suffering as opposed to living with Christ, and earlier in the chapter we

read, 'if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he

strive lawfully' (2 Tim. 2:5).  Athleo, 'strive for mastery', is a word used

of Greek sports or 'athletics' and such a term is far removed from the

concept of Colossians 1:12,13.  In 2 Timothy 4:7,8, Paul uses athletic terms:

'I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the

faith: henceforth ... a crown'.

So in the context of the heavenly kingdom in 2 Timothy 4:18, we have

his being forsaken when he stood his trial, his being 'delivered out of the

mouth of the lion', and his being 'preserved unto His heavenly kingdom',

which brings this passage into line with the Overcomers of Revelation 20:4 -

6.  Parallels, however, are not identical.  Paul's sphere of reigning with

Christ will not necessarily be in the Millennial kingdom, his sphere either

in grace or in reward is 'far above all ... where Christ sits'.

When we examine the remaining references to the kingdom, apart from

those in Colossians and in 2 Timothy, we are immediately transferred from the

ground of grace alone, to the ground of merit and reward.  When the apostle

wrote to the Thessalonians 'that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of

God, for which ye also suffer' (2 Thess. 1:5), he had 'suffering and

reigning' in view.

Kataxioo, 'to count worthy', occurs elsewhere in Luke 20:35; 21:36 and

Acts 5:41 where there is a stress on conflict and endurance.  No one is, or

ever will be, 'counted worthy' of a place in the Church of the Mystery and no

amount of 'suffering' will ever make one a member of the One Body.  We are

obviously on other ground when we read 2 Thessalonians 1:5, the ground of the

race and the prize.  A number of most solemn passages in both sets of Paul's

epistles emphasize the fact that certain evil practices will bring about a

loss, although, as in 1 Corinthians 3:13 -15 we must never confuse 'being

lost' with a saved one though 'suffering loss', yet who will be 'saved so as

by fire'.  We now turn to those passages, found in epistles to believers in

Galatians, 1 Corinthians and in Ephesians, which are parallels with

Revelation 21:8.  Some of the Galatians were liable to spell 'liberty' as

'licence' and to such the apostle addressed the following warning:

'Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery,

fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred,

variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings,

murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like ... they ... Shall not

Inherit the kingdom of God' (Gal. 5:19 -21).

A similar warning is given to the Corinthians, 'Know ye not that the

unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God' (1 Cor. 6:9) and lest we

should be inclined to hand this over to the unsaved, the apostle continues,

'be not deceived', and then comes a list similar to the dreadful catalogue

cited above from Galatians 5, a list that concludes as it opens with the

warning that such shall not inherit the kingdom of God.  It is possible that

some one will say such a condition might have obtained in Paul's early

ministry, but could find no place in his Prison ministry of the Church of the

One Body; alas, this is not so, and we must quote the passage in Ephesians

5:1 -6 in full, awful as the list may sound in close contact with the

exhortation 'to walk in love':