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CHRIST: HIS POST-HUMAN EXPERIENCES

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CHRIST-SPIRIT-COVENANTS
CHAPTER V

CHRIST: HIS POST-HUMAN EXPERIENCES

HIS RESURRECTION, ASCENSION, GOSPEL-AGE MINISTRY, MILLENNIAL AGE MINISTRY. TITLES. 

WE DISCUSSED in E2, 37-80 in considerable detail Jesus' prehuman existence, honor and works—His prehuman experiences. In our book on the Bible, 228-268 we treated of His offices in their 21 parts as adapted each one of them to cure its correlative feature of the 21 parts of the curse. In the first four chapters of this book we treated in fair detail His human nature, ministry anal experiences, and ransom, which implies Jesus' actual and continued death as a human being; for if He had not actually died as a human being, He would not have put the ransom merit into a condition in which it could be used for others, since in that circumstance He would not have entirely divested Himself of it, but would have had it for His continued use of it for Himself. Thus the ransom refutes the idea that Jesus did not actually die, as they hold who claim that He merely swooned on the cross, and came back from that swoon the third day. This view has nothing in it to commend it to us; for it implies that the testimony of those who saw Him die and witnessed to it is untrue. John, the women, other disciples, the Jews as spectators and the soldiers, including the centurion, all testified to His having been actually dead. The Bible prophecies and histories, as well as the testimony of the Evangelists and the Apostles prove it; and human experience proves it; for no human being whose heart was pierced by a spear could have survived such a thrust. Nor could a human being survive such a thrust and paralysis of the heart, which Jesus experienced,

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proved by water coming from it with the blood on its being pierced. Accordingly, Jesus actually died. 

The creedal view of the God-man actually denies that Jesus died. From its standpoint His death was a mere pro forma death, since it teaches that His personality was not in His human, but in His Divine nature, which it teaches remained alive while His human nature died on the cross; but from the standpoint of the God-man, that in which His personality was, not dying, the person actually did not die, did not temporarily cease to be; hence the creedal view of the God-man denies His death, reducing it to a pro forma death. This view violently contradicts the ransom, which according to this view was not surrendered in actual death; hence it could not be made available to purchase others. The many passages that declare that "Christ died for our sins" demonstrate that He actually died. The doctrine that a human being does not really die but lives on as a spirit at death, as the first and second of the three first lies that Satan as the father, inventor, of lies told in Eden, is a second basis of the creedal view that Jesus actually did not die. But these two doctrines by Jesus' testimony, being falsehoods (John 8:44), we recognize that Jesus' death was an actual one; and this His actual death is the necessary antecedent of His resurrection; for where there is not an actual death, there cannot there be an actual resuscitation of the dead. 

The two great facts on which God's plan is pivoted are the death and resurrection of Christ (1 Cor. 15:3, 4). Abundant testimony having been above given as to His suffering and death and their purposes, it will now be in place to prove His resurrection as an actual historical fact. For this we submit 14 strong reasons. The first of these is this: God's prophecies guaranteed it. Jesus' resurrection was repeatedly foretold by God, who cannot lie or err. Ps. 2:7 foretold it when it forecast that during the Gospel Age God would bring Him to birth on the Divine plane, which occurred at His resurrection (Heb. 1:3-5). According to Ps. 16:8-11 

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God comforted Him in view of His sufferings and death by the promise that He would not be left in the death state, but would be brought out of it into the fullness of the Divine Nature and life. We all recall how Peter on Pentecost quoted this passage by Divine inspiration as a proof that Jesus was not left in the death state, but was resurrected out of it. In Ps. 22:1-18 Jesus' sufferings unto the death of His humanity are described; and in vs. 19-21 His New Creature's experiences are described while His humanity was thus suffering unto death. Thereupon vs. 21-31 describe His Gospel-Age ministry to His Church and His Millennial-Age Ministry to the world, which, of course, necessarily imply His resurrection. Is. 53:1-9 describes His suffering and death for the world's sin; and vs. 10-12 describe His post-resurrection ministry for the Church and the world, which, of course, again necessarily implies His resurrection. Dan. 9:26, 27 is another passage to the point. V. 26 tells of Jesus' being cut off, not for any fault of His own, since as the sinless one He died for the world's sin. In v. 27 He is foretold as limiting the call to Israel for the High Calling for the seven years in the midst of which He was cut off, which implies His being alive during the second half of that week of years, Apr., 33-Oct., 36, a fact that implies His resurrection. V. 27 also further implies His resurrection, since it shows that He would not only for its sins pour out wrath upon Israel from 66-73, but also during the entire Gospel Age, facts that imply His resurrection to have occurred. 

It will be noted that Paul says that Jesus was to arise the third day after His death. This is foretold, not in literal, but in typical passages set forth in the Old Testament, which is the part of the Bible to which he refers in 1 Cor. 15:4. One of the typical statements is given in Lev. 23:9-14. As the antitypical Lamb (1 Cor. 5:7, 8) Christ died Nisan 14, on the anniversary of the slaying of the typical lamb in Egypt commemorated by the annual passover lamb. He is the first of 

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the antitypical first-fruits (1 Cor. 15:20). The typical high priest waving on Nisan 16 the first ripe sheaf of the first-fruits in the Most Holy, the day after the Passover Sabbath, Nisan 15, types Christ, the antitypical High Priest, entering and making Himself active as the first ripe of the first-fruits in the Spirit-born condition. Nisan 16 was, of course, the third day from Nisan 14, Christ's death day. Hence these types prove that Jesus was to arise the third day. In Jonah's experience in being swallowed by the great fish, remaining in it 3 days and being vomited forth on the third day we have, according to Jesus' own explanation (Matt. 12:38-40), another typical proof of Jesus' resurrection on the third day. The expression of the Son of Man's being in the heart of the earth three days and three nights does not mean that Jesus would be buried that long; but it means that the symbolic earth, Jewish society, would have Him in the condition that it desired, in its power first and in the power of the grave three days and nights. Their having Him as they desired (heart) in their power set in at His capture by them Thursday night; and Friday night and Saturday night, when He was in the power of the grave, as they desired, were the second and third of the three involved nights. Friday, Saturday and the first part of Sunday were the three days in which Jewish society had its desire wreaked upon Him. Hence the sign that He said would be given to the apostate Jews was His captivity, death and resurrection. Jonah's entering the great fish types Jesus' falling into His enemy's power and into death's power. Jonah's three days' and three nights' stay there types Jesus' three days' and three nights' stay in the condition desired by His enemies in—their and death's power; and Jonah's being vomited forth from the whale types Jesus' resurrection, which ended His stay in the desire of the then Jewish society. Thus the foregoing Scriptures prove that God prophetically set forth Christ's resurrection on the third day. 

Our second proof of Jesus' resurrection is: Trustworthy 

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evidence attests its factuality. The soldiers guarding His grave, employees of the Romans and the Sanhedrin, whom we may call neutral witnesses (for up to the time that they were bribed to circulate the to them known falsehood that His disciples stole His body while they slept, they personally had nothing at stake as to whether He arose or not), told the actual situation to the Sanhedrin, i.e., that Jesus arose from the dead. Their evidence on this subject before being bribed was that of neutral, impartial and true witnesses. The next set of witnesses to, and declarers of Jesus' resurrection were good angels who, of course, would not lie. They most explicitly affirmed His resurrection—"He is not here (a negative testimony); He is risen (a positive testimony)." And their testimony is completely trustworthy. The third set of witnesses of His resurrection are the disciples, first Mary Magdalene, then the other women who went early to the sepulcher to anoint His body, then Peter, then the two on the way to, and at Emmaus, one of whom seems to be James, the Lesser, then the ten Apostles in the upper room the night following His resurrection; then a week later the ten and Thomas, then the seven at the Sea of Tiberius, then the upward of 500 in Galilee, then the eleven at His ascension; and finally Paul on the way to Damascus, there being thus ten appearances of the resurrected Jesus to His disciples. It has been alleged that these being friends of Jesus they were prejudiced in His favor and that their testimony is, therefore, unreliable. To this objection we answer, first of all, they doubted His resurrection until they were given infallible proofs thereof. Again, they had nothing to gain of fame, ease, wealth or power, but much to lose of these for giving witness to it. Thirdly, their characters were of utmost probity; hence their witness is trustworthy. Fourthly, they endured utmost self-denials, persecution, losses, hardships, necessities, tortures and in many cases death for their testimony; but never were shaken therefrom. Hence they were the 

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most credible witnesses. Then some of His enemies gave witness to His resurrection. The first of these were the Sanhedrists. When the guard reported Jesus' resurrection to them, they were powerless to disprove their story. Having to admit it, they enlisted the soldiers by a bribe to publish a report that they knew was false, whereby they admitted His resurrection as an actual occurrence. And the story that they put into the soldiers' mouths not only betrayed their desperate straits, but was self-evidently false; for it implied that people can give credible witness of things that happened while they slept—an absurdity and a self-evident proof that they were lying and that to cover up facts! Their accepting a bribe to change their true testimony into what self-interested enemies of Jesus desired to be told against Him and in their favor proves the worthlessness of their bribe-procured-story, an evident falsehood. While the circumstances forced the Sanhedrists to admit the truth of Jesus' resurrection to the soldiers, and thus to give a proof; another enemy, Saul of Tarsus was by ocular proof convinced of Jesus' resurrection, and gave his evidence of it at the loss of home, position, fame, influence, friends, goodly prospects, etc., and at the gain of degradation, infamy, persecution, poverty, privation, sickness, nakedness, cold, thirst, hunger, torture, weariness, shipwreck, imprisonment and beheading. His life was one of utmost conscientiousness and loving self-sacrifice to spread the story of the crucified and resurrected One, hence his testimony as of an enemy converted by ocular proof is of the highest evidential value. Hence the witness of neutrals, angels, disciples and enemies is a strong proof of the factuality of Jesus' resurrection. 

The character of Jesus, both as a human being and as a New Creature, is a guarantee that "it was impossible that He should be holden of" death (Acts 2:24); for as a human being He kept perfectly the natural law and the Mosaic law; hence He incurred no impediment to His resurrection. As a New Creature He had

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a character as nearly like the Father's as is possible for any creature to attain. Hence His New Creature deserved resurrection by virtue of right, even as Paul assures us that He experienced it for the Spirit of holiness that He exercised (Rom. 1:4). In a moral order of affairs it would not only have been wrong for Him to have remained in death; but it was required by right that He be resurrected. His character as a human being was the purest of any of the sons of men (Ps. 45:2), and as a New Creature was finer than those of cherubim, seraphim, principalities, powers, thrones, dominions and angels. Hence it was not possible that He should be holden of death. He had in a moral order of affairs to arise from the dead. 

Again, the character of God required His resurrection. It would have been most unwise to permit such a being with such a good and useful character to become forever extinct, as He would have become, had He not been resurrected. It would have been character weakness to have allowed Him to remain forever dead, which would be the case, if He had not been awakened from the dead. It would have been an injustice to have kept Him in death, since He has violated none, but kept all of God's laws. And it would have been loveless not to have given another life to Him who was so full of the spirit of wisdom, power, justice and love. Thus, from the negative standpoint we see that the character of God forebade His being holden of death. But positively God's character demanded His resurrection. It was wise to give so loyal a one a resurrection life for the furtherance of God's plans and purposes, which He, resurrected, was qualified to further as a perfectly reliable Executive and Vicegerent. It was powerful to do it, inasmuch as it required the greatest of power to exalt Him to be of God's nature and in such to act as God's Executive and Vicegerent throughout all of God's universes. It was just to resurrect Jesus; for God assured Him by a promise and an oath that He would so do after He had fulfilled His earthly ministry; and 

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justice required that its promise and oath be kept. And it was loving that God should resurrect Him; because God delighted in Jesus' character, sympathized with Him in the mistreatment that He received while in the flesh from wicked angels and weak, ignorant and wicked men; and, therefore, God's love for Him moved Him to raise Him from the dead. Thus we see that both the negative and positive operation of God's holy character required Him to raise Jesus from the dead, which is a proof of His resurrection. 

Our fifth proof of Jesus' resurrection is that the human family needs a living Savior to effect its deliverance from the 21 evil effects of sin and the curse. We have pointed out these 21 curse features and their cure in our book, "The Bible," 228-268, as there we also pointed out the 21 offices of our Lord, each one as the cure of a correlated curse feature. A dead Savior knowing nothing, thinking nothing, doing nothing, could not help Himself. How then could He apply and effectually operate these 21 offices and cure the 21 ills of sin and the curse? It would require a living Savior to operate even one of them, let alone all 21 of them. And successfully to operate them, He would have to have all the powers that the Bible teaches that His resurrection existence possesses. Hence the need of the world's cure from its 21 curse features demands a living Savior endowed with the resurrection powers that the Bible ascribes to Him in His resurrection condition. Hence, if the world is to be rescued from all its curse disabilities, as sometime it will be, the resurrection of Jesus is required to enable Him to effect it. 

The sixth proof that we give for Jesus' resurrection is that the ransoming of the race requires it. Jesus' death did not ransom, buy, the race. It merely put Him into a position in which the ransom, the corresponding-price, was made available to be used to purchase the race, even as a man's earning enough money to buy a house does not by that earning of it do the buying. All it does is to provide the money by which the purchase 

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may later be made. If, therefore, Jesus were to purchase the race, it was not only necessary that He provide the purchase price, which He did by His sacrifice unto death; but it is also necessary that He go forward with that purchase price and with it purchase the race. Hence He had to be raised from the dead to go forward with that purchase price and by it buy the race; for, dead, He was unconscious and could do nothing, hence could not use the purchase price as the wherewithal to buy it, while dead. Hence to ransom the race for which He died He had to be resurrected. 

That He is now alive, hence was resurrected, the already fulfillment of part of the prophetic program that God told us He would fulfill proves. And this we present as the seventh argument for His resurrection. There are very many features of the prophetic program that in His post-resurrection ministry He was to fulfill and that are fulfilled. We will mention some of these: His causing the Jewish Harvest to be gathered under His direction by the Apostles and their co-laborers, as is proven by the record of His post-resurrection acts as given in the Acts of the Apostles; His bringing His Church safely through its seven Epochs; His revealing and smiting Antichrist; His guiding, teaching, administering, testing, supporting and protecting His Church in good days and in evil days; His permitting His Church to lose large measures of the Truth and to go into captivity in symbolic Babylon; His delivering it from symbolic Babylon; His giving in the end of the Age the Truth in its Parousia and Epiphany forms, His gathering the Harvest of the Age; His superintending the testing of His people individually and collectively, in the six great siftings; His separating the Little Flock from the Great Company; His developing the Youthful Worthies; His raising up the Parousia and Epiphany Messengers to be His hand, eye and mouth in each one's respective time of service; His beginning to overthrow Satan's empire in the World War Phases I and II, accompanied 

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by famines and pestilences; the first phase of Jacob's trouble—that which loosed it from Europe as its habitat. To perform these acts He must be alive again—be resurrected. Hence their enactment proves His resurrection to have occurred. 

We offer as an eighth proof for His resurrection the following: The parts of the prophetic program not yet fulfilled require His resurrection existence to fulfill them. The Bible sets forth other features of the prophetic program that He is to execute and that are not yet fulfilled. Hence to fulfill them He will have to have undergone resurrection. We will set the main ones of these forth: the complete destruction of Antichrist; the complete destruction of Babylon; the complete overthrow of Satan's empire; Armageddon as the World Revolution; World Anarchy; the second phase of Jacob's trouble; the full deliverance of the Body of Christ from the World; the cleansing of the unclean Levites, both of the Great Company and the Youthful Worthies; their great and successful public work; the deliverance of the foolish Virgins from Babylon; the establishment of the two phases of the Kingdom; the operation of restitution toward the then living of mankind; the awakening of the dead world; operation of restitution toward them; the death of the incorrigibly wicked after 100 years' trial; the completion of restitution; the Kingdom delivered up to God; the Christ as God's representative placed over the world for its final trial; the loosing of Satan; the final trial of the restitution class; the manifestation of the righteous and the wicked as separate and distinct; the bestowal of final rewards on the righteous; executing final punishment on the wicked; a clean universe with all reflecting credit upon God and Christ. None of these things is as yet fulfilled. But Christ is set forth as their Fulfiller. Hence He must be alive. The fact that they are not yet fulfilled does not prove that they will not be fulfilled; but just as the fact that there was a time when none of the already fulfilled ones had as yet been fulfilled did 

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not prove that they would not be fulfilled; so with these not yet fulfilled ones, each of which has its due time of fulfillment when it will be fulfilled, just as certainly as those that have been fulfilled were not fulfilled before due, but were fulfilled when due. 

We offer a ninth argument for Jesus' resurrection: Our enlightenment and our justification demanded it (1 Cor. 1:30). To teach us He must be alive, resurrected. Our justification, which Paul tells us He arose (Rom. 4:25) to accomplish, depends on a number of things: His laying down in death the ransom-price, His resurrection, ascension, glorification, appearing before God to impute His merit on our behalf, His procuring from the Father the office of working in us repentance toward God and faith toward Himself, His imputing as God's Agent His righteousness to us, restoring instrumentally fellowship between God and us, helping us to overcome our depravity and helping us to live righteous lives. To work out these things a dead person is incapable; they require a living Savior to effect them. But we and millions of others have experienced the effects of His offices as Teacher and Justifier; hence He must be alive from the dead, resurrected, to do these things. 

A tenth argument proves the same thing: our having been enabled to consecrate ourselves with all that we are and have and all that we hope to be and hope to have to the Lord. The Bible sets forth Jesus not only as our Teacher and Justifier, but also as our Consecrator (1 Cor. 1:30). Of ourselves we are unable to consecrate ourselves wholly to God; for to do this one needs more strength than he has; and, of course, none is stronger than himself; for the act of consecration implies that one gives up self- and world-will and instead thereof accepts God's will as His own. To give up one's own will completely implies that one has become stronger than himself. No man has made us stronger than ourselves. Devils would not make us so for good purposes, which become ours in consecration. It must be the Lord 

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Himself that accomplished this in us. And the Bible and our experiences prove that Jesus as God's Agent accomplished this by developing two graces in us—a consecrating faith which trusts God where it cannot trace Him, and a consecrating love, which thankfully and appreciatively delights in Him to the degree that it with consecrating faith surrenders self's and world's will and accepts God's will. Jesus developed such consecrating faith and love in us by causing the Word of Truth so fully to rest upon our minds, hearts and wills as to enkindle these two graces to a consecrating degree. To accomplish such a ministry Jesus must be alive, resurrected, since the dead know, devise, think, feel, will and do nothing—they are unconscious. 

An eleventh argument demonstrates that Jesus arose from the dead: He is the Agent that God has used to beget aspirants to the High Calling of the Holy Spirit. Since the Church is undergoing an experience of regeneration unto the Divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4), it must have been begotten of the Holy Spirit, as the Bible so copiously teaches. We by nature are humans, and as such have vestiges of God's image surviving the fall. This fact, that we have such vestiges in all our mental, artistic, moral and religious faculties, furnishes the possibility of our change from human to Divine nature. But to become Divine in nature we must be begotten to the Divine nature, i.e., be given the capacities that under cultivation can be fitted for existence on the Divine plane of being. How is this wrought? By communicating to every one of our brain organs a spiritual capacity, not before had, to project itself beyond the objects to which it naturally cleaves, from human motive, in human manners and by human methods to the corresponding things on the Divine plane to which these capacities reach out, lay hold on and cleave to from Divine motives, in Divine manners and by Divine methods. This gives the new will that was created in us at consecration the power to will Divine things from Divine motives, in Divine manners and in Divine 

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methods. Thus we have been made embryonic Divine New Creatures in the begettal, and it goes without saying that a dead person could not thus begin our creation as New Creatures. To do this He must be alive; but the Bible and our experiences prove that Jesus did this in us. Hence He must be alive. 

A twelfth proof of Jesus' resurrection we find in our experiences as New Creatures from the time of our begettal onward until we are brought to birth as such. The Bible teaches that Jesus as our Sanctifier and Deliverer ministers these experiences to us. In these offices He enlightens us on the deep things of the Word, enables us to continue to be dead to self and the world and alive to God in an ever-increasing growth in knowledge, grace and fruitfulness in service, as well as in endurance of all of the pertinent trialsome experiences, giving us therein victory over the devil, the world, the flesh, death and the hope of victory over the grave. In this He helps us to rid ourselves from the filthiness of the flesh and the spirit and to perfect holiness in the reverence of the Lord. He helps us to develop and amid trials and temptations to maintain the higher primary graces: faith, hope, self-control, patience, piety, brotherly love and charity, as well as the lower primary graces: proper self-esteem, approbativeness, rest, cautiousness, tactfulness, providence, appetitiveness, self-defensiveness, agressiveness and vitativeness, sexliness, conjugality, parentliness, filiality, fraternity, sorority, friendshipliness, domesticity and patriotism. He also helps us to develop and amid trials and temptations to maintain the secondary graces: humility, unostentatiousness, industriousness, courage, candor, generosity, temperance, longsuffering, forbearance, self-sacrificingness, chastity, subwifeliness, subhusbandliness, supparentliness, suffiliality, subsorority, suffraternity, suffriendshipliness, subdomesticity and suppatriotism. Additionally, He helps us to develop and amid trials and temptations to maintain the tertiary graces: zeal, meekness, joy, reverence, obedience, resignation,

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contentment, moderation, gentleness, goodness (magnanimity), sincerity and faithfulness. Furthermore, He enables us amid hard experiences to become strong in every one of these graces. Then He ministers to and maintains amid hard experiences balance of them in us and finally He enables us to become crystallized in all of them amid sufferings. Each faithful New Creature has these experiences in character growth, strengthening, balancing and crystallizing at Jesus' hands, which, of course, implies that He is alive from the dead. 

A thirteenth proof of His being alive from the dead, resurrected, is the civilizing uplift that He through His faithful Church has effected among the nations of Christendom far above the conditions as to civilization prevailing among heathen nations. It is from the standpoint of His uplifting the nations, nominally Christian, by effects that He has wrought among them through His faithful followers that He calls the latter the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Matt. 5:13, 14). In the Pagan Roman world, Christianity found society in family, state and religion deeply corrupt. The father was a tyrant, having power of life and death over wife and children; the wife and daughters were deeply degraded; divorce and marital infidelity were rampant; slavery was universal and most degrading morally; exposure of children was almost universal; public cruelty as seen in the theatres was inhuman and murderous. The salt of the earth and the light of the world gradually reformed these evils and spread the opposite good things in the old Roman World. The Middle Ages witnessed in the extra-Roman nations of Europe much evil in the degradation of woman, wife and child, feuds and private wars, wager of battle, the ordeal, torture, inhospitality to strangers, wrecking ships for spoil, piracy, serfdom, slavery, ignorance, superstition, etc. The light of the world and the salt of the earth gradually set these evils aside and introduced their opposite good things. The Modern period from the Reformation to 1878 tells the same story. It took 

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this period to give woman, wife and child their proper place in the home; the light of the world and the salt of the earth reformed divorce and lifted up marriage to a higher plane. Here international law displaced the view that each nation was a law to itself. Here arbitration of family, national and business differences came into vogue. Slavery, slave-trade, and serfdom were cast out. The duel has been outlawed largely, and greatly circumscribed; private wars no longer prevail. Prison and temperance reform have swept away much of correlative evils. Pauperism has been much limited in extent. Free-trade, humanity and liberal government have very much neutralized their correlative evils. Persecution by violence and torture for religion are set aside. All of these good things have increasingly displaced their opposites from the Reformation time onward to 1878. And they are the works of the risen Jesus effected by Him through His faithful people as the light of the world and the salt of the earth and, of course, prove Christ's resurrection. 

The signs of the times, secular and religious, prove that Christ's Second Advent has set in, which, of course, implies and proves, as a fourteenth argument, that Jesus is alive from the dead, is resurrected. The Bible shows that there would be certain secular and religious events enacting when the Second Advent would set in, and these since 1874, and even up to now being enacted, we conclude, among other reasons, that our Lord's Return has set in and this, of course, proves that He must have arisen from the dead. The following are the main secular signs of the times marking Christ's Return: increase of travel and knowledge (Dan. 12:4); exposure of the evils of Satan's empire in the form of vice, poverty, education, statecraft and politics, aristocracy, capital, business, finance, labor, society, power, home (1 Thes. 5:1-4; 2 Pet. 3:10; Rev. 16:15; 1 Cor. 4:5; Ps. 82:1-5); great calamities (Luke 21:11); Israel's return to God's favor (Rom. 11:25-27) and to Palestine (Jer. 16:14-16; Ezek. 37:21, 22, 25;

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Amos 9:14, 15); great war preparations (Joel 3:9-11); the World War in its two phases (1 Kings 19:11; Rev. 7:1); conflict between capital and labor (Jas. 5:1-5; Amos 8:3-7); bundling of the tares (Matt. 13:29, 30, 40, 41); general unrest (Luke 21:25, 26); general conviction of the presence of an unmanageable crisis (Luke 21:26; Is. 29:14). These are the secular things that the Bible teaches would mark Christ's Return, and they are here; hence His Return has come to pass; and He, therefore, must be alive from the dead, must be risen. But the Bible teaches that there would be certain religious signs indicating His second presence. The following are the chief of these: the Gospel preached among all nations, already fulfilled (Matt. 24:14); widespread religious error (Matt. 24:24); widespread wickedness (Matt. 24:12); scoffing at Christ's Return as having set in (2 Pet. 3:3); falling away in the churches (2 Tim. 4:3, 4); federation of churches (Is. 8:9-11); Romanism and Protestantism approaching each other for mutual help (Rev. 6:14); false Christs and prophets (Matt. 24:24); Antichrist's further revelation, consuming and approaching destruction (2 Thes. 2:1-9); Elijah's revelation (Mal. 4:5, 6; Matt. 11:14, 15); general expectation of the Kingdom by the consecrated (Matt. 25:1-12); declaration of the Bridegroom's presence (Matt. 25:6); recognition of the Bridegroom by the faithful (Matt. 25:7-10); the Pyramid's testimony to God's plan (Is. 19:19, 20); clarifying of the Truth (Dan. 12:10; Is. 52:6, 7; 60:1, 2; Luke 12:37; 1 Cor. 10:11); harvest work (Ps. 50:5; Matt. 13:29, 30, 41-43); testing of the consecrated (Mal. 3:1-4); sifting out of the unfaithful (2 Tim. 3:1-9; 1 Cor. 10:1-11); manifestation of that servant (Matt. 24:45-47; Luke 12:42-46); manifestation of that wicked servant (Matt. 24:48-51); separation of the Little Flock and the Great Company (2 Tim. 4:1); dealing with the Great Company (Mal. 3:2-4); dealing with the Youthful Worthies (Judg. 8:1-3); the beginning of the 

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cleansing of the Truth Levites (Num. 8:6, 7); and the rapidly approaching clarification of everything in the Bible (Rom. 15:4; Prov. 4:18). We see these secular and the religious signs of the times fulfilled or fulfilling about us on all sides on a scale grander than any of us ever imagined. They being the accompaniments of the Second Advent, it must have set in. If so, Jesus is now alive; and must have arisen from the dead, must have been resurrected. 

These 14 arguments in some of them prove Jesus' resurrection to be true to the world, and in all of them prove it to be true to the Church. Some of them do not prove it to the world, because it does not have the spiritual ability to understand them. But the Church having both the human and the spiritual ability to understand and appreciate all of them can and does do both of these things. Have we ever contemplated the unspeakably calamitous results that would have set in, if Jesus had not arisen from the dead? Such a contemplation would be well to be made for the good of all. If Jesus had not arisen from the dead, God would have been proven unwise, powerless, unjust and loveless; as well as a falsifier and perjurer. He would have been defeated in His conflict with Satan. His plan would have proven a failure. Jesus would have made a failure of the purposes of His carnation, His ministry, His sufferings and death. He would have passed out of existence for all eternity. He would not have gained glory, honor and immortality, nor heirship, executorship and vicegerency of God. He would have failed to exercise any of His 21 saving offices. There would have been no enlightenment, justification, sanctification and deliverance for the Church, no Gospel-Age ministry of it to itself and the world, no Great Company, no Youthful Worthies; and the Ancient Worthies would be dead forever. There would be no Second Advent, no first resurrection, no Kingdom of God, no Millennium, no lifting of the curse, no restitution, no final rewards of the faithful, no destruction of evil 

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and no eternal enthronement of good and Ages of glory after the Millennium with the post-Millennial work of the Elect. The Word of God would have proven to be a delusion, our faith vain, the Apostles false witnesses and preachers, the Church the most miserable of all men, the faithful dead forever; we would be yet in our sins! Unspeakable calamities indeed! How glad we are they are not realities! How glad we are that their opposites are some already realities and the others in due time will be actualities. Let us glory in God for His raising Jesus from the dead, and glory in Christ for His being raised from the dead. Let us praise God for this one of His chief blessings and always rejoice in Him and in His resurrected Son! 

We will examine the claim that our Lord in His resurrection took back His humanity, laid down in His ransom, sacrificial death, and therefore comes again in flesh. The many points involved will require us to be brief on each. Before we refute the sophistries that errorists use in their attempts to prove that He took back His humanity in His resurrection, we will Scripturally prove that Jesus did not take back His fleshly body in His resurrection, nor at any subsequent period. These proofs are as follows: (1) No human being has seen, nor can see our Lord's glorified body, which He received at His resurrection. See 1 Tim. 6:16; compare Heb. 1:3-5 and Acts 13:33, which passages prove that it was in His resurrection that our Lord was given a Divine body, the impress of God's substance. Hence, 1 Tim. 6:16—"whom [Jesus in His resurrection body] no man hath seen nor can see"—proves that St. Paul did not see the actual resurrection body of our Lord, but a representation of it—a vision of it, as he expresses it (Acts 26:19). Biblical visions are always, not the actual thing, but a representation of the actual thing. The glory light coming out of that body is what St. Paul saw as the vision, representation, of that body; but before his eyes could penetrate through the light to the body from which it came, he was blinded. 1 Tim. 6:16 

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proves that the different bodies in which the disciples saw Him after He arose were not His resurrection body, and they did not see His resurrection body. 

(2) St. John saw a number of those bodies in which Jesus appeared, but despite this he expressly says "it hath not [by about 95 A. D.] yet appeared what we [the Church] shall be [in our resurrection]; but when He [our Lord] shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is," not as He was (1 John 3:2). But it did appear what those bodies were in which Jesus appeared after His resurrection to His disciples. They found them to be of flesh and bones. Hence, they were not the resurrection body of Christ, which to see requires us to be like Him—spirits, as He has, since His resurrection, been a spirit. Since after, but not before, the resurrection of the Spirit-born class is the time for them to see our Lord as He is, St. Paul speaks of his being as one prematurely born, when he saw, as the vision, representation of our Risen Lord Himself, the glory light of His resurrection body (1 Cor. 15:8). 

(3) The Bible expressly teaches that in the resurrection the body that was laid down in death is not taken back. Hence, the body that Jesus laid down in death He did not get in His resurrection. "How are the dead raised up and with what body do they come? Thou fool, … that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be" (1 Cor. 15:35-37). The Apostle illustrates the subject by a seed of grain in a most clarifying manner. The seed of grain sown never returns. So the body laid down in death never returns in the resurrection. The life powers and the kind or character of the seed are preserved and come back in the new grain; so the New Creature [a spiritual character] with its Divine life powers that were in the human body is preserved and brought back in the resurrection of the Spirit-born class. New seeds with the preserved life powers and character are produced instead of the old ones; so a new body with the Divine life powers and character is raised. Other phases of the illustration we

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here pass by because not germane to our present purpose; but we will bring them up in another connection. This passage clearly teaches that the body that is laid down in death never comes back in the resurrection, and that another body is given one in his resurrection. Therefore, in His resurrection Jesus got a different body from the one He laid down. But it may be objected that the six awakenings—three by Jesus and three by Elijah and Elisha—were in the same bodies as the six pertinent persons had before death. Granted; but these were not resurrections, for they all occurred before Jesus arose from the dead, and the Bible expressly states that Jesus was the first one to experience resurrection (Acts 26:22, 23)—anastasis, which Greek noun when used with reference to the dead means a standing up out of the imperfect condition of reckoned or actual death into actual perfection of body and life. These six were indeed resuscitated from the imperfect condition of actual death, but not to perfection of body and life; for they came back from death with bodies imperfect in themselves and in their life powers—these being in and after their resuscitation under the imperfection and sentence of the Adamic sin and death. The rule that St. Paul, in 1 Cor. 15:35-37, gives is with reference to the resurrection; for he is treating of the resurrection and is therefore here using the word egeirontai to mean the act of resurrection, a raising up. Egeiro sometimes also means rousing, but not usually and not here, as the connection shows in part, and as we will later prove in detail. 

(4) The Ransom made it necessary that Christ should not take back the body He laid down in death; for had He done so He would not have had His humanity as the corresponding price in an available condition for the purchase of the Church and the world; He would in that case have to have His humanity for His own existence, and thus could not have it available for purchasing the race.

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(5) The purchasing of the Church, occurring about fifty days after His resurrection—sometime between His ascension and Pentecost—proves either that He died again after His resurrection (a thing expressly denied in the Bible—Rom. 6:9), or that He did not take back His body in the resurrection. Aaron in the type we know did not make atonement in the Court, nor in the Holy, though he there performed the service essential to making the atonement, but he made it in the Most Holy after he came up from under the second vail and advanced to the mercy seat. So our Lord in the antitype of this did not ransom us in the antitypical Court (while in His earthly life as a justified human being), nor in the antitypical Holy (His Spirit-begotten condition, while sacrificing His humanity), in both of which He laid down His life as essential to making the Ransom available for purchasing, but in the antitypical Most Holy—in His Spirit-born condition—for as the first born from the dead, He arose from under the antitypical vail and ascended to heaven, where He made the atonement Godward with the blood of the antitypical bullock by ransoming us (Heb. 9:24). Hence, He did not take back in the resurrection the body—His humanity—that He laid down in death. 

(6) It was contrary to God's designs in the carnation of Christ to have Him in His resurrection take back and retain His humanity (which He would have done had He taken back His human body; for one's organism always determines one's nature). God had especially two purposes in the carnation of Jesus: (1) to give Him human nature to sacrifice as a Ransom for Adam and his race (Heb. 2:9; 10:5); (2) to give Him as a New Creature, which He became at Jordan (Matt. 3:16, 17), through His human sufferings attendant on His laying down the Ransom price, opportunities by obedience to develop a character fitted for the Divine nature, Vicegerency for God and the Executorship of God's plans and purposes toward all other creatures present and future (Heb. 2:14-18; 5:7-10; 12:2). In giving 

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Him back His humanity, God would have vitiated both of His purposes in the carnation of Christ, which, of course, He would not do. 

(7) It would be pointless, inconsistent, untrue and misleading to speak of the days of Christ's humiliation as "the days of His flesh," if He still has His flesh—humanity—now in the days of His exaltation to the Divine nature (Heb. 5:7; 1:3-5). But if He did not take back His humanity in His resurrection, it would be apposite, consistent, true and properly informative now in the days of His exaltation to the Divine nature to speak of that past and no longer present condition of His, as a human being, as "the days of His flesh." 

(8) Had Jesus in the resurrection taken back His body and thus necessarily His human nature, He would now be lower than angels; for human beings are lower than angels (Heb. 2:6-18); but the Bible proves that He is since his resurrection higher than angels (Heb. 1:3-14). Hence, He did not take back His body in His resurrection from the dead. 

(9) Had Jesus in His resurrection taken back His body, laid down in death, He could not have the inheritance of the kingdom of God and immortality, both of which he has since His resurrection (Col. 1:13; 1 Tim. 6:16; 1 Cor. 15:53, 54); for "flesh and blood [human nature] cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption [the human body is here called corruption, because of consisting of corruptible matter—of earth earthy] inherit incorruption (1 Cor. 15:50). [The human body cannot be made incorruptible, though one who is now human and thus is a corruptible person may by a change of nature, from the human to any one of the spirit natures, put on incorruption, a body consisting of spiritual substances—"of heaven" "heavenly" (1 Cor. 15:47, 48, 53, 54)]." This proves that Jesus did not take back His human body in the resurrection. But some say, "We agree, 'flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom,' but flesh and bones can!" But flesh

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and bones and blood are corruption, and therefore, according to 1 Cor. 15:50, cannot inherit incorruption. Moreover, the expression, "flesh and blood," in 1 Cor. 15:50, does not mean our fatty, muscular and fluid parts, for this expression here means human nature, just as it does in Heb. 2:14; Gal. 1:16, and thus stands for a human being who as such cannot inherit God's kingdom. Certainly Jesus did not mean by saying to Peter that flesh and blood did not reveal to him His Messiahship and Sonship with God, that his or another's fatty, muscular and fluid parts did not reveal these truths to Peter, but that a human being did not do it, adding that it was God that did it (Matt. 16:17). Certainly St. Paul did not have in mind anyone's fatty, muscular and fluid parts when he said that he did not confer with flesh and blood (Gal. 1:16); but he did mean that he did not consult with any human being on the matter at hand. Heb. 2:14; Matt. 16:17 and Gal. 1:16 prove that the expression in 1 Cor. 15:50 means human nature and thus a human being as its possessor. This disposes of the sophism that assumes by an unprovable contrast that while the Scriptures prove that flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom, they teach that flesh and bones will. This is a most stupid kind of a sophism based upon a falsely assumed contrast as being made between Luke 24:39 and 1 Cor. 15:50. 

(10) Had our Lord in His resurrection taken back and retained His humanity—His human body—He would be everlastingly degraded in nature; for He had before coming into the world a nature higher than the human (Heb. 2:16; Phil. 2:6-8; 2 Cor. 8:9); but the Bible teaches that He has by His resurrection been now exalted to a higher than any other nature—even to the Divine nature (Phil. 2:9-11; Heb. 1:3-5; 1 Tim. 6:16; Eph. 1:20, 21). This, of course, proves that He was not everlastingly degraded in nature, which He would have been by taking back His humanity—His human body—in the resurrection.

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(11) Jesus' character as a New Creature proves that He did not take back His humanity in the resurrection. His character as a New Creature was perfected in heavenly-mindedness and thereby crystallized against earthly-mindedness during His 3½ years' ministry (Heb. 2:10; 5:8, 9; Col. 2:12; 3:1-4). Accordingly, this characteristic of sacrificing His humanity was unbreakably crystallized. This means that, had He received His humanity again in the resurrection, He would have immediately proceeded to sacrifice it again, and thus would have died again. "But Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no more" (Rom. 6:9). Therefore, He did not take back His humanity in the resurrection. 

(12) Had Christ taken back His humanity in the resurrection, it would have made it impossible for Him to have the knowledge, power, etc., to control beings of higher natures, and greater powers than humans have, to administer the affairs of the universe as God's Vicegerent (Matt. 28:18) and to be over every being in it, God alone excepted—things that one lower than angels, which taking back His humanity would make Him, of course, could not do. 

(13) Had He taken back His humanity and thus become a human being again in His resurrection, human qualities being too weak for such things, He would not have the powers and other qualifications to test and fit for heavenly natures the four elect classes of God's Plan, and give the repentant fallen angels and the Adamic race, dead and living, their Millennial trial, which the Bible teaches to be His work. Nor would He be able to do multitudes of other things that from Age to Age His Executorship for God will, according to the Bible, require Him to do. 

(14) God's character of perfect wisdom, justice, love and power forbids that He should raise Jesus in His humanity; for God promised Him exaltation to the Divine nature, vicegerency for God and executorship of God's plans and purposes toward all creatures present and future throughout the universe, as the joy set 

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before Him, if He would become a man and prove faithful to the Father unto death (Heb. 12:2; 2:9, 14-18; 1:3-5; Phil. 2:6-8; John 1:14; 1 Cor. 8:9; Heb. 1:3-5; 1 John 3:2, compare with 2 Pet. 1:4; Phil. 2:9-11; Matt. 28:18; Rom. 14:9; Is. 53:10-12; etc., etc.). According to these passages, to carry out the Father's will He emptied Himself of His prehuman nature, honor and office, and became a perfect, sinless man, and proved faithful to the Father unto death. Had God refused to give Him the promised Divine nature in His resurrection, but brought Him back as a human being, which would have been the case had He brought Him back with the body that He laid down in death, instead of exalting Him in nature, He would have everlastingly degraded Him in nature to one below that one—lower than the Divine, but higher than those of other spirit beings, God's excepted—that He had before He came into the world. It is contrary to God's character to break His word and to degrade His servants that loyally abase themselves for Him, lower than they were before they loyally abased themselves for Him. But this He would have done with Jesus, had He brought Him back from the dead with the body that He laid down in death; for this would mean that He was everlastingly made a human being in His resurrection. This view, necessarily implying that Jesus arose a human being, violates God's character, and therefore must be false; while the thought that God brought Him back from the dead a spirit being of the Divine nature most gloriously reflects credit on God's wisdom, justice, love and power. 

(15) Jesus in His resurrection did not take back His body laid down in death; for the Bible teaches that He is since His resurrection a spirit being. In the first place God directly tells us that Jesus is now a spirit being. Among other places this is stated in 1 Cor. 15:45: "The first man Adam [Gen. 2:7] was made a living soul [a human being with a human body], the last [Jesus, the Second (v. 47)] Adam was made a quickening [life giving] spirit." Therefore as the Adam of earth was

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made a human being, so the Adam of heaven (Jesus in His resurrection) was made a spirit being. In v. 46, St. Paul expressly tells us that the Adam of earth was not spiritual in body; and that the later Adam, our Lord, is spiritual in body. St. Paul proves this by showing in v. 47 that the first Adam had a body made of earth—of material substances, "flesh and bones," etc.—while the Second Adam, our Lord, had a body made of heaven—of spiritual substances, "our house from heaven" (2 Cor. 5:1, 2). In the Greek of v. 47 the expression translated "of" in the phrase "of earth" is the same as that translated "from" in the phrase "from heaven." The omission of the word heavenly after the phrase "of heaven" in contrast with the word "earthy" after the phrase "of earth," is compensated for in the next verse by the expression, as is the "heavenly" [one, Jesus]. The word Lord in v. 47 is an interpolation: "Of earth" "earthy" and "of heaven" "heavenly" is the contrast. In both cases the substances from which the respective bodies were formed are meant. These three vs. (1 Cor. 15:45-47) by their direct statements and by their contrasts of the two Adams, as well as by their bodies and by the substances from which they were made, prove that our Lord was raised from the dead a spirit being with a spirit body, and not a human being with a human body; and since flesh and bones are "of earth earthy," His resurrection body being of heaven heavenly was not of flesh and bones; "for a spirit hath not flesh and bones." Further, our Lord Jesus is in 2 Cor. 3:17 again directly called a spirit: "Now the Lord is that spirit." St. Paul in 2 Cor. 5:16 says: "Though we [he and the rest of the Apostles] have known Christ after the flesh, yet now [and henceforth] know we Him [so] no more." They no more knew Christ as a human being—"according to the flesh"—though they had once known Him as such—before our Lord's death. This verse, therefore, implies that Jesus was no more a human being when St. Paul used this language of Him, though He had previously been a human being. The 

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reason for the change was that when our Lord was resurrected He was raised from the dead a spirit being, not a human being. 1 Pet. 3:18 is strongly to the point when it says of Jesus' death and resurrection, "being put to death in flesh, but made alive [not "in flesh," be it noted, but] in spirit." Let the reader particularly note the contrast as given in this verse between that in which He was put to death and that in which He was made alive. According to those who teach that our Lord was raised from the dead a human, and not a spirit being, this verse should read, Being put to death in flesh, and made alive in flesh. But God, who cannot lie, declares the exact opposite, saying, "Being put to death in flesh, but made alive in spirit." The article "the" is lacking in the Greek before the words for flesh and spirit. Hence our Lord is now a spirit. The four passages just quoted and briefly explained demonstrate that our Lord since His resurrection is no more a human being, but is a spirit being, and that, according to other passages, of the Divine nature—the highest of all spirit natures. 

(16) Not only do the Scriptures directly teach that our Lord since His resurrection is no longer a human, but is a spirit, being; but they also teach it by necessary inference in declaring that the saints in their resurrection will have spirit bodies, and that thereby they will have bodies like His body. Hence His body must be a spirit body. That the saints are to have spirit bodies we can see from 1 Cor. 15:42, 44: "So is the resurrection of the dead [The article the in both cases is emphatic in the Greek, meaning the special resurrection, the first resurrection (Phil. 3:11; Rev. 20:4, 6)]. It is sown in corruption [material bodies are corruptible]; it is raised in incorruption [spirit bodies are incorruptible]. It is sown a natural [fleshly, i.e., material, earthly] body; it is raised a spiritual [immaterial, heavenly] body." This passage proves that the saints will have spirit bodies, and thus will be spirit beings in the resurrection, as now they have human bodies, and hence are human beings. The same thought is expressed in vs. 50-54: 

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"Flesh and blood [a human being as such] cannot inherit the Kingdom of God; neither doth corruption [our fleshly bodies] inherit incorruption … We shall all be changed [in nature] in a moment; … for the trumpet shall sound and the [emphatic in the Greek] dead [the saints, the preeminent dead] shall be raised incorruptible [not in fleshly bodies, which would be corruptible, because made of material or earthly substances, but in spiritual bodies, which will be incorruptible, because made of spiritual or heavenly substances] and we shall be changed [in nature]; for this corruptible [person, not body, which above he says cannot inherit incorruption] must put on incorruption [by gaining a spiritual, heavenly body and thus getting a spirit nature] and this mortal [person] must put on immortality [by gaining a spiritual body of the highest of all spiritual natures—the Divine]." But the Scriptures clearly teach that the bodies of the saints will be just like Jesus' resurrection body. If this can be proven, it would follow that Jesus at His resurrection received a spirit body, and therefore He is no more a human, but a spirit being. Not a few Scriptures prove that the saints in their resurrection bodies will be just like Jesus in His resurrection body: 1 John 3:2 is an example of these: "It doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is"not as He was; for if we should be like Him as He was while in the flesh (Heb. 5:7), it would now appear what we shall be. Again, 1 Cor. 15:48, 49 shows the same thought: "As is [was, the words is and are throughout this verse are, or should be, in italics, which means that they were supplied by the translators without any corresponding words in the original Greek. That the word "was" should have been supplied here is evident from the fact that Adam is here meant] the earthy [one, Adam], such are [shall be] they that are [shall be] earthy [the world, apart from the saints, in the resurrection]; 

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and as is the heavenly [one, Jesus in His resurrection body], such are [shall be] they [the saints] also that are [shall be] heavenly [in their resurrection bodies]. And as we have borne the image of the earthy [one, Adam, i.e., as we now have bodies like Adam's, "of earth earthy"]; we shall also bear [literally, let us also seek to bear] the image of the heavenly [one, Jesus, i.e., let us make sure our calling and election, so that we in the resurrection may have bodies like that which our Lord Jesus now has, "of heaven" "heavenly"]. The same thought is taught in Phil. 3:21. These verses prove the thought that the saints in their spirit bodies, gained in the resurrection, will have bodies like our Lord's resurrection body. But since the saints will have spirit bodies in the resurrection, Jesus must be having a spirit body since His resurrection. 

(17) If Jesus had taken back His human body in the resurrection, He, now being a spirit being, would now be a hybrid—a thing that is a blemish and, therefore, obnoxious to God's perfect creation; and we may be, therefore, sure that He is no hybrid, and therefore did not take back His human body in the resurrection. 

(18) The teaching that Jesus is now a spirit, and not a human being, since His resurrection, is in harmony with all the lines of Scriptural teaching presented foregoing as against His resurrection in His human body, and all other Scripture passages and doctrines; while, if Jesus, since His resurrection were a human being, we could not harmonize the foregoing lines of Scriptural teaching with themselves and all other Scripture passages and doctrines. Moreover, this view is very conducive to godliness; for it makes us appreciate God, Christ and our own privileges more, while the other view, degrading as it does our Lord, is contrary to the development of godliness in us. This Truth is, therefore, greatly conducive to faith, hope, love and obedience, while the contrary doctrine hinders these. 

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(19) Our Lord's becoming a spirit being in His resurrection is the outcome of the new creative process through which He and all other faithful Spirit-begotten people of God pass; and consequently, having begun with the Spirit-begettal and continued faithful unto death, of course, instead of finishing this process by becoming a human being again in His resurrection, He finished it by being born of the Spirit—becoming a spirit being in His resurrection. He has inherited the kingdom of heaven appointed to Him and to His faithful followers by God as part of their inheritance (Luke 19:11; 22:16); but nobody can do this unless first begotten and then later born of the Spirit (John 3:3, 4; 1 Cor. 15:50-52), i.e., receive a change of nature, not simply of disposition, from human to spirit nature. Whosoever is born of the Spirit, which occurs in the resurrection, is a spirit being, as whosoever is born of the flesh is flesh—a human being (John 3:8). Jesus and all the faithful, at the acceptance of their consecration, were begotten of the Spirit (Matt. 3:16, 17; 1 Cor. 4:15 [here St. Paul says that he, through bringing them to consecration, was God's agent in begetting the Corinthians whom he calls, with himself, members of the Christ—the mystery class—in 1 Cor. 12:12-14, 27]; Jas. 1:18; 1 Pet. 1:3; Philemon 10; etc.) [St. Paul as God's agent begat Onesimus, a Gentile. St. Paul says (2 Cor. 5:17; Gal. 6:15) that everyone who is in Christ is a new creature, while St. Peter tells us that the brethren to whom he sent his first epistle were in Christ. Hence they were new creatures—1 Pet. 5:14]. Jesus as a New Creature was developed and perfected in character as a New Creature by being loyal to God amid sufferings (Heb. 2:14-18; 5:8-10). Having therefore been perfected as an embryo New Creature, He was thereafter in the resurrection born of the Spirit. (Acts 13:33; Heb. 1:3-5 [in neither of these passages is Jesus' Spirit-begettal referred to, but His Spirit-birth—His resurrection; and the rendering should be, "this day have I brought Thee to birth"]; 

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Col. 1:18; Rev. 1:5 [first born, not first begotten, from the dead].) Thus by His Spirit-birth in the resurrection He became the first born among many brethren, having before His Spirit-birth been, like them, Spirit-begotten (Rom. 8:29). He thus underwent His new creation to a completion and is, therefore, no longer flesh, a human being, but a spirit being (John 3:8). Praised be God for Christ's exaltation! 

(20) Hitherto we have shown the harmony of our understanding with six of the seven axioms for deciding the truth or error of a teaching, as well as their disharmony, with the view that Christ came back from the dead a human being. With this, our next argument, we will show that our view agrees with the facts of the resurrection history, while the errorists' view violently contradicts them. The task of our Lord during the forty days, among other things, was to convince His disciples that He was alive from the dead. Remembering that the disciples believed the dead to be dead and hence unconscious, and remembering that in His resurrection Jesus became a spirit being, and as such was not seen and could not be seen by any man (1 Tim. 6:16), we at once see that He could not show them a body such as His resurrection body was—one that no one could see. How, then, should He proceed to prove to them that He was alive from the dead? First by convincing them that He was active, a thing that they did not believe the dead could be (Eccl. 9:5, 6, 10). 

But how should the activities of Him, a spirit being, show themselves? We answer, in the way other spirit beings, who likewise are invisible to the human eye, have shown their activities to certain human beings—by creating bodies in which to appear to these human beings. Jesus' activity in thus creating bodies of material substances for manifesting Himself to the disciples as alive is described in Acts 1:3 by the word optanomenos, making visions or representations of Himself. This verb is derived from the same root as the word optasia, which is the New Testament Greek noun for 

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vision, representation (2 Cor. 12:1; Acts 26:19; Luke 1:22; 24:23). All the facts of the case are in harmony with this idea. Errorists claim that such creations which are materializations—creations of bodies by angels out of matter—are peculiar to the fallen angels and use that thought as an objection to our interpretation of the facts of Christ's various resurrection manifestations. Their contention we deny; for good angels have likewise done this during the time the Lord's Plan was in process of revelation. Thus good angels made such creations or materializations when appearing to Abraham, the Logos being one of the three, to Lot, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, David, Daniel, the three youths in the furnace, Zacharias, Mary, the woman at Jesus' tomb, Peter, etc., some of which angels in these materialized bodies ate food with those to whom they appeared; for being in their spirit bodies invisible, they must have created material bodies for the purpose of making themselves visible. Jesus in His resurrection, being a spirit being, and that of the highest—the Divine—order, the impress of the Father's substance (Heb. 1:3), must have performed such creations or materializations; for He assured the disciples (who, at first, when they saw Him within the door-closed room, not having seen Him enter, believed that they saw a spirit, which, being invisible, they could not have seen) that a spirit does not have flesh and bones, which they saw, and hence did not see a spirit, which He was, as we above proved. Jesus did not add the word "blood" to the words flesh and bones, in Luke 24:39, because, while by handling the body that He showed them, they could "see"—know—that it had flesh and bones, their handling it would not enable them to "see" that it contained blood. 

Let us with clear heads and true hearts, look at the facts. Would Mary not have recognized Him had He appeared in the body He had before death, instead of mistaking Him for the gardener? Certainly! but by assuming an unfamiliar body, that of the supposed gardener, He was unknown to her until by speaking in His

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own familiar voice He made Himself known to her. The ear is harder to convince than the eye; and if the voice convinced her when her eye did not identify the body she saw with Jesus' fleshly body, we may be sure it was because the eye did not see a body like the one Jesus had before death. Again, we are told that the eyes of the two disciples were holden on the way to Emmaus. How this was done Mark explains by telling us that He appeared in another form to them, when he appeared as a pilgrim, not as a gardener, the two disciples seeing no nail prints (Mark 16:12). Thus we find a still different body used with the two disciples from the one that He used in manifesting Himself to Mary, and still different from the one that was nailed to the cross. He made Himself known in the familiar manner of breaking the bread and the familiar sound of His voice, at once disappearing by dissolving the assumed body. 

The body He manifested in the upper room was created after Jesus entered the room; for it appeared suddenly before their eyes as coming out of nothing. He seems not to have made this body look like His former body, otherwise they would have immediately recognized Him, and not taken Him for a spirit; and there is no record that He at this appearance showed them a body with the prints of nails in the hands and feet. Such a body He condescendingly did show to Thomas to convince him. The fact that He came these two times into the door-closed room without any hindrance proves that He created after entering that room the body with which He convinced the ten the evening of His resurrection and Thomas a week later. The body that He manifested at the sea of Tiberias was certainly not the body that was nailed to the cross, nor like any other used in His other manifestations; for if it had been, the remark explanatory of the disciples' mental state would not be made, for that state would not have existed: "None of the disciples durst ask Him, Who art Thou? knowing that it was the Lord" (John 21:12). How, then, did they know it was He, if not by the assumed 

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body, this time different from those of former manifestations? We answer: By the miracle of the great catch at His direction, after fishing all night in vain. This event shows that by now the Apostles had learned to recognize Him not by His assumed bodies, which were always different at each appearance; but by His peculiar acts and manner. When the Lord appeared before the 500 in Galilee, (the eleven having previously been convinced), why did some of the disciples doubt (Matt. 28:17)? We may be sure that they would not have doubted, had they seen Him in a body like that slain on the cross; for such a body, as in Thomas' case, would have convinced the most skeptical. Evidently in this case still a different body was used. That none of the disciples saw even the light shining out of His resurrection body, let alone that body, we may be sure; for it would have blinded them as it blinded Saul. As with the bodies of manifestation Jesus doubtless created the clothes in which He made His appearances, varied to suit the appearance of a gardener, pilgrim, etc.; for the soldiers at the crucifixion took His own clothes, and His grave clothes were left in the tomb. His appearing and disappearing and His remaining among the disciples invisible, apart from the brief periods of His manifestations, are all in harmony with the thought of His not having taken back His flesh and bones in His resurrection. Thus we see that the facts of the resurrection history during Jesus' forty days' stay on earth before His ascension prove what our other nineteen Biblical reasons prove—that our Lord in His resurrection did not take back His humanity, but was raised a life-giving spirit of the highest order of spirit beings—the Divine—the very impress of the Father's substance (Heb. 1:3). These facts, so contrary to the errorists' view, completely overthrow their theory. 

(21) The invisibility of our Lord in His Second Advent is in line with, and is because of His no more being a human, but a spirit being. That Christ in His 

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Second Advent will be invisible to the natural eyes of men, but will be seen with the eyes of their understanding, the Scriptures certainly teach. The world will never again with the eyes of their bodies see Him, though the faithful with their spirit eyes will (John 14:19; 1 Tim. 6:16). He will come secretly as a thief in the night, and none but the faithful watchers will see Him (1 Thes. 5:1-3; 2 Pet. 3:10; Rev. 16:15); and the watchers will be aware of His presence, not by bodily sight (1 Tim. 6:16), but by the prophecies and the signs of the times (Luke 21:28, 31; Matt. 24:33). The invisibility of the kingdom, of which Jesus is the chief Part, to outward sight proves this (Luke 17:20, 21). The fact that during His days—during the first stages of His presence—the world will be ignorant of it, and will be going about their regular ways of living a long time in such ignorance proves this (Matt. 24:37-39; Luke 17:26, 28-30). This is proved by Jesus' words in Matt. 23:39; for the Jews, who on Wednesday of His last week in flesh, he said would not see Him until His Second Advent, saw Him with their bodily eyes the following Thursday and Friday. Hence He meant that the eyes with which they would see Him in His Second Advent would not be their physical, but their mental eyes. This is proved by the fact that when the Thessalonians fell into the belief that the Second Advent had already set in, which would not have been done, had they expected Christ visibly, St. Paul did not seek to refute their error by pointing out the fact that they had not seen Him with their natural eyes, as he certainly would have done if that were the way that He was to be seen in His Second Advent, but by an appeal to an unfulfilled prophecy—the full rise, the exaltation, the revelation and the smiting of Antichrist—which had to be fulfilled before the Second Advent (2 Thes. 2:1-8). The fact that scoffers will mock at the claim that this Second Advent had set in shortly after its taking place, alleging that things were going on as from the world's beginning, proves that it was to be invisible as of that of a

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spirit being (2 Pet. 3:3). And, also, this is proved by the fact that the manner of His coming will be the same as that of His going—secret, unknown to the world, silent, acting outwardly through things that would represent His presence and without showing His real body, and for some time known as having taken place only by His faithful followers (Acts 1:11). The fact that Second Advent things have been and are being done and His not being seen proves it to have taken place with Him invisible, e.g., reaping of the wheat, binding of the tares, separation of the Little Flock and Great Company, etc. (Matt. 13:40-43; 24:31; 2 Tim. 4:1). These ten facts prove that His Second Presence will be invisible and this is due to the fact that He is no longer flesh—a human being—but a spirit being, since His resurrection. Hence the Second Advent is in spirit. 

These twenty-one proofs that our Lord's flesh was not taken back in the resurrection, but that He came back from the dead a spirit being, and that of the Divine nature, completely refute the error on this subject. Only one passage mentions the body that He had before His crucifixion in connection with His resurrection. We refer to the words of Ps. 16:9, 10—David's prophecy of Christ's resurrection, quoted by St. Peter on Pentecost in proof of our Lord's resurrection. But a careful examination of these verses shows that the passage does not teach that Christ's fleshly body was brought back from the dead. Ps. 16:9, 10 teaches that Christ would be resurrected, but says not a word to the effect that His flesh would be resurrected. The compound word lebetach in v. 9 has been incorrectly rendered "in hope." It should have been rendered "safely." The Hebrew word betach occurs but once as a noun (Is. 32:17). In its 41 other occurrences, whether simple or compounded, it is always used as an adverb—securely, safely. The Septuagint mistakenly translated the word "in hope" into Greek in v. 9. St. Peter, of course, quoted the passage as it reads in the Greek; and because it would not have been practical to his present

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purpose, he made no correction of the translation, nor did he use the expression, "neither shall Thy Holy One see corruption," as a direct, but as an indirect proof of Christ's resurrection; for it was a promise given Him as to His flesh that it would remain lifeless without corruption, while His soul—being—would experience resurrection on the Divine plane. In other words, the expression, "Also my flesh shall rest safely," is what is meant by His flesh not seeing corruption. The word "also" implies that another thing was mentioned as having received a promise: Christ's heart, His glory that rejoiced. It was His New Creature developed in God's likeness, just as the same expression, heart, is used of the New Creatures of the Church as to their resurrection (Ps. 22:26, 22-25; Heb. 2:12). His New Creature was not left in sheol, and hence His soul was not left there, but experienced resurrection, while His flesh was preserved safely from corruption, without resurrection. Thus the two parts of our Lord referred to in v. 9 are set forth, in v. 10, as each obtaining a different promise in fulfillment. These promises were made to Christ to comfort Him in His sufferings: (1) the resurrection of His soul as a new creature on the Divine plane, which was the special joy set before Him for His future existence and work (Heb. 12:2); and (2) the preservation of His body, though not taken back, from rotting and thus from being food for maggots. Both of these, promised in different ways, comforted Him amid His suffering; but the promise to keep the flesh safe in the sense of not permitting it to experience corruption, does not mean that it would be resurrected. It is mentioned by David and St. Peter, not as being a part of Christ's resurrection, but as a blessing having an indirect relation to it, as indirectly implying it—in the sense of something given Him contemporaneously with and over and above, but distinct from His resurrection, as the latter is by Peter directly proved by the words, "Thou shalt not leave My soul in sheol—hades." This indirect relation justified Peter in using the incorruption of 

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Jesus' flesh as an indirect proof of His resurrection as he does in v. 31, where the direct proof is given by the words we last quoted. 

It is in place to give more detailed proof that Jesus was resurrected a Spirit being of the Divine nature—the same nature as God has. The first passage which we will quote, with bracketed comments, is Heb. 1:3-5, which we will quote from the I. V., and which is much like the A. R. V., except that it is somewhat more literal: Who being the effulgence of His [God's] glory [His character is a reproduction of God's in splendor], and being the very impress of His [God's] substance [had a body of the same substance as God's, a Divine body] and administering all things through His mighty word [exercising authority throughout God's universes], after making a purification of the [the Church's Adamic] sins [by sprinkling His blood on the antitypical mercy seat], He sat down at the right hand [condition of chief favor and power] of the majesty [God] in heights, after becoming by so much superior to angels as He inherited a more excellent name [nature] than they; for to which of the angels did He ever say, "Thou art my Son, today have I brought thee to birth" [St. Paul in Acts 13:33 quotes this verse from Ps. 2:7 as a prophecy of Christ's resurrection. Accordingly, it was in His resurrection that Christ obtained a nature superior to that of all other created spirits, i.e., the Divine nature]. Please note that the present participles of this passage show that when Christ sat down at God's right hand His character was the effulgence of God's character, His nature was the same as God's nature and His office was that of God's Executive and Vicegerent throughout all universes, whereas the past participle, "after making," proves that before He sat down at God's right hand, but after His ascension (Heb. 9:24), He made atonement for the Church's sins, and whereas the past participle, "after becoming," shows that before He sat down at God's right hand, i.e., in

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His resurrection, He had received the Divine nature, the nature superior to those of all other created spirits, the angels. This passage, accordingly, proves that He obtained the Divine nature in His resurrection, which proves that none of those bodies in which He manifested Himself after His resurrection was His actual resurrection body. They were mere materializations. 

Phil. 2:9-11 is another passage that proves Christ's exaltation to the Divine nature. It is quoted also from the I. V.: On account of which [Christ's abasement from His prehuman nature, honor and office to human nature and His humbling Himself in obedience even to the death of the cross (vs. 6-8)], God super-exalted Him and graciously gave Him the name [nature, honor and office. Note the contrast here between the nature, honor and office that He gave up to be carnate and the one here set forth] which is above every name [nature, honor and office], so that at the name [nature, honor and office] of Jesus every knee of celestials [spirits], terrestrials [living humans] and subterrestrials [dead humans] may bow and every tongue may own that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. When the contrast between vs. 6-8 and vs. 9-11 is kept in mind, it will be readily recognized that our Lord's exaltation to the Divine nature, honor and office for His self-abasement is taught in vs. 9-11. In Eph. 1:20-23 Christ's post-resurrection and post-ascension glorification is taught: Which [energy of His mighty power, v. 19] He wrought in Christ, after raising Him from among dead ones, and after seating Him at His right hand [giving Him the place of chief favor and power] among celestials, far above all principalities and authorities and powers and lordships [These four are among the highest orders of angels] and every name [nature, honor and office] conferred, not only in this [Gospel], but in the future [Millennial] Age, and subjected under His feet all things [made Him His plenepotential Vicegerent throughout all the universes] and appointed Him Head over all things to the Church, which is His body. 

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This passage proves that under God He is over all things and beings, which necessitates His being Divine in nature or He would not have the capacities to exercise such powers. 

The same thing follows from the fact that the Church in the resurrection becomes Divine and shares with Him in His resurrection. That the Church becomes Divine in the resurrection is evident from 1 Cor. 15:42-44; 2 Pet. 1:4. That the Church will in the resurrection be made like Him in His resurrection is evident from Rom. 6:5; Phil. 3:10, 21; 1 John 3:2; 1 Cor. 15:48, 49. It also follows from the fact that as the Church gets immortality, an essential attribute of the Divine nature in the resurrection and shares in His resurrection; so He must have gotten immortality, i.e., Divine nature in His resurrection. That the Church gets immortality in its resurrection is evident from 1 Cor. 15:51-54; Rev. 20:6; Luke 20:35, 36; and since they undergo the same kind of a resurrection as Jesus, He was resurrected immortal, i.e., Divine. Moreover the Scriptures expressly attribute immortality, the Divine nature, to Him. The Bible definition of immortality is life in oneself, a death-proof condition (John 5:26), which passage shows that God has it as an inherent possession of His nature, the Divine nature, and which passage teaches that God promised the Son to have life in Himself, i.e., immortality, the Divine nature, which we have seen He received in His resurrection, and to obtain which God requires faithfulness in justification and consecration as indispensable in the Church, as we read in John 6:53. Moreover, the Bible expressly teaches that at the time when St. Paul wrote 1 Timothy, Jesus was the only one of God's kings, of whom Jesus is the King, the chief, who had yet received immortality (1 Tim. 6:16) because He was at that time the only one of them that had experienced resurrection. Having immortality, He must be Divine, which, as shown, He became at His resurrection.

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The next posthuman experience of our Lord Jesus was His ascension, which occurred forty days after His resurrection (Acts 1:3). As an act His ascension was His leaving this earth and going back to heaven, whence He had come down at His carnation. As in all cases of His manifesting Himself to the disciples after His resurrection, so preparatory to His ascension He appeared to them in a visible, materialized body. This was necessary so that the disciples might be assured that His return to heaven was to be a reality. This materialized body He continued to keep intact until He disappeared from their sight behind a cloud, when He doubtless dissolved it; for such a body would be out of place in heaven. When He disappeared behind a cloud, it had fulfilled our Lord's purpose in making and using it; and as He does no useless thing, after it had fulfilled its purpose, He doubtless dissolved it, as He had done with the other bodies that He had materialized to manifest Himself after His resurrection to His disciples. His Divine body was suitable for His further ascending and for His appearing before God and the heavenly host. His ascension is typed by Aaron's advancing in the Most Holy from the second veil to the Mercy Seat and was a necessary antecedent to all His future work. 

To Him it was the antecedent of His glorification. It brought Him back to the scenes of His former glory. It was like that of a conquering general returning to His country after waging victorious warfare on behalf of His native land, its good cause and its joyous people; for Jesus was the Conqueror in the holiest warfare waged against the subtlest enemy in the hardest of campaigns for the best of all causes and the Achiever of the grandest and most salutary of results for all concerned. How His holy heart must have thrilled with joy at the thought of such a home coming, after an absence of over 34 years, after a victorious mission and in anticipation of the coming glorification. His ascension was the precursor of a most joyful meeting

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with His Father, whom with duty and disinterested good will He loved with all his heart, mind, soul and strength, and who in turn was loved by His Heavenly Father above all of His other sons. What a meeting that was when the Son could present Himself to the Father as the Achiever in perfection of all that the Father desired Him to do! How joyful was the Father at meeting Him after His hard battle and glorious victory! How joyful the Son must have felt in the consciousness that He had completed His hard mission to the Father's entire satisfaction. We are with our weak minds incapable of fully appreciating Their mutual joy: the Father most joyful to have so worthy a Son; the Son so joyful to have so worthy a Father! What expressions of love, appreciation and triumph must have come from Each toward the Other!—the Son delighted in having fully pleased His Father; and the Father delighted in having a Son who had proven Himself so faithful to the Father's interests and cause! Our powers of imagination are inadequate to mount to the heights of that meeting. Lost in wonder, love and praise we bow down and worship Them at the thought of Their blessed meeting. 

His ascension meant His acclamation by the heavenly hosts. They had known, loved and admired Him when as the Father's supreme Agent in creation, providence and revelation He had been their chief. They wondered at and admired Him when, giving up His former nature, office and glory, He became for God's glory carnate. They stood in reverential awe while He was carrying out His consecration. They felt the highest appreciation for Him at His completing at such great pain and cost His sacrifice. They gloried in His victory and on His arrival at His heavenly home they received Him with every holy demonstration of joy, love, praise and adoration. Yea, before He reached His heavenly home some of them met Him to accompany Him home in triumph. There is good ground for believing that the poet struck a right chord when he 

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sang, "Cherubic legions guard Him home, and shout Him welcome to the skies." The presence of two angels with the disciples at His ascension, assuring them of His return in due time, is in line with this thought. And certainly, if a multitude of the heavenly host sang a celestial anthem at His birth, a by far lesser event than His ascension as Victor, we may well conclude that the heavenly host acclaimed His triumphant ascension! What music they sang, by far excelling that by which they sang at creation and at His carnation! 

For Him His ascension meant His receiving the place of the Chief One in God's favor. He had enjoyed before His carnation God's chief favor for His character, nature and works connected with creation, providence and revelation; but as great as that favor was, it was small in comparison with that which He received for His work of redemption; for His redemptive work was far greater in itself and in God's esteem than His creative, providential and revelatory works, since it required a finer character in Him to perform than did the latter works. God esteems a good character more highly than anything else in the universe. And Christ's redemptive work demonstrated next to the Father's the finest, noblest and best character in the universe. Hence for it God gave Him His chief favor, which is one of the things implied in the expression "sat down at the right hand of the Father." God knows that His will is so completely one with the Father's that He can favor Him to the utmost. Him God loves, esteems and appreciates above all others and, accordingly, favors Him supremely. So supremely does God favor Him as to seat Him with God in the Father's throne (Rev. 3:21). Hence anything that Christ desires the Father gives Him in His great favor toward Him. God has many other sons on the Divine plane, as well as on other spiritual planes, to all of them He is very gracious; but none of them individually or collectively does He so highly favor as Jesus, who in the possession 

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of such favor finds His chief joy, which naturally flows from His supreme love for God. 

Christ's ascension implies His inheriting all things (Heb. 1:2). God is the Owner of all the universes with all they contain. This makes Him wealthy to the utmost. All of the universes' solar systems, numbering in the billions, each one carrying along as their parts many planets, belong to God. The ownership of all the spirit beings present and future and all the other beings that now are or yet will be belongs to God. These universes in the Ages of Glory in their planets and in their suns will be perfected and their planets will be inhabited by perfect beings, which the wisdom of God will plan, and which Christ will, as God's Chief Agent, bring into being unto perfection. These universes, with their suns, moons, planets and the planets' perfect inhabitants, are a part of God's wealth, of which He has made Christ His Heir; for the Lamb has been found worthy of inheriting all things, including God's riches, as well as God's power, glory, honor, wisdom, strength and blessing (Rev. 5:12, 13). He was made such an Heir immediately after His ascension was completed. And to all eternity, cooperated therein with His joint-heirs, the Church, His work will be to develop His inheritance unto perfection. Worthy is the Lamb of this glorious and rich inheritance. And most generous is God to have made Him such an Heir. And one of the glories of His inheriting all the Father's possessions is this, that it is not coupled with the sorrow that loving earthly heirs have—the consciousness of the loss by death of their fathers. While in most cases it is unwise for fathers while living to give their children the inheritance, it was not unwise for the Heavenly Father, while alive and never dying, to give the Lord Jesus the inheritance, since so at one is the Son with the Father that He will use it only as the Father desires, always unto God's praise. 

In connection with Jesus' ascension He was given the office of exercising Jehovah's chief power. This is 

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implied in His being seated at the right hand of God, which expression not only means that He has obtained the position of God's chief favor, but also that of His chief power. This means that God has entrusted Him with the privilege of using God's omnipotence whenever necessary. That is a power that operates throughout God's universes, upholding all things by the word of His power (Heb. 1:3). It makes Him the One who exercises God's power toward the angels, good and bad, even setting limits to the operations of the evil angels, as it is by Him exercised toward and for the good angels. It is this power that is exercised by Him toward and for the three classes of the elect—the Little Flock, the Great Company and the Youthful Worthies, whenever necessity calls for its exercise. It is also exercised by Him toward the fallen race, setting it metes and bounds as the Divine will desires. That power is operating now in the Day of Wrath, working toward the overthrow of Satan's empire, which it will in God's due time accomplish. It will be the power by which He will imprison Satan and his fallen angels during the Millennium, and operate restitution to the obedient of the Millennial mankind, as it will also be the power that He will operate in sustaining the faithful restitutionists to eternity, and the power by which He will destroy Satan, his impenitent angels and the unfaithful restitutionists at the end of the Little Season. It is by that power that He will bring endlessly the solar systems to perfection and bring new orders of beings into existence and perfect them in eternal life. Mighty indeed will be the sweep of that power's operation; and it will always work as the Father will direct. 

Christ's ascension implies His glorification in office and honor; for that glorification was wrought in and for Him by God's mighty power in placing Him at His right hand in the heavenlies, far above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come. Thereby God put all things under 

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His feet [subjected everything to Him] and gave Him to be the head over all things to the Church, which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all (Eph. 1:20-23). By His glorification God superexalted Him and gave Him a name [honor and office] which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee of celestials, terrestials and subterrestials shall bow and every tongue shall confess Jesus Christ as Lord to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:9-11). Yea, by Him all things subsist and He is the Head of the body, the Church, to whom it behooves that in all things He have the preeminence, since it pleased the Father that in Him all fullness should dwell (Col. 1:17-19). The Revelator points out this exalted glorification, saying, I beheld and heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven and on earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea and all that were in them heard I saying, Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever (Rev. 5:11-13). Certainly it was to the greatest honor and office to which our precious Lord was exalted when He ascended unto heaven. Glory, glory, glory unto God and the Lamb for Christ's ascension! 

In the foregoing it was set forth what Christ's ascension implied to Him as the Overcomer. Now will be set forth what His ascension meant to others. First of all, God was a Gainer thereby; for Christ's ascension brought to Him not only the most loved of all His sons, but also a super-faithful Vicegerent upon whom He could depend always to do faithfully, unselfishly, efficiently and most pleasingly whatever He desired Him to do, not only in the outworking of the Divine 

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Plan of the Ages, but also the many other plans that the Divine Wisdom may form for the development unto perfection of God's universes and the free moral agents that will as Age rolls on Age be created by God through Christ. Thus the Father without the slightest doubt as to the Son's faithfulness, unselfishness, efficiency and pleasement can and will entrust the Son with the execution of all His plans and purposes. While as the Logos the Son was always faithful to the Father's entrustments, since His ascension He has been entrusted by the Father with by far more responsible and difficult operations so that His present vicegerency is of a much higher order than was that which He exercised as the Logos. He now has higher offices to fulfill, harder works to perform and more extensive operations to superintend than He had as the Logos. God can safely entrust Him therewith, because He demonstrated while in the flesh the highest possible degree of faithfulness and dependability, having developed a character as nearly like the Father's as is possible for a creature of God to do and have. Hence at His ascension the Father obtained a Vicegerent fully capable and willing to do anything whatsoever the Father would desire. To have gained such a Vicegerent was a benefit that God obtained at Christ's ascension. 

His ascension implied a great benefit accruing to the good angels—the cherubim, seraphim, principalities, thrones, dominions, powers, mights. Accordingly, among the angels there are seven orders. All of these serve the Lord from various standpoints and in different ways. The precarnate Logos had charge of these and directed under God's arrangements their various works. But by His glorification He was exalted in nature, honor and office far above His Logos' nature, honor and office. Hence the seven orders of angelic beings have received at His glorification a Director of them far superior to the One that they had in Him while He was yet the Logos. According to the Bible one of the activities of these angels is to minister providentially, 

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but not by the Word, to the elect (Heb. 1:14); and in this ministry they are directed by the glorified Jesus. They also work under His charge in the bringing of new solar systems into existence, as well as develop, and sustain those already in existence. We may well conclude that due to the greater efficiency than that which He had as the Logos, He is directing them in greater works than those in which He directed them as the Logos. Thus due to His glorification the angels are favored with a far more able and efficient Director than they had in Him before His carnation. And this is a great benefit to them. Thus by His glorification they received the benefit of a greater and better Director of them in their works. Hence His ascension was a great advantage to the good angels. 

Christ's ascension implies blessings for the elect of all three Gospel-Age classes—the Little Flock, the Great Company and the Youthful Worthies. In dealing of the 21 offices of Christ as Savior in our book, "The Bible," we stressed, among other things, His Gospel-Age offices as Savior. Hence we need not here repeat them. Here we will merely mention the main blessings that He confers upon the three Gospel-Age elect classes. St. Paul refers to them in 1 Cor. 1:30, telling us that of God He has been made unto us Wisdom, i.e., He is our Teacher, righteousness, i.e., the one who imputes His righteousness to us—He is our Justifier, sanctification, i.e., He is the One who not only enabled us to consecrate ourselves to God, but also enables us to carry it out in laying down unto death our humanity for the Lord and in the developing of an overcoming character, which He does varyingly for each of the three Gospel-Age elect classes, and deliverance, i.e., He makes us victorious over the devil, the world and the flesh and finally gives us victory over death and the grave. His ascension implies His obtaining the office and power to be these four things to the elect, and He accomplishes them most wondrously with the utmost wisdom, justice, love and power. We

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will not here elaborate on this phase of our subject, since details will be given thereon later, when we describe His posthuman experiences throughout the Gospel and Millennial Ages. 

His ascension implies benefits for the world, ministered to it on a small scale during the Gospel Age and on a very large scale during the Millennial Age; for His ascension, culminating in His glorification, gave Him the privilege of making His Church, with Him, the light of the world, i.e., to give it whatever of Divine Truth is due to the world during the Gospel Age. This light gives the world teachings on sin, righteousness and the coming kingdom, which have resulted in an uplift to Christendom out of the dense darkness of heathendom. His ascension, culminating in His glorification, has also given Him the power to make His Church the salt of the earth, whereby it has proven to be a nourishing, seasoning and preserving factor in human society, which has resulted in the social elevation of society in Christendom far above the social degradation prevailing in heathendom. His ascension, culminating in His glorification, has enabled Him to build upon a hill His Church, where it cannot be hid and where it is seen of all in Christendom and in part in heathendom. His ascension, culminating in His glorification, has put Him into a position in which He is preparing the Church in this Age to become in the Millennial Age the Bride, the Lamb's Wife and the Mother of His children, which He will make of the world as they obey, honor, love and trust Him as their Father and His Bride as their Mother. Moreover, that position enables Him to develop the Great Company and Youthful Worthies as able assistants of Himself and His Bride in ministering restitution to the obedient, honoring, trustful and loving of the world. 

His ascension, implying His glorification, has given Him the position of testing the fallen angels during the Gospel Age, as to whether they would repent and thus become eligible to the Millennial trial for full reinstatement

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into God's favor as overcomers, or whether they would continue impenitent and not get that trial. To this end He has used the Church to preach the Truth in the world in the hearing of the fallen angels (Eph. 3:8-10; 1 Cor. 4:9). Yea, by His faithfulness unto death and His resurrection our Lord preached to the fallen angels, imprisoned within the atmosphere about this earth (1 Pet. 3:18, 19), and will give the penitent among them the Millennial deliverance (Jude 6; Eph. 1:10; 1 Cor. 6:3). Accordingly, the fallen angels in their penitent members gain a great blessing from Christ's ascension coupled with His instatement into His office as Deliverer. 

And finally, Christ's ascension, introducing Him to His office of being God's eternal Vicegerent, implies that He will develop His heirship eternally, perfecting one planet after another in God's universes and solar systems and bringing unto perfection new orders of beings as God's wisdom will plan these in the Ages of Glory following the Millennium. Oh, how highly exalted in office, honor and work did our Lord become at His ascension! Let us for this worship, praise and adore God and Christ for Christ's ascension! 

Following His ascension, the next set of experiences of our resurrected Lord was the exercise of His Gospel-Age offices. In the third chapter of our book, The Bible, there were set forth 21 features wherein the curse has injured the human family; and, as an antidote for each one, an office of Christ was set forth, making 21 in all whereby He delivers from these 21 curse effects. The first post-ascension work of our Lord concerns the great purpose of the Gospel Age, the selection from among the children of men of the Church as His Body; and in that pertinent work our Lord has made use of about 18 of these offices, overcoming about 18 pertinent effects of the curse upon those who have become of the Church. 

The first of these offices for Him to exercise is that of Ransomer, i.e., the office of the User of the ransom

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merit for the deliverance from that effect of the curse that had made those who became members of His Body enslaved under debt unto death. It was Adam's sin that enslaved him and all his descendants under debt unto death; and Christ, as Ransomer, purchases out from under that debt those slaves who become God's sons during the Gospel Age. The purchase that He makes is a reckoned, not an actual one. If it had been an actual one, there would not be a sufficiency of merit left for Him with which to purchase the world of mankind in the next Age; for there is as much merit required to release one as to release all from this enslavement under debt unto death. Since it is Adam's sin which made him a debtor to justice, that has to be canceled, either reckonedly or actually, in order that any of his descendants may be freed from the enslavement under debt unto death into which he brought them. The representations of the New Testament are that as Ransomer Jesus, instead of actually purchasing the race or the Church from this enslavement, does so reckonedly for the Church; i.e., having deposited into the hands of justice at the time of His death the entirety of His merit, when He said to the Father, "Into Thy hands I commend [deposit] my spirit [my right to life]," He used that deposit which was a sufficiency of merit to cover Adam's debt, and He imputes from it as much as is needed to bring each one of the Church up to a reckoned perfection in God's sight. And this act is a reckoned, not an actual purchase. Actually, the merit remains deposited in God's hands all the time of the Gospel Age, and is imputed to cover the sins of the Church and to reckon them righteous, or perfect, as human beings in God's sight. By doing this ransoming work, Jesus carried out the first part of His Gospel-Age ministry toward the Church. To those who exercised repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus He tentatively imputed of this merit to them a sufficiency to reckon them perfect in God's sight. And only to those among such tentatively-justified ones who 

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consecrated from time to time did He actually impute, as Ransomer, the value of His merit sufficient to complement, to bring up, their lack of perfection unto perfection. Glorious is the power of His merit. 

Another evil that the curse has brought upon every member of the human family is that it has made them law-condemned convicts; and Jesus' Gospel-Age ministry toward the Church delivers them from this condition by His exercising His office as Advocate. This word advocate suggests a court scene. In this court the Judge is God; the law is the Divine justice—supreme duty love to God and equal love to neighbor. Against every member of the human family Adam's sin brought this law-condemned conviction, which has been in process of execution; and Jesus, in exercising His office as Advocate, frees the Gospel-Age Church from this condition. The Judge has already condemned the convict; he stood before the bar of justice, according to the requirements of the law. The convict was undergoing the infliction of the sentence, Death; but those who are members of the Church, having exercised repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus unto tentative justification and having been so loyal in their tentative justification as to consecrate, found Jesus entering into this court before the Judge as their Advocate, their Lawyer, pleading forgiveness for them. He agrees that the sentence of the law was just, but He also presents to Divine Justice His merit as that which meets the law-condemned convict's penalty. He therefore imputes this substitutionary merit actually on behalf of such consecrators, and by that imputation secures, not the abrogation of the law, but the satisfaction of the law against the convict, through the penalty having been met by the Advocate Himself. This office of Advocate, therefore, secures a vitalization of the justification of the law-condemned convict, from whom therefore the wrath of God as expressed in the sentence is removed. And this Advocate office of Jesus has prevailed throughout the life of each one of the 

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faithful consecrated, taking care of all his future Adamic sins, in that it secures forgiveness for them. Thus we see in His office as Advocate that the court scene is brought to our attention (1 John 2:1, 2), with the various details of it carried out, for the convict was undergoing execution. Being relieved of the sentence, the execution is estopped, and the formerly law-condemned convict is declared free from the sentence of the court of high Heaven. 

Another office of Jesus' posthuman experience is His becoming the righteousness of all who exercised repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus and consecrated themselves unto Him; for we are not to forget that not only does the Lord Jesus satisfy Divine justice against our sins, but He also, by His merit, becomes our righteousness before Divine Justice. In the tabernacle picture both of these thoughts are brought to our attention. In sprinkling the blood upon the mercy seat the high priest types Jesus imputing His merit for us, thereby securing for us the forgiveness of our sins. But we also recall that the high priest sprinkled the blood upon the altar, and that brings to our mind the thought that Jesus imputes His righteousness to us. The necessity of this is obvious; for God does not only desire that we have no sin, but He also desires that we have a positive righteousness; and we, being unable to effect either the forgiveness of our sins or the practice of perfect righteousness, Jesus, by His merit, effects both of these things for us, and does so by becoming our righteousness; whereas, apart from this imputation of His righteousness to us, we are simply destitute of a righteousness that would be pleasing to God. For example, it was not enough for Adam not to sin; he bad to develop supreme duty love to God and equal duty love to neighbor as his righteousness; for stones are without sin, but they could have no righteousness. So for Adam it was necessary that he be not only without sin, but that he have positive character like God's, a righteous character. These two

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things that Adam should have had, but failed to work out Jesus imputatively does for us as one of His post-ascension office works. 

There is still another figure used in the Bible to set forth a Gospel-Age office of our Lord Jesus. He is there represented as having those who will become the Church espoused to Him to become His future Bride, when He would become her Bridegroom. As an actual matter of fact, to become a part of the Bride of Christ one must have an unselfish and heavenly disposition, but under the curse all of us have developed a selfish and worldly life, and Christ, as the one to whom the Church is espoused, to fit the Church to become His Bride in due time has wooed her away from selfishness and worldliness to love and heavenly-mindedness, that thus she may be fit to be the Bride, the Lamb's wife. So a post-ascension experience of our Lord has been faithfully to do the part of the One to whom the Church is espoused, i.e., faithfully to fit her to become His Bride at the marriage of the Lamb. He has been wooing her away from selfishness and worldliness unto love and heavenly-mindedness, and thus has been delivering her from that effect of the curse that made her selfish and worldly. 

The fifth office work that marks our Lord's post-ascension experience is His work as our High Priest. He began His work as our High Priest while He was in the flesh, for which He had to perform two things: (1) sacrifice His humanity unto death on behalf of the Church and the world; and (2) develop a character that would make Him a merciful and faithful High Priest amid very trialsome experiences. These two things Jesus brought to perfection while He was in the flesh. Since He has come into the spirit He still remains and acts as our High Priest, and as such has done a variety of things for the Church. In the first place, He imputed His merit for the Church before Divine Justice. In the second place, He imputed His 

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merit to the Church for her to have a righteousness that would prevail before God. In the third place, as our High Priest He intercedes for us as a part of His Gospel-Age High-Priestly ministry. Then, He offered us in consecration to God as gifts; and, when God accepted these gifts by the begettal of the Spirit, God turned the gifts into parts of the second Sin Offering of this Age, which Jesus then proceeded to sacrifice as a sin offering. The offering of these gifts and this sin offering is the fourth thing that Jesus does for us as High Priest in His posthuman experience. And the fifth thing that He does for us as High Priest during the Gospel Age in His posthuman experience is to bless us as New Creatures unto perfection of character in His and the Father's likeness by the operation of the Spirit, Word and providences of God on our behalf. Thus we see that as High Priest He has been doing seven things for the Church—two while in the flesh, and five since He has entered into the spirit. Thus as our High Priest He does all the work required to make reconciliation between God and the Church, for reconciliation is the actual work of a High Priest; and by doing this work as our High Priest He heals us from the alienation between God and us. Thus He overcomes another one of the evils that the curse has brought upon us from Adam's sin. 

A sixth evil that the curse has brought upon us is ignorance, especially of God's Truth. Our minds under the conditions of the curse were naturally blinded by the Adversary, and Jesus found us in this blinded condition when He began to work upon us for Gospel-Age purposes; and He gradually, by His office as Teacher to the Church, through the knowledge of the Lord's Word, Spirit and providences, removes this ignorance from us and educates us in the true knowledge of God. Therefore, He is made unto us wisdom. He Himself is the One whom He means when He says, "One is your master [teacher], even Christ." That is the reason why we are called His disciples, His

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pupils. He has been constituted by God to be the Interpreter of God's Word and God's Spirit and God's providences to the Church; and in His teachings in these three respects He fulfills His office as Teacher. 

Another evil effect of the curse in which those who have become of the Church found themselves is captivity to Satan. Satan captured the whole human family when Adam fell into sin; and he has kept them in such captivity ever since. The only escape from such captivity is through Christ as Deliverer. As Deliverer He gives us victory over sin, error, selfishness and worldliness, which made us Satan's captives, into righteousness, truth, heavenly-mindedness and love. We have many battles and many temptations through which we must pass, but we come to the final victory by being faithful unto death, led in this warfare by Christ as our Deliverer from Satanic bondage. 

Closely related to His office as our Deliverer is His office as Captain. This office presupposes that there is a war; and this war is being waged between God and Satan. In this war, on Satan's side are sin, error, selfishness and worldliness, and on God's side is Jesus, who as His General or Captain teaches us the principles of victory, which are truth, righteousness, holiness and heavenly-mindedness. Satan seeks to involve us by subtle temptations into some form or forms of sin, error, selfishness and worldliness, even into as many of these as he can bring to bear upon us. Jesus, as our Captain, leads us in the fight against these principles of Satan, in which fight the weapons of our warfare are truth, righteousness, power and love, as well as heavenly-mindedness. If we are obedient and brave soldiers in this warfare, we will ever be looking to our Captain for direction, and will gain His direction in time of need; for He is unfailing in His care of His hard-pressed soldiers. Finally, He leads us to a complete victory over the principles for which Satan's empire stands, and in the interests of the principles for which the Kingdom of God stands—and thus we "fight

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the good fight of faith." Thus we endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ. Thus we put on the whole armor of God and in and with it withstand the evil one; and, as we faithfully follow our Captain's orders, He leads us to victory after victory in the minute battles of this warfare until finally He leads us to complete victory in the entire war. 

Jesus has another office that He has been exercising during the Gospel Age on behalf of the Church. By God He has been appointed to be the Head of the Church; and the reason why God has appointed Him to be its Head is that under the conditions of the curse we are unable properly to think God's thoughts, feel His affections and will His will; and God has provided a remedy for this evil feature of the curse by making Jesus our Head, i.e., making Him the one who does our thinking for us, does our feeling through His Spirit for us and does our willing through our new wills for us. And thus he acts as the Head of the Church, and has exercised this office throughout the Gospel Age to the Church. Whoever sets aside Jesus as the One to do his thinking, his feeling and his willing sets Jesus aside as His Head, and this makes him leave that Body in which Jesus is the Head. Thus Jesus, by being our Head, supplies our every necessity as New Creatures insofar as our thinking and feeling and willing are concerned. And He has proven to be such a Head throughout the Gospel Age to all who have faithfully followed His Headship and have submitted to it. This is very necessary, because the Body of Christ is a normal Body, and can therefore have only one Head. If every member of the Body of Christ had a separate head of his own, there would be all kinds of confusion in the operation of this Body; but, by having Jesus alone as the Head of this Body, it is a perfect and enduring unit, which cheerfully accepts its Head in every particular, and thus performs its part in the particular function that it has to perform as the Body of Christ; for with such a Head it is not only a 

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perfect and enduring unit, but it also has all the diversity and harmony needed for its functions as such a Body, as the facts of history prove. 

During the Gospel Age our Lord Jesus does not mediate the New Covenant; but He works on the seal of that Covenant, which seal will become completed when He will have completed the sacrifice of the Church. The Covenant itself will be sealed, made operative, during the Millennial Age. Therefore, apart from working on the seal of the New Covenant to prepare it for its Millennial-Age use, Jesus does not exercise the office of Mediator in the Gospel Age, nor does He exercise the office of Father during the Gospel Age—an office that He will exercise toward the world of mankind in the Millennial Age. But during the Gospel Age He does exercise the office of Perfect Lawgiver. On account of the curse, there is an absence of a perfect law and lawgiver to Adam's condemned race. However, Jesus is a perfect Lawgiver to the Church during the Gospel Age, and thus exercises His office as such. This implies that He has made a very thorough revelation of the law of duty love and of the law of disinterested love. We recall that while He was yet in the flesh He interpreted the law of duty love, when the scribe asked Him which was the greatest commandment of the law. He pointed out that it is love to God with all the heart, mind, soul and strength, and that next to this law as a part of duty love is love to neighbor as to self, as a part of the law of justice, or duty, love. It was in connection with that exposition that He gave us the beautiful parable of the Good Samaritan, pointing out how that neither the priest nor the Levite exercised duty love to the man fallen among thieves, and how the Samaritan did act as neighbor toward the victim of the thieves. He expounded the meaning of the law of duty love to neighbor when, in the Sermon on the Mount, He stated, "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so

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unto them." And, certainly, this was a marvelous exposition of duty love while He was in the flesh. And since He has come into the spirit as a perfect Lawgiver to the Church He has set forth that law through His mouthpieces in the Church. So also, while in the flesh, He expounded the law of disinterested love. Whereas, duty love is the love that by right we owe to God and man, disinterested love is not owed. It is an unselfish, sacrificial good will which goes out to God with all the heart, mind, soul and strength, and to Jesus in the same way; and which goes out to the brethren in more love for them than for self, and which even lays down life sacrificially for the world and for enemies. Jesus, through His star-member mouthpieces and their assistants, certainly made a remarkable exposition during the Gospel Age of these two laws of love, duty love and disinterested love; and thereby demonstrated that He was the perfect Lawgiver who undoes the evil of the curse wherein man under the curse lacks a perfect law and a perfect lawgiver. 

His office as Prince of Peace does not prevail at the present time, but will operate during the Millennial Age. His office as King does operate now in the restricted sense that He is the King of those who shall become kings; for He is King of kings and Lord of lords. The kings of whom He is the King are His faithful footstep followers; and these are likewise the lords of whom He is Lord. As King He undoes for His faithful at the present time that effect of the curse which manifests itself in man's unruliness. As a perfect King He rules His Church, and they submit to His rule as their King in loyal obedience, faithful service and devoted loyalty. Jehovah has made Him the King of kings; and as such He is a perfect King, having every power, attribute and official definition as King. As King He drives out of His kingdom all those who have turned from the Holy Commandment into unholy living; and thus He exercises this office in the siftings in driving away from His own those who 

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would seek to make them bereft of the Divine knowledge as another of the effects of the Adamic curse. Man has not the ability to originate the Truth, to expound it, or to prove it; and this inability on man's part our Lord supplies for the Church by His revealing to them the Law of God. He not only reveals the Law of God in the sense that He was God's Agent in inspiring the writers of the Bible, but also, as each truth is due, through His chosen mouthpieces at the time He makes that truth clear, for He is the Lamb that was found worthy to take the book and open the seals thereof, i.e., to take the office of Executor of the Divine Plan and clarify the hidden things that are found therein. All through the Age He used chosen mouthpieces to make such due truth clear to His Church; particularly in the Harvest of the Jewish Age and in the Harvest of the Gospel Age, including both its Parousia and Epiphany phases, has He made the Truth very luminous. The vast amount of Truth that has been clarified to God's people since 1874 is nothing more or less than the product of Jesus' office as Revealer of the Divine Truth; and blessed are we who by the Lord have been found worthy to see these two phases of the Truth, the Parousia and the Epiphany Truth. More blessed will we be, if we faithfully live out these truths. To receive these revelations from Jesus one must be called; he must be hungry for the Truth; he must be humble, meek, good, holy, honest and faithful to the measure of the Truth that he already has. And by one's exercise of these qualities more and more will Jesus reveal to him the precious Truth, as He has declared in John 15:15-19; and He will remove it from those who prove unfaithful to it. 

Jesus exercises still another office during the Gospel Age as one of His posthuman experiences, i.e., He acts as God's Executor. In the great panorama of Rev. 4 and 5 He is represented as the Lamb that has been found worthy to take the book, i.e., He has been found to be worthy to be the Executor of the Divine Plan; 

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for that book in the hand of God represents the Divine Plan. Every feature of its outworking has by God been put into Jesus' hands as Executor; and all through the Age as feature after feature of that plan has become due to be seen and enacted, Jesus not only saw it as the due Truth, but He also enacted the features due at these various times. His executiveness is certainly demonstrated as of the most efficient kind; for He has now nearly completed the Gospel-Age purpose of carrying out God's plan; for all that will ever be of the Little Flock, or that will ever be of the Great Company, have, by His executive work, been brought into existence as such; and ere long He will complete His work of perfecting the Church. A little later He will complete the work of perfecting the Great Company; and He is now gathering the Youthful Worthies as another faith class that will have its part in the outworking of the plan of God. His great successes, therefore, in working tentative justification, consecration, sanctification and deliverance, as well as instruction, demonstrates Him to be an Executive of the highest order. He will also exercise the office of Executive from another standpoint in the Millennial Age. 

Still, further, during the Gospel Age Jesus has exercised the office of Physician, because the curse has made people physically, mentally, morally and religiously sick; and, as the Great Physician, He has made a perfect diagnosis of the ills that afflict those who later become of the Church while they are yet in the world and in sin, and healed their mental ills by giving them the Truth as medicine. He healed their moral ills by working in their hearts repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus in duty love Godward and manward; and He has been healing their religious ills by taking away from them all false gods and ideals of the sinful, selfish, worldly, erroneous heart, and by giving them a proper religious attitude toward God, toward Himself, toward one another

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as brethren and toward the world of mankind from the standpoint of religion. Thus He has proven Himself to be the Good Physician during the Gospel Age in healing the ills of the curse that have afflicted such as have become His Gospel-Age faithful people. He does not now heal in the full sense of the word their physical ills, which He uses as means of healing their mental, moral and religious ills. 

Another one of the effects of the curse upon the human family is that it has become, by usurpation, Satan's quasi-property, and, by usurpation, has been brought under his control. Jesus has become the Lord of such of the human family as become God's during the Gospel Age. He became their Lord, first, by redemption, by His reckoned purchase of them. Secondly, He has become their Lord by enabling them to consecrate themselves to Him and accept His will as their will. Thirdly, He has become their Lord by enabling them to carry out that consecration by loyalty to Him. And, fourthly, He has become their Lord in that He owns and controls them against all the efforts of the Adversary to gain ownership and controlership over them. Thus, during the Gospel Age we find that one of His posthuman experiences is His acting as Lord, Owner and Controller to the Church. 

Again, He has also become the Judge of the Church. He assured us that the Father Judgeth no man, but has committed all judgment into the hands of the Son. The judgment process includes four distinct lines of activity, all of which are implied in the original meaning of the words translated Judge and judgment in the Bible, i.e., krino and krisis. The first meaning of the word krisis as a noun is instruction; and krino as a verb means to instruct. The second meaning of the word is to try, to test, in order to produce in the obedient ones under trials and tests characters like God's and Christ's. The third meaning of the word as a noun is chastisement, and as a verb is to chastise. And the fourth 

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meaning of the word as a noun is sentence, and as a verb is to sentence. Here another Greek word comes in, viz., krima, derived from the verb krimo; and it means a sentence. It has not the other three meanings of the noun krisis as mentioned above. This judgment process is really the salvation process, for it is through this process that people are prepared for salvation; and none will ever gain everlasting life who does not pass through the processes of judgment as the Bible uses that word. It is Jesus' work to operate all four of these processes of the judgment; for He is the Teacher who instructs those who are being Judged. He is the Tester who tries them as to their devotion to truth and righteousness and holiness. He is the One who stripes those who fail properly to act under the trial process; and, finally, He is the One who pronounces sentence: life for those who have acted faithfully under the judgment process and death to those who have been unfaithful under that judgment process. And thus our Lord Jesus, by conducting the judgment process, has made it possible for those who once were condemned through Adam's failure in the judgment process applied to him, to gain everlasting life by being faithful under the judgment process to which our Lord Jesus has subjected them. And this operating of the judgment process is another one of our Lord's posthuman experiences as to the Church as His Body. 

There is another effect that the curse has had upon the human family: it has made them impure. A pure condition is one that is unmixed with foreign elements; and Adam and Eve, as they came from the creative hand of God, were pure. There were no evil elements mixed in them; but, when they fell into sin, they and their descendants became impure, i.e., there was a mixture of evil with the good that was in them. There were some of the vestiges of God's image that were in Father Adam after he fell; and these have been transmitted to his descendants. But, mixed up with these vestiges of God's image are features of Satan's 

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image—sin, error, selfishness and worldliness. These are the impurities that have been mixed with the purity in which the human race was first created. Some are more impure than others, i.e., some have a larger mixture of evil with the good that is in them than others have; and, accordingly, some have a smaller amount of impurity mixed up with their good. Jesus is the Purifier of those who become the Lord's during the Gospel Age, and He purifies them, first, by applying the cleansing truths to their hearts, minds and wills. And, secondly, after their consecration and begettal of the Spirit, He purges out of them much of the impurity that they inherited through their ancestors and that they have developed by their own misconduct. And then He uses also the providences of God, chastisements, untoward experiences and punishments for wrong-doing, to rid them of these impurities. Some of these processes that He uses are not punitive in character, but merely cleansing in character. Thus some of our experiences by which we get rid of evils are not punishments, but are merely disciplines helping us to get rid of these evils. In exercising this office as our Purifier Jesus sits and refines the sons of Levi, both the Priests and the Levites among these. He refines them as gold is refined, developing thus the Little Flock; and He refines them as silver is refined, thus developing the Great Company class (Mal. 3:1-4). The refining processes, of course, insofar as they involve the Divine providences as the means of the cleansing are more or less painful to the humanity, but the New Creature, properly exercised by these experiences, gets rid of the faults against which they are applied. And, in a minor degree, our Lord is acting as a Purifier of the Youthful Worthies, especially to the extent of removing from them whatever would make them disobedient to righteousness and the principles of faithfulness. Thus we see by His officiating as the Purifier of God's people another one of Jesus' posthuman experiences.

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We would lay stress on another and final Gospel-Age posthuman experience of our Lord, viz., He acts as the Provider of God's people. In this, too, He is, as in all His other offices, God's representative, working in us both to will and to do the Father's good pleasure. He provides for us raiment. Not only does He give us the Robe of Righteousness as an imputation, but He also enables us to embroider that robe so that it will become our wedding garment at the marriage of the Lamb, if we are faithful in the working out of this embroidery, wrought gold in which the Queen shall be presented unto Him, the King. He also provides for us the necessary food, the food that is needed for the head and the food that is needed for the heart—the food that strengthens the head in every good thought with every truth He has for us, and the food that strengthens the heart in every good word and work in the graces of the Holy Spirit, to help us on in our journey toward the Heavenly Canaan. As our Provider He also gives us the necessary shelter from storms coming into our lives. Waves of affliction frequently overflow the bank of our faith, but He protects us, so that no experience will be allowed to come upon us that is too hard for us to bear, as we continue faithful; for He is the faithful Executor of God, who will not permit us to be tempted beyond what we are able to bear, but with the temptation He provides a way of escape that we may be able to bear it. Thus He shelters us against too strong attacks of sin, error, selfishness and worldliness, as Satan seeks to manipulate these against us. Thus He shelters the Truth that we have already gained and the graces that we have already developed against overthrow by the Adversary's fell purposes, as we prove faithful. He keeps us in the house of God, whose lintels and doorposts have been sprinkled with the precious blood of our Passover; and, by our remaining in that house, we are preserved as firstborns of antitypical Israel from the destruction that the firstborns of the antitypical Egyptians

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must undergo. Thus He provides everything that we need in the way of clothing, food and shelter; and thus He preserves us from falling and keeps us standing in the grace of God to the end of our way. And in exercising this office as Provider of God's people, He exercises the final office that we will consider in this article, so far as the Church is concerned, connected with His posthuman experiences. 

In the foregoing we have treated of 18 features of our Lord's official works done during the Gospel Age. Some of these features belong exclusively to the Gospel Age; and some of them belong to the Gospel and Millennial Ages. Jesus' posthuman experiences accordingly have not only been undergone during the Gospel Age, but some of them will be undergone during the Millennial Age; and these experiences as expressions of His official work at that time will, with the Lord's help, now be set forth. One of the great differences between the two Ages is that the Gospel Age is a faith dispensation, dealing with the faith class as the elect. The Millennial Age will be a works dispensation, not, of course, without faith, but one in which faith is not the most important feature, as during the Gospel Age it is such. Then it will be "as their works shall be." 

During the Millennial Age our Lord will work as Ransomer, not by a reckoned purchase, as is the case in His Gospel-Age Ransom work, but by an actual purchase; for, when all of the outstanding imputations will have been exhausted through the Little Flock's sacrificing these faithfully, through the Great Company's giving them up under more or less of compulsion and through their being taken away forcibly from the second-death class, there will be no outstanding imputations as embargoes on the merit deposited in the Father's hand when our Lord died. The merit thus free from all imputation embargoes will be available for the purchase of Adam and all who fell in Adam; and that purchasing act, an actual as distinct from a reckoned purchase, will be one of Jesus' Millennial-Age experiences. 

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By right of an actual purchase He will own the whole race, i.e., the non-elect part of it, and will become such an Owner by right of purchase; for He will use the merit that He had deposited with God when He died to purchase actually Adam and Adam's race from their enslavement under debt unto death; and this He will do in order to give the right to life and life-rights, with perfect bodies and perfect lives in those bodies, to all that will obey Him. This will be done after the last member of the Great Company has been taken from this earth to spiritual conditions, and after the last one of the second-death class has been put to death as a new creature. It will be the foundation of the whole Millennial work; and the race as the effect of that purchase from enslavement under debt unto death will have the opportunity of gaining a restitution to human perfection, such as Adam lost for himself and it by his sin. During the Millennial Age our Lord will not be an Advocate, though He will give of His merit, i.e., His right to life and His life-rights, a perfect human body and a perfect life in that body, to all who will obey Him. These will not be given them by faith as they are now given the Church by faith, but by works, as they respond to His commands along the lines of righteousness and truth. A gradual healing from the effects of the curse as they obey will set in, until by the end of the Millennial Age all of the obedient will have righteous characters, as well as the right to life, the life-rights of perfect humans, perfect human bodies and perfect human lives in those bodies. Thus their righteousness will be an actual one gained from Jesus' merit as they obey. During the Millennial Age Jesus will not be espoused; but He will be the Bridegroom married to the Church, who will be His married Bride; and together they will become the Father and Mother of the obedient race. 

But, before speaking of that feature, we desire to lay some stress upon the High-Priestly experiences of Jesus in the Millennial Age as the Head of the High

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Priest for the world. He will apply, in distinction from imputing, His merit for all the Adamically dead, regardless of whether they are in the dying process or in the death state. The sacrifice that He performed as High Priest while in the flesh, and the character that He developed as High Priest while in the flesh, will fully qualify Him to be, with the Church His Body, the World's High Priest. During that time He will also as High Priest, cooperated in by His chosen Underpriests, offer the antitypical burnt offering, i.e., give the evidence of God's acceptance of His sacrifice and that of the Church for the world. Not only so, He will also offer the peace offerings—the consecrations made and carried out that the world of mankind under His High-Priestly work will make to Him. These peace offerings include the vows that the world will make in connection with their consecrations. Their vows will be a promise to be dead to sin and error and alive to God's righteous will. The people's meat offerings and drink offerings, the former representing their proclaiming the deeper truths and the latter their presenting the simpler truths of the Lord's Word, will by the High Priest be presented to our Heavenly Father. As Priest, for example, He will offer the people's trespass offerings, which means their making good for the wrongs they have done and mending their characters of the evils that these wrongs have inflicted upon their characters; and in doing this work on their behalf the World's High Priest will make atonement for those wrongdoers. There is an important difference between the sin offerings of the Gospel Age and the trespass offerings of the Millennial Age. The sin offerings of the Gospel Age were made to God's Justice in the Most Holy; while the trespass offerings of the people will be made to the World's High Priest, Head and Body. Jesus will direct all of the work of the Underpriesthood as the World's High Priest ministers the people's peace offerings, their burnt offerings, their meat and drink offerings and their trespass offerings. As High Priest,

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cooperated in by the members of His Body, Jesus will bless the whole world with restitution blessings and thus actualize the typical blessings of Aaron and Aaron's sons bestowed upon the people. 

The world of mankind, due to the fall, will come back ignorant of God's ways; and Jesus as the Great Prophet, and the Head of the Great Prophet class, will teach them the ways of God in every detail, so that by the time this teaching work will have been completed, the earth will be full of the knowledge of God as the waters cover the great deep. The world will come back from captivity under Satan to be delivered by the World's High Priest, Jesus always acting as its Head, from this captivity; so that, as they obey, little by little and more and more the shackles of sin and error will be broken from their symbolic hands and feet, until in the end of the Millennial Age those who have been thoroughly obedient will be entirely free from the captivity that they once had under Satan. In so doing, Jesus will act as Deliverer of those who once were Satan's captives. The world will come back with its sinful habits and its erroneous notions and will be enlisted in the holy war against these by Jesus as the great Captain, the antitype of Joshua; for Joshua's conquest of Canaan does not only type Jesus leading His faithful to victory over sin, error, selfishness and worldliness during the Gospel Age, but also types Him, cooperated in by His Body, as the Captain of the army of God that in those days will fight every form of sin, every form of error, every form of depravity. In so acting Jesus will experience the operation of His office as Captain. He will, of course, act as the Head of the Church, His Body, at that time, doing all their thinking, all their feeling, and all their willing for them; but that Headship, of course, will be differently exercised from what it has been during the Gospel Age. 

In the Millennial Age a special office will operate, and Jesus will have posthuman experiences in connection with that operation that He did not have during 

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the Gospel Age, viz., as Head of the World's Mediator He will be the Mediator between God and men. Many mistakenly think that the New Covenant operates during the Gospel Age. During the Gospel Age the Mediator works only on the seal of the New Covenant. That seal Jesus acquired by His holy obedience unto death, and the Church shares in serving on that seal by its sacrifice unto death, whereby the merit imputed to it is brought back to God through the death of the Church, free from all outstanding imputations as embargoes, ready to be used for the remainder of the world. So Jesus does not mediate now, nor has He at any time during the Gospel Age mediated between God and the human family, i.e., He has not during this Age been making the New Covenant operative; He has not sealed the New Covenant during the Gospel Age, though He wrought out its seal. He will seal the New Covenant during the Millennial Age by two distinct acts antitypical of Moses sprinkling the blood upon the book and upon the people. Moses sprinkling the blood on the book represents the World's Mediator, Head and Body, sealing the Covenant Godward, i.e., with the merit of Jesus acquired by Jesus' holy obedience and maintained thereby, imputed to the Church, then by it sacrificially brought back to God, so that the merit would be free from outstanding imputations as embargoes, as the means by which the seal of the Covenant Godward, as well as manward, will be made. 

The sprinkling of the blood on the people by Moses types the World's Mediator, Head and Body, giving the people the merit, i.e., Christ's right to human life, His human life-rights and His right to a perfect human body and to a perfect human life, as the merit that will seal the Covenant manward. The Covenant will be sealed Godward instantaneously, but will gradually during the thousand years be sealed toward the world of mankind, i.e., as people obey, and thus receive more and more of the merit, the more will they be lifted up into a condition in which they can fulfill their part of

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the Covenant. When the race comes back from the dead early in the Millennium their imperfect bodies will make it impossible for them to fulfill the terms of the Covenant; and for that reason during the Millennium God will put the race into the hands of the Mediator and will not deal at all with them. The Mediator guarantees the race, by sprinkling the antitypical blood upon the antitypical Book, i.e., Divine Justice. He pledges to God that He will bring the race up to perfection by a gradual giving to them of His merit as they gradually obey; and He guarantees that He will destroy those who will not obey. Thus He creates a condition in which the obedient will be able to fulfill the Covenant, which ability will become theirs when they will have fully appropriated the merit by obeying the Mediator fully. Thus at the end of the thousand years the race will be perfect: those who obey from the heart will be perfect in character as well as in body; and those who only externally obey from the head though not from the heart will be perfect in body, but not in character. 

The race thus made perfect and thus able to obey the Covenant will be by the Mediator brought into Covenant relationship directly with God. Then will they be tested as to their obedience by God's letting Satan become free from the bottomless pit, during which freedom he will tempt the race to sin; and all who will have failed to develop perfect characters during those thousand years will fail under this test and will accordingly be destroyed by the Mediator; while those who, from the heart as well as the head, externally will have obeyed the Mediator until they are made perfect in character will triumph under the test and will be given everlasting life by the terms of the New Covenant; for the terms of that Covenant are simply these: God will promise to give the race everlasting life, if it obeys perfectly; whereas the race on its part will promise to obey perfectly, if God will give it everlasting life. Thus Jesus in doing everything that will bring into operation the Covenant between God and man will be 

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fulfilling His part of the World's Mediator. The reason why there must be a Mediator between God and man in the Millennial Age, whereas there has been no such thing during the Gospel Age, is this: Those dealt with in the Millennial Age will be the unbelief class, who by the Millennial restitution will be lifted up into believing that God will keep His part in the Covenant; whereas the class dealt with during the Gospel Age is the faith class, who do not need a Mediator, for they trust God and God trusts them. A Mediator always acts where two parties to a contract distrust each other more or less and require a guarantee that each party of the covenant will fulfill his promise. So God will distrust the ability of fallen man, and the unbelief class will distrust God's willingness to keep the Covenant. Jesus and His Body will thus guarantee God to the world and the world to God, the latter being brought to perfection by the time He will have fulfilled His thousand years' Mediatorship on behalf of the race, sealing the Covenant to them; and thus the race will be able and by God will be regarded to be able to keep the Covenant, on whose keeping their life will depend. 

The race has lost life and has come into the dying process and its bulk has entered into the death state on account of the sin of father Adam, cooperated with in that sin by mother Eve. One of Jesus' posthuman experiences in the Millennial Age will be His fathering the race; and in that act He will be using the Church to mother the race. He will thus be acting as the Second Adam, and the Church as the Second Eve. Whereas the first Adam and Eve generated the race in sin and death, the Second Adam and Eve will regenerate the race in righteousness and life; but this fathering and mothering will require of their children that they act as children, first, by obeying; second, by trusting; third, by honoring; fourth, by loving their Father and their Mother. And any of the race who refuse to fulfill these filial duties will fail to become the children of the Second Adam and the Second Eve; for 

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they will be given life and perfection as children of this Father and Mother only as they will obey, trust, honor and love them, as true children should do. 

The world of mankind returning from the tomb will come back in its same lawless sinful condition as it entered the grave, for there is no change in the tomb. Their unruliness, therefore, and lawlessness will require that they have a perfect lawgiver bestowed upon them; and this lawgiver will be no less than Jesus the Head and the Church His Body, especially Jesus the Head. He will give them perfect laws in their relationship to God: the law of duty love, loving God with all the heart, mind, soul and strength for the good that He has done them, and loving Christ and the Church in the same way for the good they will have done them; and these laws will likewise cover all the social relations of man to man, summarized in the law, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Multitudes of applications of these two great laws will the Great Lawgiver set forth, and mankind will be required to live in harmony with these laws. If they persistently refuse to do so, it will bring upon the refusers the penalty of the second death as enemies of righteousness. 

Another posthuman experience of Jesus in the Millennium will be His reign as the Prince of Peace. He is called the Prince of Peace, first, because He will have made peace between God and man, and, secondly, because He will make peace between man and man, so that all strife, all enmity, all violence and war and all worries will be banished from the earth through the great reign of this Prince of Peace. And the peace that He will give will be lasting. Nations shall no more lift up arms against one another, nor learn war any more. Neighbor will not strive with neighbor after that reign has come to its climax. Then will be realized the words of the angel spoken at our Lord's birth: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will to men. The nations now dread war because of its fearful possibilities. That will all be taken away under the glorious 

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reign of the Prince of Peace; for He will give a firm foundation to peace—peace between God and man, which will, as a result, effect peace between man and man through the work of this Prince of Peace. 

Another posthuman experience of our Lord in the Millennium will be His work as King. He is the King of kings; these kings are no less than His faithful Church, who own Him and acknowledge Him as their King. He is the Chief; and this King will reign in peace, will reign in blessing, will give His subjects the ability to live in harmony with the laws of God, will give them all of the blessings that God has in reservation for the children of men. Everything good that the human mind can conceive and the human heart can desire will be bestowed upon them on condition of obedience as they obey this King of kings. Thus will He reign successfully, gloriously, victoriously, loved and praised by His subjects, obeyed and honored by them. 

The race through the curse has been bereft of the Divine knowledge, and during the Millennial Age one of our Lord's posthuman experiences will be to reveal to the race new lines of thought that God is going to give the human family in that Age; for there will be a third book added to the Bible. During the Jewish Age God gave the Old Testament; during the Gospel Age God has given us the New Testament, as parts of the Bible. But according to Rev. 20, another book will be expounded to the children of men, and this will contain the Millennial revelations, the New Covenant revelations, the laws and the teachings of Jesus as Lawgiver, as Prince of Peace, as King of kings. And these revelations will be perfectly adapted to their purpose of bringing to man a knowledge of God that is reasonable, satisfying the exactions of the intellect and the cravings of the heart; and it will be by Jesus, cooperated in by His Church, that God will make these revelations for the salvation of men. Certainly this will be a rare experience for our Lord, when He makes known the wonderful 

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truths that will bless the human family in the Millennium, since He will make truth universal. 

Mankind, by the curse has become impractical as to making saving arrangements; it cannot save itself. It has tried its hand at this through many religions during the experience with evil, and all have proven failures, except that which has developed the Christ class. Just what to do, how to do, why to do, when to do, where to do and with whom to do, Jesus, as the Great Executor, will know how practically to apply as the terms of revelation to the human family in the Millennial Age. And, certainly, it will be a glorious experience of His posthuman condition for Him to put into exercise these executive arrangements and make them work successfully to the end for which they will be instituted. By the time the Millennial Age will have ended, on all hands He will be recognized as the most practical and successful of all executives. 

The unbelief class, with whom the Millennial Age will have to do, is physically, mentally, morally and religiously sick; and Jesus, cooperated with by His Body, the Church, will become the Great Physician, healing all the mental diseases, exposing all the errors that have been planted in the human mind, healing all the moral diseases, ridding man of the evils that he has had in his relation to his fellow man, healing him of all the physical diseases that have preyed upon his body and healing all the religious sicknesses that have made man an enemy to God and out of harmony with God. The most successful of all physicians will He be. He will know how perfectly to diagnose each case and prescribe the proper means of healing in each case, and will bring to complete mental and moral health all who will obediently accept and use the cures that He will put at their disposal. And thus He will experience in His posthuman activities the privilege of being the greatest of all physicians—He will heal all diseases: physical, mental, moral and religious. 

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Another one of His posthuman experiences will be the things that He will do as Lord of the human family; for He is not only Lord of lords, the One who is Owner and over the members of His Body, but He is also the Lord, Owner and Controller, of the race. Satan has been controlling the unbelief class. Jesus, by right of purchase, will become their Owner, and by His Divinely-delegated authority He will become the Controller of every human being; and He will use His office as Owner and Controller to put His subjects into conditions of healing and health, joy, gladness, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. To be such a Lord will be one of Jesus' posthuman experiences. 

He will also have the experience of being the Judge of the human family in the Millennial Age as one of His posthuman experiences. He will apply to the whole race the judgment process. This process implies four things: (1) It will include adequate instructions along every line of thought that they will need, to undergo their judgment aright as they obey. (2) Having given them development in the first process, He will test them by a variety of experiences as to how they have profited by the instruction and uplift that He will have given them in the judgment process. (3) As they fail in this judgment process He will apply to them the chastisements that will help to correct those failures of the unbelief class, for they are to come forth to a resurrection of judgment, i.e., a resurrection that will be administered by the judgment process. (4) After their full trial period is over, after they have had all the instruction and development, all the correction and chastisement needed for their reformation, He will put them on final trial whereby they will be required perfectly to stand the tests that will be applied to them; and those who are faithful under these tests will gain life everlasting, and those who fail under these tests will be destroyed in the second death. Thus He will finish His posthuman experiences as man's Judge.

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He will also act as a Refiner and Purifier of the human family. Terrible, indeed, has been the degradation, physical, mental, moral and religious, that has come upon the human family through their experience with evil; and Jesus, as the Refiner and Purifier of these, will cause them to pass through the Millennial fires of reformation whereby He will burn out of them, figuratively speaking, all the dross of evil, to leave them a pure symbolic metal, as they submit faithfully to those refining and purifying processes. This will continue throughout the whole thousand years; and at the end of that time it will succeed into bringing into perfect purity and sinlessness all who will be faithfully obedient during the time of their purification and refinement, fitting them for eternal life. 

Finally, in the Millennial Age as one of His posthuman experiences He will undergo His experience as the Provider for the human family. He will provide them all their needs—every mental need, every moral need, every physical need and every religious need—and this provision will increasingly be theirs as increasingly they obey; for throughout that Age they will be expected to perform works of righteousness and thereby purify themselves by His assistance from the effects of the curse. He will provide them food that they will need to strengthen them physically, mentally, morally and religiously; and He will provide them shelter that will keep them free from temptations from the Devil and the world, their only temptations being such as will come from their flesh. He will provide them righteousness as garments of salvation, as they render obedience to His holy law; and thus will He prove that He is, indeed, a marvelous Provider for His children. He will provide the faithful every help needed to overcome, when Satan is loosed at the end of the Millennial Age to test them; and only then will He cease from such provision when willful disobedience sets in. Such willfully disobedient ones He will let go their way—willfully disobedient ones He will put to eternal death. 

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Thus Jesus will have a great variety of experiences in the Millennial Age, which, of course, will be posthuman experiences. Wonderful, indeed, are His offices, both toward the Church and toward the world. Gloriously, indeed, will He fulfill every requirement of each office that He has to those who faithfully fulfill the conditions that His office operations will require them to fulfill, even those who will gain the blessings that He has for them. The Church has been gaining such in the Gospel Age; the world will gain such in the Millennial Age; and at the end of His posthuman experiences with the human family will be His handing over to God the race perfected from sin and error, for them to serve God in the beauty of holiness. 

Jesus, in the Ages of glory that will follow the Millennial Age, will have other office works to perform in the development of the universe of God, which is His Heirship, the Church being His joint-heir therein; for we should not think that He will get an Heirship that is not to be developed. The Bible says that of the increase of His Kingdom there will be no end; so, as His Kingdom will constantly increase with new subjects and new creations added thereto, as the Ages follow one another, He will work and produce fruitage unto God for the development of all of God's future plans and purposes. Rich, indeed, beyond the power of human imagination are the posthuman experiences of our Lord. Glory be to God and Glory be to Christ for these, His posthuman experiences! 

In considering our Lord's posthuman experiences we stressed His various office functions; but there are many titles and names given our Lord in the Bible that did not come up for discussion under the consideration of His office work in the Gospel and Millennial Ages, and it would be well for us to study such titles as belong to our Lord in His post-Millennial condition; and we, therefore, will make such a study. Our Lord is called in 1 Cor. 15:45-47 the "second man" and the last or "second Adam." Our Lord became the second man, which word in Hebrew is "Adam," and 

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the last or "second Adam" in His resurrection, as is proven by 1 Cor. 15:45; for it there says in contrast with the creation of Adam as the first Adam that the last or second Adam became in the resurrection "a life-giving spirit." So this is the title that belongs to our Lord in His posthuman experience. Remembering that the Hebrew word "man" is Adam, and that Jesus in v. 47 is called the "second man" or "second Adam," we consider that there are only two Adams—the first, who sinned in Eden, and the second, who rose from the dead the third day after He was crucified. The peculiar significance of this term "second Adam" or "man" is that he is to become the second father of the human family, who with His bride, the Church, the second Eve, will regenerate the race in life that the first Adam and Eve generated in death. So the title, second Adam, gives us the hope of restitution to the world of mankind after the second Eve has become developed and become the Bride, the "Lamb's wife." 

The term, Alpha and Omega, is applied in Rev. 21:6 and 22:13 to Jesus; but that same term is applied to the Father in Rev. 1:8. The Greek very clearly shows this when it speaks of the Lord God who exists now, who has always existed and who always will exist as the Almighty. While the Bible shows that Jesus was given all authority (exousia) in His resurrection, there is no Scripture that indicates that He is almighty, for this is an attribute of God. The Greek word for might is dynamis, and that is not the word used in Matt. 28:18. Thus as Jehovah's Vicegerent the Father lodged all authority in heaven and earth in Christ's hand. He has not given Jesus His almightiness, which is a power that rests in God exclusively. Hence in Rev. 1:8 when God is called "the Alpha and Omega," which are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, the fact is shown that God was the first and last Being that never was created. But when Jesus in Rev. 21:6; 22:13 is called "the Alpha and Omega," the words have a slightly different meaning applied to Him from that applied to the Father. They designate Him as the

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first being that God directly created and the last being that God directly created, which is proven when He is spoken of as the first-begotten of the Father, for His begettal was His creation. In Rev. 3:14 He is called "Amen." And this peculiar designation represents Him to our minds as the one who will bring into existence actually and in truth everything that the Father desires Him to do. All His promises are reliable and sure of fulfillment if unconditional promises, and sure of fulfillment if they are conditional promises and the conditions are fulfilled. That is the Amen. 

In Heb. 12:2 He is called the "author and finisher of our faith." As the Author of our faith He is the Agent whom God has used to create in us the quality of faith in its sense of mental appreciation and heart's reliance, and in the sense of faithfulness. Instead of being called the "Finisher" of our faith in Heb. 12:2 the R. V. calls Him the "Perfecter of our faith"; and this is right, for He who began to develop the quality of faith in us in its mental appreciation and heart's reliance will bring it to perfection, i.e., crystallization. When He is spoken of in Heb. 5:9 as the "Author of eternal salvation," He is spoken of not as the source of salvation, which the Father is, but as the instrumentality of salvation, or cause. The Greek word here translated "author" in the A. V. is translated "cause" in the Diaglott. In Rev. 3:14 our Lord is called "the beginning of the creation of God"; i.e., He was the first one to be brought into existence of all the creations, as we also find this to be the statement with reference to Him in Col. 1:15, where He is called "the firstborn of every creature." If He is the firstborn of every creature, of course He is a creation and the first and only direct creation brought into existence, God having brought everything else into existence through His Son. He is called "the first and only Potentate" in 1 Tim. 6:15, a passage that refers to Him only after His resurrection. He is in the same connection spoken of as "the King of kings and Lord of lords." The kings of whom He is the King are His 

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footstep followers when glorified, and the lords of whom He is the Lord are the same persons as are meant by the expression kings in this passage. At the time St. Paul used this language He was the only Potentate, but in the Millennial Age when the Church reigns as kings with Him He will not be the only Potentate, but the kings will be potentates with Him. Evidently this passage refers to conditions after Christ's resurrection but before the Church was made kings; He was the only Potentate at that time and the only Potentate who was King of kings that at that time had immortality, the Church getting all these things—kingship, potentateship—after its resurrection. 

In Zech. 3:8 and 6:12 He is called "Branch." The allusion here is to Him as the "olive tree" of which Paul speaks in Romans 11. The root of that olive tree was the Abrahamic Covenant in its Sarah feature. The tree itself represents the Little Flock as a whole, while the branches of that tree represent the Little Flock individually. And He is one of these branches, in fact the most important of these branches. And because of that position He is going to deliver God's people in the Millennium as the passage in Zechariah proves in this connection. In Heb. 2:10 He is called the "Captain of our Salvation." The allusion here is to an army. The soldiers of this army are Jesus' faithful followers as new creatures. The King of this army is God, who has placed over the army our Lord in His posthuman experiences as the Captain. As such He leads this army in holy warfare against every form of sin, error, selfishness and worldliness and brings the faithful new-creaturely soldiers who follow His orders to complete victory in this matter. Massed against this army is a wicked army, consisting of Satan's servants, whether they are knowingly so or unknowingly so. And Satan seeks by these servants, as well as by the fallen flesh of Jesus' soldiers, to lure them into sin in this warfare, by which, if he would succeed, he would bring them to defeat. But those who follow faithfully the Captain's directions defeat Satan in the incidental warfare and 

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in the war as a whole and thus prove to be "conquerors" and more than conquerors, whom He has bought with His precious blood. 

In Acts 4:27 Jesus is called God's holy child; but the R. V. more correctly translates the word "God's holy servant." He is God's holy servant because He consecrated Himself to God and proved such faithfully unto death and now is carrying out God's plan that is due to be carried out, and in the Millennial Age will continue God's will in carrying out the rest of God's plan. One of the most frequently occurring names given to our Lord in the Bible is Christ, a name that applied to Him during His human experience and that applies to Him since His human experience; e.g., as Paul shows us in Phil. 2:9-11, where he calls Him Christ the Lord. The word Christ is derived from the verb chrio, and it means anointed, and this refers to the qualification that God gave Him to be the High Priest and King. This anointing was the bestowal upon Him as a new creature at His begettal of every grace that He needed to fulfill His ministry while in the flesh and since He has become a Spirit. In Is. 11:2 this anointing is referred to as the "Spirit of God" that would rest upon Him, the "Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the reverence of Jehovah." And in these various expressions the four attributes of God are implied—wisdom, power, justice and love, which completely qualify Christ for His earthly ministry and completely qualify Him for His post-Millennial ministry now and forever. He is called the "corner stone" in Eph. 2:20; 1 Pet. 2:6; and a "living stone" in 1 Pet. 2:4. This title refers to Him under the figure of the temple, set forth under the imagery of the Pyramid. He was represented by the main corner stone of the Pyramid, in harmony with whose lines all the other surface stones of the Pyramid are wrought. He is thus the chief one in God's temple, and in His foundation stones, the Apostles and the other star-members as the holy prophets of this passage in Ephesians, while the

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rest of the faithful Little Flock are living stones that are brought to this "headstone of the corner" to be built up under Him as the rest of God's temple. In Is. 9:6 He is called the Counsellor, and this title especially applies to Him in His posthuman experiences and describes Him as the Adviser, as well as the Teacher, of God's people. When they are in any perplexity or in difficulty He gives them advice that in harmony with wisdom, justice and love applies to that situation. Those who follow this advice are led into the paths of truth and righteousness. Blessed are those who follow Him as their Counsellor, for they shall never be misled as long as they follow His counsel, but will always be directed into paths of righteousness and holiness by His counsel. He is, therefore, the best Counsellor that we can think of under the Father. The name "David" is also applied to Him in His present condition. In Jer. 30:9; Ezek. 34:23, 24 and 37:24, 25, He is spoken of as the Messiah under the name of David, the King through whom God will bless the world, as well as Israel, in the Millennial Age. The word "David" means beloved, and He certainly is the Father's and the Little Flock's Beloved. When in Rev. He speaks of Himself as having the key of David, He speaks of Himself as having the power over the Little Flock and over the world by and by. In Luke 1:78 He is called "the Dayspring," and that is because He is the one who brings the Dawn of the Millennium into actuality and thereby gives the world the promise that the night of sin is nearly over and that the day of God with all its blessings will soon be ushered in. In 2 Pet. 1:19 He is called the "Day Star," that is, the star that ushers in the day; and the Church is told in that passage to give heed to the Lord's Word until the day dawn is complete and until the day star is fully received in their hearts, which, of course, would be in the beginning of the Millennium. We are not to understand from this passage that we are to heed God's Word only until the Dawn, but throughout that Dawn into the Millennium, until we have passed beyond the vail. 

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In Rom. 11:26 in a passage that is quoted from Is. 59:20, where He is called Redeemer, He is called the Deliverer, and thus the words Redeemer and Deliverer are shown at times to be synonymous, though the word Redeemer may also be used of Him as the one who ransoms the Church and the world. He is a mighty Deliverer, who has delivered God's people from their sins, delivering them now from the power of Satan and sin and selfishness and worldliness and from the fear of death, and who will in the resurrection deliver them from the tomb and will deliver the whole human family from the tomb and give the obedient of them liberation from its effect. In Is. 7:14, quoted in Matt. 1:23, He is called Immanuel. These words mean "God with us." And by this name His office as God's representative is indicated and as such representative He is the Proof that God is on our side, that God will deliver His Church and that God will deliver the world of mankind by Him. This expression does not mean that He is God Almighty, but that He is a representative of God as being on our side, which He proves to be true by His Gospel-Age and Millennial-Age post-resurrection experiences. In Is. 9:6 He is called the "Everlasting Father." And this alludes to a posthuman experience in the Millennium when He will give everlasting life to all who will become and remain His children through His giving them the life-rights and the right to life and perfect bodies and perfect life in those bodies that constitute His merit as the Life-Giver. He will be an everlasting Father from two standpoints. His faithful children will live forever and He will live forever as their Father. So from both standpoints we can consider Him as the "Everlasting Father." In Rev. 1:5 and 3:14 He calls Himself the "Faithful Witness"; and this means that not only did He bear testimony to God's Word faithfully while He was in the flesh, but also since He left the flesh and has been in the spirit He has been faithful in witnessing to the Truth. He did this to God's people in the Gospel Age and will faithfully witness to the world of mankind in 

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the Millennium. No power could make Him unfaithful as a witness for God and the Truth. Faithfulness permeates His character through and through, and whatever He does He does it faithfully. Therefore whatever He does He does it with faithfulness. In Rev. 1:17 He is called "the first and the last," and here we have an explanation of the meaning of Alpha and Omega when applied to Him. Therefore this expression means that He was the first one that God created directly and the last one that God created directly. He is called the firstborn in the A.R.V. of Heb. 1:6, Rev. 1:5 and Col. 1:18. He was the firstborn when He was created and in His resurrection became the firstborn from the dead, as these passages prove. The A.V. mistakenly renders it "first begotten" in Heb. 1:6 and Rev. 1:5, since He was the first born from the dead; and Heb. 1:6 refers to Him in His Second Advent, hence the translation evidently should be "the firstborn"; and since in Rev. 1:5 and also in Col. 1:18 He is called the firstborn from the dead, this is the title evidently belonging to His posthuman experience. For we are to remember that He at Jordan was begotten of the Spirit and the third day after His crucifixion He was born of the Spirit, when resurrected from the dead. 

In Matt. 2:6 He is called a "Governor" of God's people—Spiritual and Fleshly Israel now and in the Millennial Age, for He will rule as God's representative, Governor, over the Church in the Gospel Age, and will do the same over Fleshly Israel and the world of mankind in the Millennial Age. In Eph. 1:22 He is called the "head over all things to the Church," which means that He is not only the One who thinks and feels and wills for and in the Church, but that He is such in all things, in harmony with the Father's will; i.e., His Headship refers to everything in His relation to the Church and in her relation to Him, and does not admit of His headship covering some and not other things in the Church. In Heb. 1:2 He is called the "heir of all things"; i.e., God has made Him the Heir of all of God's possessions; i.e., all of the universes 

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of God are made His possession. And He will share that possession with the Church as His joint-heir. Having treated of Him as High Priest above, nothing more need be said on that subject here. In Acts 2:27 He is called the "Holy One," and in the R.V. the addition is made of the "Righteous One." And in Rev. 3:7 in the R.V. He is called "He that is Holy." This title shows Him to be completely consecrated to God, shows Him to be completely conformed to God's character likeness, and shows Him to stand for everything righteous and holy. In Luke 1:69 He is called "A horn of salvation." In Bible symbolisms horns are used to represent power; e.g., as the lamb with 7 horns His perfect powers are set forth. He is the One who is the power that works salvation for the Church, for the Great Company, for the Ancient and Youthful Worthies and the world of mankind in the Millennium. The power to save rests in Him, and all because He became man's ransomer from the curse. 

Our Lord in His posthuman existence is "the image of God" (2 Cor. 4:4). This does not refer to the likeness of His body to the Father's body, but refers to His character being like God's. Not that we are to understand that His character is equal to God's character in its wisdom, power, justice and love, any more than we understand that Adam in God's image was equal to God in attributes of character. But we understand this passage to mean that He is almost like God in character and is as nearly as God in character as it is possible for a creature to be. For the character of our Lord will be greater in wisdom, power, justice and love than the character of the members of His Body, who, while conformed to His image, as we read in Rom. 8:29, are nevertheless and will be nevertheless inferior to Him in wisdom, power, justice and love, though images of His own character. 

Our Lord's personal name both while in the flesh and since He has come into the spirit is Jesus. The Latin equivalent of the Hebrew is Joshua. This name, as we read in Matt. 1:21, means His office as the

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Savior of all who become His people, since He will deliver them not only from condemnation but also from the power of sin. Another name that belongs to Him in His posthuman existence, though it also belonged to Him in His human existence and prehuman existence, is that of "the Just One" or "Righteous One," A.R.V., Acts 3:14; 7:52; 22:14; 1 John 2:1. This is an attribute of Him in a character absolutely indispensable to become man's Savior, for had He not been just or righteous He could not have become a Savior or an acceptable ransom for us, for justice makes Him acceptable to God's justice and one able as our Advocate to impute His righteousness to God for us and to us before God. 

Above we briefly considered Him as the King of kings as this name is applied to Him in 1 Tim. 6:15; Rev. 17:14; 19:16. Let us repeat, however, that the kings of whom He is the King are the Little Flock. This name represents Him as the Chief of these kings in His office of reigning over the Church and men in the Millennial Age and in all future ages. He was such a King when Paul wrote the first epistle to Timothy. He is such a King in His warfare against the kings of Satan's empire. And He is such a King throughout the period of the consummation of the Age, i.e., throughout the Parousia and Epiphany, according to Rev. 19:16. While the term, "Lamb of God," applied to Him primarily while He was in the flesh (John 1:29, 36), He is, nevertheless, repeatedly called the Lamb in the Book of Revelation, in relation to Him in His posthuman existence, and since He has come into the world (Rev. 5:6; 6:1, 16; 13:8; 15:3; 19:7; 21:22). In its primary significance this term represents Him as the antitypical Passover Lamb slain in Egypt. Through His blood sprinkled on the doorposts and lintels of the Israelites' houses they escaped death when the messenger of destruction went throughout Egypt. And the blood of this antitypical Lamb now secures us who are of God's House as we abide under that blood, which is on the lintels and doorposts of our hearts on which 

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that blood was sprinkled. The blood sprinkled on the doorposts we understand to be the satisfaction of Divine Justice Godward and manward, while the blood sprinkled on the lintels we may understand to be righteousness imputed to us. Safely lodging in the house of God under such doorposts and lintels the firstborn—Little Flock and Great Company—are safe from the second death throughout the Gospel Age. The name Lamb applied to Him in the book of Revelation is applied there to His posthuman condition and indicates that He is the same One now as had suffered unto death to save God's antitypical firstborn from the second death. This name is thus one that properly applies to Him now from the standpoint of its allusion to Him in its sacrificial character while in the flesh. As Law-Giver we have considered Him above, therefore need say nothing further on this line of thought. 

In John 14:6 He calls Himself the "life" in the celebrated passage, "I am the way, the truth and the life." That passage makes for Him one of the supremest claims ever uttered. For in that passage by the term "Way" He points out Himself as the exclusive means of approach to God. And when He calls Himself the Truth He speaks of Himself as the one who lived out and continues to live out and work out the Truth of God. And as He speaks of Himself as the Life, He refers to Himself as the Agent whom God uses to give life, first to the Church and in the Millennial Age to the world. Certainly, these three names of His are sublime indeed! And only God's special Agent in the work of salvation and truth and continued existence could truthfully call Himself the Way, the Truth and the Life. In His posthuman experiences He is realizing these three things—first to the Church, and will realize them to the world by and by. In John 6:35 He calls Himself the Bread of Life, and alludes here to Himself as the antitypical Manna from which if one partakes he will gain life. And He is the Bread of Life to us because He is for us to feed on by faith, and we do feed on Him by faith when we appropriate Him 

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as the one who imputes to us His human right to life and life-rights and His perfect human body and the life therein. He will be to the world the Bread of Life when they appropriate Him by faith and obedience as the one who will give them the right to perfect human life, the life-rights that belong to such a right to life, together with a perfect body and a perfect life in it. In John 8:12 and 9:5 He calls Himself the Light of the World. Under Satan's dark dominion the world has been kept in blindness and darkness, as we read in 2 Cor. 4:4. And all the Truth, that is symbolic light, that the world has gotten so far has come from God through Him as the symbolic Sun. And in the Millennial Age He will flood the whole world with the light of life, the light of Truth, until every one will know the Truth. Thus in the fullest sense of the word He will be the Light of the World. It is for this reason He is called in John 1:9 the true light that will lighten everyone that has come into the world. 

Another significant title that belongs to Him in His posthuman existence is that of the "Lion of the tribe of Judah" (Rev. 5:5). In Bible symbols lions are used to represent strength—power; and the tribe of Judah in Bible symbols represents the most powerful of the antitypical tribes. And His being called the Lion of the tribe of Judah represents Him in His posthuman experiences as the most powerful of the most powerful class of the tribe of antitypical Judah on the Divine plane. In 1 Pet. 2:4 He is called a living stone and is such because He is full of energy as the Headstone of the corner of God's temple. All the members of that temple are built up as living stones under Him as the Headstone of the corner. The name Lord is applied to Him both in His human and posthuman experiences and is applied in His posthuman experiences so often that it is unnecessary to consider it here. He is "Lord of all," according to Acts 10:36, not only the Lord of His body members, but also the Lord of the whole world in due time. And this term also applies to Him in 1 Cor. 2:8 and Jas. 2:1, as the Lord of glory. The 

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expression, Lord of lords, we have already considered, so will say no more on that subject. 

The title, "our Righteousness," is more than once applied to our Lord, as we can see from Jer. 23:6; Rom. 5:18; 10:4; 1 Cor. 1:30; 2 Pet. 1:1. This title brings to our mind the thought that the Lord Jesus on account of His perfect obedience to the Father's will as a human being maintained a righteousness that prevailed before God for us. This righteousness was His full obedience to God's law of justice and by imputation to us it supplies the lack of righteousness that we inherited from father Adam and our other ancestors. This righteousness is in the Bible spoken of as a robe of righteousness and as such it covers all of our imperfections from Divine justice and reckons us perfect in God's sight. It is, of course, ours now by imputation and will become the world's actually by application in the Millennial Age. The word Messiah as applied to Him is derived from the Hebrew and is synonymous with the Greek word for Christ. For just as the word Christ is derived from the Greek word chrio, so the word Messiah is derived from the Hebrew word mashah, which means He anoints. And this Hebrew title, like the Greek title, Christ, points Him out as the One fully glorified by the Holy Spirit to carry out His mission as High Priest and King both in His Gospel-Age ministry and in His Millennial-Age ministry. In Rev. 22:16 He calls Himself the "bright and morning star." And this title brings to our mind the fact that in the dawn of the Millennial Day, while yet darkness is covering the earth and gross darkness the people, He shines forth as the star that ushers in the Millennial morning. And from its rays God's faithful people have been enlightened and given the glorious promise of the facts of approach of the day of God. In 1 Cor. 5:7 He is spoken of as the "Passover," which title is a typical allusion to Him as being the antitype of the Lamb slain in Egypt and is the practical equivalent of the title "Lamb" so often applied to Him in the Scriptures. In this passage the Apostle Paul brings to our 

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attention the fact that God's new-creaturely people are the antitypical firstborn, that being in the family of God, on whose symbolic lintels and doorposts the blood of our Passover is sprinkled, whereby justice is satisfied for us and Christ's righteousness is imputed to us, we are saved in that family of God as long as we abide within the blood-sprinkled doorposts and lintels. There the firstborns who antitype Israel are secure; whereas on the doorposts and lintels of antitypical Egyptians there is no such blood sprinkled; the firstborn of antitypical Egyptians must go into the second death. This type in a general way has been fulfilled throughout the Gospel Age and in a particular manner is fulfilled at the end of the Age in the Parousia and Epiphany. In Heb. 5:6 He is called a "Priest forever," and that is because by the sacrifice of Himself and the use of that sacrificial merit Godward and usward He makes reconciliation between God and us in the Gospel Age and will do the same for the world of mankind by application of His merit in the Millennial Age. 

In Acts 5:31 He is called Prince; in Acts 3:15 He is called the Prince of Life. He is called a Prince because He is the leader of God's people and is called the Prince of Life because as such He ministers life to God's people. We have above considered His title, Prince of Peace, as we find this in Is. 9:6. In the A.V. of Rev. 1:5 He is called the Prince of the kings of the earth, which expression is better translated in the R. V. as: the ruler of the kings of the earth. These kings are not the present kings of Satan's empire, for they neither recognize Him nor can as though He were their ruler, while, as a matter of fact, Satan is the ruler of the kings in the second symbolic earth. The title therefore applies to Him in the Millennial Age, where He will be the ruler, first, of the Church as the kings that rule over the world in the Millennium and, secondly, over the whole saved human family, who, like Adam, will be the kings of the earth. 

The title "Prophet" is applied to Him, e.g., in Deut. 18:15 and means the same as the title "Teacher" applied 

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to Him. We are not to forget that in Bible usage the word Prophet is not limited to those who forecast the future, but to those who stand before others and teach them, regardless of whether the things taught are in the past, present or future, and regardless of whether they are persons, principles or things. In this wide sense of the term the prophet is, of course, the teacher. In Rom. 3:25, according to the Greek, He is called our Propitiatory, i.e., our "Mercy Seat." The Mercy Seat represents God's justice in its primary significance. But inasmuch as Christ is made unto us the righteousness that prevails before God, and inasmuch as His righteousness sprinkled upon the Mercy Seat makes atonement, He may well be called our Propitiatory, and our Righteousness, provided by God, that avails before God for us. In 1 John 2:2 He is called our "Propitiation"; and this represents Him as the One who satisfies Divine justice on our behalf by the imputation of His merit for us and to God. And in the next Age He will make actual propitiation for the world, while in this Age He makes actual propitiation for us. The term "Redeemer" as we find the expression in Job 19:25; Is. 59:20, and the term "the righteous" as we find it in 1 John 2:1, have already been explained and need no more explanation here. In Rev. 5:5 He is called the "Root of David" and in Rev. 22:16 He is called the "Root and offspring of David." To some these terms seem rather hard to reconcile, but considered in the light of the Scriptures they become quite clear. Thus in the Millennial Age because He will give life and sustenance and growth to David He will be his root, and He will be such as the Second Adam to David. But in His humanity, being a descendant of David according to the flesh, He is an "offspring of David." Thus as a Divine new creature He will be the "root of David," and as a perfect human being born of the virgin Mary He was the "offspring of David." Thus we see the two expressions are harmonious with each other, as we should expect. 

In Micah 5:2 He is called a "ruler in Israel." Prospectively

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when He was born in Israel He was the ruler in Israel. Actually He will become such when He sits upon David's throne in the Millennial Age and administers affairs on behalf of Fleshly Israel; and in a still wider sense He will be the ruler of the Millennial Israel, which will consist of the restored human race divided into the twelve antitypical tribes of mankind after they become the Israel of God. In Heb. 13:8 our Lord is spoken of as the "same yesterday, today and for ever." By the term "yesterday" Paul is alluding to the Jewish Age. By the term "today" he is alluding to the Gospel Age, and by the term "for ever" he is alluding to the Millennial Age. And he shows us that despite Jesus' diversity in three natures, His prehuman, human and posthuman natures, He is the same person. Thus when the Logos became flesh He was the same person as existed during our Jewish Age as the Logos, and after He entered the Spirit nature in the Divine order He still remained the same person as was once the man Christ Jesus, and as was once the spirit-being Logos. Sometimes this passage is quoted to prove that Jesus was eternal, but the term "yesterday" refers not to eternity but to a day or an Age before the Gospel Age; and the term "for ever" as two words refers to the Millennial Age. Thus three important Ages in God's plan are brought here to our attention, and we are here assured that Jesus is the same person in all three of these Ages, and will be so eternally. 

Very frequently in the Bible He is called our Savior; e.g., in Luke 2:11; Acts 5:31; 13:23; Eph. 5:23; 2 Pet. 1:1; 3:2; 1 John 4:14; Jude 25. The Greek word translated Savior (Soter) is derived from the Greek word "Sozo" which means "I heal," and etymologically therefore refers to Jesus as the Healer of the Church and the world from the evil effects of the Adamic curse; and as such the name is indeed very dear to our hearts; for He heals us from all our blemishes. In Is. 52:13 He is called by God "my Servant," and is called such because as the Father's Vicegerent He serves unto a completion the plans and purposes of 

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our God and will, therefore, as such serve God in the carrying out of all His other plans and purposes not yet revealed. The term "shepherd" is a very frequent one applied to Jesus. E.g., He is called the Shepherd and Bishop of souls in 1 Pet. 2:25. He is called a shepherd in Zech. 13:7, "the great shepherd of the sheep" in Heb. 13:20, the "chief shepherd" in 1 Pet. 5:4 and "the good shepherd" in John 10:11. What a shepherd does for literal sheep so He does for the sheep of God's flock. He does everything that is described of the shepherd in relationship to the flock as set forth in the 23rd Psalm. As "the Bishop of souls" He is taking care in the service that God has placed in His hands to preserve the beings of God's people. In Zech. 13:7 He is spoken of as God's Shepherd against whom the sword would arise, which occurred at His arrest in Gethsemane, and who would be smitten for the sheep during the last 13 hours of His life. In Heb. 13:20 He is called "the great shepherd of the sheep," because while God has other shepherds under Him to care for the flock, He is the supreme Shepherd under God among the shepherds, and, therefore, is the Great Shepherd of the sheep. The same idea is brought to our minds in 1 Pet. 5:4 when He is called "chief shepherd." All who have been Apostles, prophets and pastors in the Church have been shepherds of God's flock; but of all of these Jesus is the Chief. This is the thought that is brought to our attention in 1 Pet. 5:4. In John 10:11, in His being set forth as the Good Shepherd He is given every attribute that belongs to a shepherd that tends to and feeds God's sheep. In Gen. 49:10 He is called "Shiloh," which means the one sent. This represents Him as God's special messenger sent forth by God to perform God's good pleasure and bring to a successful conclusion the Father's marvelous plan. In Heb. 14:6 He is called "a Son faithful over God's House." He has the spirit of sonship toward God, as God is actually His father—Life-Giver, and has found Him in every way a dear Son. This term "Son," sometimes "beloved Son," refers to our Lord,

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e.g., Ps. 2:12; Heb. 1:8; Matt. 3:17; and He is often spoken of as "the only begotten son," as in John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18, because He is the only one of God's people that He has directly created. All other sons of God have been created through the agency of Jesus. Thus He is and remains the only direct and faithful Son of God. And this is the thought behind the words, "only begotten Son." The term "son of David" applied to Him in Matt. 21:9 alludes to His being a descendant of Israel and David. The term "son of God" is applied to Him in very many Scriptures. Of these we might cite a few only: Matt. 3:17; Luke 1:32, 35; John 1:34, 49; Rom. 1:9; Heb. 1:2, 5, 8. This term is applied to Him, signifying the fact that He is God's Son from a variety of standpoints. As the Logos He is God's Son; as a human being born of the virgin Mary, and as a spirit being in His resurrection He is God's Son also. 

Another term applied to Him and especially by Himself to Himself is that of the "son of man." In the Greek it reads: "the son of the man," and it refers to our Lord Jesus as the preeminent descendant of Adam. The Son being Jesus and the man of this verse being Adam, He is thus by this emphatic term brought to our attention as the greatest of all of Adam's descendants, the most preeminent of Adam's descendants and the best of Adam's descendants. When in Luke 1:32 He is spoken of as the "Son of the Highest," or as the R. V. puts it: "the son of the Most High," this expression refers to Him as the actual Son of God as a human being. In Mal. 4:2 He is called the "Sun of Righteousness." Here His office in the Millennial Age is set before our minds under the picture of a Sun who has brought rays which are those of truth and righteousness and who by shining His healing and enlightening beams upon the human family will give them righteousness and life; for that Sun shall shine upon the whole earth, dispelling the darkness of sin and error and introducing truth and righteousness and by its rays will heal the race from the curse. In John 15:1 

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He is referred to as the "vine," and that because just as branches receive their growth out of a vine and receive out of a vine the sap intended to bring forth fruit unto perfection, so all who come into Him find in Him sustenance supporting life and fruitfulness. In Is. 9:6 He is called "Wonderful" and this is true of Him in His person as having existed in three natures with marvelous attributes in each nature in His character as the exact impress of God's character in His teachings, as being perfect and causing astonishment to the hearers and in His work as being surpassingly marvelous; for as God's Agent He has wrought the works of creation, providence, instruction, redemption, justification, sanctification and deliverance; and in all these works He has indeed been "Wonderful" and will therefore be Wonderful. A final Scriptural term that we will explain is in Rev. 19:13, where He is called "The Word of God"; and this is true of Him from several standpoints: (1) as the Revealer of that Word, (2) as the Expounder of that Word, (3) as the living Example in the outworking of that Word, (4) as the Father's Illustration of the details of that Word, and finally (5) as the One that will make that Word victorious. Thus every accomplishment of the Word of God will be wrought by Him, as the Scriptures as God's Word are Christo-centric, all of their teachings emanating out of Him as the Father's Agent in revealing teachings and making victorious the Truth of God. Certainly the Scriptures apply an immense number of very fine titles to Him. Those of His titles that are connected to the 21 titles of His Saviorhood having been discussed above, we have not discussed under the term of His titles. And those of His titles which have no relation to His posthuman experiences we have likewise passed by without discussion here. We trust that our discussion of our Lord in His prehuman existence, in His carnation, in His narrow way, in His sufferings and in His posthuman experiences, covering His resurrection, glorification, ministry of titles, will enhance God to our hearts and magnify and glorify Jesus to them.