SOME THOUGHTS ON RESURRECTION
[p. 204] SOME THOUGHTS ON RESURRECTION
We have an unfolding of the truth of resurrection in these verses, and this is of the utmost importance, as it is in resurrection that God permanently secures all that is for His own pleasure. There is a resurrection world which the Sadducees knew nothing about; all their thoughts were formed on the model of the present world. There are two worlds; the world of the natural and the world of the spiritual. The Lord would lead us into the light, faith and spirit of the spiritual world. That world is going to abide untouchable by death, and beyond its power.
The Sadducees did not get beyond the range of the natural. The most prominent and characteristic feature of this world is that its sons marry and are given in marriage; its distinctive feature is the natural, and the Sadducee cannot see beyond that, he cannot see the spiritual. If there is nothing but the natural, there is nothing for the pleasure of God, for death is on the natural; the fairest and most lovely thing in nature has come under death.
Now the Lord would lead us away from the natural into the spiritual. Resurrection brings us into an order which is entirely spiritual. It is good to entertain the thought of what is spiritual, for nothing will go into God’s resurrection world but what is spiritual. No one will be there who is not worthy; there will be no unworthy material in that world, “but they who are counted worthy to have part in that world”.
Every spiritual element which God has introduced into this world is material for His resurrection world; the natural contributes nothing to that world. Our great concern should be to be developed in the features that will secure our being counted worthy for the resurrection world.
[p. 205] The Lord speaks in verse 37 of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God had introduced in these men elements suitable for His world, and they had apparently been lost, for the men in whom they had appeared had died and been buried. They could not be really lost because God must have every element of His spiritual work in His resurrection world.
The natural appeals to us very strongly, but if we come under the teaching of the Lord He will cause the spiritual to appeal to us more powerfully than the natural. The Lord would have us walk in the light and faith of resurrection even while we are still connected with the natural.
One feels the great importance of cherishing this thought of being counted worthy of that world; it raises the question whether we are cultivating features which God must have in His world. The thief on the cross judged himself and vindicated Jesus, and he acknowledged that all the kingdom rights belonged to Jesus. These were spiritual elements which God could not leave out of His world. If one is able to see the blessed character of God’s grace as it is available for sinful men, that is a spiritual element, however small it may be. People think they are going to be together in families in heaven as they were on earth, taking up old links, but that is entirely natural.
The power to see what is of God is a spiritual element which goes along with new birth, the ability to see God’s kingdom. There is no question of growth, or formation in connection with seeing; a babe a day old can see, and the ability to see what is of God is an element which God must have in His world in a resurrection condition. He is going to gather it all up, nothing goes into His resurrection world but what is fit to be there, and the fitness is acquired now. I trust we desire to be more worthy of that world where all is spiritual. Those who are worthy are elevated to the rank of angels, to the rank of beings who are wholly spiritual.
We should be more exercised to be spiritual than to enjoy the happiest natural relationships. In the resurrection world [p. 206] there is no more death, we are going to be equal to angels. We do not often talk of being like angels, but the Lord does here. “Equal to angels” is the character of being, and “sons” is the relationship in which the being is set. It has pleased God to have certain beings who are wholly spiritual, “who maketh his angels spirits” (Psalm 104: 4). Even our bodies will be spiritual in the resurrection world, and it is important to see that the Lord Jesus as teaching in the temple would put an impression of that world on us, so that we should not be henceforth dominated by the natural, but by the spiritual.
Resurrection unto life is a question of personality; it is those who have practised good who have part in it (John 5: 29). To practise good is a spiritual element, and God wants that for His world.
The thief on the cross was wonderfully honoured. In that supreme moment when the Son of God was on the cross, he was singled out to confess the Lord in circumstances of extreme outward reproach. What a place he had, what a confession! He was surely the object of admiration of all heaven. He had a unique place of confession, as completely vindicating the Lord, and investing Him with all the glory of the kingdom at such a moment. God could not leave such a man as that out of His world. So with everything that is the fruit of grace, it is all needed for God’s world; that is why the saints have to be raised, there is that about them which God cannot do without in His world.
From the point of view of resurrection the saints are not viewed as being in heaven, but in their graves; the Lord says, “All who are in the tombs shall hear his voice, and shall go forth” (John 5: 28, 29). Abraham is in his grave from the point of view of resurrection as are all the other saints who have died. God worked in those subjects of grace and produced in them spiritual elements, but the natural was there too, and they died. So apparently and publicly God lost all these spiritual elements, for the saints have died and been buried and are still in their graves. They went down, so they [p. 207] must come up. The person is identified with his body in Scripture. “Pious men buried Stephen”; and the angel said, “Come, see the place where the Lord lay” — He was identified with His body. At the end of Matthew’s gospel there was a singular public witness to resurrection power having come in; “Many bodies of the saints fallen asleep arose, and going out of the tombs after his arising, entered into the holy city and appeared unto many” (Matthew 27: 52, 53).
The bodily condition suited to God’s world is brought about by resurrection; the saints are going to be raised in a condition wholly spiritual. We get the thought in 1 Corinthians 15 of what is sown; that implies that whatever the condition in which the sowing takes place there is seed suitable for resurrection.
One regards the saint’s body as the temple of the Holy Spirit; it has been dedicated to God and presented a living sacrifice. There is a holy character about the body of the saint, inasmuch as it is a vessel of the activities of the Holy Spirit. There is a moral and spiritual identification between what is sown and what is raised; the believer put in the grave comes out, and comes out in a condition wholly spiritual, and it is good to seek that order of things now. “To them who, in patient continuance of good works, seek for glory and honour and incorruptibility” (Romans 2: 7). To be seeking incorruptibility is to be seeking what is outside the natural altogether; it is wholly spiritual. Paul was earnestly set for it, “If any way I arrive at the resurrection from among the dead” (Philippians 3: 11).
Death having come in as a blot on God’s creation, it has to be removed publicly by resurrection. In 1 Corinthians 15 there is no mention of going into heaven; my impression is that the object of the apostle was to lead the hearts of the saints into a spiritual sphere so as to wean them from the power of the natural. Resurrection is marked by incorruptibility, glory and power; it is a spiritual condition. The Spirit of holiness places man outside all that is corrupting; it has [p. 208] been verified in the Lord Jesus; He has been “marked out Son of God in power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by resurrection of the dead” (Romans 1: 4).
That the spiritual is greater than the natural is one great point of temple teaching. If we were more in the light and faith of resurrection we should think more of what is spiritual, more of what is angel-like. Think of spiritual and holy beings whom it has pleased God to maintain by His election — for we read of the elect angels — beings who are able to participate in the delights of God’s grace, and who are taken into confidence as to His activities in grace. Angels are the willing and happy servants of the will of God, and are in every way on spiritual lines. What a character of being to resemble!
Being spiritual lies at the basis of being sons of God. “Equal to angels” is the nature of the being; then there is the wonderful relationship, sons of God and sons of the resurrection. The pleasure of God will be permanently secured in a deathless scene, a scene that is wholly spiritual. Think of the blessedness of it! If we have known it, even for half a minute, when we were really in the Spirit and absorbed with God and with Christ, think of it being perpetuated in God’s world in incorruptible conditions! We shall indeed have a greater intimacy with the blessed God than ever angels had. The apostle Paul longed for the resurrection state: “If any way I arrive at the resurrection from among the dead”. He was pursuing it, leaving the natural behind, the whole energy of his being reaching out after what is wholly spiritual.
The Lord does not speak in Luke 20 of the resurrection of any but saints, but in John 5: 29 He says that those who have done evil will go forth from the tombs, “to resurrection of judgment”.