28.3 The Outer Victory
© 2016 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
The goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Philippians 2:14) is one thing only – the resurrection of our physical bodies. Yet that one thing contains all that is God, now, for the first time in all creation history, in full manifest outward appearance, God Revealed through many. And that one thing is the normal human life.
What is the resurrection of our physical bodies? What is this one thing towards which all the purpose and aim of the gospel drives? What is our present mortal flesh being swallowed up by life?
Declared to Be
Declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead (Romans 1:4). First, we see that the resurrection is the full birthing of the many-membered Son of God with power – the first outward appearance of the new creation.
“To Declare” is to establish as the express outward appearance of God’s Person. This is My Son, honor Him. – He that has seen Me has seen the Father. The resurrection of the entire Body of Christ, His elect, is God’s declaration that Jesus IS faithful and true.
The Turning Point
The resurrection of our bodies is the point in time that marks the end of the present age of human folly and the beginning of the age of human fulfillment. Outwardly, human history will continue from one day to the next, but the “rule” will be entirely new.
Before the resurrection happens to our bodies, the world-beast will already have been fully defeated and all demons will have been cast out of the human experience. Two things will not exist in the human experience after the resurrection of our bodies: demon spirits symmorphosing with humans and political government. We will explore these things further in Symmorphy III: Kingdom.
Extensions of Jesus’ Body
Here we want to define the actual resurrection of our physical bodies, what it is and what it means to us. Of truth, we can only speculate, for the simple reason that we have not yet experienced such a thing. Yet Jesus did, and thus we can look at His experience as a model of our own.
In a sense, our new bodies will be extensions of that physical body of Jesus that arose from the grave, for we are of His flesh and of His bones. You might even call our new bodies “clones” of His body, made out of the same genetic code. Yet more than clones, for His body is symmorphosed together with ours.
Physical Bodies
Our new bodies are physical bodies.
Luke records the fear of the disciples when they first saw Jesus alive. Jesus responded: “Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have” (Luke 24:39). Then in verses 42-43: So they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish and some honeycomb. And He took it and ate in their presence.
Jesus was not a ghost or a zombie; His physical body was normal and real. However, Jesus did vanish in an instant from one place and appear in an instant in another place.
Heaven/Earth Together
This quality of appearing instantly in a place is called “passing through walls.” But the text does not indicate that the atoms of Jesus’ body passed through the atoms of the wall. Jesus’ body simply appeared, or materialized in their midst.
I do not see that as some sort of “super-power” or indicative of other super-powers. Rather, I see it as a physical body in full marriage union with the human spirit as God intended. In other words, as I have suggested, heaven and earth are far more intrinsically interwoven than we have ever known. The physical is always coming out of the heavens. Thus the physical location of our bodies can change by the qualities of our spirit, just as quantum physics is beginning to explore.
Earth Is Our Home
But that is all just curiosity except this. It is important for us to understand that our brand new physical bodies, though existing in perfect harmony with our heavenly spirits, yet they are fully compatible with all things of this earth.
The earth belongs to us, and we were made for the earth. Earth, bathed in and made fully alive by heaven, is our home.
And of course, our eyes will be fully opened, we will be humans as God intended, as much a direct part of the heavens all around as we are a part of all the activity of the earth. Yet not all humans will be so, thus we will shepherd the peoples of this earth – but again that belongs to Kingdom.
Incorruptibility
Victory over death means putting upon ourselves incorruptibility and immortality. Our mortal bodies are swallowed up by life.
Incorruptibility is a moral quality, a God quality, whereas immortality is a physical quality. Incorruptibility means an inability to know or regard sin. One who is incorruptible can be surrounded by all sin and temptation and have zero idea, personally, what it might mean. One who is incorruptible has NO knowledge whatsoever of good and evil. When the serpent said that “God knows good and evil,” he was lying.
To Be Fully Human
Incorruptible bodies (as our born again spirits are already at present) means that the only thing coming through all that we are in full realization will be the Person of our Father. Yet it will be us, yet it will be Father. To contain and to reveal Father is full human self-actualization. We will be complete.
Thus incorruptible relates directly with our full symmorphic relationship with Father through Christ, that is, fellowship. Incorruptible is fixed and absolute, thus God will never impose Himself in full Symmorphy with us without our full and express consent, the utter willingness and desire of our hearts. To be incorruptible is to be fully human, that is, God-Revealed.
Immortality
On the other hand, immortal refers primarily to the qualities of our physical bodies as far as we are concerned. Immortality means being locked into a full 30-year-old body in the prime of life, a body that never tires or sickens or grows old.
Immortal means the full enjoyment of all that we love, the full and continual satisfaction of every desire of our hearts. Immortal means pouring out our lives for others without inhibition or abatement.
Immortal means utter and perfect rest; immortal means adventures like we have never imagined. Immortality is the very opposite of “boring.”
Life Comes First
(God’s pro-thesis) …has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel (2 Timothy 1:9-10). The gospel means immortality; it means never dying.
Death is the direct result of knowing right and wrong. Immortality is the direct result of knowing Life. Life is incorruptibility, that is full Symmorphy with God. Life comes first, immortality comes second. We put upon ourselves the full KNOWING of God revealed through us before our bodies are swallowed up by life.
Full Symmorphy
The life that swallows up the death in our bodies is our knowing of our full Symmorphy with God, God seen and known through us. Immortality, then, is the full and final proof that God speaks the truth, that every word God speaks is fulfilled in the place into which it was spoken, that Jesus is faithful and true. Our resurrection is as certain as Jesus is certain.
Declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead (Romans 1:4). Incorruptibility is the Spirit of holiness, but immortality is of the earth. Thy will be done on earth – is what it’s all about.
Pro-Thesis Only
There is NO such thing in God as, “Well, that didn’t work; let’s try something else.” God has no plan B; in fact He has no plan A. All things come out of God’s purpose, His pro-thesis, not any pre-set “plans.” And the pro-thesis of God is that His Word will return to Him fulfilled.
That the earth may bring forth seed to the sower and bread to the eater (Isaiah 55). ALL of God’s intentions for man MUST BE fulfilled in all fullness through, I am convinced, 1000 years of continual living on this earth.
God’s Intentions
And thus we see that incorruptibility and immortality must begin for us with the full development of God’s complete intention regarding human life inside this heaven/earth. Whatever God’s intentions regarding the ages to come might be, they will proceed only out from this present age of humans on this earth being everything as God expresses in the Bible. And that includes a people who never know one moment of a heaven-only existence, that is, death.
I, just like Paul did, desire to be a part of that unique group of human beings. I don’t want to “go to” heaven; I prefer to be saved, to be saved by His life. I would know my present mortal body swallowed up by life.
The Fabric of Kingdom
In this final bit of the last content in Essence, I want to turn, now, to something the Lord has made alive inside of me since I shared the dream of speaking into people the fulfillment of the first Day of Tabernacles. This something will be the fabric of everything I write, now, in Symmorphy III: Kingdom.
I have shared in the past my dream for a specific expression of the community of Christ, both generally and specifically in “My Vision,” found in Gathering To Life. I have longed deeply over many years for both the money and the land to make that vision a full reality for me and my family. That desire continues.
Desperate Longing
A few years ago I had found online a wonderful property for sale in the Missouri Ozarks, ideal for my dream in every way. I spent much time exploring that property in Google Earth and with printouts and maps. (That’s what I do.)
Then, after sharing the dream I included in Lesson 28.2 The Inner Victory, I looked at that particular property again on Google Earth. The resolution now is much clearer than it was a few years ago. I knew that someone else had purchased that property, and now I could see that they had built their house right at the spot where I had envisioned the community dining hall.
All the desperate longing arose again in me in that moment.
A Full Knowing
Yet I no longer live in that longing, a longing that has ruled in me for decades. And in feeling it full again, I found that I had no wish to continue in it.
Then, in its place, these words came into my heart, words attended by the full knowing of the Spirit. God through me HERE. God through me NOW.
My present here and now are quite limited. Yet God through me HERE and God through me NOW are God in full as He is. And God through me here and now are inside this house where I spend most of my time and towards my wife and two children who remain here in Houston.
Two Little Things
BUT – as I considered in the full knowing of my spirit, this God through me HERE and this God through me NOW, I saw no hint of “miracles” or “power” or “superman” intervention. That is, I saw God Revealed.
And I saw God Revealed through me as two things. Two little, little things. God revealed through me in simple acts of kindness, and God revealed through me in gentle words of encouragement.
I saw the Kingdom of God; I saw the full revelation of the Almighty. I saw myself as a normal human being, God Revealed.
God Is In
It’s a simple thing. Everyone is looking up; God is beneath. Everyone is looking out; God is in. Everyone is looking for big; God is in the little, in the tender kindness of a moment’s touch.
Simple acts of kindness, gentle words of encouragement, these are the mighty exploits of those who know their God. Simple acts of kindness, gentle words of encouragement, cast down all that exalts itself against the Lord Jesus Christ. Simple acts of kindness, gentle words of encouragement, change the ages, and bring forth life immortal.
The Community of My Heart
I longed so deeply for so many years BECAUSE I did not know God through me HERE and God through me NOW. Here and now had always been presented to me as something I should perform so that someday I might know God. I knew they were lying, though I never called it that.
Yet I find myself now so turned around. I find that God through me HERE and God through me NOW satisfy in full all the longing I have ever known.
And you know what? Now the community of my heart can come to me, for it will come out of simple acts of kindness and gentle words of encouragement.
It will come out of God.