RESURRECTION comes, not from the first Adam, but with the last Adam. The first Adam had a creature's portion, his-while he was innocent, in Eden. The last Adam is-it would have been impossible for us to have known " who" pr " what," - if God had not, by His Spirit, written for us His own thoughts about the Son of His Love as God manifest in flesh.
In that word we read, that when all the subdivisions of time, as connected with God's dealings with man upon this earth, are over,-then, past all dispensations, there is to take place the resurrection of the wicked,-a last resurrection unto judgment. For the first resurrection of the blessed will have taken place a thousand years before the last resurrection.
The eternal immortality, which will fill and surround those who have part in the first resurrection, has its source in God's love and in God's delight in the Son of His love; by whom and for whom He will bring into blessedness, past all our power to conceive, the people who have believed in Him and obeyed Him;—this through the Spirit. The Son will raise from among the dead His own people and take them to share His glories.
But this same Son will, afterward, raise the wicked too. Is their resurrection according to the power of the first Adam; or is it, a restoring of them to earth, or to the circumstances of time? No: the Son of Man will raise them;-they will stand in God's proper eternity, and their circumstances will, thenceforth, be (not according to man's earth, but) according to God's judgment upon Satan-the adversary of God and His Son-the power whom the wicked now serve.
The " forever " of the blessing of the one, and the " forever " of the curse of the other, is as to duration according to the " forever " of God's eternity; and the state of the one and of the other according to the
moral condition and experience which they have previously been in. The one, lovers of Him that had loved them and having experienced association with the Lord during the thousand years, shall be, according to God's own " forever," blessed. The other, the fearful and unbelieving, will find themselves to be, according to God's own " forever," under the curse and with Satan. The power that raises them is irresistible;-the mind that wields that power knows no change. They are raised, all dispensations past, in God's proper eternity;-there, where the true character of everything is detected and will be judged. As to annihilation, or a change of condition, or position for those who have been cast into the lake of fire-there is no such thing in Scripture. It is the folly of the human mind, set on by Satan if it be subject to him, which alone ever ventures to create for itself such a fiction: a fiction which will be found
entirely fallacious-a fiction which is easily judged to be a fiction even now, because it makes man's convenience and liberty to be independent of God its center and end, and not (as does the written word) the glory of God in His holiness, redeeming to Himself by the Son of His love poor sinners through grace from the wrath to come.
See John 5:19-2919Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. 20For the Father loveth the Son, and showeth him all things that himself doeth: and he will show him greater works than these, that ye may marvel. 21For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. 22For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son: 23That all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He that honoreth not the Son honoreth not the Father which hath sent him. 24Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life. 25Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live. 26For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; 27And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. 28Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, 29And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation. (John 5:19‑29), and Rev. 20
This is another point whence to look at the questions referred to and answered in the Article No. 24., page 357.
God will take care what you go through. Do you take care how you go through it?
How different is the Lord's sympathy in sorrow from man's-aye, the very best of man's-meted out as His must ever be, to the exact extent and depth of the sorrow itself; and also to the fluctuating SENSE of it, in all its ups and downs, affected as that is by every wind that blows.
I may think you have a little load compared to mine, or vice versa. But it matters little as to the weight; the great point is the spirit in which it is borne, and the strength ascertained in bearing it.
God is seeking to build us up into the likeness of Christ, and nothing marked Him more than patience and longsuffering.