The World and the Word

                                     The Israelites

Jesus taught in John 5:28-29 that in a general resurrection in the end of the world, God will raise all living and dead humans from their graves. The living and the dead are a part of every individual human. Jesus could not have meant any of the resurrections of His saints saved by grace because no dead are raised in any of their resurrections. God will raise those who have done good works back to life because God put those good works into them when He created them. Every living human has done some good works no matter how evil they may be. God will cast only their separated, spiritual deaths into the lake of fire. Revelation 22:11-12 teaches that in the end of the world, God will effect an absolute separation of all that He created to be living and good from all the filthiness of evil in every individual within the regions of the dead.

In Mark 9:49, Jesus used the word "salt" to symbolize a preservative. In Leviticus 2:13, God required that salt be added to every sacrifice, including the burnt offerings, to symbolize God's preservation of every living human, some by His grace and all others by His resurrection of them from the regions of the dead. God's Word clearly teaches that God will preserve every living human that He created either by being cleansed from sin and evil by the blood and water that flowed from Jesus on the cross or by the fiery wrath of God which He directs only towards evil itself. I John 3:8; I Corinthians 3:11-15; Ecclesiastes 3:14. In the second part of this verse, Jesus taught that "every sacrifice" will be preserved. Jesus meant that every living human who accepts His sacrifice for them by faith while still in the world will be preserved by the presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives. I Corinthians 6:19-20.

In the first part of Mark 9:50, Jesus did not teach that salt can lose its preservative power. Jesus simply meant that if salt is not used then it cannot preserve. In the second part of this verse, Jesus taught that the preservative power of the Holy Spirit must be received by repentance and faith in order for a human to be saved forever by His grace. I Corinthians 6:11.

All of the blood sacrifices of the Old Testament symbolized God's salvation by grace through the shed blood of a suffering Messiah. Exodus 12:1-7. Very few of the ancient Israelites demonstrated that kind of faith. Moses demonstrated his salvation by grace when he did not fear the fiery wrath of God. King David demonstrated his salvation through faith in Christ when he wrote Psalms 22, 23, and 24. Isaiah demonstrated faith in a suffering Messiah when he wrote Isaiah chapter 53. But none of the Old Testament saints could go directly to heaven when they died because they were not yet washed clean of their sins by the blood of the coming Savior nor had they received the perfect righteousness of Christ Himself by means of which they could gain entrance into Heaven.

But God also would not allow their living souls and spirits to go into any of the regions of the dead. Revelation 20:13. God consigned them to live in Paradise which at that time was located next to Hell in the bowels of the earth. Luke 16:22-23. These Old Testament saints had to wait in Paradise until Jesus came to preach the gospel to them. Only then could they come to complete faith in a suffering Messiah who would wash away their sins and evil with His shed blood and give them His perfect righteousness so that He could take them to Heaven. Jesus resurrected all of these Old Testament saints when He rose from the dead, gave them recreated, holy bodies, and translated them, with Paradise itself, to Heaven when He ascended. Ephesians 4:7-10.