God’s love, which is stronger than death, is causing me to continue walking the path of the mission the Lord has given me (John 6:1–15). “At that very time some Pharisees came and said to Him, ‘Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill You.’ He replied, ‘Go tell that fox, “I will keep driving out demons and healing people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach My goal.” In any case, I must press on today and tomorrow and the next day—for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem! Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see Me again until you say, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord” (Luke 13:31–35). ...
We live between the already received “redemption, that is, the forgiveness of sins” and the not yet received “redemption of our bodies.” In Christ Jesus we have already obtained “redemption, that is, the forgiveness of sins” (Col 1:14; Eph 1:7). But because we have not yet received “the redemption of our bodies” (Rom 8:23), we are waiting.
Living between what we have already received—the redemption, the forgiveness of sins—and what we have not yet received—the redemption of our bodies—our inner person delights in God’s law, yet there is another law in our flesh that fights against the law of our mind and still makes us prisoners of the law of sin within us (Rom 7:22–23). In other words, our minds follow God’s law, but our flesh follows the law of sin (v. 25). But when the last trumpet sounds, we will all be changed in a moment, in the blink of an eye (1 Cor 15:52).
When the Lord comes down from heaven with a command, with the voice of the archangel, and with God’s trumpet, He will transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body (1 Thess. 4:16; Phil 3:21). At that time, the victorious believers who died in Christ will rise first as those who will never perish (1 Thess. 4:16; 1 Cor 15:52; Rev 21:7). After them, the believers who are still alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and will enter the new heaven and new earth—the Holy City, the New Jerusalem—to be with the Lord forever (1 Thess. 4:16–17; Rev 21:1–2).
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