AND THE PURPOSE OF THE AGES

respect unto the recompense of reward (11:26). They even accepted torture - that they might obtain a better

If God's Word assures us that one resurrection can be better than another, it surely behoves us all to search our

own hearts whether we are qualifying for the inestimable privilege of attaining to the out-resurrection, out from

among the dead (Phil. 3:11). But whether it is as an introduction to our hope or our prize, resurrection is our

Scriptural key that unlocks life after death. To miss this is to throw away or lose God's key, and there is nothing

that can be a substitute for it. We can definitely state as a Scriptural axiom that there is no way out of the grave for a

believer or unbeliever except by resurrection. We challenge anyone to find one Scripture that, when taken in its

context, proves otherwise. Let us hold fast to the truth and have a hope that is based on the revelation of the Word

of God, not on human opinion or tradition, lest we deceive ourselves and be ashamed before Him in that day when

we shall see Him face to face.

(7) Resurrection and Service.-In considering the way in which the basic truth of resurrection enters into the

plan and purpose of God, we should fail if we omitted to consider how it is woven into the present walk and witness

of the believer. `Saved to serve' is a good motto and one that expresses truth. The Church of this present

dispensation is designated the Body of Christ and, just as in the human body there are no useless members, each one

playing its necessary part in the health and activity of the body, so it should be in that redeemed company of which

the Lord Jesus is the Head. The apostle Paul in Colossians 1:9 prays that all such should be `filled with a knowledge

of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding'. This means that there is a practical outworking of Truth in

divinely appointed service for every member of the Body. Merely to accumulate Scriptural knowledge is dangerous

and unprofitable if it does not eventuate in a daily life and Christian witness in harmony with our high calling. We

should never forget that the reception of light and truth brings a corresponding responsibility in the sight of the Lord

to pass on to others what we have learned. This is the way the Body is going to grow and exhibit that wonderful

unity that Ephesians 4:15,16 describes:

`But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ: from

Whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth (or literally

every joint of the supply) ... maketh increase of the body ...'.

The joints themselves, the individual members, supply nothing. That supply comes from the Head alone and

the joints are merely channels to convey something of His fulness and truth to other members. Every time we

receive light on the word, the sense of responsibility should never be absent, but should drive us to our knees to seek

the Lord's guidance into practical avenues of `working out' what He has graciously `worked in'. At the very outset

of his Christian life Paul realised this, for among his first recorded words after his conversion was the famous

question, `Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?' (Acts 9:6). With some, however, it is not so much that they do not

know the Lord's will in service, but they shrink from what it will cost them or feel their inability to carry it out. We

should face this issue squarely, and realise that creature strength is useless here. And yet how often have we all

attempted the Lord's work in the power of the flesh and failed! Even the great apostle was on the same level as the

humblest believer when it came to power for service. Listen to his words in 2 Corinthians 3:5, `Not that we are

sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God'.

We are inclined to invest Paul with superhuman qualities, so it is good to realise that he was a person of like

limitations as ourselves. When he wrote to the Galatian believers he made a tremendous declaration in the twentieth

verse of the second chapter, `I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live'.

How was this seeming paradox explained? If he was a crucified man he was dead, and yet he declares `I am

alive'. This being so, the resurrection power of the risen Christ must have been operating in his experience, so that

he could say `Christ liveth in me'. When later on he was writing his second letter to the Church at Corinth, he

speaks of his experiences in Asia and declares he was `pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we

despaired even of life: But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in

God Which raiseth the dead: Who delivered us ... ` (2 Cor. 1:8-10).

It was glorious resurrection power which overcame all the apostle's limitations and enabled him to triumph in

the midst of superhuman difficulties. In the eleventh chapter he is compelled to write of things about which he

would rather have kept silent. His apostleship had been challenged and he had been compared unfavourably with