But "far better" is not the "best." It is only a comparative. The superlative requires that the Christian shall have a body. Without a body the Christian is neither a complete human being nor a perfect son of God. The divine ordination is "_spirit, soul, and body_." Unless the Christian receives an immortal body the victory of our Lord Jesus Christ over death and over him who has the power of death (that is the Devil) is not complete. Satan as the strong man armed holds the goods and keeps them secure within his house. The instrument with which he is armed is the law. That law which requires that it shall be "appointed unto men once to die." The goods are the bodies of the saints, and the house is the dark and dismal grave. O the pitifulness of it! that our Lord Jesus Christ should possess the Christian as a ghost in heaven, and the Devil hold his blood -bought and spirit-sealed body in the grave. A risen Christ in an immortal body, surrounded by disembodied Christian ghosts in heaven forever--that is a concept too hideously grotesque to consider. An immortal Christ who redeemed his own body from the power of the grave, but is unable to deliver the bodies of those for whom he died--to think it is blasphemy! to believe it--impossible! If the Devil be the strong man armed, the risen Lord is the one "stronger than he," who has met and equalled all the demands of the law, and by his death nullified its ultimate power over the bodies of those for whom he died. In the very nature of the case, then, full redemption requires that the body of every Christian shall be delivered from the grave, and that every Christian, whether living or dead, shall be clothed finally with an immortal body. This is the great objective of salvation--not just to save men from vice and immorality here; not just to fit them with an antidote against the poison of sin; or give them an impetus to holiness and truth for a few brief years in this mortal body, then let them die under various circumstances of suffering and pain and be carried away to heaven to live there as attenuated, invisible ghosts forever! O no! it is not that! It is true men are to be saved here and now in such moral and spiritual fashion as that each saved person should make the world sweeter and better and nearer to God for living in it. All that is true, but it is only a part of the glorious truth. The supreme objective--the _ultima thule_ of redemption--is-- _Immortality_--the Christian eternally and incorruptibly embodied.