The Special Resurrection — Robert B. Thompson

Lord, we do praise you for your goodness and your wonderful love, Lord, so wonderful to us. The way you help us and do things, Lord, is just marvelous. Praise your holy name, Lord. You are wonderful. Lord, we thank you for your attention to the details of our lives.

We appreciate it, appreciate your goodness, Lord. Help, Lord, for those that have burdens here. We pray you will answer, answer the cry of the heart, Lord, that God may be glorified. Praise your name, Lord.

Oh, hallelujah. We ask in your name, Lord. And then as we continue, Lord, we need your guidance. There is nothing, Lord, apart from your help. Nothing, whatever. So we pray the Holy Spirit will lend Jesus to each person as the need is there, that we will feed on his body and blood and our minds will be enlightened.

In Jesus' name, amen. So we'll see what Eduardo has amazed us with. Week 11, 21 April, 98. Tape 4102. Six Unscriptural Traditions. Series, The Resurrection. Recommended reading, The Resurrection. Short answer.

Pressing Toward the Resurrection

In Philippians chapter 3, Paul states, I count not myself to have apprehended. I press towards the mark for the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. As an apostle with an accomplished record of ministry, what was he referring to?

I'm going to spend the rest of the evening on that. That's a very profound part of the scripture. Okay, in context, if you have your... Brian Penkowski is working on a proposal, let's see if we can't...

Wouldn't it be wonderful to project the scripture up there? That's what we're working towards, so pray with us to that end. Make it easier for you. But in the meanwhile, would you turn to your Bible and look at Philippians chapter 3, verse 10.

And someone, when you have it... This is... Yes, Barry. Oh, you have it? And then in 3, verses 10 and 11, he gets very specific. Philippians 3, verses 10 and 11. Philippians 3. I'm saying this for Bobby.

Verses 10 and 11. Okay. Now this is a really, it's an enigmatic passage. I mean, it's not one that's readily understood in terms of our framework of understanding. Although, you remember in Hebrews, the 6th chapter, starting with the first verse, it says, Let's leave the principles of the doctrine of Christ and go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, of baptisms, of the laying on of hands and the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.

And so, the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment are doctrines. They're still part of the elementary. I mean, these are the kindergarten stuff. You know, let's leave these and go on somewhere.

But we haven't gotten there yet. I mean, we haven't gotten out of kindergarten yet. And so, the doctrine of the resurrection and the doctrine of eternal judgment are not that familiar to the Christian church.

We understand pretty well about repentance. Faith toward God. Baptism in the Holy Spirit. Baptism in water. It's baptisms, plural. I'm quoting Hebrews 6 .2. But then, the last two mention, as we press on toward perfection, which in terms of Hebrews is the rest of God.

Hebrews calls perfection the rest of God. In other words, the place in God where you're doing His will. Where you're at rest in God's person and will. But you have to go through the resurrection and eternal judgment.

Well, these doctrines have been lost to the church. We preach a lot about eternal judgment in this church. We preach a lot about that doctrine. About getting your sins judged now. Get them confessed. Get rid of them.

And of course, when you do, that's an eternal judgment. God doesn't expect you to confess some sin, get it cleaned, and then go back into it. No. Once we put our hand to the plow, we don't look back if we want to be worthy of the kingdom.

So, it is an eternal judgment. But the church, by and large, is not aware. They're just coming past Pentecost. So, these are trailblazers. But the resurrection of the dead has been really lost to us. It's just like this thing.

I had an interesting email. Bill Ott and I are corresponding with a Muslim in Turkey. And he answered. He asked a wonderful question. He does English quite well. And he sends deep questions. And Bill answers those.

And he wanted to know, for example, how come God couldn't just forgive us? Why did we need to get involved with Christ? And of course, we pointed out about the blood atonement without the shedding of blood.

God's scales are not balanced. He can't just forgive people. There has to be an atonement. And the one he came up with today. Bill's out on business, so I've been kind of filling in. He said, I understand your flesh and bones will be raised.

But you mean raised in heaven, don't you? And I wrote back today and said, no. We go to heaven by dying. But we're raised to walk again on the earth. And then he asked another thing. He said, if Jesus Christ read to you from the Koran and communicated with you from the Koran, would you accept it?

And I wrote back, yes, absolutely. Jesus is my Lord. And if he reads from the Koran, I said, now I'll ask you a question. If Mohammed asked you to read from the Bible and said that Jesus is God's son and communicated with you this way, would you believe Mohammed?

So I'm waiting for his reply. But he's a good person. He's a very gentle, nice spirit. Very sweet fellow. But this idea of the resurrection has been lost to the Christian church. And see, this influence of Gnosticism has pervaded not only Christianity, but Mohammedanism.

And, of course, we have the Indian happy hunting ground. And other Eastern religions point to the paradise. Christianity is the only one that advances a resurrection that I know of in which you're actually restored to life on the earth, which is immortality.

See, there's two things. There's eternal life, which is life in God's spirit. And then there's immortality, which is everlasting life in the body. Immortality. We may get into that later. So, Philippians 3, verses 10 and 11.

Someone has that. Read it out in loud, clear, bell-like tones. I used to be a fifth grade teacher. Read it out in loud, clear, bell-like tones. I may know him. Notice the order. Notice that we would put sufferings first.

But, you see, you can't endure his sufferings until you have the power of his resurrection. The Holy Spirit has guided the Bible that way. Sequence and order is very important. You have to have the power of his resurrection in order to endure the fellowship of his sufferings with joy.

So, go ahead. Alright, being conformed to his death. Now, that's a death of humiliation. Of denial. Rejection. All that he was tempted with the world and with the kingdoms of the world and with personal ambitions, jumping off the pinnacle.

But all of this was denied him. It's not denied him now. He has everything now. But temporarily, it was denied him. And that's being conformed to his death on the cross. It's Paul's goal. See, to count everything in the world garbage.

To be conformed. That's the only way you can come to know him, gain him, win him. It's to follow in the footsteps of Paul. To count everything that was gained to you that you didn't get through Christ as loss for Christ and loss for you.

Everything you receive, you've got to receive twice. See, you're given at once. But then it's got to die and it's got to be given to you again through Christ. And then it's yours. But before that, it's temporary.

Just like Abraham and Isaac. See, you had to receive him twice. That you get the first time. You can't hold. It's temporary. It rapidly becomes an idol. But when you have to let it go in Christ. In Christ, as he calls for it.

And then he restores it. If he restores it. And he doesn't restore anything unless it's going to work to your joy. Then you have it forever. So whatever you're going to have forever, you have to receive twice.

You have to have it through Christ. Whatever you get and you don't get through Christ is temporary. What you get through Christ is eternal. It's yours. It's founded in the resurrection. So, being formed to his death is letting all things.

See, if you save your life with things you receive the first time, you're going to lose them. If you lose your life in Christ, you will save it. And it's the only way you can save your life is by losing it.

The Cross, Self-Denial, and Spiritual Fruitfulness

The way up is down. The way to the resurrection is through the cross. The way to the fullness of the inheritance is through weakness and death. Has to be, because otherwise Adam is exalted instead of Christ.

And God will not give his glory to another. And not seeing that, all that we perceive is suffering, death and denial. See, that's why instruction is important. If you don't have that, you figure, what's happening to me?

It's the devil. And then you go around rebuking the devil and everybody pray for me and get the devil out of it. It isn't the devil. The devil does God's business against his will. God's always one jump ahead of him.

All he manages to do is save the world. But this idea, it says Christ, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross. If you don't have joy set before you, you can't endure the cross. Everything looks bleak and hopeless.

I have to give up this, I have to give up that. I might as well go be a hermit and live in a cave somewhere because I can't have anything. But if you see where God is going, that the king is offering to trade the glory of the kingdom for your rags, then you have joy set before you, then you can endure the cross.

If Christ, as powerful and marvelous as he is, had to have joy before him in order to endure the cross, how much more do we have to have joy set before us in order to endure the cross? And we get that joy from reading the scriptures.

We find out what God is about in our life. And then we say, well, Lord, it ain't easy. But we realize this is what, just like a college education or becoming a part of the seals or anything else, there's some things that you go through in life that are difficult.

And you just have to deny yourself. Learning to be a real expert piano player requires many years of back-breaking discipline when everybody else is having a grand time. Becoming a gold medal swimmer requires a strict diet.

You should read about those in the Santa Clara Swim Club. I mean, the diet, the grueling hours of exercise. So even in a world where we work for a perishable crown, we know that you have to deny yourself.

You can't eat your cake and have it too. It doesn't work that way. And in the kingdom, it's the same way. If you're going to have the resurrection, you have to have it to begin with, and then as you submit to death, then you get more resurrection, more death, and like that, and finally you have the supreme triumph of being totally free from worldliness, lust, and self-will.

And there's no shortcuts. And that's how you save your life, is by losing it. If you don't lose your life, you'll be barren spiritually. In order to be fruitful spiritually, you have to fall into the ground and die.

And if Christ had merely come and taught his philosophy, and then returned to heaven, he wouldn't have been the world changer that he's been. He'd be on a level with Muhammad and Buddha, and a few others, Zoroaster and a few others, but because he died, it's the fruit came from his death.

And the fruit of your life will come from your death. When you're a young minister, if you write, you write flowery phrases. You'll put together the most excellent array of verses along with your philosophy, and a few big words to impress the peons, I guess, and you can't fault it, it's accurate.

And maybe a lot of people help from it. But if you've been through death with Jesus, you can tell right away, this is not coming from the cross. It's coming from the human mind. It's accurate, but it's not coming from the cross.

And ministry that produces eternal change in the kingdom comes from the cross. Not out of the mind of man in his walnut wine study. It comes out of prisons, and out of fastings, and out of denial. So he says, being conformed to his death, okay, now the next verse is truly inscrutable.

It's truly inscrutable. I don't think I have ever heard anyone preach on it. Ever. I've heard a few sermons in my life, and you have too. Has anyone in here ever heard anyone preach Philippians 3 .11, barring this church.

Philippians 3 .11. Have you ever heard anyone preach on that? Well, we ought to. It's in the Bible. It's in John 3 .16. So, Paul is saying something here. He's summing up his goal. This is his high calling.

This is the mark. This is where the goal is defined. And that goal is foreign to us, because we have not known the doctrine of the resurrection. We've got caught up in being caught up. And that is a red herring.

I mean, that's to take you right off the path. There's no redemption in being caught up. There's no redemption in that. There's no feast of the Lord that symbolizes being caught up. There's no feast on the 40th day, after the Feast of Firstfoots is on the 50th day at Pentecost.

There's nothing there. The catching up is merely an act of kingdom convenience to gather together the saints with the Lord to get on their horses and to get organized for the cavalry charge of Armageddon.

They couldn't start from the ground, because that charge is coming down and probably will be formed on the dried up bed of the Euphrates. Because just before the coming of the Lord, the Euphrates River is dried up, and I believe it's to be a staging area, because the coming of the Lord is a cavalry charge.

And of course he could attack from the air, but he's not going to do that. It's going to be a ground attack against Armageddon, who will be in the valley of Megiddo. And the riverbed of the Euphrates is a perfect staging area, because it cuts off the valley of Megiddo on the east and on the north.

On the west will be the Mediterranean Sea, which will have been turned to blood. So he's blocked on the Antichrist in the valley of Megiddo, is blocked on the west, blocked on the north, blocked on the east.

And then we notice at the same time that there's a great earthquake, and there's a great valley that's opened up from Jerusalem to the Mount of Olives, and a part of the land shifts to the north, and a part of the land shifts to the south.

And that valley that's opened up is, if Christ and a few of his generals should leave the host under officers on the riverbed of the Euphrates and ride through that valley that's been opened up while the Jews are fleeing eastward, which Zechariah says they will, he'd be cut off both his flanks, his northern flank and his southern flank would be cut off.

The north by those in the bed of the Euphrates just sloops around like that, and on the south he'd be cut off by Christ himself. The Mediterranean at his back, and the full force of the army with the banner showing the ramping lion coming at him directly from the east and moving like that.

And he's annihilated. He's annihilated. It's a perfect military strategy. Flanks are covered, direct frontal assault, and no retreat. He's heathed. Anybody that knows anything about tactics will tell you that's a winner.

I mean, he's dead. He's finished. He has nowhere to go. And of course, upward he can't go because the warrior angels of God will be there. So there's no place he can go. He's finished. So, it isn't, we have, that's the purpose of the catching up is to organize because we who are alive and remain will be caught up with the newly resurrected saints who will have returned with Jesus to get their bodies.

They'll be caught up. We'll be chained and caught up together with them so that we can be put in our place. You just can't have a mob coming out of heaven with Christ. It says, when Christ shall appear, we shall appear with him.

Well, he's coming as an army, as a general with the head of an army. That's Revelation 19. And an army, the most conspicuous aspect of an army is discipline and organization. That's how it differs from a mob.

And so, here comes everybody up. They'll have to be organized, ready for the invasion of Armageddon. Here comes the vials of the wrath of God to soften up the earth, softening up procedure. And down they come, because there'll still be a lot of people on the earth, a lot of wickedness on the earth.

Kind of a simple battle plan. But that isn't where the action is. The action is in the resurrection. See, that's where the action is. Once you're raised from the dead, you don't have to worry about antichrist, tribulation, or anything.

Once you're raised, like it says in 1 Thessalonians 4, and the dead in Christ shall rise first. That means be raised from the dead. Before they're caught up, they're raised from the dead. And they're on their feet on the earth.

Before they're caught up, they're on their feet on the earth. Nothing can touch them. They're invulnerable, because they've been raised from the dead. They're immortal. And they're filled with eternal life.

And so the Lord calls them up to himself so that they'll be a unit, and so that he can descend at the head of his army. Fits all the verses. Now, what Paul said is enigmatic in terms of all of our doctrine.

It makes no sense. Because Paul says, make sure you see it in your Bible now. Don't overlook it, because it's hard to perceive. If by any means I may attain. Now, what he's trying to attain is called there the resurrection.

Actually, it's a unique term used only once in the New Testament that means out-resurrection. The word is exonostasis. It means out-resurrection. So if you translate it like that, it helps, because it's not the general resurrection of the dead that comes at the end of the Kingdom Age.

It's not that. Here comes our drummer. We needed you to play the drums tonight. So what Paul is saying is, if by any means I may attain the resurrection, and properly translated it should be, which is out from among the dead.

The resurrection which is out from among the dead. And we know from other verses that that's the resurrection to life. That's the resurrection of the royal priesthood. Now, picture it. Here's a man, as Eddie said, with the accomplishments of his ministry behind him, an elder, probably in his 60s.

Paul's tradition has it that he was martyred around age 66, something like that. And here he is. Philippians is not the last epistle. 2 Timothy is. But when Philippians was written, he was in prison in Rome.

He was in prison in Rome when Philippians was written. And many of the epistles had been written. Churches had been established. Now, when this man says, if by any means I may attain to the resurrection, which is out from among the dead, then a couple of verses later he says, and let all of you who are perfect be thus minded.

And we never have heard it preached even once. None of us. Then we have trail to blaze. We have trail to blaze because the Holy Spirit doesn't give verses that have no bearing on the body of Christ. So, God wants us today to press on to the rest of God.

Entering the Rest of God and Overcoming Sin

And the rest of God is the place where your enemies have been brought under the feet of Christ as Diane McIntosh would call your exes. The things in you that cause an uproar. Whether it's hatred, fear, violence, some trauma when you were a child, whatever.

All these exes are in us. And all these have got to be brought under Christ's feet. They all war against God. They're all invading. They all are resident in our land of promise. So, we go against them city by city as the Spirit of God leads us.

And God wants us to attain perfect rest in His will so that we're not constantly being driven out of it by our desire for material things or some emotional problem or some personal ambition or some lust of our flesh.

All these war against our finding rest in God's will. Isn't that so? And they don't just disappear because you say boo. They, like the Philistines, this is their home. Your personality has been their home.

And in some cases, it's been passed down in your family line. They're generational. And they're like your family. They don't want to leave your family. They're very happy with your family. They may have come into your great-grandfather.

And they're very much accustomed to you and your ways and your family. And they don't want to leave. And they won't leave until you get the help of the Holy Spirit and are absolutely determined, desperate already, that they're going to leave.

And they won't leave until... I mean, they have to know that they are not welcome. If they see any... It's funny, it's like a dog. We have a very sensitive dog. I mean, that dog is so smart, it's appalling.

In fact, every once in a while, she tries to talk and makes the weirdest sounds. She's really a character, this dog. But she watches my face. And if I say something, she looks at me to see if I mean it.

If I say, bear outside, she'll look at my face. And she knows whether to move or not. She can tell by looking at me. She knows whether I mean business or I'm just... It's convenient, you know, and just as soon as she's out of the house.

But if she doesn't go, I'm not going to do any more about it. She watches my face. Sometimes she's not even looking at me, she can feel it. She can sense it. It's amazing. The things that go on that we don't know about, you know, that are really supernatural, they're just not what you would think would happen.

But that dog, I swear, knows when I mean business. She knows, and I'll have to say it but once. Bear out. And I mean, she doesn't argue. She doesn't sit and... She doesn't kind of yawn and look around when she's stalling.

I mean, she makes for the door. I say, good girl, out. Close the door. But if I'm, you know, really mellow and I don't really care and I don't think she's got to go to the bathroom or anything, and there's no real pressure, you know, that'd be convenient.

Why don't you go out and, you know, bark at the neighbor's dogs or something? But she watches me and stretches and yawns. I say, all right, you want to stay in, okay. And the demons are just like that.

That's why people don't get delivered from alcohol. I've seen it. Because there's ambiguity in their desire. They say, yeah, I want to get rid of it. I do, but I don't. Our boys, when they were young, used to say, I do, but I don't.

I do, but I don't. And have you got anything in you that you do, but you don't? Well, you get... When you go against Satan, you have to be all steel. They have to know that you are not going to take no for an answer.

That's why people can't get rid of booze or drugs or other things to the flesh. Adultery and fornication and things is because they're not really ready to say, it's okay not to drink. It's okay not to do adultery.

They're not there yet. They're trying to do good. Their intentions are the best. They know it's wrong and hurtful. But there's something way down deep. They're not sure it's okay not to do drugs. They're not sure it's okay not to drink.

They're not sure of that. You know, I'm not sure I want to take that jump. And as long as you're that way, you cannot get the drink. Because the demons are in there, they'll hang in by their fingernails.

If we could see them, they just get their claws in you like that. And they don't want to let go. You make them uncomfortable when you're praying. You make them uncomfortable. But it's when you make up your mind before the Lord and say, God, I need help, I don't want this anymore.

I'm finished with this. It's history as far as I'm concerned. God, help me. Then the Father hears that. The Father knows when you're saying prayers and when you're praying. He knows the difference. When that comes up and he realizes that is an earnest prayer from someone who is really ready to do without this thing.

It'll go. You don't have to scream. It'll go. So you get deliverance when that's what you want. When you want it bad enough. And so God in his goodness sends the hornets after us. You know that expression?

Does that make sense to you? There's things in us that we'd like to hide. Maybe we'd like to keep them concealed. Maybe just they want to be concealed. And God sends the hornets after them. And he stings them.

And they are uncomfortable and we're uncomfortable. And we're brought to a place of decision. God smokes them out. He smokes them out. You'll find that in Deuteronomy 7. Those that hide themselves from you.

I'll send the hornet. He says I want you to destroy them with a terrible destruction until they're destroyed. The word destroyed is in there three times in that verse. Destroy them with a complete destruction until they are destroyed.

That's in Deuteronomy chapter 7. And that's the way God wants the demons in your life. To be destroyed with a terrible destruction until they're destroyed. And he can do it through his Holy Spirit. But you're the judge.

See, you blow the whistle. And you're the one that decides. Now, that's the process of entering the rest of God. It means entering into the land of promise. And Israel never did that. They would not do that.

And they have suffered for it to this day. They would get just so far until they had room to make their vines and their fig trees and their sheep and their nut trees. And they'd make peace with the Jebusites and the Amorites and the rest of them.

And they figured, well, they've got to eat too, you know. And what happened is what God said would happen. Israel began to worship their gods. And pretty soon they were driven right out of their land.

They would have never could have been captured by Nebuchadnezzar if they'd been serving God. They couldn't have been captured by anybody. But it came because they didn't enter the rest of God. And that's why Hebrews says there remains therefore a rest for the people of God.

They did not enter the rest the way God wanted. They compromised. And Christians do that. They get just so far in the Lord and then they hear a more demanding message and they figure, well, I'm comfortable.

I know the people in this church and I love the pastor and he's a dear man and, you know, my kids are set. And you preach something that's too demanding for them and they won't even hear you. And they're just like the Jews.

They don't have a heart for God. Not realizing that this is for God's sake that we get rid of these devils. I mean, they're keeping Christ at the right hand of the Father waiting until his enemies have made his footstool.

All we're concerned about is that we're comfy and we've made some progress and surely God won't throw me into hell because I go to church. That's the average church member and they don't go any further.

Some of them don't even get as far as Pentecost. To be in God's remnant you've got to have a heart to fight. And God is calling on a warrior remnant today. And I'm telling you once we back off in this church they'll even go to another.

The people in this church that mean business with God will keep going until as long as they're hearing on the growing edge of what's going on they'll stay. And once I get complacent they'll go and I know that.

That isn't why I don't get complacent. I don't get complacent because it's in my heart as a desire to stay on what God is doing. I mean it's fun to go with God. I don't like this stuff of playing around with one foot in the world and half a heart.

You can't because the pressures are too great. You've either got to be ready to go all the way or you're going to get pushback because the dynamics are such that there's no resting place. So what we're preaching in this church is full bore entering the rest of God.

No holds barred. Nothing. There's no stopping of the train. It's going on. God willing. And that's what we're about here. As they keep pushing this thing through and building the highway of holiness. And I can tell from the internet and the responses that we get there's a lot of people out there that feel just that way.

And they thank God there's somebody that is giving them something that they can grow on. So. Alright. I said that to say this. That's perfection. When Hebrews says let us leave these things and go on to perfection.

The perfection it's talking about is that rest of God where the enemies of God are being put under your feet as fast as you come to them. That's why it says labor to enter into the rest of God. Cease from your own works and press into the rest of God.

That's in Hebrews chapter 4. Cease from your own works and press into the rest of God. See and that's that place where everything where you're doing God's will at any moment. You can look up to God and say praise your name.

Father if you've got anything else for me just let me know. I'm raring to go. I've got them all packaged away so far. And you can do that and that's the only way to live. Let Satan talk you out of it.

Tell you oh nobody can do that. It certainly can. That's the ordinary Christian life is to live the overcoming life of victory and accept no compromise. Nothing. Once God shows you a problem go after it.

Go after it. And God will keep you going. You can do it. Believe me. Our Father does not give you frustrating commandments. His commandments are not grievous. They're perfectly possible. If we do our part you can perfectly do what God has asked you to do.

Absolutely. God never asks you to do something that he doesn't stand ready to give you the grace to do it. Never asks you to do anything that he doesn't stand ready to give you the grace to do it. Because he's our loving Father and he's not out here to frustrate his kids.

When we back off it's because we've got one eye on God and one eye on something else. We get divided. Then our body is not full of light. And our hands are weak. Is there any question about that? Alright we got into that from Hebrews chapter 6 verse 2.

Let us leave the principles 1 and 2. Let us leave the principles or the kindergarten stuff and go on to perfection which is the rest of God that we've been talking about. But our point tonight is this.

The Special Resurrection Versus the General Resurrection

One of those kindergarten things is called the resurrection of the dead and we don't know much about it. We haven't been taught the resurrection. We've been taught that Christ was raised from the dead.

But we haven't been taught that we're going to be raised from the dead. We have and yet we haven't. It's not real to us. And God wants it real to us. If we're going to enter the rest of God the doctrine of the resurrection has to be firmly established established in our personality.

That's why I said let's leave these things now and discuss that and let's go on to the rest. Okay you don't go on to the first grade until you finish kindergarten. Alright now Philippians 3 .11 where Paul says if by any means I may attain to the resurrection which is out from among the dead is virtually unknown to us.

We don't know what it means. No one preaches on it Amplified says wishy-washy around the moral resurrection and that's a cyclical argument. I could turn back on that editor but I don't want to in here to do that.

Because a few verses later we find in Philippians 3 at the end of the chapter he's talking about the literal resurrection. He said Christ will transform your body by the power of his body. That's the last verse in the same chapter Philippians 3.

Now so Paul is talking about the physical redemption of his body for which he groaned. Now we have no problem with that except for the word attain. See our assumption is that the resurrection is something that's just going to naturally accrue to people if they do the four steps of salvation.

The resurrection then is a fait accompli. If that were the case why would Paul at the end of his ministry say he was trying to attain the resurrection which is out from among the dead? See it doesn't wash.

It's certainly not talking about heaven. Paul isn't saying if by any means I may go to heaven that's ridiculous. Or if by any means I may be saved that's ridiculous. He's talking about something that we don't understand.

So we have to go to other passages in the Bible to find out what he's talking about. Now there's two things in Philippians 3 .11 that are remarkable. The first one is the verb attain. If by any means I may attain.

The second thing that's remarkable is the word for resurrection itself which as I said is only used once in the New Testament. Exonostasis which is properly translated the resurrection which is out from among the dead.

Now stop and think. The way you use prepositions is important. There's a resurrection of the dead and a resurrection from the dead. And of and from are two different prepositions. Exactly. Right. Because the stress there is a preposition out from that is prefixed to the word anastasis.