Our Hope & Things to Come

In these passages Paul does not promise the Body of Christ that trouble will pass us by. He shows who meets us in it, what that God gives, and what we are to do with it: comfort that stands while the trouble stands, a hope proved by trial, and a lot we were told of beforehand.

Matthew 23:39 makes the second advent wait on one sentence Jerusalem has not yet said. Read the whole paragraph and you find what the sentence is about — their treatment of the men God sends them. They killed the prophets, they stoned Stephen, they refused the apostolic witness. The house stands desolate still.

Paul says God hath made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Being seated is not the believer's location, nor merely his posture, but his position — a finished, shared, heavenly, and permanent place in the risen Christ, a seat that is also a throne. Here is what the seat means, and what it does not.

Salvation and reward are not two names for one thing. One is a free gift that cannot be earned or lost; the other is a wage for service that can be gained or forfeited, yet never touches the gift. Rightly divide the two and the trembling conscience and the careless heart are answered at once.

The church is called the body of Christ, never the bride. Ephesians 5 ends not in betrothal but in one body, His own flesh and bones. The bride, the Lamb's wife, is the New Jerusalem, the covenant people of Israel married, put away, and brought home. Rightly divided, the wife is Israel and the Body is nearer than a bride.

Matthew 10:33 and 2 Timothy 2:12 sound like the same threat, but rightly divided they stand worlds apart. The Lord's warning belongs to Israel under the kingdom program; Paul's word to the Body touches the reward of faithful service, never his salvation — and both rest on One who cannot deny Himself.

The kingdom of God is often flattened into one destiny, but rightly divided it embraces two realms — one earthly, one heavenly — with two peoples and two hopes. This article shows why flesh and blood inherits Israel's earthly kingdom, and why only the incorruptible enter the heavenly realm of the Body of Christ.

For the believer, the judgment seat of Christ is no courtroom of condemnation but the place where a faithful Master rewards His servants. Rightly divided, it weighs our service, never our salvation, and the crown of righteousness it gives is our glorification in Christ, all of grace, to all who love His appearing.