[1Co 3:3 KJV] 3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas [there is] among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?

Adam’s fallen race is in decay. For anything dead, begins to break down into smaller and smaller components, which further degrade until all is dust again.

Yesterday I played a few tunes at a memorial service. Several years ago I had done renovation work on an old log cabin for a lady. We became friends and had many good conversations. She one day asked me to play the pipes at her memorial service when the time came, and I agreed. About a month ago, her family contacted me, told me of her passing, and that she had written in her last instructions, that I was to do this, which of course I did happily. Before the ceremony began, the “priest” was asking the family something about her ashes. I was not engaged in the conversation, but I remember thinking, “those are not her ashes…they are part of the creation, and belong to the Lord”. I was not being disrespectful. I always govern my tongue and respect people’s convictions, as they have the God given latitude to hold them. But the thinking was based upon a question that Jesus asked in a parable, “And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man’s, who shall give you that which is your own?” I have always taken this to primarily point to the nature of this body of flesh that we are provided to sojourn in, while we make choices as to where we may or may not find ourselves in departing. If not faithful in this loaner, who will give us a real body of our own? A body incorruptible, and eternal? For every molecule in the pot of ashes that the “priest” called “her” ashes, were not then, nor ever were hers alone. Every every atom and every water molecule in my body have been, without a doubt, part of countless organisms, objects animated and inanimate, over the many long years since they were created. There is no possible way to assign any body to any organism as it’s own, since natural bodies are all composed of shared material, and after one’s departure, the rudimentary elements will find their way, yet again, into people, plants, soil, rocks, whatever. Before his fall, the Lord spoke to the man and woman that in the day they ate of the restricted fruit, they would surely die. This word embraced the whole of the race, and it set to work immediately.

The human race has fracture , divided, sub divided, and so forth, from that time. The human race is demonstrating all the earmarks of death at work. Man divides into nations. Man divides into religions. Nations and religions sub divide into opposing factions. Those factions further break down into yet smaller and smaller groupings, and so forth. Hence the saying, “As in Adam all die, even so (in the same manner) in Christ shall all be made alive.

The Apostle Paul recognized these things and drew a line of demarcation between the living and the dead. He said to all believers everywhere, “whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?” This same man also said, “Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more”.

Jesus said of himself, except a seed of wheat fall to the earth and dies, it abides alone. But if it falls to the earth and dies, it brings forth much fruit”. The fruiting body is a head of wheat, each seed of which contains the entire genetic inheritance of the progenitor of the solitary seed that went into the ground.

Of these things, the prophet Isaiah spoke many years before:

[Isa 53:8 KJV] 8 He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

The question is, if he is put to death, where will his generation be found? How does a dead man produce offspring? The answer is RESURRECTION.

In the wilderness, as the children of Jacob were lead out of Egypt, a miraculous thing (among many) occurred. In a sign, a dead walking stick, long since cut off of an Almond tree, was raised to life, it flowered and fruited, bearing a generation of seed in it’s resurrection, and in that estate, was placed in the holiest place of the tabernacle, in the ark of testimonies. The message being that a tree was descended from a gift of almonds was given to Joseph by his father Jacob as part of a payment for food. (Jacob at that time thought he was dealing with Pharaoh, and that his son Joseph was dead.) About four hundred years later, a branch of that tree would be cut off to make a walking stick. That walking stick would lead the children out of bondage, be raised, and enter the holiest place, the only almond out of Jacob to do so. And in it’s resurrection it was not alone. A generation was born to it as a crop of almonds. The further message in this, is that we, in faith in Christ, are partaker in his resurrection. But more than this, that our journey begins in his resurrection, we are to grow into him in all things as partakers of his resurrection , and in his resurrection. His people are not Hansel and Gretel like children, following a trail of crumbs, trying to make their way home. The journey of faith, from conception, to birth, to a perfect (mature and complete) individual, begins and culminates in Him, having translated us out of darkness and into the kingdom of His dear Son.

The body of resurrection belongs to the resurrected. It is your own. It is incorruptible, inviolate, can not decay, and lives according to the power of the Eternal Spirit of the Living God. Humanity today is locked in a great dead work. Namely, that flesh will be put back together in some form of Utopian framework. But no work of flesh will endure, because of it’s temporal nature. It offers you no eternal habitation. Even in the churches of Revelation 2 &3, decay was at work, the Lord pointing out the things that were dead and dying. And these Utopian works of flesh may even offer a dream of human peace and coexistence, but so what? Can they give you anything on the other side of the grave? And why do these efforts always deny the voice of Him who offers it?

Unity is already established. It is unity in the Spirit of Christ. Division and sub division at work in humanity, in any arena, is always an indicator of death at work. So then, “If you then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits on the right hand of God, set your affections on things above, not on things in the earth, for you are dead and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall you also appear with him in glory”.

It says, that if in this life only, we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. Now, it does not say that we have no hope in this life, for that same Spirit that raised Christ dwells in us, and He will quicken even our mortal bodies. But ours is a far higher hope. That of a body born in His resurrection.

May no word or work of man kind deter you from this hope, which is in Christ Jesus. It is not necessary to walk in the ever forking path of the offended body of Adam’s rotting race. Christ is not divided. Think of it. A body of your own. Not a chemical loaner that has a shelf life. It is yours by faith.