Jeremiah 6:29-30 describes how God will use His consuming fire to separate gross metals from good metals which symbolizes His utter rejection of all reprobates. Just as God employs His sanctification process to improve the inner lives and morals of His believers by adding the perfect righteousness of Christ to their lives, so God uses a reprobation process to subtract His goodness from all reprobates who have totally rejected Him. Many times the reprobate may have heard the Word of God, been brought under the conviction by the Holy Spirit that he is a sinner in need of a Savior, but there comes a time when he finally and totally rejects the grace of God. He experiences a conversion to evil which is the opposite of the "born again" experience with God. His heart becomes filled with coldness and deadness toward God, just as the repentant believer becomes filled with love and peace from God.
Romans 1:21-32; II Timothy 3:1-8; and Titus 1:15-16 describes the declension of the reprobates toward depravity. This declension happens because God employs a reprobation process which is the opposite of His sanctification process. As their hatred for God grows, He subtracts His goodness from the reprobates by degrees so that they become ever worse in their depravity. Some of these reprobates may practice an outward morality to protect their reputations as religious leaders or professional persons, but their hearts will be filled with hatred for God. Even many of these hypocrites will secretly practice very immoral lives. But in the end, God will use His consuming fire to separate their total evil from what little goodness God has left in them. God will recover His goodness from them and use it in His recreation of a righteous people to inhabit His recreated earth. God will also cast their separated total evil and deadness into the lake of fire. Reprobates will lose their identities and personalities, but at least what little goodness they have left, God will save. Matthew 16:24-27; I Corinthians 3:12-15; Revelation 20:11-15; Revelation 21:1-5.
Most people never become either reprobates or believers saved by grace. Most people exist in a kind of neutral zone, never accepting or rejecting Christ. Following physical death, Christ will no doubt judge reprobates to be consigned to the fires of hell. But Christ will consign most neutral people to either a place called "the sea" or a place called "death." But in the end, God will use His consuming fire to separate His goodness from their evil in these neutral people as well. These people will retain some of their former identities and personalities in God's recreation to the degree that they led moral or immoral lives. As I Corinthians 15:35-49 indicates, those whom God recreates to live on the earth will differ from each other in glory, but God will give a spiritual body, like that of Christ Himself, to all who go to heaven. This means all who go to heaven will be equal in glory but not in rewards.
In the end, God will destroy both hell and death in the lake of fire, and He will abolish the sea. God has washed all of the inner sins of believers saved by grace with the blood of Christ into the sea of forgetfulness which He will abolish in the end. God will forgive the fleshly sins of believers as they daily confess and repent of them and wash those sins also into the sea of forgetfulness. But God will cast the fleshly sinful nature of unrepentant believers into the place called "death" until remorse and anguish cause them to repent of all their fleshly sins. Upon their repentance, God will wash them in the water of His Word, forgive them, and reconcile them to Himself. In these ways, God will recover all of the identities and personalities of all of His saints saved by grace and give them a home with Him in heaven. But in the end, God will also use His consuming fire to separate His original goodness that He put into all humans not saved by grace from their total evil when He resurrects them from their places in the sea, death, or hell. God will recover all His goodness and use it to recreate a righteous human race to inhabit His righteous, recreated earth, and He will cast all their collected total evil into the lake of fire forever. In these ways, God will purge all death and evil from His universe, and He will recreate a totally righteous universe. Revelation 1:5; Matthew 24:51; Ephesians 5:25-27; I Corinthians 3:12-15; II Peter 3:12-13; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 20:11-15; Revelation 21:1-8; Revelation 22:11-12.
Thursday, March 22, 2018
Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Sanctification and Reprobation part one
The sanctification of the Christian believer begins with his or her "born again" experience with God. When a person has been made to realize by hearing the Word of God that he is a lost, hopeless sinner completely unable to save himself, and he calls on Christ to save him from sin by washing him in His blood, then at that very moment the Holy Spirit thoroughly cleanses that believer's soul and spirit of all his sins forever, and the Holy Spirit gives him the free gift of the righteousness of Christ Himself. II Corinthians 5:21; Romans 10:17; I Corinthians 6:11; Hebrews 10:12-14; Romans 5:17-21. God accepts only absolute perfection in heaven. Revelation 22:1-5. God adds the perfect righteousness of Christ to the cleansed righteousness of the believer that God put into him when He created him so that he can live with God in heaven. The created righteousness of the believer becomes imperfect because it has been sullied by sin. But at the moment of salvation; that is, the moment of conversion, the Holy Spirit thoroughly cleanses the repentant believer's soul and spirit with the blood of Christ, and he becomes a new creation in soul and spirit, a child of God, and a joint heir with Christ. II Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 4:6-7; Romans 8:14-17. Once a repentant believer becomes "born again," he can never sin again in soul and spirit because the Holy Spirit has cleansed, sealed, and recreated his inner being. I Corinthians 6:11; Ephesians 4:30; II Corinthians 5:17. In his spirit, he knows God; in his soul, he has yielded his inner life to God. I John 3:9; Colossians 3:1-4.
However, the fleshly nature of the "born again" believer can sin again after salvation. Romans 7:23-25; I John 1:8. God allows the believer to sin again after salvation in order to prove that His Love is all-powerful. God has power over all sin at all times, and He will eventually perfect all of His saints in spirit, soul, and body. Romans 8:9-11; Romans 8:35-39. While God cleanses forever the souls and spirits of believers the moment they become saved, God sanctifies and perfects the fleshly nature of the pious believer with a daily cleansing. Daily, the pious believer must confess his fleshly sins so that God can forgive him and cleanse him with the water of His Word. I John 1:9; John 13:1-17. This cleansing of fleshly sins connects directly to the water that flowed from Jesus' side on the cross. I John 5:8. But believers who backslide into sin, and who practice unconfessed fleshly sins can never lose their salvation. God will prove that He has power over all sin. Philippians 1:6. At the Rapture of the Church, Christ will thoroughly cleanse His entire Church with the water of His Word. Ephesians 5:25-27. At that time, Christ will judge backslidden believers and cast their fleshly natures into the region of death and darkness in order to effect their repentance through anguish and remorse. After their repentance, He will then cleanse and forgive them and restore them to His perfected Church. Luke 12:46; Matthew 24:51; Matthew 25:30. In the case of every saint saved by grace, whether Old Testament saint, Church Age saint, or Tribulation saint; Christ will eventually perfect them in spirit, soul, and body by giving them His own perfect righteousness which will make them fit to live with Him in heaven forever. But God will allow only the Church to become the Bride of Christ. Ephesians 5:23-33.
Just as God employs a sanctification process for all His saints saved by grace, He also employs a reprobation process for all who absolutely and completely reject His offer of salvation by grace. Just as God gives His Spirit and His righteousness to all who accept His grace, He will withdraw His Spirit from all who make a final and complete rejection of His grace. Genesis 6:3; Matthew 12:31-32. Just like the "born again" experience, the human act of a final rejection of God's grace pertains to a specific event. The Bible refers to this event as "the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost." Any person can commit this sin, not just the Pharisees. God never forgives this sin because it is totally evil. God is longsuffering and merciful. God will extend His offer of salvation by grace again and again to anyone who does not make this final rejection. But those who make this final rejection ally themselves with the rebellion of Satan which God will never forgive because it is totally vile and evil. Like Satan, they refuse to ever repent and humble themselves to God. Revelation 9:20-21. Most atheists who hate God have put themselves in this category. God has truly called them reprobates.
However, the fleshly nature of the "born again" believer can sin again after salvation. Romans 7:23-25; I John 1:8. God allows the believer to sin again after salvation in order to prove that His Love is all-powerful. God has power over all sin at all times, and He will eventually perfect all of His saints in spirit, soul, and body. Romans 8:9-11; Romans 8:35-39. While God cleanses forever the souls and spirits of believers the moment they become saved, God sanctifies and perfects the fleshly nature of the pious believer with a daily cleansing. Daily, the pious believer must confess his fleshly sins so that God can forgive him and cleanse him with the water of His Word. I John 1:9; John 13:1-17. This cleansing of fleshly sins connects directly to the water that flowed from Jesus' side on the cross. I John 5:8. But believers who backslide into sin, and who practice unconfessed fleshly sins can never lose their salvation. God will prove that He has power over all sin. Philippians 1:6. At the Rapture of the Church, Christ will thoroughly cleanse His entire Church with the water of His Word. Ephesians 5:25-27. At that time, Christ will judge backslidden believers and cast their fleshly natures into the region of death and darkness in order to effect their repentance through anguish and remorse. After their repentance, He will then cleanse and forgive them and restore them to His perfected Church. Luke 12:46; Matthew 24:51; Matthew 25:30. In the case of every saint saved by grace, whether Old Testament saint, Church Age saint, or Tribulation saint; Christ will eventually perfect them in spirit, soul, and body by giving them His own perfect righteousness which will make them fit to live with Him in heaven forever. But God will allow only the Church to become the Bride of Christ. Ephesians 5:23-33.
Just as God employs a sanctification process for all His saints saved by grace, He also employs a reprobation process for all who absolutely and completely reject His offer of salvation by grace. Just as God gives His Spirit and His righteousness to all who accept His grace, He will withdraw His Spirit from all who make a final and complete rejection of His grace. Genesis 6:3; Matthew 12:31-32. Just like the "born again" experience, the human act of a final rejection of God's grace pertains to a specific event. The Bible refers to this event as "the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost." Any person can commit this sin, not just the Pharisees. God never forgives this sin because it is totally evil. God is longsuffering and merciful. God will extend His offer of salvation by grace again and again to anyone who does not make this final rejection. But those who make this final rejection ally themselves with the rebellion of Satan which God will never forgive because it is totally vile and evil. Like Satan, they refuse to ever repent and humble themselves to God. Revelation 9:20-21. Most atheists who hate God have put themselves in this category. God has truly called them reprobates.
Wednesday, March 14, 2018
God's Recreation of the Gentiles part two
In the days of Noah, God destroyed the entire wicked human race with a flood in order to expedite His salvation of all mankind. Romans 9:28. While God did not hold them accountable for their sins of the soul and spirit, He did hold their fleshly consciousnesses accountable because He had given them a conscience of right and wrong to be their guides. Their destruction by water symbolized the fact that God always cleanses fleshly sins by the use of the water of His Word; that is, the Holy Spirit cleansing sin by using the water that flowed from Christ's body on the cross. Although God had cleansed them of all fleshly sins and did not hold them accountable for their sins of spirit and soul, nevertheless, the power of sin and death held them in the prison; that is, the abyss, following their physical deaths. But according to I Peter 3:19-20, the Spirit of Christ came to preach the gospel to them following the physical death of Christ on the cross. The moment they heard the gospel, God held them accountable for their sins of soul and spirit because they then knew God and His power to cleanse their souls and spirits with the blood that Jesus shed on the cross. No doubt some of them believed and were cleansed, and God transferred their saved souls and spirits to heaven. No doubt others rejected God's grace, and He left them in the realm of the abyss. But in the end in the general resurrection, God will use His consuming fire to separate His goodness that He originally put into those in the abyss from their total evil. I Corinthians 3:12-15. God will recreate their separated goodness to be righteous humans to live on His recreated earth, and He will consign all their total evil to the lake of fire forever. However, in the general resurrection of the entire unsaved human race, those who knew God but deliberately practiced cruelty and evil anyway, being rebellious and consigned by God to the fires of hell, God will recover very little of His goodness from them to be recreated. They will retain very little of God's goodness for Him to recover. These humans cannot be saved as individuals at all since their recovered goodness will be so widely scattered among the recreated humans. But at least they can be said to be somewhat saved in that God will preserve His goodness in them forever. Revelation 21:5; Revelation 21:8.
The second category of those not saved by grace belongs to those who know God because He has given them His Law. God originally gave His Law to His chosen people, the Hebrews, but He had them write it for all people to read so that all people can come to clearly understand that they are sinners and that it is impossible for them to keep the Law. Galatians 3:19-21. The law transcends the conscience because it clearly demonstrates the difference between right and wrong. This means God holds both Jew and Gentile responsible for their sins of soul and spirit. The law imputes sin to the spirits and souls of all those who come to know God by reading the law because it clearly shows the reader that he has sinned against God. But God will thoroughly cleanse with the blood of Jesus all who put their faith in Christ. God will save them by His grace, preserve their individualities and personalities forever, and give them the righteous and eternal life of Christ by which He can accept them into a home in heaven forever. Colossians 1:12-14; Romans 5:17; Matthew 16:24-25; I Peter 1:4.
God's Word thus progresses from a revelation of conscience given to Gentiles who do not know God, to a knowledge of God through His Law revealed to both Jew and Gentile to inform them that they are sinners, to the revelation that God has provided His highest form of salvation through faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. But God's highest form of salvation does not mean that it is God's only form of salvation. God has put some of His goodness into every human He has ever created. Genesis 1:27 and 31. According to such passages as Numbers 23:19; Ecclesiastes 3:14; Luke 20:38; Romans 11:29; Romans 11:36; and others, God can never lose to the Devil anything He has ever created, and He has created absolutely every positive thing, visible and invisible. Colossians 1:16. According to Colossians 1:20, God will reconcile all things He has ever created to Himself through the sacrifice and resurrection of His Son. Jesus' descent into hell was a part of that sacrifice. Jesus left all of the sins of mankind behind in hell when He rose from the dead. The fire of hell is God's consuming fire. In the end, God will use His consuming fire to separate all of His created goodness that He put into man from all of the total evil that has infected man. With His recovered goodness, God will recreate a new, righteous human race to inhabit His recreated earth. Revelation 21:5. God will consign all of the total evil in man to the lake of fire forever. Revelation 20:15; Revelation 21:8. God's goodness in every human will not suffer in hell forever because God will destroy both death and hell in the lake of fire. Revelation 21:14. Jews and Gentiles can become Christians by faith in Christ's shed blood, and Christians can never lose their salvation by grace. Romans 11:29. But Jews who fail to faithfully practice Judaism can fall back to the level of the Gentiles. I Samuel 3:13-14. Gentiles who try to live righteous lives can, by revelation from God, rise to the level of salvation by grace as in the cases of Noah and Job. Genesis 6:8; Job 19:25-26.
The second category of those not saved by grace belongs to those who know God because He has given them His Law. God originally gave His Law to His chosen people, the Hebrews, but He had them write it for all people to read so that all people can come to clearly understand that they are sinners and that it is impossible for them to keep the Law. Galatians 3:19-21. The law transcends the conscience because it clearly demonstrates the difference between right and wrong. This means God holds both Jew and Gentile responsible for their sins of soul and spirit. The law imputes sin to the spirits and souls of all those who come to know God by reading the law because it clearly shows the reader that he has sinned against God. But God will thoroughly cleanse with the blood of Jesus all who put their faith in Christ. God will save them by His grace, preserve their individualities and personalities forever, and give them the righteous and eternal life of Christ by which He can accept them into a home in heaven forever. Colossians 1:12-14; Romans 5:17; Matthew 16:24-25; I Peter 1:4.
God's Word thus progresses from a revelation of conscience given to Gentiles who do not know God, to a knowledge of God through His Law revealed to both Jew and Gentile to inform them that they are sinners, to the revelation that God has provided His highest form of salvation through faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. But God's highest form of salvation does not mean that it is God's only form of salvation. God has put some of His goodness into every human He has ever created. Genesis 1:27 and 31. According to such passages as Numbers 23:19; Ecclesiastes 3:14; Luke 20:38; Romans 11:29; Romans 11:36; and others, God can never lose to the Devil anything He has ever created, and He has created absolutely every positive thing, visible and invisible. Colossians 1:16. According to Colossians 1:20, God will reconcile all things He has ever created to Himself through the sacrifice and resurrection of His Son. Jesus' descent into hell was a part of that sacrifice. Jesus left all of the sins of mankind behind in hell when He rose from the dead. The fire of hell is God's consuming fire. In the end, God will use His consuming fire to separate all of His created goodness that He put into man from all of the total evil that has infected man. With His recovered goodness, God will recreate a new, righteous human race to inhabit His recreated earth. Revelation 21:5. God will consign all of the total evil in man to the lake of fire forever. Revelation 20:15; Revelation 21:8. God's goodness in every human will not suffer in hell forever because God will destroy both death and hell in the lake of fire. Revelation 21:14. Jews and Gentiles can become Christians by faith in Christ's shed blood, and Christians can never lose their salvation by grace. Romans 11:29. But Jews who fail to faithfully practice Judaism can fall back to the level of the Gentiles. I Samuel 3:13-14. Gentiles who try to live righteous lives can, by revelation from God, rise to the level of salvation by grace as in the cases of Noah and Job. Genesis 6:8; Job 19:25-26.
Monday, March 12, 2018
God's Recreation of the Gentiles part one
All men not saved by grace exist in a state of inner death and darkness caused by sin inherited from Adam's fall. This death constitutes a state of separation from God's Love, and possibly, a state of absolute darkness and nothingness following physical death. God does not fail to love fallen humans, but the darkness within humans cause them to fail to love God. Revelation 20:13; Matthew 25:30. This dark state comes from the abyss, or "the deep," as the devils called it in Luke 8:31. All humans alive in the flesh possess a portion of this inner death and darkness except those saved by God's grace. The recreated souls and spirits of all persons saved by grace go immediately to heaven following physical death. II Corinthians 5:8. However, the physical consciousnesses of believers saved by grace who practice unconfessed sins, Christ may judge to be cast into the abyss following their physical deaths as a temporary punishment for their correction and repentance. Luke 12:46. The physical consciousnesses of believers who refrain from sin, and who daily repent of their sins will be asleep at the Rapture of the Church. I Thessalonians 4:14. In Ephesians 5:25-27, God promised that He will thoroughly cleanse His Church of all fleshly sins by washing it in the water of His Word at the Rapture of the Church. According to Revelation 2:10, God's thorough cleansing of His Church will take no more than ten days. After ten days, all believers within the abyss will have repented, be returned to Christ, and Christ will present the Church to the Father as absolutely holy, without any blemish or spot in body, soul, and spirit. Ephesians 5:25-27.
The basic characteristic of all life is consciousness. Consciousness defines life. The basic element of consciousness consists of an inner sense as opposed to an outer sense. Even amoebas possess an inner consciousness when they eat and an outer consciousness when they avoid poison. Mankind possesses a highly advanced consciousness which extends far beyond these limits. Every person has a spirit, soul, and body with a corresponding consciousness. Man's spiritual consciousness is that of God unless blocked by sin. Man's soulish consciousness consists of his identity, personality, intellect, emotions, creativity, and will power. Whenever a person devoid of a spiritual consciousness of God hears about Him, he can will himself to know God better or he can choose to ignore God. The physical, or fleshly, consciousness of man consists of his knowledge of the world through his five senses and of his own body's interaction with it. Those who get saved by God's grace return to a knowledge of God in their souls and spirits. But their fleshly consciousness must be sanctified by daily repentance until the Rapture of the Church. John 13:1-17; I John 1:9. At the Rapture of the Church, Christ will have already thoroughly cleansed the spirits and souls of all His saints with His blood He shed on the cross, but He must finish the sanctification of the recreated bodies of all His saints by washing them in the water of His Word; that is, the water He shed on the cross. Ephesians 5:25-27.
The consciousnesses of all humans not saved by grace exist in one of two categories, those who know God and those who do not. Those humans who have never heard of God's Law or grace do not know God at all. According to Romans 5:13-14 and Acts 17:29-30, God does not hold those who do not know Him accountable for their sins of the soul and spirit. God created the human spirit to be conscious of Him, and the human soul to be, in part, the willingness to be conscious of Him. God puts those who do not know Him in the same category as small children who have not reached the age of accountability. Their condition does not mean they are saved by grace. The sin and death that infects their souls and spirits still causes them to go to a place called "the prison" following their physical deaths. According to I Peter 3:19-20 and Revelation 20:3 and 7, this prison is the same place as the bottomless pit; that is, the abyss. According to Romans 5:14, those who do not know God cannot sin "after the similitude of Adam's transgression," meaning that they cannot deliberately sin against God because they do not know Him. They can only commit sins of weakness which God always cleanses and forgives. Luke 23:34. Adam was most like Satan when he deliberately sinned against God. But God forgave Adam's deliberate sin because he repented of it which changed it to a sin of weakness. Persistent deliberate sin constitutes a state of being like that of the Devil. Humans who persist in deliberate sins never repent and God never forgives them. They are totally evil and rebellious, and God will separate their total evil from them and cast it into the lake of fire forever. Revelation 20:15; Revelation 21:8.
The basic characteristic of all life is consciousness. Consciousness defines life. The basic element of consciousness consists of an inner sense as opposed to an outer sense. Even amoebas possess an inner consciousness when they eat and an outer consciousness when they avoid poison. Mankind possesses a highly advanced consciousness which extends far beyond these limits. Every person has a spirit, soul, and body with a corresponding consciousness. Man's spiritual consciousness is that of God unless blocked by sin. Man's soulish consciousness consists of his identity, personality, intellect, emotions, creativity, and will power. Whenever a person devoid of a spiritual consciousness of God hears about Him, he can will himself to know God better or he can choose to ignore God. The physical, or fleshly, consciousness of man consists of his knowledge of the world through his five senses and of his own body's interaction with it. Those who get saved by God's grace return to a knowledge of God in their souls and spirits. But their fleshly consciousness must be sanctified by daily repentance until the Rapture of the Church. John 13:1-17; I John 1:9. At the Rapture of the Church, Christ will have already thoroughly cleansed the spirits and souls of all His saints with His blood He shed on the cross, but He must finish the sanctification of the recreated bodies of all His saints by washing them in the water of His Word; that is, the water He shed on the cross. Ephesians 5:25-27.
The consciousnesses of all humans not saved by grace exist in one of two categories, those who know God and those who do not. Those humans who have never heard of God's Law or grace do not know God at all. According to Romans 5:13-14 and Acts 17:29-30, God does not hold those who do not know Him accountable for their sins of the soul and spirit. God created the human spirit to be conscious of Him, and the human soul to be, in part, the willingness to be conscious of Him. God puts those who do not know Him in the same category as small children who have not reached the age of accountability. Their condition does not mean they are saved by grace. The sin and death that infects their souls and spirits still causes them to go to a place called "the prison" following their physical deaths. According to I Peter 3:19-20 and Revelation 20:3 and 7, this prison is the same place as the bottomless pit; that is, the abyss. According to Romans 5:14, those who do not know God cannot sin "after the similitude of Adam's transgression," meaning that they cannot deliberately sin against God because they do not know Him. They can only commit sins of weakness which God always cleanses and forgives. Luke 23:34. Adam was most like Satan when he deliberately sinned against God. But God forgave Adam's deliberate sin because he repented of it which changed it to a sin of weakness. Persistent deliberate sin constitutes a state of being like that of the Devil. Humans who persist in deliberate sins never repent and God never forgives them. They are totally evil and rebellious, and God will separate their total evil from them and cast it into the lake of fire forever. Revelation 20:15; Revelation 21:8.
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