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shall call you the ministers of our God, ye shall eat the riches of the Gentiles and in their
glory shall ye boast yourselves . . . . . their seed shall be known among the Gentiles and
their offspring among people: all that see them shall acknowledge them that they are the
seed which the Lord hath blessed."
When all this has been accomplished for the earthly seed of Abraham and the Divine
promise put into effect and become literally true, Israel will have realized their hope.
Coming to the Church of the One Body we find no future blessing in an earthly
sphere, but a revelation of a mighty purpose to bless all such in the heavenlies far above
all where the ascended Lord Jesus is now seated (Eph. 2: 4, 5). This favoured company
has been "made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the holiest of all in light"
(Col. 1: 12). Now we walk by faith, but when this has become literally true and we enter
into our heavenly inheritance, our hope will have been realized. But we may ask, how
will this hope and the hope of other callings be fulfilled? The scriptural answer is that
there are only two ways: (1) for the living saints it will be the Lord's coming or the
manifestation of His glory; (2) for those of the redeemed who have died, it will be
resurrection. The Word of Truth knows no other way to glory, and hope that is based on
anything else, however ancient, learned or sincere it may appear, will surely lead to
deception and delusion. To substitute any other conception for the great truth of
resurrection as the hope for children of God who have died, is to miss the way and to
build on a foundation of sand.
Let us come to the ministry of the Lord Himself. We have seen that the Lord's
greatest comfort to a sorrowing woman was to remind her that her brother would rise
again (John 11: 23). What an opportunity the Saviour had for telling Martha that Lazarus
was consciously in glory, if this had been the truth! And if that was so, was it an act of
love that brought him back from the unutterable bliss of heaven to a world of sin, death
and darkness? But we go further. In the sixth chapter of John's Gospel we have a record
of the Lord's discourse to the multitudes who followed Him. He gave them precious
truth and revealed Himself as the Bread of Life (35) and promised the believer that he
should never hunger or thirst (35) and then added the following:
"And this is the Father's will . . . . . that I should lose nothing but should raise it up
again at the last day" (39).
Nor is this all, for verse forty continues:
"And this is the will of Him that sent Me, that everyone which seeth the Son and
believeth on Him, may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day."
And further on:
"No man can come to Me except the Father which hath sent Me draw him: and I will
raise him up at the last day" (44).
"Whoso eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood, hath eternal life and I will raise him
up at the last day" (54).
So we find that the Lord four times over emphasizes resurrection as the hope of the
believer. To those who are pleased to remind us that we should return to the "teaching of