Union with Christ X: Our Final Glorification

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Welcome to the Whole Council Podcast, I'm Jon Snyder, and with me again is A .C. Floyd, and we are looking at the doctrine of union with Christ, such a central doctrine to understanding the fullness and the sureness of the salvation of a believer.

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We've been talking about union with Christ and how it's connected with the other aspects. In a sense, we could say it's the hub of so many aspects of salvation because it is the means by which, being united to the mediator, we receive from him all these things that are promised to us.

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And today we want to look at that great final reality that the believer is heading toward, and that is glorification.

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So just a real quick recap, union with Christ is a spiritual union, it's vital, it's mystical.

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That's the old word for it, which means it's mysterious. It is also unbreakable, and it is, in one aspect, timeless.

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We talked about the fact that we are chosen in him before the creation of this universe.

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And while that is a wonderful mystery, the other end of that wonderful mystery is that in eternity future, if we could kind of say it that way, in the everlasting future, what

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A .W. Tozer called from vanishing point to vanishing point, going back in our thoughts as far as we can, going all the way back to the beginning, and then he says it's like you walk to the end of a road, and that's the beginning of human time, of history, you know,

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Genesis 1 .1, and then you peer back into the past before that. If you get to the point where I can no more imagine anything prior, that's the vanishing point, and then you do that for the future.

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From vanishing point to vanishing point, union with Christ is the unalterable reality that each hour of our normal earthly life has to be viewed in light of that, and I find that very difficult.

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You know, I find that the moment -to -moment events of my life tend to become the lens through which

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I view my salvation, either despairing or hoping or, you know, but that's the exact wrong approach.

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We talked about the fact that union with Christ has objective realities, you know, like we are in Christ, so we are justified in Him, but it also has subjective realities.

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We are being transformed daily, so there are realities that are unalterable and true realities, but they have occurred outside of us because of our union with Christ, adopted into His family, and then there are these realities that we are experiencing daily, so sanctification or the perseverance of the believer, the daily provision of all the defeasions one talks about.

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You have all these things in Christ, and we live on those things, but what about the finish line?

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Not the starting line, not all the steps that follow between the start and the finish line.

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Today, we're looking at the finish line or what the Bible calls glorification. So, we want to look at that, and we want to see how union with Christ is at the heart of our hope in this coming glorification and how union with Christ helps us to understand when we look at the

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Scripture that this goes far beyond just an individual's expectation that one day

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I will be in heaven, and the pains and the sorrows will all be behind me.

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That is true for the believer, but it is such a small part of the truth that it's hard to say that's true.

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Well, that is part of the truth, but there is so much more, and it's very helpful to back up and see the big picture.

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So, I'm going to shoot a question to you, AC. One question that we might think we already know the answer to is, when does this glorification, this completion occur?

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And maybe I should read a definition of glorification. I skipped that. This is how John Murray describes glorification.

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He says this, So, that's quite a mouthful.

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So, we can be simple for our podcast purposes. Glorification is the completion of our rescue and much more.

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So, let's think about the much more and when this occurs.

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When does glorification occur? So, glorification occurs, we could say, at the end.

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It's something that I talked about briefly in our last podcast when I read from Romans 8, verses 22 and 23.

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So, let me read those verses again. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.

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Not only that, but we also have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves grown within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body.

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So, Paul is pointing forward to that great day, the day that the

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New Testament calls the day of regeneration. When all things are made new and specifically on that day of regeneration, the sons and daughters of God are presented, glorified, complete in Christ.

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So, when we're talking about when does glorification occur, it occurs on that day.

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It occurs for the entirety of the people of God, for the entire corporate body on that day.

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So, glorification does not occur at death. No. And that's something

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I think that we can be mistaken about if we're not careful, because the Bible does say so many wonderful things about what does occur at the physical death of a believer.

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We sleep in Christ. We die in Christ, but because of being in Christ, it's not the kind of death that the unbeliever has.

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We are not separated from the source of life, from God. So, the body's laid in a grave.

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The soul, the spirit is with Christ. To be absent from the body is to be present with Christ.

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And Paul says that is better. So, there is a sinless existence at that point.

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There is an existence without any possibility of sorrow and disappointment.

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There is the perfect love of Christ.

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It's paradise, but it is an intermediary state, we might say.

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It is what occurs between the grave and the final return of Christ.

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And that, as you mentioned, is when glorification occurs. So, when we think about glorification, when it occurs, what happens to the believer at the time of glorification?

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That's something in my own walk that I've not always had a good understanding of. When Lanny Autry passed away 11 years ago...

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He was one of the original pastors of this church. Yes. At that time,

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Chris Green and his family were moving back from San Diego to Oxford, and a bunch of us at the church were helping them unload and move back into their house.

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And Jamie Crampton and I were talking with a group of people, probably five or six other people.

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Jamie, some of our hearers might recognize that name because he was on one of our Navigating the

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Classics episodes. Yeah. So, you'll know Jamie from that. But me and Jamie were talking to a group of people, probably five or six other people, and I said, you know,

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Lanny is now with the Lord, with his glorified body. And Jamie very quickly said, no, he's not. No, he's not.

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And then I just kind of moved on thinking, well, you know, okay, Jamie. And then I said it again, and Jamie said emphatically, no, he is not.

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So, at that moment... Are you the reason that Jamie joined the Presbyterians and abandoned us?

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That was long before Autry. You set it in motion. Anyway. Yeah. I think

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I thought the same way, that if a believer dies, you know, they're with the

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Lord and they're glorified, but they're not. Now, the reason that this is so important is because if we don't get the right biblical description of all that glorification is connected with, we think of it only as an individualistic thing.

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So, I'm living my life. You know, I'm fighting the good fight. I'm running my race.

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And at the end, I will die. And then I will be with Christ in heaven.

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And all the other things the scripture says that are connected with glorification, and not just the believer is no longer in this world with this body.

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Those other things are so significant that if we can do what Lloyd Jones always counseled doing, back up from yourself and see the big picture and then see yourself in that big picture.

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When we do that, it delivers us from that kind of wobbly foundation of just me and Jesus.

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And I don't mean that Christ is a bad foundation, but, you know, emotionally we go up and down. And so it's like, you know, it's like, we only, we have some truths and we're hoping in those truths, but then we look in the mirror and we think, could this possibly be true for me?

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Because I stink at being a Christian at this moment. And so maybe I'm not a Christian at all.

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And maybe my hope is, you know, just a delusion. And you could look in the mirror and think,

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I find it hard to believe that God will complete the process of sanctification.

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And I will stand before him without flaw, without any ugly sinful spots left.

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It's always good to back up from yourself. It gives us a right perspective.

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If we can connect the finishing of our course with the finishing of the course, the glorification of Christ and how it's connected with so many other things.

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Now for, I want us to talk about that, but before we do, we want to give an illustration. Yesterday when

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AC was supposed to be working, he showed me a video. All right. And so this concerns me just a little, but he showed me a video about a man and his extraordinary effort, a man named

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Jan Roos, a 32 year old Estonian. And he is, according to Teddy, he is a

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Hollywood stuntman at times. And what he did, what this video was about was he had a cable run from the edge of Sicily all the way over to the mainland in Italy.

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It's, I think, 3 ,600 meters, 15 ,000 steps were required.

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So this cable is suspended. All right. He's going to walk this line, a tight rope, and the wind is blowing and he starts off on his journey.

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And 15 ,000 steps later, he ends it. He actually fell once.

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Now he's over the ocean, but he had, I think he had a cable on him. So, you know, he fell and he came back up and then completed it.

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So he didn't get the world record that he was hoping for, but he did complete it with one flub.

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But as you watch this guy, the wind on the ocean there, it's just blowing the entire cable to the left, you know, as you're watching it.

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So he's having to adjust for it. Now he amazingly does those 15 ,000 plus steps with one mistake.

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And, you know, and you look at that and you can see because of his skill, one cable is enough for him to travel a long distance.

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But you wouldn't look at him in this three hour effort on a 1 .9

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centimeter cable. You wouldn't look at him and say, man, you know, he has a firm, solid foundation.

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That man has rest and peace, you know, and confidence and assurance because he's always having to maintain himself by this balancing act.

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If a Christian only thinks of finishing their course as an individual thing, that's not attached to all the rest that the

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Bible attaches it to, I think it's very much like that man, you will make it, but you will always be having to do this unnecessary kind of balancing act because you're standing on one cable.

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When the Bible gives a picture of the great goal that we're headed toward, connected with all these other aspects in the doctrine of glorification, and it's more like a suspension bridge, which has all those cables running this way and that way to hold up the bridge.

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And a person that walks across a giant, you know, suspension bridge that, you know, that cars go across, he has a solid footing.

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He's not having to balance himself. So let's look at what it's connected with and back up and see the biggest picture and how that,

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I hope, will alter the way we view our own walk with the Lord. So A .C.,

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when you think about glorification and the bigger picture, where would you start?

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We have to start with who we're united to, who we're connected with. It's Christ.

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And we have to think about ourselves in our glorification and with His glorification.

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If we will believe and have assurance of His glorification and have the utmost confidence in His, then we have to also realize that in Him, our glorification is just as sure and just as certain.

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So if you think about the glorification of Christ, that one day at the end of time, He will return and He will be, you know, as you read in Romans 8,

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He will receive before the sight of all creation, the infinite glory that belongs to Him, not only as the eternal

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Son, but as the God -Man and the reward of His suffering, of His labors will be fully

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His. Every knee will bow. Every tongue will confess that He is Lord. The kingdom will be all gathered together.

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The work of saving each of those in that kingdom will be finished.

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When you think about all of that, we don't doubt that because we know that that's based on the

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Father's integrity. He has made promises to the Son, and we cannot imagine the eternal, infinite

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Father failing His eternal, infinite

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Son. So that great, you know, as the Bible presents it, this great contract of mercy, this covenant of redemption between the

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Father and the Son or the inter -Trinitarian counsels, if you want to put it that way, it's mysterious, but we see hints of it in Scripture.

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We know from Scripture, the Father has made promises to the Son. The Son has done all the pleasure of the

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Father and the reward will be given. If our being in Christ is seen biblically, then we understand that our hope that we will be ultimately completed.

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And that rests on not our faithfulness ultimately, but the

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Father's faithfulness to the Son, that He will glorify Him. But also you think about the

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Son's faithfulness to the Father. The Father will be glorified also. So when the

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Father pours out the glory upon the Son and all bow before Him and they bow to Him and they profess that He is

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Lord, Paul tells us the profession is Jesus, the God -man, you are

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Lord to the glory of God, the Father.

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1 Corinthians 15, the Son gathers all things together under His throne. The Father places everything under His feet and the

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Son takes the completed kingdom and hands it in a sense to the

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Father so that all might not only glory in the

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Son, but might praise the great architect of redemption, the Father.

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And so if we can imagine the Son failing to complete the tasks required for that day to come, now that He is enthroned, if we can imagine

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Him losing Christians, which John 6 says He would not lose one of them, but raise them all up on that day, if we can imagine

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Him not presenting His people to the Father without spot or wrinkle, which

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Jude talks about, then we can imagine the

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Father not receiving the glory and we then not being completed.

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Yeah. And thinking about other big picture aspects of the day of glorification, we can think about something that just mentioned a few moments ago, which is the glorification of the entire body of Christ.

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And that's something that if we really put our minds to it and have some spiritual imagination thinking about that day, that you and I will be glorified on that day, along with the prophet

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Jeremiah, John the Baptist, the apostle Paul, all the rest of the saints throughout the ages that we look to as brothers and sisters that kind of help us along the way, all of them on that great day will be made complete in Christ and glorified along with us.

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So think of it this way. If we think of glorification, not only as the day, but everything that must occur for that day to occur.

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So that includes every believer taking the next step on the path of following Christ today.

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And even though we stumble and sometimes we get off the path and we find no hope in ourselves, but the believer will persevere, will endure, will continue heading that direction.

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All of that is guaranteed because all believers will be gathered together at the end of time and all will be made completed once.

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So we read about that in Hebrews 11, where at the end of the chapter of this, you know, the hall of faith, verse 39,

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Hebrews says in chapter 11, and all these, all these Old Testament saints having gained approval through their faith did not receive what was promised.

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Ultimately, they died still yearning for something. Next verse, because God had provided something better for us so that apart from us, they would not be made perfect.

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So every Old Testament believer, there is something still imperfect in, in their process of rescue.

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They are with Christ, separated from their body. They are in a sinless, perfect environment, but they are not finished until the last believer is brought home.

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And then Christ is glorified and every believer together and every

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Old Testament saint is given the ultimate hope, the ultimate thing they hoped in and believed

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God for, you know, the completion of their rescue to be with him forever.

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If we can imagine that Abraham, and if we can imagine that Daniel and Isaiah, you know, if we can imagine the

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Old Testament saints, the New Testament saints, the saints, as you mentioned for the last 2000 years, if we can imagine

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God failing to keep his word to them and they remain incomplete forever, then we can imagine that we as believers won't make it.

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For us not to make it, they're not going to make it. So we can reason that way and say, I will make it.

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And so I wake up this morning and have to live on what's real. There is another thing that I think we have to be careful to include to get all these, you know, great supporting iron cables.

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Our hope that we will finish well and God will be glorified in the glorification of his son and we will be glorified because we are linked with that son.

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One of the aspects we can't forget is that it will include our body and not just our soul. Our soul, our spiritual side was involved in sin and that will not be left as a trophy for the enemy.

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We are Christ and the spiritual aspects of us will be so perfectly cleansed at that moment of glorification.

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We will never be able to go back to sin, never be able to desire something wrong, think something wrong, say something wrong, pursue something wrong, do something wrong ever again.

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Sin's taint on us spiritually will be forever removed. He will restore the ruin that sin brought to us spiritually, but also physically this body that we presently have has been an instrument

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Paul talks about. It's been an instrument of unrighteousness, but it will not be a trophy of the enemy.

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It's not as if glorification means that the spiritual side of John Snyder or A .C. will be made perfectly

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Christ -like in that moral image at the end, but also our bodies.

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They will not be left as the trophy of the enemy. They will be cleansed and remade in some amazing way and this very body raised from a grave, remade at that moment of glorification, will be the vehicle of endless, uninterrupted expressions of love and obedience toward God.

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So, nothing about our person will be left for the enemy to say, well, at least

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I got this as my trophy. And then, of course, there's the gigantic picture, the cosmos, which you mentioned.

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All creation will be, in a sense, remade. It will be new.

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Something about the old will be done away with, something completely new, something restorative.

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We at least know this, every aspect of sin's ruin, everywhere sin has touched creation and creation in Romans 8 that you talked about is personified as groaning under the pollution of our sin.

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Paul uses words that we would say in modern language, it stands on tiptoe, leaning, yearning, looking for the return of Christ, for the completion of the believers from all the ages together.

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And when that occurs, even creation will be fully delivered and restored from sin's stain.

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So, if we can back up and see that I will be able to persevere today,

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I will progress in obedience today, I will not let go of Christ today.

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How do you know that, believer? Well, it's not because you look in the mirror and you think, well, because I'm not the kind of person that would let go of Christ.

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I'm a strong guy. I'm a strong woman. No, but because I know that there are so many things attached, interwoven together in that ultimate completion of all that God has done and planned and promised.

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So, when that's come to completion, I will come to completion, but I am connected with these other things. And if I don't make it, then none of that will happen.

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It's all overturned because it's all connected. And I can't imagine any of these other things not occurring.

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I know they will, because it's not resting on me. So, ultimately, though,

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I have a responsibility to walk with the Lord today, humbly, repentantly, believingly.

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I know that that walk is not a waste of effort because it will be,

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I am in him, and I will be completed in him along with all these other things that the

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Bible mentions. So, not the tightrope walker, as amazing as he was, who constantly for three hours had to balance himself, but the person walking across a modern bridge that has all these lanes of traffic.

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And we walk across with a solid assurance that our present sanctification and final completion are built upon so much more than my present devotion to Christ.

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I think that's why Paul in Romans 5 says that we glory or we hope in, we boast in the glory of God.

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He will receive his glory. So, my life being attached to that in Christ, I will be made complete.

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So many wonderful things about the doctrine of union with Christ, we've only just kind of hit on them. Remember that there is a great book.

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It's not basic in the sense of childish. It's a very adult book, but it is,

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I would say, the best small treatment of the doctrines of our salvation and union with Christ is there and all the other aspects of our rescue are discussed as well.

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So, John Murray, Redemption Accomplished and Applied, just a really great book.

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Well, AC, thanks for giving us your time and, you know, doing overtime to walk through this doctrine with us.

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And next week, Teddy and I will be sitting down and discussing

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Proverbs 2. How does a person listen to the voice of divine wisdom and what is the result depending on how you listen?