“THE BEST IS YET TO BE.” ROM. 8: 18-25, 1COR. 15:50-54, 57
PHIL 3: 20-21, ROM. 8: 18-22, 23, 24-25; 1 COR. 15: 50-54, 57.
PLEASE OPEN YOUR BIBLE TO PHILIPPIANS 3.
In this study of “God’s Great Salvation,” we have learned that there are three parts to our salvation in Christ: First, we are justified at the moment we accept Christ. Second, we are sanctified, this present time when we are growing in Christ-likeness. Third, our salvation will be complete when we are glorified. In glorification we will be removed from the presence of sin and live in the presence of God.
Glorification is more than a spiritual state: our bodies will also be glorified. According to 1 Cor. 15: 42-43 our bodies will be transformed to be imperishable. In this glorified state of unending joy in God’s presence, we will do what we were created to do: bring unhindered glory to God, the One who glorified us.
Concerning this state of salvation, The Baptist Faith and Message states, “Glorification is the culmination of salvation and is the final blessed and abiding state of the redeemed.”
“The Biblical Truth” in today’s lesson is that believers can live with the assurance that in eternity they will live with Christ and be like Him. “The Life Impact” is to help us anticipate and appreciate our future glorification.
Our salvation by faith in Christ is both a simple thing and an intensely profound experience. I did not fully understand all that happened through Christ’s redemptive work, but I knew as a 10 year-old boy, that Jesus died for me and I wanted Him in my life. Two years later, a simple prayer of faith and there I was: saved and in the arms of Jesus.
As I have grown as a Christian and studied further God’s Word, I have come to a greater appreciation for all that Christ did on my behalf at the moment I responded in childlike faith. Today let’s look a little deeper into God’s great work of salvation.
PLEASE READ PHILIPPIANS 3: 20-21.
As we saw last week in Phil. 3: 19, Paul called believers to imitate him in striving for and growing in Christ-likeness (the work of salvation). In vs. 19 He warned us to be on guard against those who “are focused on earthly things.”
Why should we not think that way? We don’t need to focus in earthly things because this earth is not our real home. We are to consider ourselves strangers and pilgrims here. Our citizenship is in heaven. So rather than acting worldly and focusing on earthly matters, our conduct should match our citizen-ship.
According to Paul, he and other believers, eagerly wait for the coming of the Lord, our Savior, who dwells in heaven
The Philippians certainly would have understood Paul. Philippi was a Roman colony and most of its citizens were made up of former Roman soldiers. The soldier’s reward for 21 years of service to the empire was full citizenship. The Philippians were proud of their Roman citizenship. Even though Philippi was an outpost far from the capital, the life of Rome was all about it---in dress, in language, in the way justice was administered, and even in their morality.
Citizenship offered them protection, and the Philippian citizens would wait for news from Rome to know how to conduct their business. In the same way, we are to look to our home---the place of our citizenship---for protection and guidance on how to live while in this “outpost.” Everything about us----our lifestyle, our attitudes and our actions---is to reflect the lifestyles, attitudes and actions of our heavenly home. Paul did not ask the Philippians to renounce their citizenship but simply to put it in perspective.
As the tone and character of a country is set by its leader, so the tone of our heavenly home is set by our leader:
The Lord Jesus Christ Jesus Christ is rightfully our Savior, because He is he One who made it possible for us to become citizens of God’s kingdom. For that reason we are to eagerly wait for
Him to come and bring to us the final touches of the salvation He gave us at the cross. Paul’s choice of words reflects a waiting that it earnest and full of expectation.
Those who have traveled to a foreign country or been away from home a long time understand this intense yearning. There is nothing to root foreigners to the places they are visiting, and for the Philippian Christians---and all who have suffered for the sake of the gospel---that was doubly so.
When we appreciate just how little this world has to offer us compared to what awaits us, and when we remember that all our trials and difficulties will disappear in our heavenly home, we will eagerly wait for Christ.
This waiting has an expectation much like a fond desire for a great friend who comes to visit. The reception of this friend so consumes us that we cast off all other matters. What we experience now is only for the moment, so we are eager to greet Christ, who will bring us into His glory.
When Christ comes, He will transform the body of our humble condition. Our present physical bodies are not capable of living in the full glory of God. Our bodies have been pervaded by sin and are doomed to decay. But Christ will take our bodies in this lowly condition and do a radical transformation. What was begun in us spiritually will be fully manifested in us physically.
When Christ comes again He will transform our weak, corruptible, and mortal bodies into the likeness of His glorious body. Christ received His glorious body when He rose from the dead. Christ’s body is immortal Jesus Christ, untainted by sin, and not subject to decay.
As we have conformed to Christ in His death, He will conform us to the likeness of His glorious body, His glorified likeness in resurrection. We can’t imagine what conformity to such a glorious body will be like, although we do have a hint of it in Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances. Can it be summed up any better than in the word glorious? Our glory will conform to the glory that Christ exhibits.
Christ will bring about this transformation by the power that enables Him to subject everything to Himself. As omnipotent God, there is nothing Christ cannot do. As sovereign God, there is nothing that is not under His authority. By that power, He will subject all things under His authority. The Greek wording here is much stronger than our English idea of subdue.
Christ will marshal and arrange everything just as He wants it to be. All things will be brought into total conformity with His plan and under His rule in the new heaven and new earth. Even death will be destroyed by His power. That’s power! And it is by that same omnipotent power that He will work on our behalf to transform our dead, decaying, and imperfect bodies into a glorious state. Christ will complete His saving work in us when He returns.
PLEASE TURN TO ROMANS 8.
PLEASE READ ROMANS 8: 18-22.
Romans 8, paints a wonderful picture of the role of the Holy Spirit in believers’ lives. Paul wrote in vs. 16 that the Spirit confirms in us that we are God’s Children, and as children we are also heirs of God. Because we are identified with Christ as co-heirs, we are also identified in vs. 17 with Christ in His suffering.
One of the key passages on glorification is Rom. 8: 18-25. Vs. 17 sets the tone. As children of God, we are joint heirs with Christ. “We suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.” Suffering and glory are two themes in these verses. Vs. 8 makes clear that suffering is an inescapable part of earthly life. Christians, far from being exempt, often have persecution added to the normal human sufferings. But when we look at our suffering in light of the coming glory, there is no comparison. Paul said it well in 2 Cor. 4: 16-17 “—though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory:”
We would probably all readily admit that we do not like to suffer, but suffering can bring us into closer conformity with Christ. The fact that I am identifying with Christ and becoming more like Him, can help us endure suffering, but we can also endure suffering because of what lies ahead.
Paul’s phrase for I consider shows that he had thought this through. Based on his calculations and reasoning, there is just no comparison between the sufferings of this present time and the glory that is going to be revealed to us. What we endure on this earth is only a moment in time compared to a blessed eternity with Christ.
The depth of our “momentary” suffering is nothing compared to the depth and richness of all the joy and blessing we will experience when we are fully transformed into Christ-likeness and dwelling with Him for eternity. There will be a glory that will be revealed to us, a glory that will come not from within ourselves but from God and bring about our full and final transformation.
Even creation itself eagerly waits for this transformation. Here creation refers to all created things, except humanity. It includes all nature both animate and inanimate. God’s original creation was wondrously perfect. In each step of His creation, God saw that it was good. Each step of creation was just as God meant it to be: without flaws, in perfect working order, and each part working in harmony with the other.
Rebellion and sin changed all that. God told Adam in Gen 3: 17-18 “The ground is cursed because of you. You will eat from it by means of painful labor all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.”
Creation did not choose this course for itself willingly. One might argue that creation is worse off than man. Man chose to sin and thus experience God’s curse, but creation was involuntarily cursed. The context makes it clear that it was God who subjected creation to the state it is in now. It was not Satan nor man but God.
The creation was not responsible for the sin of the humans, but their sin made God’s good creation into a place where pain and toil were part of human existence. The world became an imperfect environment because of human sin. Although God allowed this, He did not intend the plight of either humanity or the rest of creation to be permanent.
But there is hope. Just as creation shared in humanity’s curse, so creation also shares in humanity’s hope. As God redeems His followers and restores them to the perfect, Christ-like state in which humanity was originally intended to be, so will creation also be restored. That is why we see creation waiting eagerly.
Such eagerness is a picture of waiting in suspense. Picture a man w ho is scanning the horizon in anticipation for something to appear. He stands with his head erect and thrust forward. For creation to wait like this is not a weary, defeated waiting: instead, creation is waiting anxiously, even as a child eagerly and anxiously looks forward to Christmas morning.
There is a sense that creation “knows” that when God’s sons are revealed---literally, manifested, uncovered, and laid bare for all to see---it will share in that revelation and transformation. That knowledge is the foundation for creation’s hope, and vs. 21 spells out the specifics of what creation is hoping for. All of creation looks forward to liberation: being set free from the bondage of corruption.
Nature can do nothing about the course it is on now. The curse brought corruption to the created order, and nature is not improving. There is nothing evolutionary here; rather it is evident that the natural order of things is going from bad to worse. There is coming a time, though, when all of creation will be set free from the corruption and downward spiral. Creation shares in the hope of God’s promise. 2 Peter 3: 13 says, “Based on His promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness will dwell.”
Creation will not only be set free, but creation will also be brought into the glorious freedom of God’s children. Literally, this is “the liberty of the glory.” Creation--- along with God’s children---will find great freedom when it lives in the state for which it was created: living in God’s glory and, in turn, bringing glory to God.
We are not there yet, though. That is why creation eagerly waits, so much so that it has been groaning together with labor pains. A mother waits the birth of her child, and as the time of birth grows nearer, the labor pains increase. Those labor pains, while extremely painful, signal to the mother that the time is near. The pain is not meaningless, but it carries with it the hope of a newborn baby.
Paul wanted us to see that the eager expectation of nature for the new created order is so intense that it is akin to the painful, yet expectant, delivery of a child. I have heard from mothers that, as intense as the labor pains are, the labor pains are quickly replaced by the joy that it is over and the child has arrived. Therein lies creation’s hope: the joy that the new creation has arrived.
TEACHER READ ROMANS 8: 23. “And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Sprit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”
Think on this for a moment: God Himself comes in to live in our lives---the God who created all there is---and yet we are promised that He is the first-fruit. Or, as Paul said to the Ephesians in Eph. 1: 13-14: We are “sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. He is the down payment of our inheritance.”
It is hard for me to imagine the indwelling, eternal, omnipotent, loving God being a down payment (like the small portion of the actual price of a home), yet we are told that the Spirit indwelling our lives is only a small foretaste of what is to come.
What a great blessing to have God in our lives! Yet more blessings are to come! With that promise, knowing how good it is simply to have God in our lives! Yet more blessings are to come!
With that promise, knowing how good it is simply to have God in our lives, we too should be eagerly waiting. We are waiting for our adoption, the redemption of our bodies. As believers, haven’t we already been adopted and redeemed? Yes, but we haven’t received the full benefits of our salvation until that time in the future when we experience the redemption of our bodies. The work of redemption is complete, but the full realization of our redemption is not. 2 Cor. 5: 17 says, “We are new creations, but our redemption will be complete when we enter into the new heaven and new earth that match our new condition.”
PLEASE READ ROMANS 8: 24-25.
Knowing what is ahead for us gives us hope and helps us endure. It is in this hope we were save. We are not saved by our hope, but our salvation is characterized by hope. We are saved now and we receive many of the benefits of that salvation now, but our salvation is ultimately related to our future. We have a new life in Christ now, and because we experience that new life now, we have a sure and solid hope that our future is grounded in that new life.
Paul helped us understand what defines hope by telling us what it is not: Hope that is seen is not hope. I may hope to receive a certain gift for my birthday, but when I am actually holding that gift, unwrapped and in my hands, I no longer hope. I have it! But biblical hope is not wishful thinking. I might hope that my daughter will buy me a $60,000 sports car, but the reality of her checking account lets me know that is only a pipe dream.
But if she tells me that she is going to get me a certain gift, I look forward in hope to the day I receive the gift. It is no longer wishful thinking, but my hope is based on what I’ve been told by someone I trust.
Faith and hope go hand in hand. I have hope because of the one in whom I have placed my faith. My hope of receiving the full redemption of my body is not blind hope; it is grounded in the One I trust---Jesus Christ. Because of what He has already given I have a sure hope that He “will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6). As Paul wrote in Rom. 8:30: “Those He justified, He also glorified.” I can eagerly wait for my glorification in patience because I know with full assurance and hope that it is coming.
We have a sure hope---because of the presence of God’s Spirit and what He already has done in our lives---that we will one day receive the full and final benefits of our salvation.
PLEASE TURN TO 1 CORINTHIANS 15.
PLEASE READ 1 CORINTHIANS 15: 50-54, 57.
First Corinthians 15: 12 is the key to understanding the reason Paul wrote this long chapter: “Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say, There is no resurrection of the dead?” The Corinthians, like all Greeks, had an aversion to the Jewish concept of resurrection. Many Greeks had no hope of any kind for life after death. Those who had any hope expressed it as immortality of the soul, not as resurrection of the body.
An overview of ch. 15 shows how Paul argued for resurrection. He began in vv. 1-11 by grounding everything in the fact of the resurrection of Christ. In vv. 12-19 he showed that denying the resurrection denies Christ’s resurrection, the foundation for everything we believe. The reality of Christ’s resurrection in vs. 20-28 ensures victory over death when God raises us from the dead. The resurrection hope in vv. 29-34 enables Christians to defy death. In vs. 35 skeptics asked about the kind of body to be raised.
Paul illustrated it in vv.36-37 with a seed that dies and sprouts new life. In vv. 38-39 Paul compared different kinds of bodies and called the resurrection body a spiritual body.
The words flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom emphasize that the spiritual body is not a body of flesh and blood. Then, thinking about those who already were dead, he wrote, neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. In other words, neither the living nor the dead will have a resurrection body of flesh and blood. But they will have a body, not be pure spirit. It will have substance, and each person will be known as he or she is known.
The best model we have is the glorified body of Jesus. Many questions remain about this mystery, but the body will be whatever is needed for the new heaven and the new earth.
With the words, “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.” Paul taught that those believers who are alive when Christ comes will be transformed. Paul dealt with this in more detail in 1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18.
Sanctification is a lifetime process but the end result of glorification will take place “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.” This will take place at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound. Other passages in Matt. 24: 32 and 1 Thess. 4: 16 also show that a trumpet will sound when Jesus comes. When the trumpet sounds, the dead shall be raised incorruptible. Death begins a process of corruption on the human body. Even the most carefully preserved bodies deteriorate. In some kinds of deaths the body is totally destroyed very quickly.
In the resurrection, in a mysterious and miraculous way the dead person will be resurrected into a spiritual body that is incorruptible. Those who are alive when Christ comes are in their mortal body, but this mortal must put on immortality. Mortal means “subject to death;” immortality is “not subject to death.” This describes Christ’s twofold final victory over death. The corruptible dead are raised no longer subject to corruption and the mortal living are no longer subject to death.
Sleep is one way to describe the state of the dead. When word was brought to Jesus that His friend Lazarus was ill, He told His disciples that Lazarus was asleep. They pointed out that was good; Lazarus was getting well. Then Jesus bluntly told them “Lazarus is dead.”
One reason for using the word “sleep” is that the dead appear to be asleep. Some people believe in “soul sleep.” This view holds that at death the soul or spirit enters an unconscious state from which it will be wakened on resurrection day. If we had only passages such as 1 Cor. 15:20-57 and 1 Thess. 4: 13-18, soul sleep might be justified. However, we have another set of passages that refer to the spirit going to be with the Lord at death.
Paul told the Philippians in Phil 1: 23 that he wanted to depart and be with Christ. Jesus told the penitent thief in Luke 23:43, “Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise.” Apparently the spirit of a believer goes to be with Christ at death, but the living and dead believers are awaiting with eagerness the coming of Christ and the future resurrection.
Paul’s quotation in vs. 54 shows that when our resurrection and transformation to glorified bodies takes place, it will mark the fulfillment of the prophecy in Isa. 25: 8 “He will destroy death forever.”
God had planned long ago for our salvation to be complete in Christ, a salvation so complete that we become victorious even over death. It is because of our sin that we must even face death, for it is sin that gives death its power. With our sin removed through the work of Christ, the power of death is also removed. Physical death is still apart of reality, but the time will come when it is no more; it will have been swallowed up in victory. The destruction of this last enemy secures absolute victory for Christ and His children.
Paul’s response to this was simply to break out in praise! Like an exclamation of relief, he thanked God because He is the One who gives us the victory. Paul then quoted Hosea 13:14 in vs. 55-56: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.”
Paul topped off his victory song with a word of thanksgiving and praise in vs. 57. “Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Paul had just finished trying to explain a subject that is a mystery. But enough of his message is clear to cause us to join in thanking God for this great victory. This victory is not something we achieve; it is God’s gift.
JULY 3rd LESSON IN 1 COR. 8 AND 9 IS TO HELP US EXERCISE OUR FREEDOM IN CHRIST APPROPRIETELY. altav@swbell.net