Thursday, May 24, 2018

Jesus' Teachings about Life and Death part seven

In John 12:46, Jesus taught that He had the power to bring all of His believers out of spiritual darkness and into the light of His salvation by grace. His power to do this still continues in the Church Age.

Jesus' teachings in John 12:47-48 lends support to His prophecy in John 12:31-32. In John 12:47, Jesus taught that He did not come to judge the world while He was in it. But He did say that He came "to save the world." Jesus meant in John 12:31 that the world would be judged through His death, burial, and resurrection. Jesus further taught that the purpose of His judgment of the world would be that "the prince of this world be cast out." In other words, Jesus taught that His judgment of the world would be that he would rescue the world by purging it of all evil. Jesus shed His blood and water on the cross to save by His grace all who would believe in Him. But He also saved the rest of mankind by His descent into hell where He left behind there all of the sins and spiritual deaths of all men to be burned by God's consuming fire which is hell. Through His death, burial, and resurrection God will recover and recreate all of the life and goodness that He has put into every man. I Corinthians 3:12-15. Since God's Word must be pure and true, then God must provide some form of salvation through recreation for all mankind and not just those saved by grace. In fact, Isaiah 45:22-23 prophesies that God will do just that. Since Jesus said that He came "to save the world," then He must do exactly that because God cannot fail to do whatever He has determined to do. Psalm 12:6-7; Luke 20:38; I Corinthians 15:22; I Timothy 4:10, and many other scriptures.

Jesus' teaching in John 12:48 provides further support for His prophecy in John 12:31-32. God will save all men by Jesus' judgment of the world on the cross, but Jesus also prophesied in John 12:48 that all those who reject Him will be judged "in the last day." Jesus said that they will be judged by the Word of God. Jesus' prophecy will be fulfilled as recorded in Revelation 20:11-15. Those who are totally dead and evil, which are the same as those who have rejected Christ, will be judged by God's Word and cast into the lake of fire. But according to Revelation 20:5, God will have already resurrected the life and goodness that he put into every one of them before their final judgment. God will use their recovered lives and goodness to recreate a new, righteous human race to live on His recreated earth. Jesus rescued them by His descent into hell, but their salvation will not be made active until this final, general resurrection. They will be saved by a test of fire which Jesus had already accomplished by His descent into hell. I Corinthians 3:12-15. In a similar way, all those saved by grace were saved by Jesus' shed blood and water on the cross, but God did not make their salvation active until they were spiritually born into the family of God. John 5:28-29; Revelation 21:1-5; Revelation 22:11-12.

In John 11:25, Jesus taught that He is life itself, and more than that, He is the restoration to life from all spiritual death. All of the resurrections in the Bible were to restore life. That constitutes the very definition of resurrection. Revelation 20:5 speaks about the resurrection to life of all those who have been punished with a temporary spiritual death and separation from God. The life and goodness that God put into them will reactivate their faith as recorded in Isaiah 45:22-24; Romans 14:9-11; Philippians 2:10-11; and Revelation 5:13. Revelation 21:11-15 speaks about God's judgment of the dead, not their resurrections. Jesus did speak about the resurrection of the dead in John 5:29, but He meant that in the context of them being brought out of their graves.  

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