The collectivist mentality began with the historical philosophy of Friedrich Hegel. It progressed to a solely economic and materialistic explanation of history through the philosophies of Karl Marx and Nikolai Lenin. It obtained its foundation from the supposed scientific theory of evolution avouched by Charles Darwin, who was an amateur scientist. This philosophy is completely atheistic and materialistic. Nazism and Fascism are also based on this philosophy. The collectivist mentality adheres to all forms of left-wing ideology from American liberalism to European socialism to Soviet and Chinese communism.
Hegel's philosophy proposed that history itself formed a powerful force that carried mankind along with it, similar to the way a raging river carries along people trapped in it. The raging river may drown some, may strand others on rocks in the river, and may deliver others safely to shore. But man has no power against the river. The river controls man's destinies.
Karl Marx, using the theory of evolution as the foundation for his philosophy, replaced Hegel's power of history with an economic power within history that would eventually deliver mankind to the shores of an economic utopia called communism. Marx thought that the moneyed classes, whom he thought oppresses the poorer classes, would all eventually be drowned by the power of his economic raging river if they fought against the current. Those who clung to the past would be stranded on rocks, but those who allowed themselves to be carried along by the current would eventually be swept to safety on the utopian shores of the communist society. Marx believed that the moneyed classes should be drowned by his raging economic river because they were the villains of history. Nazism simply replaced the the economic classes of Marx's theory with a racist theory which maintained that the superior race, the Aryans, should survive the raging river while all supposed inferior races should be drowned or stranded. In any case, all collectivist ideology is based on Darwin's supposed scientific theory of evolution which holds that in the course of history only those most fit will survive; that is, only those who cope with the raging river the best will survive. Marx believed that the raging economic river could never be stopped. No matter what each person may do, the entire human race will ineluctably be carried to the communist state. One suspects that Marx borrowed this idea from Christianity which teaches that Christ and His church will inevitably win over evil in the end.
All of this means that in the collectivist mentality, the whole human race included, the value of the individual cannot be considered important. Some are drowned and some are stranded, but those who have the good sense to allow themselves to be carried along by the raging river will eventually arrive safely to the utopian shore. The raging economic river itself remains completely indifferent as to who drowns and who survives.
Judaism and Christianity are directly opposed to this collectivist ideology. Christianity teaches that God controls the course of history, and that His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, came into the world to save every individual human who ever came into the world. Christianity teaches that the raging river is the evil, and its destruction of any individual is a tragedy. When Jesus walked the earth, He healed and saved people as individuals. When He died on the cross and rose from the dead, He did this to save every individual who ever lived from the destruction of the raging river. Christianity teaches that the raging river will eventually destroy all who refuse to call out to Christ for their salvation.
American liberals reveal their allegiance to the collectivist ideology when they assert that their supposed progressive ideas cannot be stopped and will eventually prevail in all future societies. The rights of women to have abortions and the rights of gays to marry are two such so-called progressive ideas that cannot be stopped. But the central theme of the collectivist ideology is that individual lives are not important. Unborn humans can be destroyed at will because the self-centered collectivist ideas about women is that which is most important, not the value of unborn individuals. The survival of the fittest is that which is important, and if any individual gets in the way of the collectivist mentality of progress, even if it is an innocent unborn baby, then that individual can be coldly dispatched and discarded. Because of the collectivist mentality, the communists shot millions of people in the backs of their heads, and subjected millions of others to slavery in gulags. The individual is simply not important to them.
The human race should thank God for Christianity. God loves every individual and every individual is important to Him. The Christian ideal of the great value of individual human life, and his freedom, created Western civilization. Christians should always stand for the great value of unborn humans, and against the collectivist mentality of the abortionist.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Saturday, August 25, 2012
SCIENTIFIC PRIDE and CHRISTIAN HUMILITY
One of the main criticisms that the atheists and materialists have directed against Christian believers is that Christian theology teaches that God put man at the center of the universe. They charge Christianity with teaching that man has a right to be proud since he is God's highest creation. They use the results of scientific investigations that have revealed that the sun is at the center of our solar system, and that the solar system orbits the center of our galaxy to argue that man is nothing special in our universe, and therefore, has no right to be proud. One of the facts of psychology is that often those who are guilty of a fault will accuse most others they know of being guilty of that same fault while being blind to it within themselves.
Such is the case with the materialists and atheists. Nowhere does the Bible teach that God put man at the center of the universe, or that man has a right to be proud. In fact, the Bible teaches the exact opposite of this. The Bible teaches that man is a sinner before God who needs to humble himself to God, admit that he is an evil sinner and accept by faith alone the grace of God provided through Christ our Savior, and then live for the glory of God. God is at the center of the Christian universe.
Those supposed Christians who opposed Galileo for discovering that the sun is at the center of our solar system were actually politicians who hid behind Christianity in order to further their hidden agenda. They knew very little about the Bible or that which true Christianity teaches.
The materialists and atheists seized on the scientific method as their means for trying to prove that God does not exist. Most of the original scientists were Christians, including Galileo and Newton. The atheist Charles Darwin discoverd the process of small changes within species called microevolution, and greatly expanded and inflated it to a theory that all species, and life itself, originated and evolved by pure chance and natural selection. Natural selection simply means that those animals who were better at surviving tended to survive, which was something everyone already knew. But Darwin theorized that the animals who better survived did so because of lucky mutations in their genes that gave them an edge. This means that he thought that life originated and evolved by chance alone since natural selection also operates by pure chance. The Darwinists persist in believing this even though modern science has discoverd that lucky mutations are extremely rare, and some of their own mathematicians have calculated that evolution by chance alone is absolutely impossible.
This is true hubris. For a person to take scant evidence and greatly inflate it to a theory that goes far beyond the small implications of the discovered evidence demonstrates nothing less than pure fantasy and mythmaking. One of Darwin's followers fantasized about prehistoric Nebraska man complete with descriptions of his villages and manner of life because he found a single tooth in Nebraska. Science later found that this was a pig's tooth. The early Darwinists did not shy away from presenting downright fraud as evidence for macroevolution. The bones of Piltdown man which were supposed to be evidence for macroevolution were later shown by scientists to be a fraudulent mixture of human and gorilla bones. Haeckel's supposed evolutionary progression of human embryos were later proved to be a fraud. In recent years, the Darwinist, Steven Jay Gould, theorized, because of the lack of real evidence for macroevolution, that macroevolution must have progressed by a means he called "punctuated equilibrium," by which he meant that over relatively small periods of time one animal, as if by magic, turned into a completely different kind. Those who believe this are the same kind of people who would ridicule anyone who claimed to be a real magician. This tendency of Darwinists to create fantasy and mythmaking might cause one to suspect that deep in their hearts they know the truth, but their pride and their hostility to God simply wont let them admit it.
Another myth of the macroevolutionists is that their theories are held up by certain pillars of evidence, and that all they have to do is to fill in the gaps with new evidence and their theory will be complete. They claim that the creationists' criticisms of their theories only amounts to a God-of-the-gaps set of objections. They believe that eventually new evidence will fill in all the gaps and God will be squeezed out, thus proving that there is no God. The truth of the matter is that there are no pillars holding up their theory. There exists no real evidence for any of the theories of macroevolution whatsoever. The whole theory of evolution by chance alone simply amounts to one huge gap.
Christianity is that truth that teaches that man knows very little, and God knows everything. This truth should make every man humble before God. But no Christian can have excessive pride who humbly accepts the great value that God has given him through His creation and His grace.
Such is the case with the materialists and atheists. Nowhere does the Bible teach that God put man at the center of the universe, or that man has a right to be proud. In fact, the Bible teaches the exact opposite of this. The Bible teaches that man is a sinner before God who needs to humble himself to God, admit that he is an evil sinner and accept by faith alone the grace of God provided through Christ our Savior, and then live for the glory of God. God is at the center of the Christian universe.
Those supposed Christians who opposed Galileo for discovering that the sun is at the center of our solar system were actually politicians who hid behind Christianity in order to further their hidden agenda. They knew very little about the Bible or that which true Christianity teaches.
The materialists and atheists seized on the scientific method as their means for trying to prove that God does not exist. Most of the original scientists were Christians, including Galileo and Newton. The atheist Charles Darwin discoverd the process of small changes within species called microevolution, and greatly expanded and inflated it to a theory that all species, and life itself, originated and evolved by pure chance and natural selection. Natural selection simply means that those animals who were better at surviving tended to survive, which was something everyone already knew. But Darwin theorized that the animals who better survived did so because of lucky mutations in their genes that gave them an edge. This means that he thought that life originated and evolved by chance alone since natural selection also operates by pure chance. The Darwinists persist in believing this even though modern science has discoverd that lucky mutations are extremely rare, and some of their own mathematicians have calculated that evolution by chance alone is absolutely impossible.
This is true hubris. For a person to take scant evidence and greatly inflate it to a theory that goes far beyond the small implications of the discovered evidence demonstrates nothing less than pure fantasy and mythmaking. One of Darwin's followers fantasized about prehistoric Nebraska man complete with descriptions of his villages and manner of life because he found a single tooth in Nebraska. Science later found that this was a pig's tooth. The early Darwinists did not shy away from presenting downright fraud as evidence for macroevolution. The bones of Piltdown man which were supposed to be evidence for macroevolution were later shown by scientists to be a fraudulent mixture of human and gorilla bones. Haeckel's supposed evolutionary progression of human embryos were later proved to be a fraud. In recent years, the Darwinist, Steven Jay Gould, theorized, because of the lack of real evidence for macroevolution, that macroevolution must have progressed by a means he called "punctuated equilibrium," by which he meant that over relatively small periods of time one animal, as if by magic, turned into a completely different kind. Those who believe this are the same kind of people who would ridicule anyone who claimed to be a real magician. This tendency of Darwinists to create fantasy and mythmaking might cause one to suspect that deep in their hearts they know the truth, but their pride and their hostility to God simply wont let them admit it.
Another myth of the macroevolutionists is that their theories are held up by certain pillars of evidence, and that all they have to do is to fill in the gaps with new evidence and their theory will be complete. They claim that the creationists' criticisms of their theories only amounts to a God-of-the-gaps set of objections. They believe that eventually new evidence will fill in all the gaps and God will be squeezed out, thus proving that there is no God. The truth of the matter is that there are no pillars holding up their theory. There exists no real evidence for any of the theories of macroevolution whatsoever. The whole theory of evolution by chance alone simply amounts to one huge gap.
Christianity is that truth that teaches that man knows very little, and God knows everything. This truth should make every man humble before God. But no Christian can have excessive pride who humbly accepts the great value that God has given him through His creation and His grace.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
AN ATTEMPT TO ANALYZE CONSCIOUSNESS
The materialists maintain that consciousness is identical with brain activity. But the only way that they can assert this identity is by being conscious of it. If they argue that brain activity is conscious of itself, they still must admit that the brain activity has produced a power of revelation of itself. Since consciousness always proceeds in only one direction; that is, consciousness always objectifies its object and the object never objectifies consciousness, then consciousness must be that power that reveals the existence of brain activity. This means that consciousness, even if only produced by brain activity, must be a real entity within itself since it alone holds the power of revelation. But this power of revelation also holds another curious power. This power of revelation can objectify itself, revealing itself to itself. This is self-consciousness. But this reality of self-consciousness also means that the power of revelation must continuously retract itself from itself in order to objectify itself. This also means that consciousness can never be analyzed because it never reveals itself to itself as being a whole or as having parts. It only reveals itself to itself as that necessary power of revelation that makes reality possible, and that is all. However, this power of self-consciousness that causes it to continuously retreat from itself seems to mean that it has some connection to infinity.
The materialists might counter this analysis with the argument that this supposed reality of a self-consciousness that retreats toward infinity is but mere illusion. However, an illusion is always unreal and equal to nothing. If consciousness always moves in one direction; that is, consciousness is the power of revelation of its object, then even if brain activity is identical with consciousness, then it must be by means of this consciousness that brain activity is revealed and not the opposite way. Thus, even the materialists must admit that the consciousness produced by brain activity constitutes the power of the revelation of brain activity itself. They must also admit that this is a real consciousness and not an illusion because if it were an illusion it would be equal to nothing and hold no power to reveal brain activity. We can only know about brain activity by means of a real consciousness. Yet, these same materialists would maintain that self-consciousness is an illusion. But if the power of the revelation of brain activity must be real, then why cannot this same power of revelation reveal itself to itself? Indeed, self-consciousness must be real because we are not only conscious of brain activity, we are conscious of the consciousness of brain activity. This also makes self-consciousness a continuous retreat toward infinity. This self-consciousness that is connected to infinity can only be the spirit of man which survives bodily death.
The materialists might counter this analysis with the argument that this supposed reality of a self-consciousness that retreats toward infinity is but mere illusion. However, an illusion is always unreal and equal to nothing. If consciousness always moves in one direction; that is, consciousness is the power of revelation of its object, then even if brain activity is identical with consciousness, then it must be by means of this consciousness that brain activity is revealed and not the opposite way. Thus, even the materialists must admit that the consciousness produced by brain activity constitutes the power of the revelation of brain activity itself. They must also admit that this is a real consciousness and not an illusion because if it were an illusion it would be equal to nothing and hold no power to reveal brain activity. We can only know about brain activity by means of a real consciousness. Yet, these same materialists would maintain that self-consciousness is an illusion. But if the power of the revelation of brain activity must be real, then why cannot this same power of revelation reveal itself to itself? Indeed, self-consciousness must be real because we are not only conscious of brain activity, we are conscious of the consciousness of brain activity. This also makes self-consciousness a continuous retreat toward infinity. This self-consciousness that is connected to infinity can only be the spirit of man which survives bodily death.
Monday, August 20, 2012
DUALITY as REALITY
Reality cannot be other than dual in nature. Consciousness continuously retracts itself from that of which it is conscious. This is a duality which also must be reality.
No one can speak of anything of which he is not conscious. One can be conscious of nothing, but nonconsciousness cannot be conscious of even nothing. Nonconsciousness can only be nonconscious of absolutely nothing.
For these reasons, even the materialists, who equate consciousness as a unity with brain activity, must admit that when brain activity ceases within a dead body, then that dead brain becomes nonconscious of an absolute nothingness. Consciousness of nothing requires a living brain. This means that both consciousness and nothing have been made real when consciousness objectifies nothing. This makes consciousness of nothing a dual reality even if consciousness is unified with brain activity.
Even the materialists must admit that he can only be aware of his consciousness of nothing when he is also conscious of this duality. It would be impossible for him to speak of this duality if he were not conscious of it. In other words, consciousness must retract itself from both nothingness and brain activity in order to be conscious of brain activity being conscious of nothing. Then again, if one observes closely, he realizes that if he can be conscious of his consciousness being conscious of his brain activity, then his consciousness has retracted itself to a new position of consciousness. This continuing condition would seem to indicate some connection of consciousness with infinity. This raises the question of how consciousness can have any connection to infinity if consciousness has been restricted to a mere unification with brain activity, especially when brain activity dissolves into absolute nothingness when one dies.
Consciousness can also be described as the power of revelation. This consciousness must adhere to the power of revelation produced by brain activity since this power reveals the reality of brain activity itself. This consciousness also seems to have some connection to infinity. This means that this power of revelation must be a reality separate from brain activity, especially in view of the fact that when one is conscious of one's own consciousness, then one is conscious of this power of revelation itself and not of brain activity. This means that brain activity can only be an instrument by which consciousness becomes an active agent through a body connected to a physical world.
To counter this argument, the materialists might assert that all of this spiritualization of consciousness amounts to mere illusion. They will continue to maintain that, in reality, consciousness adheres to brain activity and that both evaporate into absolute nothingness when the brain dies. However, they cannot deny that they are conscious of this illusion itself.
All of this speculation raises the question: What is an illusion? When one thinks about illusions, one realizes that all illusions always comprise real elements. Pegasus is an illusion, but "wings" and "horses" are real. Mermaids are an illusion, but "fish" and "females" are real. This is true of all forms of illusion including mistaken identity, optical illusions, hallucinations, dreams and even mistakes in arithmetic. This means that to be conscious of an illusion is to be conscious of nothing since all of the elements of the illusion are always real. While illusions always comprise real elements, the illusion itself always equals nothing. As an equality with nothingness, illusions are always useless; but the consciousness of nothing is itself useful since by means of this consciousness of nothing, one can recognize the uselessness of illusions.
Real elements can be combined into useful combinations as well as useless ones. Useful combinations always produce desired results, and therefore, are just as real within themselves as are the real elements that compose them. The world is full of useful and real systems comprising real elements. Thus, another basic definition of reality is that it always comprises something useful.
If the spiritualization of consciousness is an illusion, then this is also a consciousness of nothing which is in-itself a useful and real combination. But this also means that consciousness, as that necessary element of that combination called the duality of reality, can never fail to be useful, and therefore, can never fail to be real. Consciousness can never fail to produce a desired result, even when it is conscious of only nothing. This means that when consciousness is conscious of itself as the power of revelation, then this has to be a true and real combination since consciouness cannot fail to be conscious of the real. This also means that the connection of consciousness with infinity must also be real since consciousness must always exist in a condition of retreat from itself. In other words, the connection of consciousness to infinity is absolutely necessary to the reality of intelligent consciousness. This real connection of consciousness to infinity can only be that which we Christians call the spirit of man.
No one can speak of anything of which he is not conscious. One can be conscious of nothing, but nonconsciousness cannot be conscious of even nothing. Nonconsciousness can only be nonconscious of absolutely nothing.
For these reasons, even the materialists, who equate consciousness as a unity with brain activity, must admit that when brain activity ceases within a dead body, then that dead brain becomes nonconscious of an absolute nothingness. Consciousness of nothing requires a living brain. This means that both consciousness and nothing have been made real when consciousness objectifies nothing. This makes consciousness of nothing a dual reality even if consciousness is unified with brain activity.
Even the materialists must admit that he can only be aware of his consciousness of nothing when he is also conscious of this duality. It would be impossible for him to speak of this duality if he were not conscious of it. In other words, consciousness must retract itself from both nothingness and brain activity in order to be conscious of brain activity being conscious of nothing. Then again, if one observes closely, he realizes that if he can be conscious of his consciousness being conscious of his brain activity, then his consciousness has retracted itself to a new position of consciousness. This continuing condition would seem to indicate some connection of consciousness with infinity. This raises the question of how consciousness can have any connection to infinity if consciousness has been restricted to a mere unification with brain activity, especially when brain activity dissolves into absolute nothingness when one dies.
Consciousness can also be described as the power of revelation. This consciousness must adhere to the power of revelation produced by brain activity since this power reveals the reality of brain activity itself. This consciousness also seems to have some connection to infinity. This means that this power of revelation must be a reality separate from brain activity, especially in view of the fact that when one is conscious of one's own consciousness, then one is conscious of this power of revelation itself and not of brain activity. This means that brain activity can only be an instrument by which consciousness becomes an active agent through a body connected to a physical world.
To counter this argument, the materialists might assert that all of this spiritualization of consciousness amounts to mere illusion. They will continue to maintain that, in reality, consciousness adheres to brain activity and that both evaporate into absolute nothingness when the brain dies. However, they cannot deny that they are conscious of this illusion itself.
All of this speculation raises the question: What is an illusion? When one thinks about illusions, one realizes that all illusions always comprise real elements. Pegasus is an illusion, but "wings" and "horses" are real. Mermaids are an illusion, but "fish" and "females" are real. This is true of all forms of illusion including mistaken identity, optical illusions, hallucinations, dreams and even mistakes in arithmetic. This means that to be conscious of an illusion is to be conscious of nothing since all of the elements of the illusion are always real. While illusions always comprise real elements, the illusion itself always equals nothing. As an equality with nothingness, illusions are always useless; but the consciousness of nothing is itself useful since by means of this consciousness of nothing, one can recognize the uselessness of illusions.
Real elements can be combined into useful combinations as well as useless ones. Useful combinations always produce desired results, and therefore, are just as real within themselves as are the real elements that compose them. The world is full of useful and real systems comprising real elements. Thus, another basic definition of reality is that it always comprises something useful.
If the spiritualization of consciousness is an illusion, then this is also a consciousness of nothing which is in-itself a useful and real combination. But this also means that consciousness, as that necessary element of that combination called the duality of reality, can never fail to be useful, and therefore, can never fail to be real. Consciousness can never fail to produce a desired result, even when it is conscious of only nothing. This means that when consciousness is conscious of itself as the power of revelation, then this has to be a true and real combination since consciouness cannot fail to be conscious of the real. This also means that the connection of consciousness with infinity must also be real since consciousness must always exist in a condition of retreat from itself. In other words, the connection of consciousness to infinity is absolutely necessary to the reality of intelligent consciousness. This real connection of consciousness to infinity can only be that which we Christians call the spirit of man.
Friday, August 17, 2012
The Leap of Faith
The Christian comes to a knowledge of God through a "leap of faith" in our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus, who was finite man and Eternal God at one place and at the same time, came to earth from heaven to sacrifice Himself in man's place to take away his sin which causes his eternal separation from God and to reconcile man to God forever. This truth is that which Kierkegaard called "the paradox." How could an Eternal God become a finite man? To the human mind, this makes no sense. Kierkegaard wrote, even though he was a believer, that this was absurd.
Yet, Jesus is the bridge between the finite and the eternal. The center beam of His cross goes up from earth toward heaven with Jesus suspended between. His arms were nailed to the crossbeam, stretched out to show His love for all humanity. His blood is available to all men, and washes away the sins of all who will repent and believe in Him. His resurrection gives eternal life and reconciliation to God to all who will believe. This salvation requires a "leap of faith" in this "paradox." God deliberately planned it this way because man can in no way come to God but God could come to man. Only the passion of the Christ suffering in agony on the cross, demonstrating the self-sacrifice of His awesome Love, could bridge that infinite gap between God and man. Only the Eternal could overcome the infinite.
The materialists and the atheists also have their "leap of faith" although they deny this and claim that finite man can find truth through reason and scientific investigation alone. But they actually believe that through chance alone; that is, by an extremely long series of lucky breaks, inert matter and energy could produce life, and intelligent life, by a process they call evolution. They believe this even though some of their own mathematicians have calculated that this process is absolutely impossible. These are the same people that ridicule Christians for our "leap of faith."
God's simple truth is that finite man has no hope of discovering ultimate truth through the severe limitations of his reason, investigations, religion, or goodness. For man even to try to do this reveals the height of his hubris. As the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis reveals, when man attempts to become his own god, he only succeeds in demonstrating the silliness of his pride. God hates the sin of pride the most because it keeps more men from being reconciled to Him than any other sin.
Every person who hears or reads the gospel should learn to humble themselves before God and simply admit that they are lost sinners with no hope of saving themselves, and make that true "leap of faith" to the cross of Christ where God has already provided all they need for their salvation.
Yet, Jesus is the bridge between the finite and the eternal. The center beam of His cross goes up from earth toward heaven with Jesus suspended between. His arms were nailed to the crossbeam, stretched out to show His love for all humanity. His blood is available to all men, and washes away the sins of all who will repent and believe in Him. His resurrection gives eternal life and reconciliation to God to all who will believe. This salvation requires a "leap of faith" in this "paradox." God deliberately planned it this way because man can in no way come to God but God could come to man. Only the passion of the Christ suffering in agony on the cross, demonstrating the self-sacrifice of His awesome Love, could bridge that infinite gap between God and man. Only the Eternal could overcome the infinite.
The materialists and the atheists also have their "leap of faith" although they deny this and claim that finite man can find truth through reason and scientific investigation alone. But they actually believe that through chance alone; that is, by an extremely long series of lucky breaks, inert matter and energy could produce life, and intelligent life, by a process they call evolution. They believe this even though some of their own mathematicians have calculated that this process is absolutely impossible. These are the same people that ridicule Christians for our "leap of faith."
God's simple truth is that finite man has no hope of discovering ultimate truth through the severe limitations of his reason, investigations, religion, or goodness. For man even to try to do this reveals the height of his hubris. As the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis reveals, when man attempts to become his own god, he only succeeds in demonstrating the silliness of his pride. God hates the sin of pride the most because it keeps more men from being reconciled to Him than any other sin.
Every person who hears or reads the gospel should learn to humble themselves before God and simply admit that they are lost sinners with no hope of saving themselves, and make that true "leap of faith" to the cross of Christ where God has already provided all they need for their salvation.
Monday, August 13, 2012
CREATION AND RECREATION chapter 11
Heaven
Revelation 22:12-14 John 3:15-16 Romans 6:23 John 17:24 Ephesians 1:10 Psalm 115:16 Hebrews 9:27 II Corinthians 5:8 (KJV)
The New Testament teaches that the gift that repentant believers receive for their faith in Christ is the "eternal Life" of Christ Himself. This gift puts them into a special relationship with God. They become God's children, and enjoy a direct connection to the Life of God for all eternity. God will never, ever disown any of His children forever.
The New Testament nowhere teaches that every believer goes to heaven immediately following their physical death. John 17:24 and Ephesians 1:10 do teach that God will eventually gather all of His children to heaven, but not necessarily as immediately following physical death. Hebrews 9:27 teaches that that which does immediately follow every man's physical death is Christ's judgment. At this judgment, Christ enjoys great latitude in His judgments of the saved and unsaved alike. II Corinthians 5:8 does teach that "to be absent from the body" is "to be present with the Lord," but this presence is for judgment, not necessarily for entrance into heaven.
For example, when one of God's highly sanctified and obedient children dies, Jesus may allow that child to enter immediately into the City of God. Revelation 22:14 would seem to indicate this judgment. However, the Bible teaches that there are various levels of heaven. When one of God's ordinary children dies, then Christ may allow that child to enter into that level of heaven called "Paradise," but not into the City of God. Other children may be assigned to other levels of heaven depending on their degrees of sanctification and good works. When disobedient children die, or are Raptured, Jesus may assign them to a temporary, corrective punishment in that place called "outer darkness." Yet, even there they retain everlasting life because the Holy Spirit, who never leaves them, will still be inside of them to cause them to feel that terrible remorse for their disobedience which will be far worse than even the punishment of lost sinners in the lake of fire. Eventually though, God will recover His wayward children from this "outer darkness" and give them a place, probably, in the lowest level of heaven.
When unrepentant sinners die, Jesus will assign them temporary punishments according to how they lived. For example, those who tended to live in accordance with the goodness that God created within them may be assigned to "the sea," whatever that is. The ordinary lost sinners may be sent into "outer darkness" with the disobedient children of God. The most evil of lost sinners may be assigned to the temporary fires of hell, but no child of God will ever be sent there or any place like it.
Read Matthew 7:1-5. In any case, the Bible teaches that Christ is the Judge, and not man. As the Great Judge, Jesus can make whatever judgments that He deems best. When mere man tries to restrict God's judgments to only two directions, either heaven or hell, then they attempt to put themselves in the place of the Judge, and that is sin. Christians should leave all judgments to Christ, and simply try to conform their lives to the sanctification process.
Jesus will make all of His eternal judgments at the Great White Throne Judgment when God recreates the heaven and the earth, and when "I make all things new." Read Revelation 21:5. At this time, the "dead," who are lost sinners, will be cast into the lake of fire and reduced to the consciousnesses of worms. Then, in order to "make all things new," God will recover all of the good "things" that He created in the first place. All of His good "things" that have been misused in false combinations, God will recover to use to recreate a new race of men who will live on the earth forever, but who will never be allowed to go to heaven.
At this Judgment, God will literally return all of His "things" to His own creative purposes. All of His good systems which He will create at this time will serve His purposes, and He will leave no possibility that any false system can ever again be invented to cause agony and sorrow in the earth or heaven.
Now one may ask: Do not the recreated humans on the new earth gain eternal life? The answer is "no" because there exists a big difference between immortality and eternal life. The recreated humans will simply live immortal, but ordinary, lives on the earth, only without sin. In addition, each recreated human will forever lose a part, or even all, of their former individual personalities. The eternal lives of the children of God gives them an eternal connection to the Life of God Himself, and each one of them retains his or her own individual personality forever. Since the eternality of our God consists in an Infinity of beginnings and endings, then God must be planning to use His special children for some great, but unknown, future creative project.
Most of those who report a near death experience relate that their spirits move toward "the light." Since Jesus taught that He is "the light of the world," then evidently, every spirit moves toward Jesus but not necessarily to enter heaven. This movement to "the light" simply reaffirms Hebrews 9:27. Every departed spirit moves to "the light" that is Jesus in order to receive their individual temporary judgment from Him.
Revelation 22:12-14 John 3:15-16 Romans 6:23 John 17:24 Ephesians 1:10 Psalm 115:16 Hebrews 9:27 II Corinthians 5:8 (KJV)
The New Testament teaches that the gift that repentant believers receive for their faith in Christ is the "eternal Life" of Christ Himself. This gift puts them into a special relationship with God. They become God's children, and enjoy a direct connection to the Life of God for all eternity. God will never, ever disown any of His children forever.
The New Testament nowhere teaches that every believer goes to heaven immediately following their physical death. John 17:24 and Ephesians 1:10 do teach that God will eventually gather all of His children to heaven, but not necessarily as immediately following physical death. Hebrews 9:27 teaches that that which does immediately follow every man's physical death is Christ's judgment. At this judgment, Christ enjoys great latitude in His judgments of the saved and unsaved alike. II Corinthians 5:8 does teach that "to be absent from the body" is "to be present with the Lord," but this presence is for judgment, not necessarily for entrance into heaven.
For example, when one of God's highly sanctified and obedient children dies, Jesus may allow that child to enter immediately into the City of God. Revelation 22:14 would seem to indicate this judgment. However, the Bible teaches that there are various levels of heaven. When one of God's ordinary children dies, then Christ may allow that child to enter into that level of heaven called "Paradise," but not into the City of God. Other children may be assigned to other levels of heaven depending on their degrees of sanctification and good works. When disobedient children die, or are Raptured, Jesus may assign them to a temporary, corrective punishment in that place called "outer darkness." Yet, even there they retain everlasting life because the Holy Spirit, who never leaves them, will still be inside of them to cause them to feel that terrible remorse for their disobedience which will be far worse than even the punishment of lost sinners in the lake of fire. Eventually though, God will recover His wayward children from this "outer darkness" and give them a place, probably, in the lowest level of heaven.
When unrepentant sinners die, Jesus will assign them temporary punishments according to how they lived. For example, those who tended to live in accordance with the goodness that God created within them may be assigned to "the sea," whatever that is. The ordinary lost sinners may be sent into "outer darkness" with the disobedient children of God. The most evil of lost sinners may be assigned to the temporary fires of hell, but no child of God will ever be sent there or any place like it.
Read Matthew 7:1-5. In any case, the Bible teaches that Christ is the Judge, and not man. As the Great Judge, Jesus can make whatever judgments that He deems best. When mere man tries to restrict God's judgments to only two directions, either heaven or hell, then they attempt to put themselves in the place of the Judge, and that is sin. Christians should leave all judgments to Christ, and simply try to conform their lives to the sanctification process.
Jesus will make all of His eternal judgments at the Great White Throne Judgment when God recreates the heaven and the earth, and when "I make all things new." Read Revelation 21:5. At this time, the "dead," who are lost sinners, will be cast into the lake of fire and reduced to the consciousnesses of worms. Then, in order to "make all things new," God will recover all of the good "things" that He created in the first place. All of His good "things" that have been misused in false combinations, God will recover to use to recreate a new race of men who will live on the earth forever, but who will never be allowed to go to heaven.
At this Judgment, God will literally return all of His "things" to His own creative purposes. All of His good systems which He will create at this time will serve His purposes, and He will leave no possibility that any false system can ever again be invented to cause agony and sorrow in the earth or heaven.
Now one may ask: Do not the recreated humans on the new earth gain eternal life? The answer is "no" because there exists a big difference between immortality and eternal life. The recreated humans will simply live immortal, but ordinary, lives on the earth, only without sin. In addition, each recreated human will forever lose a part, or even all, of their former individual personalities. The eternal lives of the children of God gives them an eternal connection to the Life of God Himself, and each one of them retains his or her own individual personality forever. Since the eternality of our God consists in an Infinity of beginnings and endings, then God must be planning to use His special children for some great, but unknown, future creative project.
Most of those who report a near death experience relate that their spirits move toward "the light." Since Jesus taught that He is "the light of the world," then evidently, every spirit moves toward Jesus but not necessarily to enter heaven. This movement to "the light" simply reaffirms Hebrews 9:27. Every departed spirit moves to "the light" that is Jesus in order to receive their individual temporary judgment from Him.
Saturday, August 11, 2012
CREATION AND RECREATION chapter 10
Hell
Revelation 20:1-3 Romans 11:36 Revelation 19:20 Revelation 20:10 Revelation 20:11-15 Revelation 21:1-8 Revelation 22:11-19 Mark 9:41 Mark 9:43-48 Job 25:6 Psalm 22:6 Isaiah 1:18 Isaiah 14:9-11 Isaiah 66:22-24 Exodus 16:19-20 I Corinthians 15:22-28 Mark 8:34-35 (KJV)
The Bible teaches that there are several different types of hells. At the end of the thousand year reign of Christ on the earth, God will raise the dead to judge them at the Great White Throne Judgment which will be Christ's final judgment. The Bible states clearly that these dead will be raised from the sea, from death and from hell. Obviously, these must be three different places. The fact that the dead are raised from three different places re-enforces scriptural teaching that Christ employs great latitude in how He judges believers and unbelievers alike.
The Bible nowhere explains exactly what the place called "the sea" is, but Micah 7:19 teaches that God has buried all of His believers' sins in "the sea," demonstrating the fact that God has separated His believers from their sins forever. Also, Revelation 21:1 states that when God recreates a new heaven and earth at the end of Christ's thousand year reign, the new earth will have "no more sea." This place called "the sea" can have nothing to do with the oceans of the world because these are extremely beautiful and so one cannot believe that God would leave them out of His recreated earth. The most that can be learned about this "sea" is that God sent some of the unbelievers there with their sins still adhering to them, but only the sins of the believers were sent there as being separated from the believers.
The second place from which God raises the dead is called "death." Since the word "death" denotes a complete loss of all sensations and an emptiness, then this may be the same place that Jesus called "outer darkness." Jesus taught that both backslidden believers and unbelievers are punished in this place. The difference is that God has temporarily punished the backslidders for their correction, and He will bring them back to Himself when their sentence has been completed, but the unbelievers will remain there until their resurrection at the Great White Throne Judgment.
The third place from which the dead are resurrected is called "hell." This is a place of flame and torment as Jesus taught in the story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31. Apparently, the most evil of the unbelievers go to this place; those who are very cruel and who hate God the most. No believers are ever sent to this place or any place like it. These are three places of temporary punishment. Two of these places, "death" and "hell," God will destroy in the "lake of fire;" and the third place, "the sea," God will simply eradicate completely.
Immediately following the battle of Armageddon when Christ will return to earth to destroy the beast's evil armies and rescue the nation of Israel from destruction, then the beast, who is the AntiChrist, and the false prophet, who is a kind of Anti-Holy Spirit, will be captured and will be "cast alive" into the lake of fire. Note the significance of the phrase "cast alive." An angel will also bind Satan, who is a kind of Anti-Father, with a "great chain" and "cast him into the "bottomless pit" until the thousand year reign of Christ is ended. At that time, the Devil will "be loosed out of his prison" and will " go out to deceive the nations." The Devil will gather another great army to try to destroy God's people, but God will destroy this army with fire from heaven. Then, the Devil will be captured and cast into the lake of fire where the beast and false prophet already are, where "he shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever." This last phrase indicates that Satan will also be fully conscious while enduring this eternal torment.
The "bottomless pit" where Satan will be bound during the thousand year reign of Christ apparently refers to a place that seems to be an infinite nothingness. This is probably the same place that Jesus called the "outer darkness." God's Word provides no reason why Satan should be subjected to this temporary punishment before being finally cast into the lake of fire forever, nor does it provide a reason why Satan will be loosed from this prison at the end of Christ's thousand year reign. Perhaps, God wants to reduce Satan to a sole consciousness of absolute nothingness since Satan invented false combinations of some of God's Infinite Ideas in his rebellious attempt to reduce God to an absolute nothingness. Also perhaps, Satan will be loosed from his prison so that God can prove that the Devil will never give up on his desire to destroy God and His creations. As has been stated before, persistence is not a virtue with Satan. He knows that he cannot repent because God can never trust him again, and he also knows that he is destined for the lake of fire; so he has no other choice but to continue his rebellion to the end.
As mentioned before, the Bible clearly teaches that the beast, the false prophet and Satan will be fully conscious of their torment in the lake of fire forever. This condition shows that quality of life directly relates to the measure of consciousness that one possesses at any time. The contents of one's consciouness determines the quality of life one has. Those who try to concentrate on the deep spiritual qualities of life enjoy more life than those who merely concentrate on shallow experiences. God possesses Infinite Life because the contents of His Consciousness are Infinite; that is, the Father and the Living Word. In addition, His Consciousness exists absolutely everywhere and at every time; that is, the Holy Spirit. The beast, the false prophet and Satan will be fully conscious of their burning torment in the lake of fire and this is all of which they can be conscious. It is quite impossible for them to be conscious of anything else. In this way, God will return them to His service because He will use their torment to neutralize their abilities to concoct false combinations of His own true Ideas; that is, lies, murder and all evil. The lake of fire constitutes one of the methods that God will use to cleanse His universe of the filthiness of all sin and rebellion.
One may ask at this point: Why does God have to torment them? Why does not God simply put them into a coma? The answer is that their consciousnesses are basic things which God has created, and God can never destroy any of His basic true Ideas. God can destroy false combinations but only to recover the basic true Ideas contained within them. Should God destroy any basic thing which He has created, He would have to diminish the usefulness of His own Infinite Idea which provided the pattern for its creation. For God to neutralize the effectiveness of even one of His Infinite Ideas would be to eliminate a part of Himself, and this He cannot do. The physical law of the universe which states that matter can be changed into energy but never destroyed reflects this fact about God's existence. God must allow Satan's consciousness to remain, but at the same time eliminate his abilities to invent sin and rebellion.
Nevertheless, the Bible teaches that at the last judgment, God does not resurrect the dead to life. The dead are still dead when they stand before God. However, the fact that they are resurrected means that they must retain some measure of consciousness. Otherwise, their resurrections would have no meaning. They cannot be mindless zombies as they stand before God, and yet, the Bible clearly states that they are still dead. God cannot destroy their consciousnesses for the same reasons as before stated, but God can reduce their consciousnesses to that of being concentrated only on the filthiness and nothingness of their former sins. Because their sins still adhere to their consciousnesses, and because they refused to accept God's grace that would have cleansed them of their sins forever, then they have separated themselves from the everlasting Life of God and this separation constitutes their deaths. To be dead is to be separated from the Eternal Life of God. Thus, the resurrected dead are still dead when they stand before God, and yet, they are also still conscious of the filthiness of their former sins. Read Revelation 22:11.
When the names of the resurrected dead are not found in God's book of life, God has them all cast into the lake of fire. In Revelation 21:8, the Bible teaches that these dead "shall have their part " in the lake of fire, but the Bible does not state that they will suffer the full torment of the flames that Satan will suffer. The difference is that Satan was "cast alive" into the lake of fire but these are still "dead" when cast in. One of the meanings of the Greek word for "part" is a division. The Bible also calls the lake of fire "the second death." Since the first death involves the return of the body to dust and the immediate judgment of the soul and spirit, then why cannot the "second death" be some similar division? Since God loves all of humanity, and He is a merciful God, and since humans are the victims of sin as much as they are participants in it, then it stands to reason that God will not punish these dead with the same torment that Satan will suffer. Satan is the villain here, not humans. Remember Abraham's question to God in Genesis 18:25: "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" This Judge knows how to think and to reason to a perfect degree. Like all good judges, He certainly knows how to recognize mitigating circumstances.
Thus, the lake of fire becomes a "second death" for humans only. If the first death can become an eternal separation from fellowship with God, then what could a "second death" be? Jesus Himself provides the answer in Mark 9:43-48. Three times in these scriptures Jesus repeats His revelation: "Where their worm dieth not , and the fire is not quenched." This is not a parable but is a direct teaching on the nature of the lake of fire. Jesus' statement that "the fire is not quenched" must refer to the lake of fire because the temporary hell will be destroyed in the lake of fire. Likewise, the phrase "where their worm dieth not" must mean that "their worm" must suffer in the lake of fire forever. This means that the sufferings of "their worm" must be the same punishment that Revelation 21:8 calls "the second death."
Therefore, the meaning of the phrase "the second death" depends on the meaning of the phrase "their worm." The meaning of the Greek word here used for "worm" is a maggot. When Jesus used this term, He was referring to the maggots that squirmed in the fires of Gehenna which was the garbage dump which burned continuously just outside the gates of Jerusalem. Even the bodies of violent criminals who had been executed were sometimes thrown into this dump where the maggots fed on them. Since the quality of one's life depends on the level of one's consciousness, then Jesus' use of the phrase "their worm" evidently refers to the level of consciousnesses of those dead who would be in the lake of fire. Jesus' use of the word "their" shows that He meant that the "worm" belonged to the dead; that is, that the dead had become the "worm." If the first death means a separation of the consciousness of man from the Life of God, then the "second death" must mean a reduction of the consciousnesses of those in the lake of fire to that of maggots. The dead squirm in the lake of fire like the maggots did in Gehenna. They have no more consciousness than that of a maggot. Their suffering has been reduced to that of a maggot squirming in a fire. This means that God has greatly reduced their suffering from that of a fully conscious human burning in a fire.
These maggots in the lake of fire are not only dimly aware of their suffering, but in accordance with Revelation 22:11, they are also dimly aware of their hunger and the filth on which they feed. These maggots still hunger for the filthiness of their former sins and still desire to feed on them. This is another meaning of "the second death," that is, that the consciousnesses of the dead are reduced to the level of maggots squirming in a fire and feeding on their own filth forever. Further confirmation of this meaning of the "second death" is found in Job 25:6 where the Word of God calls man a "worm." The Hebrew word used here means a maggot. This verse refers to the filthiness of sin that resides within every human who has inherited original sin from Adam. The "second death" is a reduction of human consciousness to this wormy nature.
Additional confirmation can be found in Isaiah 14:9-11. This scripture contains a prophecy of when Satan will be thrown into the lake of fire. Verse eleven clearly teaches that he will be swallowed by a sea of "worms." The Hebrew word for "worms" here means a special type of maggot called a crimson maggot. The Hebrews used these crimson maggots to make a dye by which they colored their clothes crimson. As Isaiah 1:18 teaches, this crimson color derived from the crimson maggot, God closely associates with man's sins. This makes the prophecy of the doom of Satan clear. He will be thrown into a sea of crimson worms which symbolically represents a sea of humans whose consciousnesses have been reduced to that of maggots feeding on their own filth.
Additional confirmation that the Bible identifies the crimson maggot with sin occurs in Exodus 16:19-20. Moses had instructed the Israelites not to try to save the manna that they gathered every day until the next day. Some of the Israelites disobeyed Moses and tried to save some of their manna until the morning. Since God had appointed Moses as the leader of God's people, to disobey Moses amounted to the same as to disobey God. In the morning, the manna they had tried to save was being eaten by the crimson maggot.
Jesus paraphrased Isaiah 66:24 when He taught about the lake of fire in Mark 9:43-48. The first part of this verse probably refers to the millions of dead bodies left on the earth following the battle of Armegeddon. But the second part of this verse states that their "worm," again meaning the crimson maggot, "shall not die," and "neither shall their fire be quenched." The illustration reveals that unrepentant sinners consciousnesses eventually will be reduced to that of crimson maggots squirming in an eternal fire who are crimson because they have been feeding on their own past sins.
Much of Psalm chapter 22 constitutes a prophecy depicting Jesus' crucifixion and death on the cross. In Psalm 22:6, the Holy Spirit reveals the thoughts of Jesus about His crucifixion. One of Jesus' thoughts while on the cross was: "But I am a worm, and no man......" Again, the word "worm" means the crimson maggot. Here, Jesus directly referred to the fact that He, the Innocent Lamb of God, took upon Himself the filthy sins of all humanity when He suffered on the cross. In order for Jesus to suffer and die in the place of all sinners, He had to suffer for their sins so completely that His shed blood would thoroughly cleanse all of those who would repent and put their trust in Him. He also had to die the same kind of deaths that sinners die; that is, as being separated from God as His actual cry from the cross as prophesied in Psalm 22:1 indicated. As a result of His suffering for sins and His death in the place of sinners, He became as He thought: "no man...." Like lost sinners in the lake of fire, Jesus reduced a part of His consciousness to the level of the crimson maggot. When Jesus suffered and died on the cross in the place of all sinners, he went all the way with it. He accomplished an absolutely thorough completion of it.
Yet, because of His absolute Love and Innocence, all of that filthiness which He endured could not adhere to him. Death and hell could not hold Him. Hear His victorious cry from the cross: "It is finished." Read John 19:20. Read His reassuring words to His disciples in John 16:33: ".....but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." Jesus rose from the grave, victorious over sin and death and the Devil, to justify those who trust in Him and to give them His own everlasting life.
Jesus proved that Infinite Love and Innocence can never be destroyed by even the most subtle of Satan's machinations. The limited innocence of the first humans succumbed to the Devil's subtle tricks, but God's Almighty and Eternal Love and Innocence could be injured by the Devil, but never could it be destroyed by even the most wicked forms of Satan's rebellion. God sacrificed Himself for the salvation of sinners, and gained His glorious victory for the sake of mankind. God is perfectly willing to give His victory to all who will simply receive it by putting their trust in Him.
As Mark 8:35 teaches, all who truly repent of their sins and submit to the gospel of Christ will be saved as individuals regardless of whether they become good or bad children of God. God will eventually wholly sanctify them no matter how long it takes or how much He has to punish them in this life or the next. God knows the futures of all who repent, and once they become His children, He also knows exactly how to sanctify them completely. Jesus will never lose a single one of His sheep. The peculiar certainty of this salvation and sanctification is that God saves and recreates all of His children so that each one of them will forever retain a consciousness of each one's own particular individuality.
Those who teach that backslidders are actually unsaved should reread their Bibles because the Bible is literally full of backslidders. But God always preserves and sanctifies His backslidders no matter how bad they may be. For example, take a look at Lot and Samson. Those who teach that only God's good children are saved are really just trying to bring good works back into salvation through the back door, so to speak. The only condition for salvation is the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ received by faith given by God. Read I Corinthians 15:1-4 and Romans 10:13.
In Mark 8:34-35, Jesus taught that those who "deny themselves;" that is, those who reject their old sinful selves and turn to Jesus for their salvation and recreation, will retain an eternal consciousness of their own particular individualities. At the resurrection, they will lose all consciousness of their old sinful lives, but they will retain a recreated consciousness of their original personalities. In other words, those "who lose their lives" for Christ's sake will also "save them."
Jesus also taught in these verses that those who try to save their lives will lose them. Unbelievers will lose their lives because they tried to save their old sinful selves. Following the final judgment, God will separate the consciousnesses of the unsaved dead into two parts. As the Bible teaches, the quality of each person's life is determined by that of which he is conscious. Part of the consciousnesses of the unsaved dead will forever be attached to their sins as they suffer like maggots feeding on their own filth in the lake of fire. God will recreate the other part of their consciousnesses.
God clearly states in Revelation 21:5: "Behold, I make all things new." The Holy Spirit also teaches this truth in Romans 11:36 and in I Corinthians 15:28. Read Revelation 4:11. God created "all things" in the first place, and the Word of God clearly teaches that God will not only recreate the heaven and the earth, but that He will also literally recreate "all things." "All things" that God has created which have been tainted by being included in Satan's false combinations, God will recover and recreate to the uses and purposes of His own will.
The Bible has no problem with the word "thing." This is a perfectly good word which means any object in consciousness. The objects of God's Consciousness are Infinite. This is the Word of God which is one with God. The limited number of material things which God has created, which are based on His Infinite Ideas, have all been tainted to some degree by Lucifer's misuse of God's Ideas in that he invented false combinations based on some of the things of God's Word. God rightly calls these false combinations, sin and evil. All of God's created things have been tainted which have been subjected to Satan's misuse.
Satan injured God Himself when he misused His Word; an injury which had its final denouement in the cross of Christ.
But God has promised that in His final judgment, He will literally recreate all of His tainted things, and remove any possibility for their future misuse. God will restore all of His created things to His own service and purposes. God will neutralize Satan's ability to misuse God's Word by his torment in the lake of fire. God will also neutralize the abilities of the unsaved dead to sin by reducing their consciousnesses to that of maggots feeding on their own filth in the lake of fire. In other words, God will recreate good systems and eliminate all false systems from His creations.
All false systems attempt to reduce God's good Ideas and creations to absolute nothingness, but God will recreate new good systems and reduce all false systems to an equality with absolute nothingness. In this way, God will return the unsaved dead, and even Satan himself, to His own good uses and purposes. In other words, God will literally "make all things new."
But there is still more to the story of God's recreation of all of His things. Revelation 20:12-13 teaches that the unsaved dead will be judged according to their works. This must mean that they will be judged according to their good works as well as their sinful works. Read Revelation 22:12. Their sinful works will be reduced to the consciousnesses of maggots squirming in the lake of fire, but their good works will be retained and rewarded by God. Mark 9:41 teaches that even the smallest good work will be rewarded by God. God will reward all good works, but this does not mean that the unsaved dead will, in the end, be saved by God's grace. They will not be saved as individuals. Only God's church who has received God's grace will be saved and recreated as individuals retaining their former personalities. The consciousnesses of the unsaved dead will, in the final judgment, be separated into a consciousness of their good works and a consciousness of their sinful works. This separation, in itself, will destroy their individualities. Yet, even more than this, in order for God "to make all things new," even their consciousnesses of their good works must be separated into discrete things which God can recombine and recreate. Believers saved by grace are exempt from this type of recreation because God has already recreated them when they were "born again," and He will recreate their bodies at the Rapture of the church. Read John 12:24-25.
Following the Great White Throne Judgment, God will recreate a new heaven and a new earth, and will recreate a new human race to live on the earth. Revelation 21:2-3 teaches that the New Jerusalem will descend from God to the new earth that will be populated by a recreated human race. These new humans cannot be any of the saints saved by grace because all of God's saints will dwell in heaven with Christ. In addition, the Bible does not state that these humans will be saints, but that they will be ordinary humans, but incapable of committing sins. Since all good systems originated from God's Ideas, then God will recreate these new humans from a pool of good works which He has recovered from unsaved humans when He separated their consciousness of their sins from their consciousness of their good works which emanated from God in the first place. In this way, God recovers all of His good systems and good Ideas from any possibility that they could be misused in the future.
Revelation 22:12 clearly teaches that God will reward every man, saved and unsaved, according to their works. The word "works" here can only be good works because they will be rewarded. This verse has to mean that God will recreate the unsaved because certainly anyone in a lake of fire cannot receive a reward. Some of the recreated humans will retain some part of their former individualities because they did a lot of good works in their former lives. Others who did mostly evil works, and few good works, will retain little, if any, of their former personalities. In either case, the fact that God will remove all sorrow from the lives of the recreated humans shows that God will nullify all memories of their former lives.
The recreated humans will live only on the earth. They will not be allowed to enter into the New Jerusalem. Only God's saints will be allowed to live in the New Jerusalem, or in Paradise.
Revelation 20:1-3 Romans 11:36 Revelation 19:20 Revelation 20:10 Revelation 20:11-15 Revelation 21:1-8 Revelation 22:11-19 Mark 9:41 Mark 9:43-48 Job 25:6 Psalm 22:6 Isaiah 1:18 Isaiah 14:9-11 Isaiah 66:22-24 Exodus 16:19-20 I Corinthians 15:22-28 Mark 8:34-35 (KJV)
The Bible teaches that there are several different types of hells. At the end of the thousand year reign of Christ on the earth, God will raise the dead to judge them at the Great White Throne Judgment which will be Christ's final judgment. The Bible states clearly that these dead will be raised from the sea, from death and from hell. Obviously, these must be three different places. The fact that the dead are raised from three different places re-enforces scriptural teaching that Christ employs great latitude in how He judges believers and unbelievers alike.
The Bible nowhere explains exactly what the place called "the sea" is, but Micah 7:19 teaches that God has buried all of His believers' sins in "the sea," demonstrating the fact that God has separated His believers from their sins forever. Also, Revelation 21:1 states that when God recreates a new heaven and earth at the end of Christ's thousand year reign, the new earth will have "no more sea." This place called "the sea" can have nothing to do with the oceans of the world because these are extremely beautiful and so one cannot believe that God would leave them out of His recreated earth. The most that can be learned about this "sea" is that God sent some of the unbelievers there with their sins still adhering to them, but only the sins of the believers were sent there as being separated from the believers.
The second place from which God raises the dead is called "death." Since the word "death" denotes a complete loss of all sensations and an emptiness, then this may be the same place that Jesus called "outer darkness." Jesus taught that both backslidden believers and unbelievers are punished in this place. The difference is that God has temporarily punished the backslidders for their correction, and He will bring them back to Himself when their sentence has been completed, but the unbelievers will remain there until their resurrection at the Great White Throne Judgment.
The third place from which the dead are resurrected is called "hell." This is a place of flame and torment as Jesus taught in the story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31. Apparently, the most evil of the unbelievers go to this place; those who are very cruel and who hate God the most. No believers are ever sent to this place or any place like it. These are three places of temporary punishment. Two of these places, "death" and "hell," God will destroy in the "lake of fire;" and the third place, "the sea," God will simply eradicate completely.
Immediately following the battle of Armageddon when Christ will return to earth to destroy the beast's evil armies and rescue the nation of Israel from destruction, then the beast, who is the AntiChrist, and the false prophet, who is a kind of Anti-Holy Spirit, will be captured and will be "cast alive" into the lake of fire. Note the significance of the phrase "cast alive." An angel will also bind Satan, who is a kind of Anti-Father, with a "great chain" and "cast him into the "bottomless pit" until the thousand year reign of Christ is ended. At that time, the Devil will "be loosed out of his prison" and will " go out to deceive the nations." The Devil will gather another great army to try to destroy God's people, but God will destroy this army with fire from heaven. Then, the Devil will be captured and cast into the lake of fire where the beast and false prophet already are, where "he shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever." This last phrase indicates that Satan will also be fully conscious while enduring this eternal torment.
The "bottomless pit" where Satan will be bound during the thousand year reign of Christ apparently refers to a place that seems to be an infinite nothingness. This is probably the same place that Jesus called the "outer darkness." God's Word provides no reason why Satan should be subjected to this temporary punishment before being finally cast into the lake of fire forever, nor does it provide a reason why Satan will be loosed from this prison at the end of Christ's thousand year reign. Perhaps, God wants to reduce Satan to a sole consciousness of absolute nothingness since Satan invented false combinations of some of God's Infinite Ideas in his rebellious attempt to reduce God to an absolute nothingness. Also perhaps, Satan will be loosed from his prison so that God can prove that the Devil will never give up on his desire to destroy God and His creations. As has been stated before, persistence is not a virtue with Satan. He knows that he cannot repent because God can never trust him again, and he also knows that he is destined for the lake of fire; so he has no other choice but to continue his rebellion to the end.
As mentioned before, the Bible clearly teaches that the beast, the false prophet and Satan will be fully conscious of their torment in the lake of fire forever. This condition shows that quality of life directly relates to the measure of consciousness that one possesses at any time. The contents of one's consciouness determines the quality of life one has. Those who try to concentrate on the deep spiritual qualities of life enjoy more life than those who merely concentrate on shallow experiences. God possesses Infinite Life because the contents of His Consciousness are Infinite; that is, the Father and the Living Word. In addition, His Consciousness exists absolutely everywhere and at every time; that is, the Holy Spirit. The beast, the false prophet and Satan will be fully conscious of their burning torment in the lake of fire and this is all of which they can be conscious. It is quite impossible for them to be conscious of anything else. In this way, God will return them to His service because He will use their torment to neutralize their abilities to concoct false combinations of His own true Ideas; that is, lies, murder and all evil. The lake of fire constitutes one of the methods that God will use to cleanse His universe of the filthiness of all sin and rebellion.
One may ask at this point: Why does God have to torment them? Why does not God simply put them into a coma? The answer is that their consciousnesses are basic things which God has created, and God can never destroy any of His basic true Ideas. God can destroy false combinations but only to recover the basic true Ideas contained within them. Should God destroy any basic thing which He has created, He would have to diminish the usefulness of His own Infinite Idea which provided the pattern for its creation. For God to neutralize the effectiveness of even one of His Infinite Ideas would be to eliminate a part of Himself, and this He cannot do. The physical law of the universe which states that matter can be changed into energy but never destroyed reflects this fact about God's existence. God must allow Satan's consciousness to remain, but at the same time eliminate his abilities to invent sin and rebellion.
Nevertheless, the Bible teaches that at the last judgment, God does not resurrect the dead to life. The dead are still dead when they stand before God. However, the fact that they are resurrected means that they must retain some measure of consciousness. Otherwise, their resurrections would have no meaning. They cannot be mindless zombies as they stand before God, and yet, the Bible clearly states that they are still dead. God cannot destroy their consciousnesses for the same reasons as before stated, but God can reduce their consciousnesses to that of being concentrated only on the filthiness and nothingness of their former sins. Because their sins still adhere to their consciousnesses, and because they refused to accept God's grace that would have cleansed them of their sins forever, then they have separated themselves from the everlasting Life of God and this separation constitutes their deaths. To be dead is to be separated from the Eternal Life of God. Thus, the resurrected dead are still dead when they stand before God, and yet, they are also still conscious of the filthiness of their former sins. Read Revelation 22:11.
When the names of the resurrected dead are not found in God's book of life, God has them all cast into the lake of fire. In Revelation 21:8, the Bible teaches that these dead "shall have their part " in the lake of fire, but the Bible does not state that they will suffer the full torment of the flames that Satan will suffer. The difference is that Satan was "cast alive" into the lake of fire but these are still "dead" when cast in. One of the meanings of the Greek word for "part" is a division. The Bible also calls the lake of fire "the second death." Since the first death involves the return of the body to dust and the immediate judgment of the soul and spirit, then why cannot the "second death" be some similar division? Since God loves all of humanity, and He is a merciful God, and since humans are the victims of sin as much as they are participants in it, then it stands to reason that God will not punish these dead with the same torment that Satan will suffer. Satan is the villain here, not humans. Remember Abraham's question to God in Genesis 18:25: "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" This Judge knows how to think and to reason to a perfect degree. Like all good judges, He certainly knows how to recognize mitigating circumstances.
Thus, the lake of fire becomes a "second death" for humans only. If the first death can become an eternal separation from fellowship with God, then what could a "second death" be? Jesus Himself provides the answer in Mark 9:43-48. Three times in these scriptures Jesus repeats His revelation: "Where their worm dieth not , and the fire is not quenched." This is not a parable but is a direct teaching on the nature of the lake of fire. Jesus' statement that "the fire is not quenched" must refer to the lake of fire because the temporary hell will be destroyed in the lake of fire. Likewise, the phrase "where their worm dieth not" must mean that "their worm" must suffer in the lake of fire forever. This means that the sufferings of "their worm" must be the same punishment that Revelation 21:8 calls "the second death."
Therefore, the meaning of the phrase "the second death" depends on the meaning of the phrase "their worm." The meaning of the Greek word here used for "worm" is a maggot. When Jesus used this term, He was referring to the maggots that squirmed in the fires of Gehenna which was the garbage dump which burned continuously just outside the gates of Jerusalem. Even the bodies of violent criminals who had been executed were sometimes thrown into this dump where the maggots fed on them. Since the quality of one's life depends on the level of one's consciousness, then Jesus' use of the phrase "their worm" evidently refers to the level of consciousnesses of those dead who would be in the lake of fire. Jesus' use of the word "their" shows that He meant that the "worm" belonged to the dead; that is, that the dead had become the "worm." If the first death means a separation of the consciousness of man from the Life of God, then the "second death" must mean a reduction of the consciousnesses of those in the lake of fire to that of maggots. The dead squirm in the lake of fire like the maggots did in Gehenna. They have no more consciousness than that of a maggot. Their suffering has been reduced to that of a maggot squirming in a fire. This means that God has greatly reduced their suffering from that of a fully conscious human burning in a fire.
These maggots in the lake of fire are not only dimly aware of their suffering, but in accordance with Revelation 22:11, they are also dimly aware of their hunger and the filth on which they feed. These maggots still hunger for the filthiness of their former sins and still desire to feed on them. This is another meaning of "the second death," that is, that the consciousnesses of the dead are reduced to the level of maggots squirming in a fire and feeding on their own filth forever. Further confirmation of this meaning of the "second death" is found in Job 25:6 where the Word of God calls man a "worm." The Hebrew word used here means a maggot. This verse refers to the filthiness of sin that resides within every human who has inherited original sin from Adam. The "second death" is a reduction of human consciousness to this wormy nature.
Additional confirmation can be found in Isaiah 14:9-11. This scripture contains a prophecy of when Satan will be thrown into the lake of fire. Verse eleven clearly teaches that he will be swallowed by a sea of "worms." The Hebrew word for "worms" here means a special type of maggot called a crimson maggot. The Hebrews used these crimson maggots to make a dye by which they colored their clothes crimson. As Isaiah 1:18 teaches, this crimson color derived from the crimson maggot, God closely associates with man's sins. This makes the prophecy of the doom of Satan clear. He will be thrown into a sea of crimson worms which symbolically represents a sea of humans whose consciousnesses have been reduced to that of maggots feeding on their own filth.
Additional confirmation that the Bible identifies the crimson maggot with sin occurs in Exodus 16:19-20. Moses had instructed the Israelites not to try to save the manna that they gathered every day until the next day. Some of the Israelites disobeyed Moses and tried to save some of their manna until the morning. Since God had appointed Moses as the leader of God's people, to disobey Moses amounted to the same as to disobey God. In the morning, the manna they had tried to save was being eaten by the crimson maggot.
Jesus paraphrased Isaiah 66:24 when He taught about the lake of fire in Mark 9:43-48. The first part of this verse probably refers to the millions of dead bodies left on the earth following the battle of Armegeddon. But the second part of this verse states that their "worm," again meaning the crimson maggot, "shall not die," and "neither shall their fire be quenched." The illustration reveals that unrepentant sinners consciousnesses eventually will be reduced to that of crimson maggots squirming in an eternal fire who are crimson because they have been feeding on their own past sins.
Much of Psalm chapter 22 constitutes a prophecy depicting Jesus' crucifixion and death on the cross. In Psalm 22:6, the Holy Spirit reveals the thoughts of Jesus about His crucifixion. One of Jesus' thoughts while on the cross was: "But I am a worm, and no man......" Again, the word "worm" means the crimson maggot. Here, Jesus directly referred to the fact that He, the Innocent Lamb of God, took upon Himself the filthy sins of all humanity when He suffered on the cross. In order for Jesus to suffer and die in the place of all sinners, He had to suffer for their sins so completely that His shed blood would thoroughly cleanse all of those who would repent and put their trust in Him. He also had to die the same kind of deaths that sinners die; that is, as being separated from God as His actual cry from the cross as prophesied in Psalm 22:1 indicated. As a result of His suffering for sins and His death in the place of sinners, He became as He thought: "no man...." Like lost sinners in the lake of fire, Jesus reduced a part of His consciousness to the level of the crimson maggot. When Jesus suffered and died on the cross in the place of all sinners, he went all the way with it. He accomplished an absolutely thorough completion of it.
Yet, because of His absolute Love and Innocence, all of that filthiness which He endured could not adhere to him. Death and hell could not hold Him. Hear His victorious cry from the cross: "It is finished." Read John 19:20. Read His reassuring words to His disciples in John 16:33: ".....but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." Jesus rose from the grave, victorious over sin and death and the Devil, to justify those who trust in Him and to give them His own everlasting life.
Jesus proved that Infinite Love and Innocence can never be destroyed by even the most subtle of Satan's machinations. The limited innocence of the first humans succumbed to the Devil's subtle tricks, but God's Almighty and Eternal Love and Innocence could be injured by the Devil, but never could it be destroyed by even the most wicked forms of Satan's rebellion. God sacrificed Himself for the salvation of sinners, and gained His glorious victory for the sake of mankind. God is perfectly willing to give His victory to all who will simply receive it by putting their trust in Him.
As Mark 8:35 teaches, all who truly repent of their sins and submit to the gospel of Christ will be saved as individuals regardless of whether they become good or bad children of God. God will eventually wholly sanctify them no matter how long it takes or how much He has to punish them in this life or the next. God knows the futures of all who repent, and once they become His children, He also knows exactly how to sanctify them completely. Jesus will never lose a single one of His sheep. The peculiar certainty of this salvation and sanctification is that God saves and recreates all of His children so that each one of them will forever retain a consciousness of each one's own particular individuality.
Those who teach that backslidders are actually unsaved should reread their Bibles because the Bible is literally full of backslidders. But God always preserves and sanctifies His backslidders no matter how bad they may be. For example, take a look at Lot and Samson. Those who teach that only God's good children are saved are really just trying to bring good works back into salvation through the back door, so to speak. The only condition for salvation is the death, burial and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ received by faith given by God. Read I Corinthians 15:1-4 and Romans 10:13.
In Mark 8:34-35, Jesus taught that those who "deny themselves;" that is, those who reject their old sinful selves and turn to Jesus for their salvation and recreation, will retain an eternal consciousness of their own particular individualities. At the resurrection, they will lose all consciousness of their old sinful lives, but they will retain a recreated consciousness of their original personalities. In other words, those "who lose their lives" for Christ's sake will also "save them."
Jesus also taught in these verses that those who try to save their lives will lose them. Unbelievers will lose their lives because they tried to save their old sinful selves. Following the final judgment, God will separate the consciousnesses of the unsaved dead into two parts. As the Bible teaches, the quality of each person's life is determined by that of which he is conscious. Part of the consciousnesses of the unsaved dead will forever be attached to their sins as they suffer like maggots feeding on their own filth in the lake of fire. God will recreate the other part of their consciousnesses.
God clearly states in Revelation 21:5: "Behold, I make all things new." The Holy Spirit also teaches this truth in Romans 11:36 and in I Corinthians 15:28. Read Revelation 4:11. God created "all things" in the first place, and the Word of God clearly teaches that God will not only recreate the heaven and the earth, but that He will also literally recreate "all things." "All things" that God has created which have been tainted by being included in Satan's false combinations, God will recover and recreate to the uses and purposes of His own will.
The Bible has no problem with the word "thing." This is a perfectly good word which means any object in consciousness. The objects of God's Consciousness are Infinite. This is the Word of God which is one with God. The limited number of material things which God has created, which are based on His Infinite Ideas, have all been tainted to some degree by Lucifer's misuse of God's Ideas in that he invented false combinations based on some of the things of God's Word. God rightly calls these false combinations, sin and evil. All of God's created things have been tainted which have been subjected to Satan's misuse.
Satan injured God Himself when he misused His Word; an injury which had its final denouement in the cross of Christ.
But God has promised that in His final judgment, He will literally recreate all of His tainted things, and remove any possibility for their future misuse. God will restore all of His created things to His own service and purposes. God will neutralize Satan's ability to misuse God's Word by his torment in the lake of fire. God will also neutralize the abilities of the unsaved dead to sin by reducing their consciousnesses to that of maggots feeding on their own filth in the lake of fire. In other words, God will recreate good systems and eliminate all false systems from His creations.
All false systems attempt to reduce God's good Ideas and creations to absolute nothingness, but God will recreate new good systems and reduce all false systems to an equality with absolute nothingness. In this way, God will return the unsaved dead, and even Satan himself, to His own good uses and purposes. In other words, God will literally "make all things new."
But there is still more to the story of God's recreation of all of His things. Revelation 20:12-13 teaches that the unsaved dead will be judged according to their works. This must mean that they will be judged according to their good works as well as their sinful works. Read Revelation 22:12. Their sinful works will be reduced to the consciousnesses of maggots squirming in the lake of fire, but their good works will be retained and rewarded by God. Mark 9:41 teaches that even the smallest good work will be rewarded by God. God will reward all good works, but this does not mean that the unsaved dead will, in the end, be saved by God's grace. They will not be saved as individuals. Only God's church who has received God's grace will be saved and recreated as individuals retaining their former personalities. The consciousnesses of the unsaved dead will, in the final judgment, be separated into a consciousness of their good works and a consciousness of their sinful works. This separation, in itself, will destroy their individualities. Yet, even more than this, in order for God "to make all things new," even their consciousnesses of their good works must be separated into discrete things which God can recombine and recreate. Believers saved by grace are exempt from this type of recreation because God has already recreated them when they were "born again," and He will recreate their bodies at the Rapture of the church. Read John 12:24-25.
Following the Great White Throne Judgment, God will recreate a new heaven and a new earth, and will recreate a new human race to live on the earth. Revelation 21:2-3 teaches that the New Jerusalem will descend from God to the new earth that will be populated by a recreated human race. These new humans cannot be any of the saints saved by grace because all of God's saints will dwell in heaven with Christ. In addition, the Bible does not state that these humans will be saints, but that they will be ordinary humans, but incapable of committing sins. Since all good systems originated from God's Ideas, then God will recreate these new humans from a pool of good works which He has recovered from unsaved humans when He separated their consciousness of their sins from their consciousness of their good works which emanated from God in the first place. In this way, God recovers all of His good systems and good Ideas from any possibility that they could be misused in the future.
Revelation 22:12 clearly teaches that God will reward every man, saved and unsaved, according to their works. The word "works" here can only be good works because they will be rewarded. This verse has to mean that God will recreate the unsaved because certainly anyone in a lake of fire cannot receive a reward. Some of the recreated humans will retain some part of their former individualities because they did a lot of good works in their former lives. Others who did mostly evil works, and few good works, will retain little, if any, of their former personalities. In either case, the fact that God will remove all sorrow from the lives of the recreated humans shows that God will nullify all memories of their former lives.
The recreated humans will live only on the earth. They will not be allowed to enter into the New Jerusalem. Only God's saints will be allowed to live in the New Jerusalem, or in Paradise.
Friday, August 3, 2012
CREATION AND RECREATION chapter 9
Sanctification
Read: Matthew 22:9-14 Matthew 24:42-51 II Peter 2:17-22 Luke 12:42-48 Matthew 5:25-26 Acts 26:18John 1:12-13 I Corinthians 6:19-20 I Corinthians 12:13 Galatians 5:22-24 Galatians 6:1 John 3:7 (KJV)
Salvation initiates the sanctification process, but the experience of salvation completes God's rescue of the believer from eternal death and the sin that causes it. In Acts 26:18, Jesus' charge to His new convert, Saul of Tarsus, exactly describes the purpose of the gospel. Jesus sent Paul to preach the good news that those who believe in Christ will be converted, brought out of darkness to light, saved from the power of Satan, and have their sins completely removed from their lives forever which God guarantees by giving them an eternal inheritance. God's forgiveness of the eternal effects of sin correlates with His removing them from the life of the believer forever. Jesus' shed blood washes away every believer's sins forever.
Adam and Eve's disobedience caused them, and all humans who came from them, to lose that which God said they would lose; that is, their lives. Original sin is that darkness and eternal separation from God that all humans have inherited from Adam and Eve's fall. When Adam and Eve believed Satan's lies instead of God's Word, then Satan gained an eternal power over them; that is, the power of death and eternal separation from God. This darkness and weakness inside of man causes him to commit sins. Original sin causes mankind to disbelieve God's Word and to try to avoid it. Original sin causes man to be allied with Satan, whether we know it or not. This is the reason why Jesus called Satan a liar and a murderer from the beginning. Lucifer invented lies and attempted to murder God when he rebelled. Satan attempted to murder Jesus on the cross. Satan has murdered all those who die in their sins, having never accepted by faith the grace that God has provided for them in the cross of Christ.
The message that Jesus told Paul to preach was the good news that He had come into the world to rescue humanity from the power of Satan which destroys them. Jesus has already done all that is needed for man's salvation and sanctification. Every individual can receive His salvation and subsequent sanctification simply through his or her faith that Christ has already saved them. Those who reject this faith remain under the power of Satan.
To be sanctified means to be set apart by God for His purpose. Jesus called the initial moment of sanctification being "born again." This is an apt description because those who receive Christ as their Savior by faith become immediately and forever rescued from the power of sin and Satan and are born into the family of God. At the immediate moment that a sinner repents and believes, the Holy Spirit enters that person's heart, washes that person in the blood of Christ which removes all of their sin, and causes that person to come alive inside with the eternal life of Christ Himself. God removes their deadness forever, quickens and recreates their dead spirits and souls, and gives them eternal life. God can do this because His Son has already sacrificed Himself for them, suffering for their sins, dying in their place, being buried to remove their sins, and being resurrected to give them His justification and His own eternal life. This initial moment of sanctification is aptly described in John 1:12-13, in I Corinthians 12:13, and in other places in the New Testament.
Those who are born into the family of God can never lose their salvation or sanctification. They become God's children forever. In order for them to lose their salvation, God would have to nullify the blood of Jesus with which He cleansed them. God would have to take back His Holy Spirit by which He made them come alive. God would have to disinherit His own children and give them back to the Devil. God would never do this. Whatever God does is forever.
When a repentant believer becomes a child of God, he or she enters into a new relationship with God. All believers retain their free will, and so they can still sin after becoming a believer. God allows this because He desires to prove that sin can never separate His children from His grace. God's eternal salvation is a part of His project of proving that Love conquers all. Just as parents can have good and bad children, God has good and bad children. Some of God's children choose to obey God's Word and try to conform their lives to the "fruit of the Spirit" as described in Galatians 5:22-23. These good children have submitted their lives to God's sanctification process by which they are being "conformed to the image of His Son" as related in Romans 8:29. This does not mean that God's good children become perfect in this world. The purpose of the process of sanctification is to perfect them eventually; to free them of sin completely and to make them like Jesus. God's children do not sanctify themselves. The Holy Spirit sanctifies them, but only as they choose to yield themselves to His control.
God also has bad children. Children who disobey God, and refuse to yield their lives to the control of the Holy Spirit for their sanctification. Many stories of God's children who have backslidden on God for at least a part of their lives are recorded in both the Old and New Testaments. One fact stands out from all of these stories. God never, ever disowns any of His bad children. God never breaks His promises to His children, good or bad. God will certainly punish His bad children, but He will never give up on them until He has eventually brought them back to Himself and has completly sanctified them.
In Deuteronomy 30:1-10, God promised the children of Israel that one day He would make them the only righteous nation in the world. God prophesied that He would do this even though He knew that He would have to severly punish them many times in the future for their periods of disobedience. God even prophesied that one day He would scatter the children of Israel throughout the whole world. But God's power would not fail to regather them and reestablish them as the only righteous nation in the world. In a similar manner, God will never give up on any of His backslidden Christian children until He brings them back to Himself.
As Galatians 6:1 teaches, God does not consider sins in the lives of His children as that which causes eternal damnation. God has forever freed His children from eternal damnation by washing away all their sins in the blood of Jesus. God has already freed His children from eternal damnation and the power of Satan through the crucifixion, death and resurrection of His Son. Thus, God considers sins in the lives of His children as being faults or errors that He needs to correct. Just as an earthly father does, God uses both mercy and punishment to correct His children. But no matter how long it takes, God will correct His children again and again until they finally learn to submit to the power of the Holy Spirit to sanctify them fully and to cause them eventually to become as much like Jesus as is possible for a human to be. God will not fail to accomplish this task with every one of His children.
Read; John 13:1-17 John 19:34 Ephesians 5:26-27 I John 1:8-10 II Timothy 2:19
Jesus has already purchased His church with His own blood and saved it forever from eternal damnation, but in order to sanctify His church completely and keep His children in constant fellowship with Him, God washes His children in the water that flowed from the pierced side of Jesus on the cross. This shed water from the Lord's side represents the power of the Holy Spirit to cleanse believers by His use of the Word of God. By reading the Word of God, believers come to realize that their sins cause a loss of fellowship with God and a hindrance to their sanctification. If then, being under conviction, believers confess and repent of their sins, then the Holy Spirit will cleanse them with the water of the Word and will forgive them and restore them to fellowship with God. For these reasons, it is of vital importance that every child of God read their Bibles (KJV) every day, pray and repent of their sins, and walk with God every day. Those who do this will avoid much punishment and trouble in life, but those believers who do not will eventually become fully sanctified by God no matter how long it takes.
The bad children of God do not do this. Nevertheless, God's power to correct them will eventually cause them to repent of their sins and a return to complete fellowship with God. To this end, God's prophecy in Ephesians 5:27 that He will someday present His entire church to Himself as a perfectly clean and glorious church, He will certainly fulfill. Just as a mother washes her dirty children in water, so God washes His sinful children in the water of His Word. God's power to sanctify His church completely does not mean that He ever violates the free will of any of His children. God uses His corrective power to convince His children that it is in their best interest to submit to the power of the Holy Spirit to sanctify them eventually and completely. Should God ever violate the free will of any person, saved or unsaved, then God's test of His Love will have failed because His power will have overridden the test. God will prove that His Love can never be destroyed by using the free choices of His Love.
Read: I Thessalonians 5:23 Colossians 2:11 I John 3:9 Romans 2:28-29 I Corinthians 15:22 II Corinthians 5:1-5 Romans 12:1-2 Romans 8:9-17 John 3:3
As long as believers dwell in the world, they are only two-thirds saved. Every human has a body, soul and spirit. Lost sinners possess a dead soul and spirit forever, and eventually, a dead body forever. A repentant sinner who has been saved by Christ has been "born again." The Holy Spirit has washed them in the blood of Christ, and has recreated them with the life of Christ dwelling in their souls and spirits. Christ has made their new souls and spirits alive forever. As such, these recreated souls and spirits cannot sin because they have been wholly sanctified by the presence of Christ within them.
These new souls and spirits can be affected by sin, but sin cannot adhere to them. When believers use their free wills to commit sins, their sins are caused by their fleshly appetites and adhere to their bodies, the source of their fleshly appetites. The Holy Spirit within their new souls and spirits becomes grieved by the fleshly sins of the believer, but the believer's sins adhere only to his or her body. For these reasons, the bodies of all humans, both saved and unsaved, must die and return to dust as one of the penalties for sin. There can be no exceptions. Thus believers are completely and forever saved in their souls and spirits, but their earthly bodies must die and be lost forever.
Even so, God does not allow believers to commit sins because of their fleshly appetites. God commands believers to submit their bodies with its fleshly appetites to the control of the Holy Spirit within them. God expects believers to stay away from sin and to hate sin. God severly punishes believers who choose to live in sin both in this life and in the afterlife. The will of God is that believers should live clean lives as a witness for Him to unbelievers so that they might repent and believe. Backslidders sometimes cause unbelievers to remain lost because of the hypocrisy they see. For these reasons, God severly punishes backslidden believers. Sinful believers should beware God's punishment because, according to II Peter 2:20-22, their temporary punishment will actually be far worse than even the eternal punishment of unbelievers. II Peter 2:17-19 refers to the punishment of unbelievers, but II Peter 2:20-22 changes to the temporary punishment of backslidden believers. These scriptures clearly teach that their "latter end is worse," and that it actually would have been better for them to have never been saved than that they should get saved and then backslide on God. Even so, God will always accept the true repentance of backslidders, wash them in the water of His Word, and restore them to full fellowship with Him.
Read: I Thessalonians 4:13-18
The fact that believers' earthly bodies will die and return to dust does not mean that their bodies will not be saved. Believers will be forever saved in body, soul and spirit. Their souls and spirits are saved when they are "born again," but their bodies will not be saved until the Rapture of the church. When Christ comes in the air to call His church home to Himself, He will save the whole church in body as He has already saved it in soul and spirit. As II Corinthians 5:1-5 clearly teaches, God has already created new bodies for believers just as He has recreated their souls and spirits. At the Rapture, God will bring these new bodies with Him so that "asleep" believers in their graves will receive their new bodies to be united with their souls and spirits already with the Lord. Believers who are "alive and remain" will receive their recreated bodies united with their already recreated souls and spirits, and will leave their old bodies behind to return to dust. God's universal rule, as recorded in Genesis 3:19, is that all earthly bodies must die and return to dust.
Read: Matthew 22:9-14 Matthew 24:42-51 Luke 12:42-48 Matthew 5:25-26 Hebrews 13:5
Fundamental Baptists seem to be closest in their beliefs to the true teachings of the Bible (KJV) than any other denomination. Yet, the Fundamentalists have largely ignored the clear teaching of the above scriptures that God will temporarily punish backslidden believers in the afterlife. Perhaps, they fear that they will be accused of believing in Purgatory, but these teachings have nothing to do with Purgatory. The doctrine of Purgatory seems to be that most believers must themselves suffer for their own sins for a time in hell before they can be accepted by God to heaven. But this doctrine is not possible because scripture clearly teaches that Jesus has already suffered all of the eternal effects of sin forever. Those who accept by faith that Jesus has already paid the entire penalty for their sins will never suffer for their own sins in a Devil's hell or any place like it.
However, the above scriptures do teach that God will temporarily punish His backslidden children in order to correct them. God never punishes His children for their sins because Jesus has already paid that price and God has forgiven them forever, but He reserves the right to correct His wayward children. If God holds the right to punish His wayward children in this life, then why not in the afterlife. The above scriptures teach that God consigns unrepentant backslidders to a place called "outer darkness" or "prison" when they die. This place has nothing to do with the Devil or hell or Purgatory, nor is it any place of separation from God's protection of believers from Satan's oppression. Jesus came into the world to save sinners from the Devil's eternal oppression by taking away their sins, and to give them eternal life which they will still retain even when in temporary punishment.
God reserves the right to correct His wayward children, but never allows them to be punished forever. The punishment of "outer darkness" is similar to a parent who sends a naughty child to their room to think about the wrong that they have done. Just as the parent is still with the child in the home, God is still with His punished child even in the "outer darkness." Some unbelievers are also in this "outer darkness" but God never recovers them. But God will, after a time of punishment determined by His judgment, recover His wayward children to heaven to be with Him forever. God's punishment for sin in the unbeliever is an eternal punishment, but God's punishment of His children is corrective and temporary. Christ sacrificed Himself to transform unbelievers into God's children.
The type of suffering which backslidders endure is called "weeping and gnashing of teeth." Although the unbelievers will also suffer "weeping and gnashing of teeth," they will not suffer to the depth that the backslidders will. According to the comparison of the sufferings of unbelievers and punished believers in II Peter 2:15-22, the punished believers temporary punishment will be far greater in depth than even the eternal punishment of unbelievers. The unbelievers will suffer regret that they did not do something to try to keep themselves out of hell, but the backslidders will suffer remorse for their failures to live in accordance with their Savior's commandments. Their anguish for the grief and disappointment that they have caused their Lord will be so deep as to be unimaginable. Every person may believe or not believe according to their will, but the one decision that every person should avoid at all costs is to accept Christ as Savior and then return to a sinful lifestyle.
As Matthew 22:9-14 clearly teaches, even after the Rapture backslidders will be consigned to a time of punishment in "outer darkness." One may ask: How can believers who have received perfect bodies, souls and spirits be punished? The answer lies in Jesus' question to the quest without a wedding garment: "Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment?" Both the bad and the good had been invited to the wedding. This means the whole church will be Raptured, not just a part of it. The quest without a wedding garment was not properly dressed. Jesus' question to him was intended to make him aware of his own shame at not being properly dressed for the wedding. Jesus had him cast into "outer darkness" to make him suffer remorse and shame for daring to come into the Lord's wedding when he had been caught in a sinful lifestyle when the Lord Raptured him.
Read: Luke 12:45-48 Romans 2:5-16 John 1:9 John 5:21-22 Acts 10:42 Hebrews 9:27 Titus 2:11-12 Isaiah 65:1
In Hebrews 9:27, the Bible teaches that God judges every person immediately following their physical death. The general teaching of Christianity is that Jesus restricts His judgment to only two directions, the saved go to heaven and the unsaved go to hell. However, Jesus taught in some of His parables, and the Holy Spirit taught in Romans 2:5-16, that Christ employs a wide latitude in the kinds of judgments that He makes. Just as a human judge usually allows himself some flexibility in the judgments that he makes within the confines of the law, so the Bible teaches that Jesus allows Himself great flexibility in the judgments he makes, but within the confines of His law.
Unmistakably, God's Word teaches that eventually all believers in Christ will get to heaven, and all unbelievers will be cast into the lake of fire. But until this final judgment, Christ employs wide latitude in His temporary judgments of belivers and unbelievers alike.
The teaching of the Holy Spirit in Romans 2:5-16 concerns all mankind in general before God separated mankind into His church saved by the blood of Jesus and those who have heard the gospel and have rejected it as recorded in Romans 3. This fact is made clear in Romans 2 verses 6 and 11. These scriptures teach that before Christ came, and even now to everyone who has never heard the gospel, the human race is divided into those who do good and those who do evil. Those who have never heard the gospel and yet try to practice goodness and morality may be doing so because God has already touched them in their hearts by His grace and has saved them. John 1:9 and Titus 2:11-12 clearly teach that Jesus provides His light and His grace for every human who has ever come into the world. Those who do evil will perish for their evil whether they know the law or not. Those who have never heard the gospel but practice goodness may be doing so because they have already been saved by God's grace even if they are not conscious of it.
John 5:20 clearly teaches that "the Son quickeneth whom He will." The general teaching of the church is that a person must be fully conscious of their salvation in order to be saved. But John 5:20 indicates that Jesus saves whomever He wills regardless of whether they are conscious of it or not. The teaching that a person must be fully conscious of their salvation in order to be saved cannot be correct because that would make such a consciousness a required condition for salvation when the scriptures absolutely teach that the only condition for salvation is the grace of God provided through the sacrifice, death and resurrection of His Son. Faith itself is not a condition for salvation because in the first place it is given by the grace of God, and in the second place faith merely opens the heart to receive the grace of God already provided by the sacrifice, death and resurrection of Jesus. No one gets saved until the Holy Spirit applies the blood of Jesus to cleanse the spirit and soul of that one who humbly cries to God to give faith to him or her. The gospels indicate that Jesus often saved and healed people who showed no outward sense of repentance or faith whatsoever. The maniac of Gadara is one such example. Yet, Jesus could see the hidden faith that He had given them even though they were not aware of it themselves.
Jesus commanded the church to preach the gospel to every human because their hearing of the gospel would unleash the power of the Holy Spirit to make them fully aware of their sins and the salvation that only Jesus can provide. Believers who are fully conscious of their salvation will also be open to greater sanctification by the power of the Holy Spirit, and will thus have a greater desire to spread the gospel to others. Nevertheless, there exist many believers who have never heard the gospel and who experience little sanctification, but yet are saved by a hidden faith given to them by the grace of God. The fact that God does this does not violate the free will of man because God saves every person the moment they choose to believe, whether hidden or not. But this moment also causes each believer's salvation to extend into eternity from the foundation of the world.
One of the mistakes that the church makes about the nature of God is that it sees God as being, in a sense, hidebound by His Word. Perhaps because of fear of the future, the church endeavors to use God's Word to try to predict everything He might do. However, the Word of God itself teaches that God is an Almighty Person with unlimited free will. Thus, as a Judge, God uses great flexibility in His judgments; and as Almighty, He does whatever He pleases, sometimes quite unpredictably, but always within the confines of His Law.
Read: Matthew 22:9-14 Matthew 24:42-51 II Peter 2:17-22 Luke 12:42-48 Matthew 5:25-26 Acts 26:18John 1:12-13 I Corinthians 6:19-20 I Corinthians 12:13 Galatians 5:22-24 Galatians 6:1 John 3:7 (KJV)
Salvation initiates the sanctification process, but the experience of salvation completes God's rescue of the believer from eternal death and the sin that causes it. In Acts 26:18, Jesus' charge to His new convert, Saul of Tarsus, exactly describes the purpose of the gospel. Jesus sent Paul to preach the good news that those who believe in Christ will be converted, brought out of darkness to light, saved from the power of Satan, and have their sins completely removed from their lives forever which God guarantees by giving them an eternal inheritance. God's forgiveness of the eternal effects of sin correlates with His removing them from the life of the believer forever. Jesus' shed blood washes away every believer's sins forever.
Adam and Eve's disobedience caused them, and all humans who came from them, to lose that which God said they would lose; that is, their lives. Original sin is that darkness and eternal separation from God that all humans have inherited from Adam and Eve's fall. When Adam and Eve believed Satan's lies instead of God's Word, then Satan gained an eternal power over them; that is, the power of death and eternal separation from God. This darkness and weakness inside of man causes him to commit sins. Original sin causes mankind to disbelieve God's Word and to try to avoid it. Original sin causes man to be allied with Satan, whether we know it or not. This is the reason why Jesus called Satan a liar and a murderer from the beginning. Lucifer invented lies and attempted to murder God when he rebelled. Satan attempted to murder Jesus on the cross. Satan has murdered all those who die in their sins, having never accepted by faith the grace that God has provided for them in the cross of Christ.
The message that Jesus told Paul to preach was the good news that He had come into the world to rescue humanity from the power of Satan which destroys them. Jesus has already done all that is needed for man's salvation and sanctification. Every individual can receive His salvation and subsequent sanctification simply through his or her faith that Christ has already saved them. Those who reject this faith remain under the power of Satan.
To be sanctified means to be set apart by God for His purpose. Jesus called the initial moment of sanctification being "born again." This is an apt description because those who receive Christ as their Savior by faith become immediately and forever rescued from the power of sin and Satan and are born into the family of God. At the immediate moment that a sinner repents and believes, the Holy Spirit enters that person's heart, washes that person in the blood of Christ which removes all of their sin, and causes that person to come alive inside with the eternal life of Christ Himself. God removes their deadness forever, quickens and recreates their dead spirits and souls, and gives them eternal life. God can do this because His Son has already sacrificed Himself for them, suffering for their sins, dying in their place, being buried to remove their sins, and being resurrected to give them His justification and His own eternal life. This initial moment of sanctification is aptly described in John 1:12-13, in I Corinthians 12:13, and in other places in the New Testament.
Those who are born into the family of God can never lose their salvation or sanctification. They become God's children forever. In order for them to lose their salvation, God would have to nullify the blood of Jesus with which He cleansed them. God would have to take back His Holy Spirit by which He made them come alive. God would have to disinherit His own children and give them back to the Devil. God would never do this. Whatever God does is forever.
When a repentant believer becomes a child of God, he or she enters into a new relationship with God. All believers retain their free will, and so they can still sin after becoming a believer. God allows this because He desires to prove that sin can never separate His children from His grace. God's eternal salvation is a part of His project of proving that Love conquers all. Just as parents can have good and bad children, God has good and bad children. Some of God's children choose to obey God's Word and try to conform their lives to the "fruit of the Spirit" as described in Galatians 5:22-23. These good children have submitted their lives to God's sanctification process by which they are being "conformed to the image of His Son" as related in Romans 8:29. This does not mean that God's good children become perfect in this world. The purpose of the process of sanctification is to perfect them eventually; to free them of sin completely and to make them like Jesus. God's children do not sanctify themselves. The Holy Spirit sanctifies them, but only as they choose to yield themselves to His control.
God also has bad children. Children who disobey God, and refuse to yield their lives to the control of the Holy Spirit for their sanctification. Many stories of God's children who have backslidden on God for at least a part of their lives are recorded in both the Old and New Testaments. One fact stands out from all of these stories. God never, ever disowns any of His bad children. God never breaks His promises to His children, good or bad. God will certainly punish His bad children, but He will never give up on them until He has eventually brought them back to Himself and has completly sanctified them.
In Deuteronomy 30:1-10, God promised the children of Israel that one day He would make them the only righteous nation in the world. God prophesied that He would do this even though He knew that He would have to severly punish them many times in the future for their periods of disobedience. God even prophesied that one day He would scatter the children of Israel throughout the whole world. But God's power would not fail to regather them and reestablish them as the only righteous nation in the world. In a similar manner, God will never give up on any of His backslidden Christian children until He brings them back to Himself.
As Galatians 6:1 teaches, God does not consider sins in the lives of His children as that which causes eternal damnation. God has forever freed His children from eternal damnation by washing away all their sins in the blood of Jesus. God has already freed His children from eternal damnation and the power of Satan through the crucifixion, death and resurrection of His Son. Thus, God considers sins in the lives of His children as being faults or errors that He needs to correct. Just as an earthly father does, God uses both mercy and punishment to correct His children. But no matter how long it takes, God will correct His children again and again until they finally learn to submit to the power of the Holy Spirit to sanctify them fully and to cause them eventually to become as much like Jesus as is possible for a human to be. God will not fail to accomplish this task with every one of His children.
Read; John 13:1-17 John 19:34 Ephesians 5:26-27 I John 1:8-10 II Timothy 2:19
Jesus has already purchased His church with His own blood and saved it forever from eternal damnation, but in order to sanctify His church completely and keep His children in constant fellowship with Him, God washes His children in the water that flowed from the pierced side of Jesus on the cross. This shed water from the Lord's side represents the power of the Holy Spirit to cleanse believers by His use of the Word of God. By reading the Word of God, believers come to realize that their sins cause a loss of fellowship with God and a hindrance to their sanctification. If then, being under conviction, believers confess and repent of their sins, then the Holy Spirit will cleanse them with the water of the Word and will forgive them and restore them to fellowship with God. For these reasons, it is of vital importance that every child of God read their Bibles (KJV) every day, pray and repent of their sins, and walk with God every day. Those who do this will avoid much punishment and trouble in life, but those believers who do not will eventually become fully sanctified by God no matter how long it takes.
The bad children of God do not do this. Nevertheless, God's power to correct them will eventually cause them to repent of their sins and a return to complete fellowship with God. To this end, God's prophecy in Ephesians 5:27 that He will someday present His entire church to Himself as a perfectly clean and glorious church, He will certainly fulfill. Just as a mother washes her dirty children in water, so God washes His sinful children in the water of His Word. God's power to sanctify His church completely does not mean that He ever violates the free will of any of His children. God uses His corrective power to convince His children that it is in their best interest to submit to the power of the Holy Spirit to sanctify them eventually and completely. Should God ever violate the free will of any person, saved or unsaved, then God's test of His Love will have failed because His power will have overridden the test. God will prove that His Love can never be destroyed by using the free choices of His Love.
Read: I Thessalonians 5:23 Colossians 2:11 I John 3:9 Romans 2:28-29 I Corinthians 15:22 II Corinthians 5:1-5 Romans 12:1-2 Romans 8:9-17 John 3:3
As long as believers dwell in the world, they are only two-thirds saved. Every human has a body, soul and spirit. Lost sinners possess a dead soul and spirit forever, and eventually, a dead body forever. A repentant sinner who has been saved by Christ has been "born again." The Holy Spirit has washed them in the blood of Christ, and has recreated them with the life of Christ dwelling in their souls and spirits. Christ has made their new souls and spirits alive forever. As such, these recreated souls and spirits cannot sin because they have been wholly sanctified by the presence of Christ within them.
These new souls and spirits can be affected by sin, but sin cannot adhere to them. When believers use their free wills to commit sins, their sins are caused by their fleshly appetites and adhere to their bodies, the source of their fleshly appetites. The Holy Spirit within their new souls and spirits becomes grieved by the fleshly sins of the believer, but the believer's sins adhere only to his or her body. For these reasons, the bodies of all humans, both saved and unsaved, must die and return to dust as one of the penalties for sin. There can be no exceptions. Thus believers are completely and forever saved in their souls and spirits, but their earthly bodies must die and be lost forever.
Even so, God does not allow believers to commit sins because of their fleshly appetites. God commands believers to submit their bodies with its fleshly appetites to the control of the Holy Spirit within them. God expects believers to stay away from sin and to hate sin. God severly punishes believers who choose to live in sin both in this life and in the afterlife. The will of God is that believers should live clean lives as a witness for Him to unbelievers so that they might repent and believe. Backslidders sometimes cause unbelievers to remain lost because of the hypocrisy they see. For these reasons, God severly punishes backslidden believers. Sinful believers should beware God's punishment because, according to II Peter 2:20-22, their temporary punishment will actually be far worse than even the eternal punishment of unbelievers. II Peter 2:17-19 refers to the punishment of unbelievers, but II Peter 2:20-22 changes to the temporary punishment of backslidden believers. These scriptures clearly teach that their "latter end is worse," and that it actually would have been better for them to have never been saved than that they should get saved and then backslide on God. Even so, God will always accept the true repentance of backslidders, wash them in the water of His Word, and restore them to full fellowship with Him.
Read: I Thessalonians 4:13-18
The fact that believers' earthly bodies will die and return to dust does not mean that their bodies will not be saved. Believers will be forever saved in body, soul and spirit. Their souls and spirits are saved when they are "born again," but their bodies will not be saved until the Rapture of the church. When Christ comes in the air to call His church home to Himself, He will save the whole church in body as He has already saved it in soul and spirit. As II Corinthians 5:1-5 clearly teaches, God has already created new bodies for believers just as He has recreated their souls and spirits. At the Rapture, God will bring these new bodies with Him so that "asleep" believers in their graves will receive their new bodies to be united with their souls and spirits already with the Lord. Believers who are "alive and remain" will receive their recreated bodies united with their already recreated souls and spirits, and will leave their old bodies behind to return to dust. God's universal rule, as recorded in Genesis 3:19, is that all earthly bodies must die and return to dust.
Read: Matthew 22:9-14 Matthew 24:42-51 Luke 12:42-48 Matthew 5:25-26 Hebrews 13:5
Fundamental Baptists seem to be closest in their beliefs to the true teachings of the Bible (KJV) than any other denomination. Yet, the Fundamentalists have largely ignored the clear teaching of the above scriptures that God will temporarily punish backslidden believers in the afterlife. Perhaps, they fear that they will be accused of believing in Purgatory, but these teachings have nothing to do with Purgatory. The doctrine of Purgatory seems to be that most believers must themselves suffer for their own sins for a time in hell before they can be accepted by God to heaven. But this doctrine is not possible because scripture clearly teaches that Jesus has already suffered all of the eternal effects of sin forever. Those who accept by faith that Jesus has already paid the entire penalty for their sins will never suffer for their own sins in a Devil's hell or any place like it.
However, the above scriptures do teach that God will temporarily punish His backslidden children in order to correct them. God never punishes His children for their sins because Jesus has already paid that price and God has forgiven them forever, but He reserves the right to correct His wayward children. If God holds the right to punish His wayward children in this life, then why not in the afterlife. The above scriptures teach that God consigns unrepentant backslidders to a place called "outer darkness" or "prison" when they die. This place has nothing to do with the Devil or hell or Purgatory, nor is it any place of separation from God's protection of believers from Satan's oppression. Jesus came into the world to save sinners from the Devil's eternal oppression by taking away their sins, and to give them eternal life which they will still retain even when in temporary punishment.
God reserves the right to correct His wayward children, but never allows them to be punished forever. The punishment of "outer darkness" is similar to a parent who sends a naughty child to their room to think about the wrong that they have done. Just as the parent is still with the child in the home, God is still with His punished child even in the "outer darkness." Some unbelievers are also in this "outer darkness" but God never recovers them. But God will, after a time of punishment determined by His judgment, recover His wayward children to heaven to be with Him forever. God's punishment for sin in the unbeliever is an eternal punishment, but God's punishment of His children is corrective and temporary. Christ sacrificed Himself to transform unbelievers into God's children.
The type of suffering which backslidders endure is called "weeping and gnashing of teeth." Although the unbelievers will also suffer "weeping and gnashing of teeth," they will not suffer to the depth that the backslidders will. According to the comparison of the sufferings of unbelievers and punished believers in II Peter 2:15-22, the punished believers temporary punishment will be far greater in depth than even the eternal punishment of unbelievers. The unbelievers will suffer regret that they did not do something to try to keep themselves out of hell, but the backslidders will suffer remorse for their failures to live in accordance with their Savior's commandments. Their anguish for the grief and disappointment that they have caused their Lord will be so deep as to be unimaginable. Every person may believe or not believe according to their will, but the one decision that every person should avoid at all costs is to accept Christ as Savior and then return to a sinful lifestyle.
As Matthew 22:9-14 clearly teaches, even after the Rapture backslidders will be consigned to a time of punishment in "outer darkness." One may ask: How can believers who have received perfect bodies, souls and spirits be punished? The answer lies in Jesus' question to the quest without a wedding garment: "Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment?" Both the bad and the good had been invited to the wedding. This means the whole church will be Raptured, not just a part of it. The quest without a wedding garment was not properly dressed. Jesus' question to him was intended to make him aware of his own shame at not being properly dressed for the wedding. Jesus had him cast into "outer darkness" to make him suffer remorse and shame for daring to come into the Lord's wedding when he had been caught in a sinful lifestyle when the Lord Raptured him.
Read: Luke 12:45-48 Romans 2:5-16 John 1:9 John 5:21-22 Acts 10:42 Hebrews 9:27 Titus 2:11-12 Isaiah 65:1
In Hebrews 9:27, the Bible teaches that God judges every person immediately following their physical death. The general teaching of Christianity is that Jesus restricts His judgment to only two directions, the saved go to heaven and the unsaved go to hell. However, Jesus taught in some of His parables, and the Holy Spirit taught in Romans 2:5-16, that Christ employs a wide latitude in the kinds of judgments that He makes. Just as a human judge usually allows himself some flexibility in the judgments that he makes within the confines of the law, so the Bible teaches that Jesus allows Himself great flexibility in the judgments he makes, but within the confines of His law.
Unmistakably, God's Word teaches that eventually all believers in Christ will get to heaven, and all unbelievers will be cast into the lake of fire. But until this final judgment, Christ employs wide latitude in His temporary judgments of belivers and unbelievers alike.
The teaching of the Holy Spirit in Romans 2:5-16 concerns all mankind in general before God separated mankind into His church saved by the blood of Jesus and those who have heard the gospel and have rejected it as recorded in Romans 3. This fact is made clear in Romans 2 verses 6 and 11. These scriptures teach that before Christ came, and even now to everyone who has never heard the gospel, the human race is divided into those who do good and those who do evil. Those who have never heard the gospel and yet try to practice goodness and morality may be doing so because God has already touched them in their hearts by His grace and has saved them. John 1:9 and Titus 2:11-12 clearly teach that Jesus provides His light and His grace for every human who has ever come into the world. Those who do evil will perish for their evil whether they know the law or not. Those who have never heard the gospel but practice goodness may be doing so because they have already been saved by God's grace even if they are not conscious of it.
John 5:20 clearly teaches that "the Son quickeneth whom He will." The general teaching of the church is that a person must be fully conscious of their salvation in order to be saved. But John 5:20 indicates that Jesus saves whomever He wills regardless of whether they are conscious of it or not. The teaching that a person must be fully conscious of their salvation in order to be saved cannot be correct because that would make such a consciousness a required condition for salvation when the scriptures absolutely teach that the only condition for salvation is the grace of God provided through the sacrifice, death and resurrection of His Son. Faith itself is not a condition for salvation because in the first place it is given by the grace of God, and in the second place faith merely opens the heart to receive the grace of God already provided by the sacrifice, death and resurrection of Jesus. No one gets saved until the Holy Spirit applies the blood of Jesus to cleanse the spirit and soul of that one who humbly cries to God to give faith to him or her. The gospels indicate that Jesus often saved and healed people who showed no outward sense of repentance or faith whatsoever. The maniac of Gadara is one such example. Yet, Jesus could see the hidden faith that He had given them even though they were not aware of it themselves.
Jesus commanded the church to preach the gospel to every human because their hearing of the gospel would unleash the power of the Holy Spirit to make them fully aware of their sins and the salvation that only Jesus can provide. Believers who are fully conscious of their salvation will also be open to greater sanctification by the power of the Holy Spirit, and will thus have a greater desire to spread the gospel to others. Nevertheless, there exist many believers who have never heard the gospel and who experience little sanctification, but yet are saved by a hidden faith given to them by the grace of God. The fact that God does this does not violate the free will of man because God saves every person the moment they choose to believe, whether hidden or not. But this moment also causes each believer's salvation to extend into eternity from the foundation of the world.
One of the mistakes that the church makes about the nature of God is that it sees God as being, in a sense, hidebound by His Word. Perhaps because of fear of the future, the church endeavors to use God's Word to try to predict everything He might do. However, the Word of God itself teaches that God is an Almighty Person with unlimited free will. Thus, as a Judge, God uses great flexibility in His judgments; and as Almighty, He does whatever He pleases, sometimes quite unpredictably, but always within the confines of His Law.
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