The Clear Boundaries of the Kingdom

The clear boundaries of the Kingdom

The Bible’s “resurrection chapter,” 1 Corinthians 15, contains a rich repository of many critical biblical truths. Verse 50 in particular focuses on our present humanity and mortality. This human, flesh-and-blood physical existence was never intended to be an end in itself; it serves only as a training ground for the Kingdom.

Notice what the apostle Paul wrote here: “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God; nor does corruption [decay] inherit incorruption.” Our human bodies age and run down over time. We simply cannot exist permanently in the material flesh. In fact all physical matter, however long it takes, remains in a process of change toward disintegration and decay.

So, then, how can we enter and become a part of the spiritual Kingdom of God? How does God make it possible for flesh-and-blood, mortal human beings to enter that Kingdom? 

Paul outlines the solution in the next few passages of 1 Corinthians 15: “Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep [in the grave], but we shall all be changed —in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead [in Christ] will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality” (verses 51-53).

In a similar account in 1 Thessalonians 4 Paul corroborates these awesome truths. “For this we say to you by the word of the Lord …” he writes. The truths that follow in this passage are not his personal ideas, but rather teaching obtained directly from Jesus Christ.

Continuing, he says: “We who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep [in death—with no consciousness at present]. For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven … with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air” (verses 15-17).

However, we will not be able to meet Christ this way while still existing as human flesh. “For our [Christian] citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly [ fleshly, perishable ] body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able to subdue all things to Himself” (Philippians 3:20-21). Jesus is God along with the Father! They know how to accomplish the transformation. We don’t!

Jesus Christ will do for us what we simply cannot perform for ourselves. But there remains something we can and must do in intimate partnership with God and Christ: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13). We have to embark on a series of necessary spiritual steps to overcome the obstacles in our way.

Thank you Joseph Grennell for this word from the Lord! 

Could I put it on my blog ‘yourkingdomcomeyourwillbedoneonearthasitisinheaven?’