glorycloud's Diaryland Diary

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the joy of the resurrection life

'IX: The Joy of Resurrection Life TEXT "And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain" First Corinthians 15:14

"3. What Does the Resurrection of Christ Mean for our Glorification?
The resurrection of Christ is fundamental for our glorification. Ours is a religion whose center of gravity lies beyond the grave in the world to come. The conviction that the gospel is primarily intended to prepare man for a future life and that consequently neither its true nature can be understood nor its full glory appreciated unless it be placed in the light of eternity-this conviction broadly underlies the apostle's reasoning both here and elsewhere. Christianity does many things for the present life, but if we wish to apprehend how much it can do, we must direct our gaze to the life beyond. What more eloquent expression of this feeling can be conceived than is found in immediate proximity to our text in the words, 'If [nearing the end] we are such who have only hope in Christ in this life, we are of all men most pitiable'? What else does this mean other than that the Christian's thinking, feeling, and striving revolve around the future state; and that, if this goal should prove to have no objective reality, the absoluteness with which the believer has staked everything in its attainment must make him appear in his delusion the most pitiable of all creatures? What a gulf then lies between this statement of the apostle and the sentiment we sometimes meet with-that Christianity had better disencumber itself of all idle speculation about an uncertain future and concentrate its energies upon the improvement of the present world. Paul could not have entertained such a sentiment for a moment because the thirst for the world to come was of the very substance of the religion of his heart. He felt deeply that the believer's destiny and God's purpose with reference to him transcend all limits of what this earthly life can possibly bring or possibly contain. Christ's work for us extends even further than the restoration of what sin has destroyed. If Christ placed us back there where Adam stood in his rectitude, without sins and without death, this would be unspeakable grace indeed, more than enough to make the gospel a blessed word. But grace exceeds sin far more abundantly than all this: besides wiping out the last vestige of sin and its consequences it opens up for us that higher world to whose threshold even the first Adam had not yet apprehended. And this is not a mere matter of degrees in blessedness, it is difference between two modes of life; as heaven is high above the earth, by so much the conditions of our future state will transcend those of the paradise of old. . ." 'Grace And Glory' pg. 165,166 Geerhardus Vos

10:03 p.m. - 2023-04-09

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