christ.
Our testimony is the same. These are the unctions and promptings of God’s Holy Spirit in us. This is the river of living water that Jesus promised to those who would believe.
We are the flowing streams of Truth in the spirit. “For it became fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many of His offspring to His glory.
It is as we speak of His Glory, we share of His Glory. In this way we become active participants of things eternal.
This is the purpose of our calling, and why Paul set out to attain to all the riches in Christ, to a perfect man and full stature in the likeness of Christ. To share the glory which is the destination of our Heavenly calling. “For God has not appointed us to wrath but the obtaining of His Glory.” By proclaiming His Glory, we share in that Glory and fulfill the words of Christ when He said “Father, the Glory you have given Me, I have given them (speaking of us) that they may be one with us. And so we are, because Christ asked for that, and the heavenly Father never denied His Holy One.
Paul in the infancy of his faith said “For our conversation is of heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:
21 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.” Of which the Lord can carry this out for us at anytime if he so wishes. For some it is a foregone conclusion, did they have put on their Heavenly attire. But because our clothing is not of this age, you doubt what we say. Just read Ephesians 6 of the armor of God and see they are not from here.
And this glorious body from heaven is not the same as the one fashioned from dirt because “that which is flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. You must be born again”. And we are.
It is the spirit that wends its way around as it wishes. Even as Christ told told Nicodemus,the wind blows where it wishes, you can hear the sound of it but you cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes, so is everyone who is born of the spirit. Showing for us that we possess something far more illusive than what you see when you look in the mirror.
1st Corinthians 15. Paul looked forward to this in hoping to attain with these words:
The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. 43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. 45 And so it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being.” The last Adam (Christ) became a life-giving spirit. (Such are we if we are “in Christ)
46 However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the earth, made[i] of dust; the second Man is like the Lord of (things from) heaven. 48 As was the [k]man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. 49 And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we (in turn) bear the image of the heavenly Man.” And when do we get this? When we are born into the family of God. You just haven’t learned how to see it yet.
This is the purpose of the Gospel which is “The power of God for Salvation to all who believe” to those with active pursuit.
It was Paul who said of Christ “who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen nor can see”. Showing for us the physical senses are detached from the Spirit. And of John who said “those who sin have neither seen Him or known Him”. John also said of Christ “when we see Him we will be like Him. This we did. Because we saw something with the eyes of our understanding. Eph 1.18
We became something the eyes in your head can’t see. For seeing with their eyes they see not, for it is with the heart you must see to take on the things of God”. The human body with the carnal senses does not keep us from this, but unbelief does. That is why we are told in Romans 8 that “the carnal mind is enmity against God. It is not coherent to the things of God and cannot be so that those who are in their carnality cannot please God.”
Romans goes on to say that “those who are led by the spirit of God, these are the children of God. Yes, God’s Spirit in us, convinces us of this.
Our Final Victory
50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption”.
It is the re-spirited mind of faith that has them both. As Paul spoke of in Romans 7 saying “
O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of sin and death? Then answers himself saying “I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.” In this way we participate in two realities. The life in the spirit becomes more real than the one the carnal mind is familiar with. In a sense we have a dual citezineship, however the Heavenly takes precedence because we recon it so.
Christ alluded to this to Nicodemus when He told him that “ No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man [b]who is in heaven.
This teaches us that because Christ was able to be in Heaven and on earth at the same time, so can we. And we should expect this because this is what the Gospel delivers. We call it “The Kingdom of God at hand” as something to grasp, but not with your hands.
Through our transfiguration to a life giving spirit as associating with the things of God as our new body.
In the book of Colossians Paul no longer talked of the body in the archaic old testament physical features but of the deeds of the body of the flesh defining the old man that we discard as these ”
5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:
6 For which things’ sake the wrath of God cometh on the children of disobedience:
7 In the which ye also walked some time, when ye lived in them.
8But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth.
9 Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;
Showing the old person is a network of thoughts for selfish gain and pleasure while defining the new man as a new network of new thoughts like these ”
9 Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;
10 And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:
11 Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.
12 Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering;
13 Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
14 And above all these things put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness.
15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful.
16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
17 And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.”
Paul shows us in these verses that our new body is a collection of feelings, thoughts and actions associated with the building up of the whole organism called the collective body of Christ, gathered not to a location on planet Earth, but gathered together to God “in Christ” to experience the life in the Spirit. This is our new body and new identification as a singular organism formed together for a new society identified by wholesome and goodly attributes that are just a breakdown of attributes when assembled constitutes love. This is why those who operate in love fulfill all the law and the prophets and fulfill the objectives of God of us being built together a habitation of God in the spirit.
There will be no other gathering because the Holy Spirit cannot be compounded to one spot. For He who descended also accended to fill all and all. And since Christ filled all, you don’t need to go somewhere physically to be gathered but spirit and truth. As He told the Samaritan lady at the well. The time that is coming is already here when you will not worship the Father in Samaria or Jerusalem but in Spirit and Truth, showing for us that it is not a place in time.
The Ten Commandments and all that followed can be summed up in this, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.
This shows us that our invisable body as being our heart mind and soul. This is your inner person that Paul referred to in Ephesians as he learned develope God’s view of who we are and for us to discard what he knew as a Jew, his old association.
We are motivated by the unctions of the spirit and not self. The flesh is just a vanier and a vessel. As Paul told Timothy. “ But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honor and some for dishonor. 21 Therefore if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor, [h]sanctified and useful for the Master, prepared for every good work”.
Where the Spirit is regarded there is no need for law. The things written on the heart supercedes written law. Therefore love is the fulfillment of all law.
When God created in the beginning, after each day He looked upon what He had done and said it was good. And on the last day He created man and said not only that is was good but very good. You see this day was not only good like the others, but very good because on this day He crowned His creation with an image and likeness of Himself. The human being was good, very good. Mankind in their humanity was magnificent and surmountably greater than all creation but somehow the religious man and religions of today despise mankind as evil. Mankind has the potential for God-like-ness and as a result mankind can become equally hanious. However the human body is really a neutral vessel. Much like a car, the driver can accomplish a lot of good or destruction, so too is the human body. If the body alone was bad then God should’ve ended this long ago. God is reaping His harvest.
We have to re-examine our understanding of the human body and see it the way God described as “good, very good” if coupled with the right spirit. You see the body has the ability to exude the glory of God. If this were not so we could not be condemned for not exuding His glory, but we were “for all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God.” This is the potential for each human and the responsibility of every serious believer. To attain our God given stature and heritage, and the purpose for our pilgrimage in the flesh.
Christ already had His body, put on the vanier of a human body showed us that by Him putting on the flesh, He tabernacled among us incognito being fully man and fully God. In a sense having two bodies. His man was full of God, exuding Glory “for in Him dwells the fullness of the Godhead body” and for us the elect? We are complete in Him too. Since this is so, let the bi-product of the Spirit called the living waters flow. Since the physical body returns to the dust, lay hold of your new body while you can. For the time is coming when this will be said:
Do not seal the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at hand. 1 He who is unjust, let him be unjust still; he who is filthy, let him be filthy still; he who is righteous, let him [e]be righteous still;
Let’s make sure we are found in our new habitation which is from heaven.
Paul put it like this “ For we know that if our earthly [a]house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our [b]habitation which is from heaven, 3 if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked.”
For some of us the groaning is over, our nakedness is covered. We have put on the things God has said about us and made them our own. We are no longer naked, but cloaked like Christ was, incognito, fulfilling the Law of the Spirit.
The kingdom of God is at hand in it’s fullness and it’s entirely. Amen!