- Jul 11, 2017
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Paul wrote, some nearly two thousand years ago:
1 Corinthians 3 & 4
1 Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. 2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. 3 You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings?
5 What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. 6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. 7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.
...
6 Now, brothers and sisters, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, “Do not go beyond what is written.”
...
8 Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! You have begun to reign—and that without us! How I wish that you really had begun to reign so that we also might reign with you! 9 For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like those condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to human beings. 10 We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! 11 To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. 12 We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; 13 when we are slandered, we answer kindly. We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world—right up to this moment.
Let me just bring this out, again:
'You have begun to reign—and that without us! How I wish that you really had begun to reign so that we also might reign with you!'
Paul was there talking about something else, something much more, clearly, then what he was experiencing in his day.
Was that reigning with Christ fulfilled some time in the future, such as when the Church became unioned with the State, something that would not truly happen until several centuries later?
No, it did not.
Not in the way that Paul was looking forward to it.
Remember Moses, and how he declined the Egyptian Empire many centuries before Paul, 'not considering it comparable to what God could provide'?
We do not see the world becoming the Kingdom of God and Christ until the Seventh Trumpet blows, after the ascension to Heaven of the Two Witnesses:
Revelation 11
15 The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said:
“The kingdom of the world has become
the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah,
and he will reign for ever and ever.”
This is before the 'fall of Babylon', this is before 'the Beast' and 'the False Prophet' are 'thrown in the lake of fire'. This is before 'the birds gorge themselves on the flesh of all, great and small'.
Only after all that, do you see 'those who were killed resurrected and raised with Christ to reign with him for a thousand years'.
Just as it was said before Revelation was written, that the evil one must come first and be exposed. We see Revelation expand on that, to include the destruction of mighty institutions, and, at least, a spiritual devastation of flesh across the entire world.
So, it is not just one person who is exposed, and destroyed, but you see the entire world being, at least, spiritually devastated.
Psalm 149
1 Sing to the Lord a new song,
his praise in the assembly of his faithful people.
2 Let Israel rejoice in their Maker;
let the people of Zion be glad in their King.
...
6 May the praise of God be in their mouths
and a double-edged sword in their hands,
7 to inflict vengeance on the nations
and punishment on the peoples,
8 to bind their kings with fetters,
their nobles with shackles of iron,
9 to carry out the sentence written against them—
this is the glory of all his faithful people.
Praise the Lord.
It has to be something better then what we have today, and in the first world, we have a lot.
But, do you really believe that Paul and Moses would not have rejected today's world, longing for something 'better then this'?
The very likely possibility is that at the first resurrection, we are raised 'imperishable'. We see this manner of body in Revelation, and in the mount of Transfiguration -- where it was not just Jesus appearing this way, but also two others, Moses and Elijah. So, we know this manner of body is the manner of body we are to inherit.
Even with those descriptions, however, we can not really say what that state of consciousness would be like. And, we do not know how the glorified body of Moses differed from the glorified body of Elijah, and how they both differed from the body of Jesus.
These are immortal bodies of vast glory -- very much unlike the flesh we have today.
The reign, then, of Christ and his saints, will be incomparably glorious to what we have seen in history, or what we have today.
To truly embrace that, we must reject the glory of the kingdoms of this world, even to this very day.
There is something incomparably better coming.
1 Corinthians 3 & 4
1 Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit but as people who are still worldly—mere infants in Christ. 2 I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. 3 You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere human beings?
5 What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. 6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. 7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.
...
6 Now, brothers and sisters, I have applied these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, so that you may learn from us the meaning of the saying, “Do not go beyond what is written.”
...
8 Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! You have begun to reign—and that without us! How I wish that you really had begun to reign so that we also might reign with you! 9 For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like those condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to human beings. 10 We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! 11 To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. 12 We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; 13 when we are slandered, we answer kindly. We have become the scum of the earth, the garbage of the world—right up to this moment.
Let me just bring this out, again:
'You have begun to reign—and that without us! How I wish that you really had begun to reign so that we also might reign with you!'
Paul was there talking about something else, something much more, clearly, then what he was experiencing in his day.
Was that reigning with Christ fulfilled some time in the future, such as when the Church became unioned with the State, something that would not truly happen until several centuries later?
No, it did not.
Not in the way that Paul was looking forward to it.
Remember Moses, and how he declined the Egyptian Empire many centuries before Paul, 'not considering it comparable to what God could provide'?
We do not see the world becoming the Kingdom of God and Christ until the Seventh Trumpet blows, after the ascension to Heaven of the Two Witnesses:
Revelation 11
15 The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said:
“The kingdom of the world has become
the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah,
and he will reign for ever and ever.”
This is before the 'fall of Babylon', this is before 'the Beast' and 'the False Prophet' are 'thrown in the lake of fire'. This is before 'the birds gorge themselves on the flesh of all, great and small'.
Only after all that, do you see 'those who were killed resurrected and raised with Christ to reign with him for a thousand years'.
Just as it was said before Revelation was written, that the evil one must come first and be exposed. We see Revelation expand on that, to include the destruction of mighty institutions, and, at least, a spiritual devastation of flesh across the entire world.
So, it is not just one person who is exposed, and destroyed, but you see the entire world being, at least, spiritually devastated.
Psalm 149
1 Sing to the Lord a new song,
his praise in the assembly of his faithful people.
2 Let Israel rejoice in their Maker;
let the people of Zion be glad in their King.
...
6 May the praise of God be in their mouths
and a double-edged sword in their hands,
7 to inflict vengeance on the nations
and punishment on the peoples,
8 to bind their kings with fetters,
their nobles with shackles of iron,
9 to carry out the sentence written against them—
this is the glory of all his faithful people.
Praise the Lord.
It has to be something better then what we have today, and in the first world, we have a lot.
But, do you really believe that Paul and Moses would not have rejected today's world, longing for something 'better then this'?
The very likely possibility is that at the first resurrection, we are raised 'imperishable'. We see this manner of body in Revelation, and in the mount of Transfiguration -- where it was not just Jesus appearing this way, but also two others, Moses and Elijah. So, we know this manner of body is the manner of body we are to inherit.
Even with those descriptions, however, we can not really say what that state of consciousness would be like. And, we do not know how the glorified body of Moses differed from the glorified body of Elijah, and how they both differed from the body of Jesus.
These are immortal bodies of vast glory -- very much unlike the flesh we have today.
The reign, then, of Christ and his saints, will be incomparably glorious to what we have seen in history, or what we have today.
To truly embrace that, we must reject the glory of the kingdoms of this world, even to this very day.
There is something incomparably better coming.
