PHILIPPIANS to press on more fully (I Corinthi ans 13:12). We have no doubt that Cod really knows us or else He would not be God! Our knowledge now is confined to the revelation which the Lord has seen fit to give us. How we do praise Him for that marvelous unveiling in His Word. In a coming hour, however, it will be face-to-face! The reality of life after death, with eternity in heaven for the be liever, is one of the blessed truths often underscored in the Bible (Philippians 3:20, 21). In I Corinthi ans 15:20 Paul testifies, "But now is Christ risen from the dead and be come the first fruits of them that slept." If the resurrection of Christ was only an exhibition of the Di vine power which can overthrow death, it might only mock us by its contrast with our own failures. Its glory consists in its being the ex ample and the pledge of what God will do in our lives as believers in Christ when Jesus comes again. The firstfruits show the promise of a larger harvest to come. So it is with the resurrection of Jesus Christ. By His own resurrection He has shown us what ours is going to be like. He's the sample of what awaits all the sons of God whom He is bring ing to glory. This is a portrayal of our wonderful future. Yes, in all our experiences of life Jesus Himself is the perfect example. Persecuted undeservingly because of the prejudice of His en emies who were envious of Him tried illegally, condemned to death as a criminal slave, He was the vic tim of brutal injustice. In spite of the sick whom He had healed, and the hungry whom He had fed, the ignorant whom He had enlight ened, and the individuals who were
seekers whom He had taught, the world, political, social and religi ous, threw Him out and nailed Him to the cross. His earthly career ended in stark and brutal tragedy. He did not even have a human chance to live. But this was all in the program of God. Man passed sentence on Him without regard to principles of equity and justice, and sent Him to die on the cross in shame. Had the story ended there at the cross, we might rightfully conclude that there is no justice in the universe, since the holiest and most gracious character who ever lived, died the worst of human deaths, despised and rejected by His own contemporaries. Thank God, it did not end there. The Almighty reversed the verdict (Acts 2:23-24). The resurrection of Christ is God's final declaration of the vindication of Jesus. It is the tan gible evidence that justice will pre vail in the universe, although some times it may be hard to believe that when we see the greed, corruption, violence and hatred prevailing ev erywhere. The. meek are obviously not inheriting the earth at the pres ent time. Right is forever on the scaffold with wrong forever on the throne. In spite of our idealism and our desires for a new world in which justice will prevail, we seem no nearer to it today than we were several millenniums ago. This is particularly true with God's people. They are still persecuted and hated as was their Master. It is hard to understand why righteous people should suffer and why the wicked unbelieving should prosper. Nev ertheless, they do. As far as human vision-goes, there seems to be no answer to the riddle apart from the teaching of the Bible. If there is an
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