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II Cor. 4: 10, 11 is no less emphatic:--
"Always bearing about in the body the putting to death of the Lord Jesus, in order that
the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body. For always we who are the living,
are delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, in order that the life of Jesus also may be
manifested in our mortal flesh."
So also from Rom. 8: 11:--
"He Who raised up Christ from the dead will also quicken your mortal bodies through
the indwelling of His Spirit in you."
Rom. 4: provides us with a scriptural example of one whose physical mortal body
was actually "quickened" (read verses 17-20), and Rom. 12: declares that our bodies
may be yielded as living sacrifices.
May these possibilities stirs up to pray more intelligently that we may know what is
the exceeding greatness of the power which He wrought in Christ when He raised Him
from the dead.
"This Vile Body" (Phil. 3: 21).
We suppose it to be unnecessary to labour the proof that the R.V. rendering, "the body
of our humiliation," is the correct one. Phil. 3: 21 is not speaking of "the flesh" in its
connection with sin and corruption. While it is true that all have by nature a body of
flesh which is the seat and instrument of sin, Col. 2: 11 tells us the happy news that it
has been "put off" in Christ. "The body of humiliation" has reference to quite different
teaching. In Phil. 2: 5-9 we read:--
"Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus . . . . . Who humbled Himself
. . . . . wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him."
In Phil. 4: 12 we read that Paul could say:--
"I know both how to be abased (to be humbled), and I know how to abound."
"The body of humiliation" refers to the experience that Paul had of fellowship with
the sufferings of Christ. He humbled Himself and was glorified, and no one has the right
to presume that "conformity to the body of His glory" is his assured destiny who knows
not here and now "conformity to His death" (3: 10). Mind and body must agree. If we
look forward to having a body of glory like unto the Lord, is it too much to ask that we
have now the mind that was in Christ Jesus, or at least some approximation to it? Unless
there be harmony between mind and body there is insanity and the Scripture gives no
warrant that every believer may claim as his own, as a matter of course, either the body
of humiliation or the body of glory. Paul with this in view could say, "Christ shall be
magnified in my body."