“We read – and it is true – that “God is a consuming fire”, and that “God is love.” We must bear in mind that it is not the gross fire that we know as fire, nor the gross passion that the world calls love, but it is a fire like that which Moses saw in the burning bush, which did not consume the bush. It is a fire that transmutes, consuming nothing but the grosser elements, transmuting them into the finer elements and to that more like itself.
At the present time we are so far from being like God that if God should speak to us in words, those words would consume us as a living fire. Therefore, those composing this Body must abide for centuries in that living fire before they are wholly transformed into spiritual substance. They will not die, but as it was said of the Christ, so it may be said concerning them, “Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades [the grave], neither wilt thou give thy Holy One to see corruption”, for they will have overcome death, as did the Christ.
In place of the body’s seeing corruption, the same law that now perpetuates it, will be accelerated. That is, we take nourishment to replace the tissue that is being burned up by thought and action. Thus, we are continually eliminating the old and taking on new bodily substance. As this bodily substance taken on is qualitated by the mind active at the time, so the members of this Grand Body, as they burn out and eliminate the old, will take on more and more spiritualized substance. The time will finally come in this process when they will become as invisible to those upon our present plane, as spirit is now invisible to man. The change with this body will be so gradual, however, that there will be no death. The process will be similar to that active in our present physical existence, by which we are constantly eliminating the old, and taking on new flesh.
It is necessary that this change should be gradual, for the members of this Body are to be, as declared by the angel to John, “kings and priests unto God and reign on the earth”; that is, while they will execute kingly dominion, it will not be by force, not by arbitrary word of command, but by the spirit of divine love, for “God is love.” That love will cause humanity to love to obey, to desire to obey, to desire to live in harmony with the laws of God manifested through this Body. They will be priests unto God, because they will be instructors and teachers to the world.
If this change were too sudden, this Body would soon be placed so far beyond the people who are to carry forward the work of Generation, that they would no longer be able to touch the mentality of the people. On the contrary, this process of refining being gradual, this Body will be able to lead the world of humanity up with them. This was revealed to John on Patmos, as seen in Revelation, for, after the 144,000 were sealed, John saw an innumerable company of every nation, tribe, and people who came up to the same general relation with God as the 144,000.
The world now under the most potent conditions of spiritual and mental power, could not be redeemed and brought up to this physical and spiritual plane in less than a thousand years, and perhaps not all of them in that time, for we read in Revelation that after the thousand years have expired, Satan, the adversary, will be loosed for a little season.”
Hiram Butler
The Mark Of God: Understanding Your "I AM Presence" 