THE CROSS IN THE LIFE OF ELIJAH

Harry Foster

This article is written in a way that elevates the redeemed to the predestined realm that most Christians have never considered. Christ is one spirit with us, an organic unity of beings. “He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit” (I Cor. 6:17). This book was endorsed by Billy Graham, so it has a great recommendation.

 

This union goes beyond a mere formal, functional, or idealistic harmony or rapport. It is an organic unity, an organic relationship of personalities. Through the new birth we become bona fide generated sons of God (I John 3:2), “partakers of the divine nature” (II Pet. 1:4) begotten by Him, impregnated with His “genes,” called the seed (“sperma”) of God (I John 5:1,18 and I Pet. 1:3,23), and bearing His heredity. 

 

Thus, through the new birth, and I speak reverently, we become the next of kin to the Trinity, a kind of extension of the Godhead. That this group outranks all other orders of created beings is attested by Paul’s dramatic questions in I Corinthians 6:2-3: Don’t you know that someday we Christians are going to judge and govern the world? Don’t you realize that we Christians will judge and reward the very angels in heaven? 

 

Here is a completely new, unique, and exclusive order of beings which may be called a “new species.” There is nothing like it in all the kingdoms of infinity. This is the order of beings which God envisioned when He spoke the worlds into being. This is the order of beings which Paul called ‘the new man’ (Eph. 2:15), the new humanity destined through the new birth to be the aristocracy of the universe. They form a new and exclusive royalty, a new ruling hierarchy. This order is divinely designated to be co-ruler, co-sovereign, co-administrator and a judicially equal partner to the throne by virtue of redemption and wedlock with the King of kings.

 

Nothing can ever dim the fact that infinity separates the Creator from the created. Christ is the eternally unique and only begotten Son, “the brightness of [God’s] glory, and the express image of his person.” But from all eternity God purposed to have a family circle of his very own, not only created but also generated by His own life, incorporating His own seed, “sperma,” “genes,” or heredity. Long ago, even before he made the world, God chose us to be his very own [in a genetic sense], through what Christ would do for us. In order to obtain this personal, organic family relationship, God conceived the infinitely vast and infinitely wise plan of creation plus redemption through the new birth, in order to bring “many sons to glory.”

Christ is the divine prototype after which this new species is being made. They are to be exact copies of Him, true genotypes, as utterly like Him as it is possible for the finite to be like the Infinite. As sons of God, begotten by Him, incorporating into their fundamental being and nature the very ‘genes’ of God, they rank above all other created beings and are elevated to the most sublime height possible short of becoming members of the Trinity itself. Although, Christ is the unique and only begotten Eternal Son, yet He does not retain His glory for Himself alone for He has declared, “The glory which thou gavest me, I have given them” (John 17:22). Therefore, the redeemed will share His glory, His ruler-ship, and His dominion as truly responsible princes of the Realm.