Live a Life out of the Old Creation and in God for the Goal of the Out-Resurrection

We need to pursue Christ toward the goal of the out-resurrection, the extra-resurrection, the outstanding resurrection, which will be a prize to the overcoming saints; for us, to live should be Christ as the out-resurrection. Amen!

This week we come to the topic of, Attaining to the Out-resurrection, based on Phil. 3:11 and the surrounding verses.

We need to attain to, arrive to, achieve, and obtain the out-resurrection spoken of by Paul in this portion.

Day by day we are in the process of being transformed and conformed to the image of Christ, and the prize that we aim to gain is the out-resurrection.

Paul counted all things to be loss on account of the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus Christ, his Lord, on account of whom he has suffered the loss of all things and counted them as refuse that he may gain Christ.

He did not want to have his own righteousness which is out of the law but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is out of God and based on faith.

All this is so that he may know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if perhaps he may attain to the out-resurrection from the dead.

The goal is this out-resurrection.

May the Lord lead us in our daily living as the Spirit of reality through all the experiences that we need so that we may continually pursue Christ until we attain to the out-resurrection from the dead.

May we open to the Lord’s shepherding and guiding, His transforming and conforming, and His inner operating so that we may be the overcomers He desires to gain today.

May we give the Lord access to our inner being so that we may remain in the process of being the Lord’s overcomers in this age.

No matter what is our spiritual age, no matter whether we are advanced or just beginning in our Christian life, we aspire to be the overcomers that the Lord needs, even to be part of the bride.

And we desire to attain to the out-resurrection from the dead as the prize to the overcoming saints.

We desire to gain this wonderful and excellent Christ, the One who is resurrection and even who is the out-resurrection.

The Out-Resurrection, the Extra-Resurrection, is the Prize to the Overcoming Saints

The out-resurrection spoken of by Paul in Phil. 3:11 refers to the outstanding resurrection, the extra resurrection, which will be a prize to the overcoming saints (Rev. 20:4, 6).

This expression, out-resurrection, is quite special; it is not the ordinary resurrection but an extra-resurrection, an outstanding resurrection.

An illustration of this would be graduating from university versus graduating with honours, even with the highest honours.

All the believers who are dead in Christ will participate in the resurrection from the dead at the Lord’s coming back, as seen in 1 Thes. 4:16 and 1 Cor. 15:52.

When the Lord returns, we will be resurrected and we will have a body of glory, as the Lord has promised.

But the overcomers will enjoy an extra, outstanding portion of that resurrection, a resurrection in which they will receive the reward of the kingdom; this is what the apostle Paul sought after (Phil. 3:11; Heb. 11:35, 26).

All believers in Christ will “graduate” at the Lord’s coming back, but some believers who are overcomers will “graduate with honours” even with the highest honours.

The Lord Jesus is the resurrection and the life (John 11:25), but the overcomers experience this, and they are willing to pay the price to attain to the out-resurrection from the dead.

The overcomers are those who, at the judgment seat of Christ, will hear from the Lord, Well-done, good and faithful slave; enter into the joy of your Master.

We want to hear these words. We want to obtain the “better resurrection” mentioned in Heb. 11:35, which is not only “the first resurrection” (Rev. 20:4-6), “the resurrection of life” (John 5:28-29), but also the out-resurrection, the resurrection in which the Lord’s overcomers will receive the reward of the kingdom.

May the Lord enlighten the eyes of our heart to see the matter of the out-resurrection and be the Lord’s overcomers to attain to the out-resurrection from the dead.

We may not really know what is our spiritual condition before the Lord, but He knows; He wants us to be saved from any kind of self-deception and really see the light and be brought on with Him to be His overcomers today.

What a blessing it is to stand before the Lord God who is light, who loves us to the uttermost and just be where we are and what we are, and allow the Lord to take us on with Him and bring us all the way into victory.

He wants to give us the prize of the out-resurrection as a prize to the overcoming saints; He wants us to be His overcomers who will be raptured alive at the Lord’s return.

This is our living hope, that we would be His overcomers who obtain this extra-resurrection, this outstanding resurrection.

We want to be part of the Lord’s bridal army who descends to the earth to deal with the enemy at Armageddon and reign with the Lord for one thousand years.

We all have our course before the Lord, the race set before us; we all have the journey that the Lord has planned for us.

We need to finish this race personally and together, and we need to become the reproduction of Christ, even the same as He is.

He wants to gain us as His overcomers, and we want to cooperate with Him to be produced as the overcomers today for us to attain to the out-resurrection, the prize.

We can tell the Lord concerning this in all honesty,

Dear Lord Jesus, we want to pursue toward the goal of the out-resurrection from the dead. Make us Your overcomers; make me an overcomer and make the saints Your overcomers. Amen, Lord, we want to cooperate with You to be produced as Your overcomers today who will receive the prize of the out-resurrection, the extra resurrection, the outstanding resurrection. You know our spiritual condition; You know where we are, who we are, and what we need. We open to You, Lord; take us on with You. We stand before You even as we are and we want to go on with You until we are produced to be Your overcomers who will receive the prize of the out-resurrection from the dead! Save us from any kind of self-deception; save us from thinking we are something we are not. We humble ourselves before You and we just want to go on with You. Make us willing to pay the price to attain to the out-resurrection from the dead!

Live a Life out of the Old Creation and in God for the Goal of the Out-Resurrection

The out-resurrection is actually Christ Himself in resurrection as a special reward to the Lord’s overcomers.

Before His incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection, there was no such thing as an out-resurrection from the dead.

But when the Lord was incarnated, God was joined to His creation; when He was crucified, the entire old creation was brought to the cross and nailed there.

Through His crucifixion, Christ terminated the old creation, and in His death, He brought the old creation (signified by the grave clothes) with Him in the tomb.

When Christ was resurrected, He left the grave clothes behind (John 20:6-7), thus leaving the old creation in the tomb.

When He came forth in resurrection, Christ was a person absolutely out of the old creation and in God.

For us to attain to the goal of the out-resurrection, we need to live a life out of the old creation and in God.

Christ attained to this out-resurrection through crucifixion and resurrection; now we can attain to the out-resurrection by living in God, not in the old creation.

May we have this mind (Phil. 3:15), the mind of pursuing the out-resurrection.

We have been chosen, redeemed, and regenerated by God to pursue one thing – to have our living out of the old creation and in God!

The out-resurrection is not something apart from Christ; it is the dear, precious, excellent, and excellent person of Christ, who has passed out of the old creation and has entered into God.

He is far more excellent than anything and anyone else, including the angels.

Christ Himself is the reality of the out-resurrection.

For Paul, to live was Christ as the out-resurrection (Phil. 1:21; 3:11).

May we have this realization and be those who allow Christ to live in us, testifying that to us to live is Christ, and that we have been crucified with Christ so that Christ may live in us and we live one spirit with Him (Gal. 2:20).

The Christ who lives in us is the One who, in His own person, is the reality of the out-resurrection (John 11:25; Rev. 1:17b-18; 2:8).

The out-resurrection is actually the dear, precious, excellent person of Christ, the One who, through crucifixion and resurrection, has passed out of the old creation and has entered into God (John 14:3, 20; Heb. 6:19-20).

This One lives in us and He is making us the same as He is; He is constituting us with Himself as the out-resurrection.

Because He is in us and operates in us, we will pass out of the old creation and live in God so that we may attain to the out-resurrection.

Our body will still remain the body of sin and death, and death operates in our body, but resurrection operates in our spirit to renew us and make us fully new and full of life.

The more we set our mind on the spirit, the more we come to God’s word with our heart turned to the Lord and our spirit exercised, the more we remain in the process of out-resurrection until we attain to the goal.

This is taking place in us little by little, day by day.

In order for us to attain to the out-resurrection, we need to know Christ in the power of His resurrection, know Him in the fellowship of His sufferings, and know Him by being conformed to His death (Phil. 3:10-11).

The more we know Christ experientially, the more we know the power of His resurrection.

This power enables us to enter into the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death. This brings us into the out-resurrection.

May the Lord keep us in this cycle, in this experience of Christ in His power of resurrection, His fellowship of sufferings, and being conformed to His death, so that we may attain to the out-resurrection from the dead.

Like Paul, we cannot say that we account of ourselves to have laid hold of the out-resurrection already, but we pursue toward this goal for the prize to which God in Christ Jesus has called us upward. We pursue toward the goal.

We want to live a life out of the old creation and in God, a life through death and resurrection, so that Christ may live in us.

We want to gain more of the dear, precious, excellent person of Christ, the One who has passed out of the old creation and has entered into God.

We want to gain Him, be found in Him, experience Him, and be one with Him, so that we may attain to the out-resurrection from the dead.

Lord Jesus, we want to live out of the old creation and in God so that we may attain to the out-resurrection from the dead! Amen, Lord, we believe that we are crucified with Christ and it is no longer us who live but Christ who lives in us, and the life which we now live, we live in faith, the faith of the Son of God! Amen, Lord, we love You and we want to gain You! We want to gain the excellent, precious, dear person of Christ who is now in resurrection and who is the out-resurrection! Amen, Lord Jesus, we want to know Christ in the power of His resurrection, in the fellowship of His sufferings, and being conformed to His death, so that we may attain to the out-resurrection from the dead! We pursue toward the goal of the out-resurrection for the prize to which God in Christ Jesus had called us upward! Take us on with You, Lord, and bring us on all the way to the goal!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ron Kangas in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-Study of Philippians, msgs. 22-23, 53-56 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Knowing, Experiencing, and Enjoying Christ as Revealed in Philippians (2023 Memorial Day Weekend Conference), week 6, entitled, Attaining to the Out-resurrection.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – I am crucified with Christ, / And the cross hath set me free; / I have ris’n again with Christ, / And He lives and reigns in me. / Oh! it is so sweet to die with Christ, / To the world, and self, and sin; / Oh! it is so sweet to live with Christ, / As He lives and reigns within. (Hymns #482 stanza 1 and chorus)
  – Buried with Christ, and raised with Him too; / What is there left for me to do? / Simply to cease from struggling and strife, / Simply to walk in newness of life. / Glory be to God! / Risen with Christ, my glorious Head, / Holiness now the pathway I tread, / Beautiful thought, while walking therein: / He that is dead is freed from sin. / Glory be to God! (Hymns #483 stanzas 2-3)
  – If we die we’ll live with Christ, / If we suffer we shall reign; / Only thus the prize of glory / Can the conqueror attain. / Oh, how sweet, on that glad morning / Should the Master say to thee, / “Yes, my child, thou didst go with me / All the way to Calvary.” (Hymns #481 stanza 3)