28. What Is the Victory?
God is very clear on what His victory, given to us, IS - the resurrection of our physical bodies, mortality swallowed up by life. This goal, the resurrection, is the earnest drive and desire of what it means to be a Christian.Yet this clear goal set forth in the New Testament has vanished from Christianity, being replaced with the incredible belief that God wants us to be dead forever, not to live forever. And since death happens to everyone, what would be the purpose of groaning for the goal of our Christian faith, as Paul describes?
I want to put this reality in front of your eyeballs. The goal of God, the goal of Christ in us, is the defeat and elimination of death. God wants to get rid of the "heaven-only" reality of death in which our brethren wait, with greater expectation than we understand, to be alive again, to walk this earth again in brand-new physical bodies.
This earth is our home. The earth belongs to us, and we were made for the earth. Earth, bathed in and made fully alive by heaven, is our home.
Lesson 28.1 The Setting of Victory positions the defeat of death inside the great story of God, God's determination from the beginning to prove Jesus faithful and true by one mighty action, the transformation of our physical bodies out from weakness and in the face of all opposition. God intends to silence forever all accusation of the universe; Jesus is faithful and true.
Lesson 28.1 The Inner Victory places our fellowship together, brethren walking together in love, God among us, as the real outer form of God, the appearance God has set all things to win for Himself.
Lesson 28.3 The Outer Victory lays out the meanings of incorruptibility and immortality. The lesson ends with the discovery that the revelation of Almighty God, our Father seen and known, is the little, little things of simple acts of kindness and gentle words of encouragement. This is God; know Him.