Page:Studies in the Scriptures - Series I - The Plan of the Ages (1909).djvu/208

 203 The

The change or transformation of mind, from earthly to heavenly, which the consecrated experience here, is the be- ginning of that change of nature. It is not a change of brain, nor a miracle in its changed operation, but it is the will and the bent of mind that are changed. Our will and sentiments represent our individuality; hence we are trans- formed, and reckoned as actually belonging to the heavenly nature, when our wills and sentiments are thus changed. True, this is but a very small beginning; but a begetting, as this is termed, is always but a small beginning; yet it is the earnest or assurance of the finished work. Eph. i : 13, 14.

Some have asked, How shall we know ourselves when changed? How shall we then know that we are the same beings that lived and suffered and sacrificed that we might be partakers of this glory? Will we be the same conscious beings? Most assuredly, yes. If we be dead with Christ, we shall also live with him. (Rom. 6 : 8.) Changes which daily occur to our human bodies do not cause us to forget the past, or to lose our identity.*

These thoughts may help us to understand also ho\v the Son, when changed from spiritual to human conditions to human nature and earthly limitations was a man ; and though it was the same being in both cases, under the first conditions he was spiritual and under the second conditions

each, seven years witnesses a complete change in our component atoms. So the promised change from human to spiritual bodies will not destroy either memory or identity, but will increase their power and range. The same divine mind that now is ours, with the tame memory, the same reasoning poweis* etc., will then find its powers expanded to im- measurable heights and depths, in harmony with its new spiritual body, and memory will trace all our career from earliest human infancy- and we will be able, by contrast, fully to realize the glorious reward of out sacrifice. But this could not Ixs the case if the human were not an image of the spiritual
 * Our human bodies are constantly changing. Science declares that

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