davidbowerkingwood

Your Transformation was Instantaneous on the First Occasion and will be Instantaneous on the Second Occasion!

At the point you received Jesus Christ as your Savior, spiritual changes took place in your life that had eternal ramifications of the greatest significance. You were born again into the family of God, made a part of the body of Christ, your dead spirit was resurrected from the dead, and you were indwelt by God, the Holy Spirit for all of time and eternity!

While these deeply significant events were happening at a spiritual level, they were having no visible impact on your human body! Your body remained under the Adamic curse and could only return to the dust from whence it came; it could never join you in heaven!

This is explained in 2 Corinthians 5:1-8 where it is written:

“5 For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. ² Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, ³ because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. ⁴ For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. ⁵ Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

⁶ Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. ⁷ For we live by faith, not by sight. ⁸ We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.”

The Resurrection of our Tents!

At a time, yet future, all who have been born again will experience the second occasion, the resurrection of their tents. This will also be an instantaneous experience as described in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 where it is written:

“¹³ Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. ¹⁴ For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. ¹⁵ According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. ¹⁶ For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷ After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. ¹⁸ Therefore encourage one another with these words.”

This phase of the restoration God had planned before the foundation of the earth will have been completed! We have a summary of this in Romans 8:29-30 where it is written:

“²⁹ For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. ³⁰ And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.”

 For we live by faith, not by sight.

I rejoice in the revelation we have been given in the Holy Bible; I rejoice in the sure knowledge I have been created by God and now exist as an expression of his mighty power! I rejoice in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ which will be brought to a successful conclusion at a time known only to God.

The eighth chapter of Romans has been lauded as the crowning pinnacle of Christian theology and I’m in full agreement with that assessment! I probably refer more Christians to portions of that chapter than any other chapter in the Bible.

The last two verses in that chapter express most eloquently, God’s love for his children:

³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹ neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.