728 The Spiritual Man
that among those who believe in Him, some will die and be raised up
while others will not pass through death at all.
The Lord Jesus expressed this view at the death of Lazarus: “I am
the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die,
yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never
die” (John 11.25-26). Here the Lord is not only the resurrection but
also the life. However, most of us believe Him as the resurrection,
yet forget that He also is the life. We readily admit He will raise us
up after we die, but do we equally acknowledge that He, because He
is our life, is able to keep us alive? The Lord Jesus explains to us His
two kinds of work, yet we only believe in one. Believers throughout
these twenty centuries shall have experienced the Lord’s word that
“he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live”; certain
others shall enjoy in the future His other word that “whoever lives
and believes in me shall never die.” Thousands and thousands of
believers already have departed in faith; but God says some shall
never die—not some shall never be raised again, but, some shall
never die. Consequently we have no reason to insist that we first
must die and subsequently be resurrected. Since the coming of the
Lord Jesus is nigh, why should we die beforehand and wait for
resurrection? Why not expect the Lord to come and rapture us that
we may be delivered totally from the power of death?
The Lord indicates He will be resurrection to many but also life to
some. Marvelous though it is to be raised from the dead, as was the
experience of Lazarus, this by no means exhausts the way of victory
over death. The Lord has another method: “never die.” We are
appointed to walk through the valley of the shadow of death; on the
other hand God has erected a floating bridge for us that we might go
directly to heaven. This floating bridge is rapture.
The time of rapture is drawing near. If anyone desires to be
raptured alive he here and now must learn how to overcome death.
Before rapture, the last enemy must be overcome. On the cross the