Page:Studies in the Scriptures - Series I - The Plan of the Ages (1909).djvu/298

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But great as will be the accumulating glory of those per- fect men who will constitute the eartniy phase of the king- dom, the glory of the heavenly will be the glory that ex- celleth. While the former will shine as the stars for- ever, the lattei w& shine as the brightness of the firma- ment as the sun, (Dan. t* 3.) The honors of heaven as well as of earth shall be laid at the fee: of the Christ The human mind can approximate, but cannot clearly conceive ; the glory to he revealed in the Christ through the countless ages of eternity. Rom 8 *8 r Eph. rf, 7~xa n

It is through these two phases of the kingdom that the promise to Abraham is to be verified "In thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." "Thy seed shall be as the sand of the sea, ana as the stars of heaven" an earthly and a heavenly seedy both God's in-' struments of blessing to the world* Both phases of the promises were clearly seen and intended by God from the beginning; but only the earthly was seen by. Abraham, And though God seleded from the natural seed the chief of the spiritual class (the apostles and others), and proffered the chief blessing, the spiritual, to all of that nation living in the due time for that heavenly call, this was just so much beyond what Abraham ever saw in the covenant favor upon favor,

Paul (Rom, n : 17) speaks of the Abrahamic covenant as a root out of which fleshly Israel grew naturally, but into which the Gentile believers were grafted when the natural branches were cut off because of unbelief. This proves the double fulfilment of the promise in the development of the two seeds* earthly (human; and heavenly (spiritual), which will constitute the two phases of the kingdom. This root-covenant bears these two distinct kinds of branches, each of which in the resurrection will bear its own distind kind of perfect fruitage the human and spiritual classes in,

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