The World and the Word

                                                    The Wheat and the Chaff

In Jesus' parable in Matthew 13:45-46, the "merchant man" symbolizes Christ, and the "goodly pearls" symbolizes the living souls and spirits of all humans. The "pearl of great price" symbolizes the Church, and all other humans saved by His grace for whom He gave His all on the cross to provide them with His highest form of salvation. But all the other "goodly pearls;" that is, the souls and spirits of all humans not saved by grace, do not become worthless because Christ shed His blood and water to purchase the highest form of salvation for all those saved by grace. In the end of the world, all of the living souls and spirits confined within the regions of death will not have lost their value. Genesis 1:27; Genesis 1:31; Luke 20:38. As Revelation 5:11-14 prophesies, God will cause every living human confined within the regions of death to repent and believe in the Lamb of their own free will, and in Revelation 20:5, He will resurrect them all for Him to recreate to live on His recreated earth. John 5:28-29; I Corinthians 15:22; Revelation 21:1-5; Revelation 22:11-12; Psalm 50:23. The will of man cannot thwart the will of God. God's Love has Almighty Power. I Corinthians 13:8. God knows exactly how to cause every living human whom He loves to eventually choose of their own free will to return to faith in Him. II Peter 3:9; John 11:25. I John 2:2 clearly teaches that "the propitiation for our sins" not only applies to those saved by grace but also applies equally to the whole world. John 12:47-48.

In Matthew 13:47-52, Jesus again prophesied about His Judgment in the end of the world. The King of Heaven will make the judgment to cast a net to gather the good and bad fish from the sea. The Sea happens to be one of the regions of spiritual death as recorded in Revelation 20:13. The good and bad fish symbolize goodness and evil itself. Since no human has ever been wholly good, except Jesus, and no human has ever been wholly evil, not even Judas Iscariot, then the good and bad fish exist inside every human. Christ will dissolve every individual human system within the regions of the dead by the use of His consuming fire, recover all of His good and living souls and spirits that belong to Him and cast all their evil natures into an eternal lake of fire which constitutes His wrath against evil, not living humans. I Corinthians 3:11-15; I John 3:8; Revelation 20:5.

The World and the Word

                                            The Wheat and the Chaff

In Jesus' parable in Matthew 13:31-32, the "mustard seed" symbolizes the written Word of God. The "field" represents the world. When the Word of God was first written, it had a very small influence in the world because it had to be copied by hand, and this meant there were few manuscripts. But overtime, more scribes began to copy God's Word, and by the time of the Church Age the New Testament was added and enough copies spread over the world that the Church grew like a great tree. As in Matthew 13:4, the "birds of the air" could symbolize all of the evil influences and false doctrines that the Devil has injected into the Church of Christ.

In Mark 4:30-32, Jesus used the phrase, "the kingdom of God" in this same parable. Jesus probably repeated some of His parables from time to time. The phrase "kingdom of God" probably refers to God's entire creations; that is, the universe. the earth, and Heaven. The phrase "kingdom of Heaven" only refers to Heaven itself and all who will live in it; that is, the angels and all saints saved by grace. These two phrases apply equally to both parables since the Word of God effects both salvation by grace and God's Judgment in the end of the world when He will recover and recreate all living souls and spirits confined within the regions of death. John 5:28-29; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 21:1-5.

In Jesus' parable in Matthew 13:33, He likened the kingdom of Heaven to "leaven." He probably used the word "woman" to symbolize the Holy Spirit since He comforts like a woman. The word "leaven" in the Old Testament usually meant evil which has corrupted God's creations. The "unleavened bread" of the Old Testament symbolized God's pure and holy Word. But Jesus used the word "leaven" in this parable in the same sense as He used it in Matthew 16:11 where He meant any doctrine, whether good or bad. In this parable, Jesus meant that the good doctrine of the Word of God will cause the "three measures of meal," which symbolizes the Church, to grow much bigger during the Church Age. In Luke 13:20-21, Jesus used the phrase, "kingdom of God," but the meaning would be the same because the Church grows within God's kingdom making both bigger.

In Jesus' parable of Matthew 13:44, the word "treasure" symbolizes all of God's living souls saved by His grace, and the word "field" symbolizes the world. Jesus' phrase "selleth all that he hath" means that Jesus gave His life on the cross and poured out all His blood and water to purchase His treasure which comprises all living souls saved by grace. But Jesus also taught in  the end of His parable that the buyer, meaning Himself, will also purchase the "field" in order to obtain the "treasure." Jesus' teaching can only mean that He not only will save by His grace all who go to Heaven, but He will also save the rest of humanity. Jesus' teaching in this parable comports with His teaching in John 12:47-48 where He clearly affirmed that He would not judge unbelievers while He was in the world because He came to save the world. God can never fail to do whatever He says He will do. Jesus did prophecy in verse 47 that in the end of the world He will judge by His Word all those who have completely rejected Him. God's record of this Judgment in Revelation clearly demonstrates that those who have rejected Christ are the spiritual dead whom He will separate by the use of His fiery wrath from every living human confined within the regions of the dead for Him to recreate to live on His recreated earth. I Corinthians 3:11-15. God will rescue all living humans from the regions of the dead because He will cause them all to repent and believe in the Lamb of their own free will as recorded in Revelation 5:11-14. John 5:28-29; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 20:11-15; Revelation 21:1-5; Revelation 22:11-12.

The World and the Word

 

                                The Wheat and the Chaff

 

In the parable of the tares and wheat in Matthew 13:24-30, the "man" symbolizes Jesus, the "good seed" symbolizes every good work that God has ever done in the world especially His good works that He has put into every living human, and the "field" symbolizes the world. Ecclesiastes 9:1. The "tares" symbolize evil which the Devil has injected into the being of every human. Evil is foreign to the beings of humans because God created all humans to be "very good." Genesis 1:31. Original sin, which is spiritual death, causes good humans to sin, but sin also caused spiritual death as it did with Adam and Eve. Romans 5:12.

 

God cannot lose anything He has ever created. Ecclesiastes 3:14. All of God's creations has been polluted by evil, but in the end of the world, God will absolutely recover and recreate all of His good creations, including all living humans. Romans 11:36; Romans 8:18-23; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 21:1-5.

 

According to verse 29, God will not allow the tares to be separated from the wheat as long as the wheat still grows. God will cause every living human to complete the good works that He has given them to do. The Devil aims to nullify a part of God's good works to show that God's Love cannot be Almighty. The Devil aims to cause God to permanently lose something that He created and loves. The Devil desires to eventually be able to overthrow God and take His place. Isaiah 14:12-17. God will not allow any individual human's good works that He has given them to do to be lost from Him because His good life in every human has been rooted up before his human growth as wheat has been completed. In other words, God cannot lose and will recover all of His good works and good lives that He has ever created and put into every living human. Ecclesiastes 3:14; Romans 11:29; Romans 11:36; Revelation 4:11; Revelation 22:11-12.

 

According to verse 30, in the time of "harvest," which symbolizes Christ's Judgment in the end of the world, God will effect an absolute separation of all His good works and good lives that He has put into every individual human confined within the regions of death from their spiritual deaths which He will cast into the lake of fire. Revelation 20:5; Revelation 20:11-15; Revelation 22:11-12. But in order to avoid a permanent spiritual death of their good lives, they must return to the faith that God put into them that the Lamb of God can save them from the regions of death. This event will happen as prophesied in Revelation 5:11-14. Christ will be able to separate their sins and spiritual deaths from them because He bore them all upon the cross and left them all behind in Hell when He rose immaculate from the dead. All of the Old Testament burnt offering sacrifices symbolizes Christ's descent into Hell to accomplish this form of salvation. Genesis 8:20-21; Hebrews 2:9. Jesus did not apply this parable to humans saved by grace because God annuls their spiritual deaths the moment they repent and believe. John 5:24. All humans saved by grace will enjoy a home with God in Heaven forever. All humans saved from the regions of death will enjoy recreated lives on God's eternal, recreated earth. In the end of the world, God will gather His "wheat" into His "barn," which symbolizes His recreated earth. Revelation 21:1-5.

The World and the Word

                                                       The Wheat and the Chaff

In Jesus' parable of the sower, He illustrated the different kinds of living spirits that hear God's Word and how they respond. The first kind of person that Jesus mentioned has such a weak spirit that they will ignore God's Word when they hear it. These kinds of people often become very cruel and evil in the way they lead their lives. Most of these people will go to Hell when they die, but God will recover and recreate even their weak spirits because the goodness that God put into them when He created them will emerge in their lives as some acts of kindness. The Devil will fail to annul their good spirits which belong to God. Matthew 13:18-19; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 22:11-12. The Devil will never succeed in utterly destroying anything which God has created and loves. God will recover and recreate it all. Ecclesiastes 3:14; Romans 11:36; Romans 8:18-23; Revelation 21:5.

The second kind of person that Jesus mentioned hears the Word but only temporarily receives it. They step to the threshold of grace, but they do not enter. In order to be eternally saved by grace, one must repent of one's sins and faithfully commit one's life to Christ. They must invite the Spirit of Christ into their lives to completely change their souls and spirits so that they will desire to lead righteous lives.  Some people hear God's Word and initially believe it, but they fail to commit their lives to Christ and invite Him into their hearts. Then, when someone belittles them, they withdraw from true faith, and they do not get saved by grace. The Apostle Paul described this same type of person in Hebrews 6:4-6. Romans 10:9-11; Luke 9:26; Matthew 13:20-21.

The third type of person that Jesus mentioned hears the Word, truly repents of their sins and receives Christ as their Savior, but their growth as a believer becomes stunted because they become entangled with the sinful affairs of the world. They produce few good works, and yet they are saved by grace. The Bible (KJB) clearly teaches in II Peter 2:7-9 that God saved Lot from His destruction of Sodom because he was righteous, meaning he was saved by grace. Had Lot been an ordinary sinner, God would have destroyed him like He did his wife. Some Christians believe that if a believer saved by grace produces no Christian good works, then that person cannot be saved. But the Bible does not teach that. Every believer becomes saved by grace solely through repentance and faith in Christ apart from any good works. Romans 4:1-25; Titus 3:4-7. Salvation by grace belongs solely to the sovereign will of God which no one should ever question. Romans 9:18; Matthew 21:31-32; Matthew 13:22.

The fourth type of person that Jesus mentioned hears and believes God's Word, commits their life to Christ, and produces Christian good works for the glory of God. Jesus taught that these saved believers receive the Word into "good ground," meaning the good image of God that He put into them. Jesus' use of this phrase proves that these types of believers already possessed strong souls and spirits given to them by God that were able to hear and believe the gospel. Believers saved by grace who produce good works for the glory of God will receive great rewards in Heaven. Matthew 13:23; Romans 9:20-21; Luke 6:35.

The doctrine of the depravity of man means that the Devil has injected evil into the inner beings of every human which causes them to sin and prevents them from ever making themselves good enough to be saved. This condition makes all human souls and spirits subject to eternal death. Only Christ can save all humans from their sins and eternal deaths because He took all their sins and eternal deaths on Himself on the cross so that He could purge all evil from all humans. If humans were totally evil, then they could never repent and believe in Christ because there would be absolutely nothing within them that could cause them to do anything that is good like repent and believe. All humans must have some measure of "good ground," which is the image of God within them, so that they will be able to repent and believe. Eventually, all humans will choose to repent and believe. Romans 5:12; II Corinthians 5:21; Hebrews 2:9; I Timothy 4:10; John 12:47-48; Revelation 5:11-14.

The World and the Word

                                                         The Wheat and the Chaff

In Matthew 13:1-23, Jesus preached about both predestination and free will. Many believe the one excludes the other, but actually, both happen at the same time. Every decision made in a moment affects both an eternal past and an eternal future. Every righteous decision made in a moment interlocked with every other righteous decision ever made creates an eternal and infinite mosaic which only God can see. God creates this mosaic. God creates it from every righteous decision ever made which are like pieces of cloth of different colors and shapes which He adds to an infinite quilt which is the mosaic. In order to do this, God waits for every righteous decision to be made. God eventually purges all evil decisions from His mosaic..

Jesus preached that some are able to hear and believe the Word of God but most are not able. That which Jesus taught comports with the teaching of the Apostle Paul in Romans 9:14-24. God creates every human in His image, but most with a diminished image and some with a strong image. Those with a strong image tend to be able to believe in Christ and become saved by grace, whereas those with a weak image tend to become hardened like Pharaoh. As Proverbs 16:4 teaches, people with diminished souls and spirits often attempt to fill their emptiness with evil actions. God holds the right to create human systems as He wills, but humans remain responsible for their own choices.

Because of free will, some people who tend to be evil nevertheless are able to hear God's Word, believe in Christ and become saved by grace. One such person was the Apostle Paul who met Jesus on the road to Damascus. Acts 9:1-8. Others may possess a strong spirit, but nevertheless, never choose to believe in Christ. Jesus chose only disciples with strong spirits who were able to believe in Him as their Savior. Judas Iscariot had a strong spirit or he would not have followed Jesus as long as he did, and yet, he finally rejected faith in Christ. But in the end of the world, God will rescue that which is left of the good spirit and soul of even Judas Iscariot from the flames of Hell where he probably now resides. Matthew 26:50. Regardless of the evil choices that humans make, Almighty God is able to eventually purge all evil choices from that eternal and beautiful mosaic that He is in the process of creating.

God creates people with weak and strong spirits to test His Almighty Love. Satan seeks to use evil to annul the good spirits that God has put into every human to cause God to lose something He has created, and thereby, prove that God's Love can fail, gain an advantage over God so that he can eventually murder Him. Isaiah 14:12-17. But Ecclesiastes 3:14 proves that God can never lose anything He has ever created, and I Corinthians 13:8 proves that His Love can never fail. Romans 11:36 proves that God will recover absolutely everything He has ever created, and Revelation 21:5 proves that He will recreate everything He ever created after purging it of all sin and evil.

When the Devil attacks humans with weak spirits, God holds the right to exert extra power to protect them even though He may temporarily lose them to one of the regions of death. When the Devil attacks humans who are saved by grace, God causes their faith to hold up against the Devil even though they may temporarily backslide. God will prove that every human will return of their own free will to faith in Him no matter what the Devil may do to them. John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14. The book of Job is all about this very process. God is able to add every righteous choice that every human image of God in them ever makes to His infinite and beautiful mosaic that He is in the process of creating and which He has already finished. Predestination and free will work together while God is in the process of creating, but at the same time, He has already finished His entire creation. Hebrews 4:3; Romans 11:29; Isaiah 48:6-7; Revelation 21:5.

The World and the Word

                                                              The Wheat and the Chaff

In verse one of Malachi 4:1-4, the prophet prophesied that a day will come when God will utterly destroy all wickedness. This prophecy can only pertain to the events of Revelation 20:7-10 when God begins to use His consuming fire against evil itself in order to effect a final and complete separation of all that is good from all that is evil. This prophecy cannot be about the battle of Armageddon or the millennial reign of Christ because evil will not be utterly destroyed in Christ's millennial reign. In addition, Christ will destroy the evil army that comes against Israel in the battle of Armageddon with the sword of His mouth which symbolizes the Word of God, not with His consuming fire. Revelation 19:11-21.

Malachi 4:1 also refers to wickedness as being "stubble," which means it is completely useless and destructive deserving only to be burned. The evil that Satan injected into humanity is foreign to humans. God will eventually rescue all living humans from spiritual death, which is the same as evil, cleanse them of all their sins caused by evil, and burn their separated spiritual deaths in the lake of fire forever. God always directs His fiery wrath against evil itself, never against living humans. Hebrews 2:9; Revelation 20:9; Revelation 20:15; I Corinthians 3:11-15; I Corinthians 15:22-23; II Timothy 1:10; I John 3:8; Isaiah 66:22-23. Since Christ has abolished death as stated in II Timothy 1:10, then all that is living cannot permanently die, and therefore, Christ will recover all living humans that He created from spiritual death. Genesis 3:20; Luke 20:38.

As Malachi 4:4 indicates, Malachi directed his prophecy to all Israelites who were faithful to Moses' religion, not to any humans saved by grace. This fact can only mean that Malachi's prophecy in verse two has to be about the great worship service recorded in Revelation 5:11-14. All faithful Israelites confined within the regions of death at that time, including all other living humans, will worship Christ as the Lamb which means that they will believe that only Christ can cleanse them of their sins and rescue them from spiritual death. As all of the Old Testament burnt offerings symbolize, Christ will cleanse them of all their sins and resurrect them to a recreated life as recorded in Revelation 20:5 and Revelation 21:1-5.

These resurrected, faithful Israelites will "grow up as calves of the stall." These calves were special cattle that were kept in a pen and fed the best food to fatten them up. Luke 15:23. Malachi prophesied in verse two that when God resurrects these faithful Israelites and recreates them, they will enjoy a special, earthly salvation as citizens of the only organized nation that God will allow which will rule the earth. God will give these faithful Israelites the very best prosperity that He has to offer. Malachi prophesied in verse three that God will absolutely separate these living, resurrected Israelites from all of their wickedness which means their spiritual deaths. God promises them that their wickedness will be "ashes under the soles of your feet." Isaiah 66:13-24.

The World and the Word

                                                          The Wheat and the Chaff

In Ezekiel 24:1-14, the prophet prophesied about that which God will do to the evil nation of Babylon because of their persecution of the Jews. God revealed that at some time in the future, He will use His fiery wrath to dissolve her system, but He will only burn her "scum" in His fire, meaning her evil nature. In verse 13, God revealed that He will purge all her filthiness. Something has to be purged. Something has to be cleansed. That something can only be her living souls and spirits that God created and loves. If in God's final Judgment, He purges all the evil natures from all of the good lives of all living Babylonians, then surely He will purge all living humans confined to the regions of the dead of all their evil natures. Revelation 22:11-12; Ecclesiastes 3:14.

In the first eight verses of Nahum 1:1-10, the prophet describes God's destruction of the world in the end with Nineveh as the example. But in His Judgment at that time, God will know those who trust in Him and those who do not. This prophecy of the final Judgment can only be about all humans confined within the regions of death who will repent and believe in the Lamb in a great worship service as recorded in Revelation 5:11-14. God will cleanse these living humans of all their sins and evil, raise them all from the dead, and recreate them to live on His recreated earth. I Corinthians 3:11-15; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 21:1-5.

God assures humans in verse 9 that He will bring "affliction" to and "utter end," meaning He will completely abolish all of the evil that has burdened humanity. In verse 10, God relates that He will devour only evil itself in the lake of fire. He likens this evil to "thorns" and to being "drunken," not the drunkards, and as "stubble," all of which are totally useless and empty and only fit to be burned in God's fiery wrath. All through the Bible, God likens evil to vanity. In the end of the world, God will use His fiery wrath to effect a complete separation of all that is good which He created from all that is evil. Romans 8:18-23; I Corinthians 3:11-15; Colossians 1:15-20; John 5:28-29; Romans 11:36; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 21:1-5; Revelation 22:11-12.

The World and the Word

                         The Wheat and the Chaff

The prophet Isaiah, in Isaiah 33:10-17, wrote about how the Lord will deal with the entire human race. God will use His consuming fire to burn up the "chaff" and "thorns" which symbolizes the empty and worthless evil in every person's nature. I Corinthians 3:11-15. Jesus was crowned with thorns. Isaiah further teaches that God will raise the righteous nature of all humans still in their graves above the flames and restore them to the land where they will worship the King, who is Christ. This resurrection does not apply to humans saved by grace because none of them will be in their graves in the final resurrection. Isaiah could not have written about humans saved by grace because they receive the highest form of salvation solely by repentance and faith in Christ the moment they believe while still alive in the flesh. John 5:24. Humans saved by grace also receive the gift of the righteousness of Christ Himself in addition to the righteousness that God put into them when He created them. Titus 3:5-7; II Corinthians 5:21. God annuls the spiritual deaths of humans saved by grace, but eventually He will burn their dead works as well. John 5:24; I Corinthians 3:11-15. In these verses, Isaiah can only mean the righteous works that emerge from the image of God within all humans not saved by grace. Genesis 1:27; Revelation 22:11-12.

In Isaiah 66:15-24, Isaiah prophesied about the end of the world when God will use His consuming fire and "His sword," which symbolizes His Word, to separate all evil from all humans still in their graves and recreate their good lives that He gave them to live under His new Heaven in His new earth. Revelation 20:7-15; Revelation 20:5. These verses cannot apply to the Tribulation saints because all of them will have already been resurrected in the beginning of the millennial reign of Christ. Revelation 20:5 and 6. God will "plead with all flesh" which means He will resurrect all the living humans still in their graves, recreate them, and gather them all to worship Him in Jerusalem. John 5:28-29. According to verse 24, all recreated humans will be able to observe the "worm" of their evil beings in the lake of fire. God uses the word "worm" to symbolize the totally evil, spiritual deaths of all humans that God will separate from their living souls and spirits by the use of His consuming fire which is His wrath against evil. Jesus taught this same doctrine in Mark 9:44, 46, and 48. Jesus also prophesied, in Mark 9:49, that all humans "shall be salted with fire," which means all humans will be preserved by God's wrath against evil. Jesus referred to Himself as a "worm" in Psalm 22:6 which means He took the spiritual deaths of all humans on Himself on the cross in order to eliminate it from all humans. Hebrews 2:9.

In Jeremiah 23:28-29, the prophet taught that all true prophets of God should keep in mind the question that He asks: "What is the chaff to the wheat?" In verse 29, God implies that His Word is like a fire that will consume the "chaff" and preserve the "wheat." God makes His implication plain in the rest of the verse when He states that His Word is "like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces." By this statement, God meant that He will eventually dissolve every human system that He ever created in order to separate His living souls and spirits from their evil, spiritual deaths. Luke 20:38; I Corinthians 15:22; I Corinthians 3:11-15.

The World and the Word

                                                         The Wheat and the Chaff

In Isaiah 22:14, God informed Isaiah that He would not purge his iniquity until after his physical death. After he died, God consigned Isaiah's soul and spirit to the place called Paradise within the earth next to Hell because he was saved by grace. Luke 16:23-26. God purged the sin and evil from Isaiah's soul and spirit by the blood of Jesus when He came and preached the gospel to him when He descended into Hell. God completed Isaiah's salvation by grace only after his physical death. I Peter 4:6.

In John 11:25, Jesus informs all humans that He can save any human who will believe in Him after their physical death. Jesus then proved his statement by raising Lazarus from being dead for four days. In John 5:28-29, Jesus prophesied that one day He will raise to life from their graves the good lives of all humans that He created and loves, and He will condemn their dead and evil natures to the lake of fire forever. Revelation 20:5; Revelation 20:11-15. But the good lives of all humans still in their graves must return to the faith that God put into them that only the Lamb can can save them from the regions of death. Genesis 1:31; Romans 12:3; Luke 17:20-21. This event will happen as prophesied in Revelation 5:11-14 when all humans within the regions of death will worship God in a great worship service, and they will recognize Christ as the Lamb who can purge their sins and evil and raise their good souls and spirits to life again. Christ will use His consuming fire, which is His wrath against evil, to purge and cleanse their good lives stained by sin. I Corinthians 3:11-14; Mark 9:49; Luke 3:16-17. Christ will resurrect their good lives in Revelation 20:5 for Him to recreate, and He will cast their separated spiritual deaths into the lake of fire as recorded in Revelation 20:15.

The World and the Word

                                                            The Wheat and the Chaff

In Proverbs 24:20 the phrase "candle of the wicked" can only refer to that part of every human which  is totally evil and spiritually dead. In Proverbs 20:27 the phrase "candle of the Lord" can only refer to the righteous image of God which He puts into every human. Genesis 1:27. In the end of the world, God will put out the "candle of the wicked" in every human still in their graves, and He will relight "the candle of the Lord" and recreate their righteous lives to live on His recreated earth. No human can be totally evil because if they were they could only do evil. No human can be totally righteous, except Jesus, because if they were they could save themselves. God purges the sin and evil from the soul and spirit of every human saved by His grace with the blood of Christ the moment they repent and believe, and they receive the absolutely perfect righteousness of Christ so that God can accept them to live in Heaven with Him. John 3:3; John 5:24; I John 1:7; Romans 8:14-17.

In Ecclesiastes 3:16-22, God gave a revelation to Solomon that describes the inner being of every individual human. Every human happens to be both the wicked and the righteous. God also gave Solomon a prophecy that in the final Judgment of God, He will separate the "beast" in every human from his spirit. The word "beast" symbolizes the total evil in every human which God likens to "vanity;" that is, the absolute nothingness of evil. Isaiah 40:17. The dead physical bodies of both man and beast decay in the earth, but the spirit of man that belongs to God goes upward for Him to judge and recreate, and the spiritual death of every human within the regions of death goes downward into the lake of fire. Solomon further informs every human that they can rejoice in their good works because in the end God will reward every recreated human for their good works. Ecclesiastes 12:13-14; Revelation 22:11-12.

The World and the Word

                                           The Wheat and the Chaff

God addressed most of the Old Testament to Israelites who faithfully practiced Moses' religion. God promised a lesser form of salvation to all who loved His law and tried to obey it. Some Old Testament characters God saved by His higher form of salvation called grace because they demonstrated some faith in a coming Messiah who would suffer for them. But their souls and spirits had to wait in Paradise for a New Testament revelation of Jesus who came to them and preached the gospel to them so that their salvation by grace could be completed, and they could be resurrected to rise to heaven with Jesus. Psalm 37:27-29; Psalm 50:23; I Peter 4:6; Psalm 1:1-6; Matthew 27:52-53.

In Psalm 1:1-3, God used a metaphor and a prophecy to describe the blessed, recreated life on His recreated earth of all those who love His law and try to practice it. In the end of the world when God resurrects and recreates the good lives of all humans still in their graves, He will provide a special, higher form of His lesser salvation for all Israelites who were faithful to Moses' religion. They will enjoy a special standing as citizens of the recreated nation of Israel with Jerusalem as the capitol of the world. The lowest form of salvation will be that of the recreated Gentiles who will live in the rest of the recreated earth. Isaiah 66:10-24; Revelation 21:1-5.

In Psalm 1:4-6, the word "ungodly" has to mean that which is totally evil. That which is not godly can have no goodness whatsoever within it because it has to be the exact opposite of goodness. Every human possesses a righteous part of their being and an ungodly part which is the same as spiritual death. God likens the spiritual death in humans to chaff which He will purge from the wheat which He likens to the righteous life of humans that He put into them. Nahum 1:10.

Psalm 1:5-6 constitutes a prophecy about the final Judgment when God will separate all of the righteous lives of all humans still in their graves for Him to recreate from all of their spiritual deaths for Him to cast into the lake of fire. Every individual human has both chaff and wheat in his being. Some may have more chaff than wheat and others more wheat than chaff, but God will separate and recover for recreation all of the wheat in all humans in the end of the world and purge them of all their chaff for Him to burn. John 5:28-29; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 21:1-5; Revelation 22:11-12; Revelation 20:11-15; Zephaniah 3:8-20; Malachi 4:1; Exodus 29:14; Genesis 8:20-21; Psalm 21:8-11; Psalm 22:26-27; Psalm 37:9-11; Psalm 37:20-23; Psalm 50:23; Psalm 65:2-3; Psalm 68:18; Psalm 100:5; Psalm 90:3; Psalm 104:35; Psalm 115:16-17; Psalm 36:6; Ecclesiastes 3:14; Psalm 119:119; Psalm 138:8; Psalm 145:8-14; Psalm 150:6; Proverbs 10:12; Proverbs 15:24; Proverbs 16:4; Revelation 4:11; Romans 11:36; Proverbs 16:17; Proverbs 24:12; Revelation 22:11-12; Proverbs 28:18; Proverbs 21:21; Proverbs 24:20; Ecclesiastes 12:14; Ecclesiastes 7:29; Isaiah 5:24; Isaiah 6:6-7; Isaiah 22:14; Isaiah 26:12; Isaiah 30:27-28; Isaiah 45:21-24; Isaiah 40:12-31; Isaiah 66:15-24; Ezekiel 18:4-9; Ezekiel 21:25-29; Ezekiel 24:12-13; Ezekiel 45:15; Daniel 12:2; Daniel 7:9-10; Hosea 13:14; II Timothy 1:10; Joel 2:28-29; Nahum 1:10; I John 3:8; I Corinthians 15:22; I Timothy 4:10; John 12:47-48.

The World and the Word

                     The Wheat and the Chaff

God further illustrated the dual nature of every human in Moses' speech to the Israelites as recorded in Deuteronomy 30:11-20. Moses told the Israelites that God had come to them and had given them His law to make clear to their consciousnesses the exact righteousness that God required of them. But Moses also told them that they could only recognize God's righteousness by the "Word of God" that was already in their hearts. In other words, God gave them His written law in order to elicit a greater desire to obey Him that would come from their good and living souls and spirits that God had given them when He created them.

Moses set before them the life and goodness and the death and evil that already existed in the hearts of every one of them. They remained free to choose which side of their dual natures that they would adhere to.

Moses commanded them to obey God's law from the good desire of their living hearts that God had created in His image. Moses promised them that if they would obey God and practice the religion that He gave them, then God would bless them and give them the land that He had promised them. God will resurrect all Israelites who faithfully practiced Moses' religion and recreate them to inhabit the promised land and rule the earth forever. Genesis 1:27; Genesis 17:6-8; I Chronicles 28:8; Isaiah 66:15-24.

Moses also warned God's people that if they chose to adhere to the evil side of their natures, then God would not allow them to inherit the promised land when He resurrected them. Moses told them that if they chose evil, then they would "perish." Moses meant by this word that one day in a general resurrection God will dissolve their systems in order to separate and recover their living souls and spirits from their spiritual deaths. Moses further informed them that God would "prolong their days" on the earth but not in the promised land. In other words, God will resurrect their living souls and spirits and recreate them, but He will demote them to life among the resurrected Gentiles.

God created every human in His image, and that can only mean that every human has some of the life of God in him. Genesis 1:27. If any human existed who did not have this life of God in him, then he would be totally demonic and could do no good whatsoever. But since even the worst humans have done some good, then this fact demonstrates that even the most evil humans still possess a greatly diminished living soul and spirit given to them by God. Luke 20:38; Luke 17:21.

The World and the Word

                         The Wheat and the Chaff

The Bible (KJB) further illustrates the dual nature of man in the story related in Numbers 16:1-50. Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, with 250 other men, rebelled against Moses and Aaron in their attempts to become priests. They actually rebelled against God because He had established Aaron and his descendants to be the priests of the Israeli people.

These rebels represented the spiritual death that exists in the being of every human which can cause them to rebel against God. God gave Moses a test by fire to separate these evil men from God's people. This test by fire symbolized the burnt offerings by which God will separate the good nature of every human not saved by grace from their evil natures. I Corinthians 3:11-15.

God threatened to consume the entire congregation by fire, but in Numbers 16:22, Moses and Aaron reminded God that He had given a good spirit to every one in the congregation. God had inspired Moses and Aaron to pray this truth, so He was actually reminding Himself. God wanted Moses and Aaron to learn the truth that He had put into their prayer.

God then ordered Moses and Aaron to separate the congregation from the tents of Korah, Dathan, Abiram, and the other 250 rebels. God consumed these rebels with fire and opened the earth to swallow them into Hell. God's fiery wrath in this event symbolizes the fact that in the end of the world He will separate the evil spiritual deaths of all humans within the regions of the dead from their good lives and cast their spiritual deaths into the lake of fire. Revelation 20:15; Revelation 20:5.

God then ordered Moses to tell Eleazar the priest to recover the brazen censers that had become hallowed to the Lord because they had put fire into them as God had commanded. Eleazer recovered these censers from the fire and used them to make plates for the altar of God. These censers symbolized God's use of His fiery wrath to separate the good spirits that He has put into every human within the regions of death from their spiritual deaths so that He can recreate these good humans to live on His recreated earth. God will recover and recreate even the diminished souls and spirits of all who rebel against Him. Revelation 21:1-5. When Jesus told the rebel Pharisees in Luke 17:21 that "the kingdom of God is within you," He referred to the small image of God within them that He would recover and recreate in the last judgment in the end of the world. II Timothy 4:1.

The next day, the whole congregation of Israel rebelled against Moses, Aaron, and God Himself. They blamed Moses for the deaths of the 250 rebels. This rebellion symbolized the fact that every human possesses an evil, spiritual death within them that can overcome their good souls and spirits and cause them to rebel against God.

God then appeared as a cloud over the tabernacle and told Moses and Aaron to get out of the way because He was going to consume the whole congregation with fire. But God directed His fiery wrath against the evil that had overcome the people, not against their living souls and spirits that He had put into them.

God demonstrated this fact when He inspired Moses to tell Aaron to take fire from the altar and burn incense in a censer and run among the people to make an atonement for them. God inspired Aaron to make a kind of burnt offering for the people to separate the living from the dead. The living and the dead subsists in every human who ever lived except Jesus who had no death within Him. God's living souls and spirits in all humans never permanently dies. Luke 20:38. God caused 14,700 of the congregation to die as a prophecy that He will separate the living from the dead in the end of the world. God will recover and recreate even the diminished souls and spirits of the 250 and the 14,700 rebels in His final Judgment in the end of the world. Revelation 20:5; Revelation 21:1-5.

The World and the Word

                                                         The Wheat and the Chaff

God has created evil humans to possess diminished living souls and spirits which cannot repent while alive in the flesh. Romans 9:14-24. But even the worst humans do some good works which emerge from their small souls and spirits. Revelation 22:12. But even these small souls and spirits, with their small amounts of good works, will repent and believe in Christ while in the fires of Hell as recorded in Revelation 5:11-14. When God recovers their small, living souls and spirits with all of their small amounts of good works for Him to recreate to live on His recreated earth, God will dissolve their systems so that they will lose their former identities and personalities which they wrongly considered to be their lives on the earth. John 12:25. The most evil person who ever lived was probably Judas Iscariot, but Jesus appealed to that small amount of goodness still left in him when Jesus called him "friend" in Matthew 26:50.

God's Word describes how He creates humans in Romans 9:14-24. God creates some humans with small souls and spirits with few good works to do in their lives. God creates other humans with strong souls and spirits who do a lot of good works in their lives. But He creates them all to do His will. II Peter 3:9. He also gives them all free will so that some who tend to adhere to evil will choose to repent and believe in Christ while still alive in the flesh. At the time they become saved by grace, God will give them the perfect righteousness of Christ Himself with additional good works for them to do. On the other hand, some whom God created with strong, living souls and spirits will never choose to accept Christ as their Savior while still alive in the flesh. Nevertheless, God will save every living soul and spirit that He created in His image, some by His grace and all others by the use of His consuming fire in the end of the world. John 5:24; I Corinthians 3:11-15; I Corinthians 15:22; John 5:28-29; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 22:11-12; Ecclesiastes 3:14.

God must put His Love to the severest possible test. The Devil seeks to annul; that is, completely destroy at least one good soul and spirit that God created and loves. Job 1:8-12. God must allow Satan to persecute living humans to the fullest extent of his evil powers to prove that God can never lose any living human that He created in His image and whom He loves. I Corinthians 13:8; Ecclesiastes 3:14. Should God ever lose any of His good souls and spirits to the Devil, then all would be lost and humanity would become subject to a Ragnarok. God must put His Love to the severest test to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that His Love and creative powers can never fail.

Deliberate and willful sins of which a person never repents adheres to the spiritual death within the being of every human. Sins of the soul and spirit caused by a weakness in free will and the influence of evil will always repent and believe in God's power to cleanse and forgive based on the sacrifice, burial, and resurrection of His Son. God illustrated this fact in the story recorded in Numbers 15:22-26. When sin offerings and burnt offerings were made for the sins of "ignorance," which means weakness, then God forgave them. But God would "cut off" the person who willfully and deliberately sinned which meant God would send his living soul and spirit to one of the regions of the dead to await the judgment in the end of the world when God will use His fiery wrath to separate spiritual death from all living souls and spirits. Revelation 20:13. The man who picked up sticks on the Sabbath and refused to repent suffered this very sentence from God.

Adam and Eve sinned both in weakness and deliberately. Eve sinned in weakness when she ate the forbidden fruit, but she sinned deliberately when she gave the fruit to Adam because she selfishly desired to ruin him as well. Adam sinned in weakness when he ate the fruit so that he could fall to Eve's level to protect her, but he deliberately sinned when he ate the fruit so that he would not lose physical love with her. I Timothy 2:14. But God promised them a coming Savior, and when God made a sin offering for them by shedding the blood of an animal to make skins to cover them, Adam and Eve demonstrated their repentance and faith in the coming Savior by accepting God's sin offering for them. Genesis 3:15; Genesis 3:21. God saved Adam and Eve by His grace.

The Devil injected spiritual death, which is totally evil and foreign to humans, into Adam and Eve and all of their descendants when they sinned through weakness in their free will. Romans 5:12. The Devil seeks to use spiritual death to influence the soul and spirit of at least one human to sin to the extent that he annuls his spiritual life which God created and loves. But God will cause every living human to eventually repent and believe of their own free will through the death, burial, and resurrection of His Son, some through His grace and all others through the use of His consuming fire against evil. John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14; I Corinthians 3:11-15. Once God has cleansed and forgiven the living souls and spirits of all humans of all their sins caused by the presence of foreign spiritual death within them, then He will be able to separate their living souls and spirits from their spiritual deaths which He will cast into the lake of fire forever. Revelation 20:5; Revelation 20:11-15; Hebrews 2:9.

The World and the Word

                       The Wheat and the Chaff

The key to being cleansed of all sin and evil and being rescued from eternal spiritual death can only be repentance and faith that Christ has already done everything necessary to cleanse, forgive, and rescue one forever from the power of evil. Repentance is a part of faith because it means that one must turn away from one's sins and believe that only Christ can cleanse and forgive them. The good life of all humans saved by grace receives complete cleansing of all sin and evil by the shed blood of Christ and forgiveness the moment they repent and believe. They also receive daily cleansing and forgiveness of their fleshly sins by the water that Jesus shed on the cross as they repent every day. John 5:24; John 13:1-10. But God has also provided for a lesser form of salvation for all humans still in their graves when He returns them to the faith He put into their image of Him in them in a great worship service as recorded in Revelation 5:11-15. No verse in the Bible (KJB) states that humans cannot be saved after physical death. In fact, Jesus taught that dead humans can be saved in John 11:25 and proved it by raising Lazarus from his grave. In the end of the world, Christ will raise all living humans from the regions of the dead. John 5:28-29; Revelation 20:5; I Corinthians 15:22; Isaiah 22:14.

Humans cannot become totally evil because that is a state of absolute rebellion against God which can never repent or believe. If humans ever became totally evil, they would hate God and be totally demonic. The "blasphemy against the Holy Ghost" as recorded in Matthew 12:31-32 only bars one from salvation by grace, not from God's lesser form of salvation in the end of the world. Repentance and faith are good qualities that God puts into His image in every human. Romans 12:3.

When humans not saved by grace physically die, God must consign their good souls and spirits to one of the regions of death because filthy sins and evil still adhere to their goodness. Revelation 20:13; Hebrews 9:27. But God always directs His wrath as a fiery stream towards sin and evil itself, never toward living humans. I Corinthians 3:11-15. In the garden of Eden, God cursed Satan and evil itself, not the living souls and spirits of Adam and Eve or any of their living descendants. Genesis 3:14-21. All of the Old Testament burnt offering sacrifices symbolized Christ's descent into Hell where He left all of the sins and evil that He bore on the cross of all humans that He did not save by His grace behind there when He rose immaculate from the dead. Genesis 8:20-21. Based on Christ's descent into Hell to use His fiery wrath to separate all of the sins and evil from all living humans consigned there, God will cause all the living humans there to repent and believe of their own free will that only Christ can save them in a great worship service as recorded in Revelation 5:11-14. God will resurrect all of these repentant, living humans as recorded in Revelation 20:5 for Him to recreate to live on His recreated earth. Revelation 21:1-5. God will forever consign their totally evil, spiritual deaths to the lake of fire which is His eternal wrath against evil. Revelation 20:15; Revelation 21:8; Revelation 22:11-12.

God will recover and recreate all His living systems that have become soiled by sin caused by the presence of evil. Revelation 21:5; I Timothy 6:13; I Corinthians 15:22; Romans 8:18-23; Colossians 1:15-20; Romans 11:29; Romans 11:36; Ecclesiastes 3:14. All sin is evil but the difference between sins and evil is that God can cleanse and forgive sins upon repentance and faith, whereas God can never forgive evil because it never repents. All of God's salvation hinges on the goodness of repentance and faith. But God can also purge total evil, which is the same as spiritual death, from all living humans after He has cleansed and forgiven them of all their sins. John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-15. God annuls the spiritual deaths of all humans saved by grace the moment they repent and believe. Galatians 2:19-20. God will purge the spiritual deaths from the lives of all humans within the regions of death after their repentance and faith by the use of His fiery wrath towards evil itself, never towards living humans whom He created and loves. Revelation 5:11-14; John 11:25; I Corinthians 3:11-15; II Peter 3:9; Hebrews 12:26-29; Revelation 20:11-15; Revelation 21:8; Isaiah 66:22-24.

Some people surrender their lives to the spiritual death within them and commit terrible acts of cruelty toward their fellow humans. Most of these evil humans never repent and believe to be saved by grace. But should one of these evil humans ever resort to the good qualities of repentance and faith that God has put into their diminished living souls and spirits, then their evil acts will become sins that Christ can cleanse and forgive. Repentance and faith turn evil into sin. This type of conversion happened to Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus. Acts 9:1-6.

The World and the Word

                                                         The Wheat and the Chaff

Every human has a dual nature. God created man in His own image; that is, with some of His attributes such as love and faith. Genesis 1:27; Romans 12:3. Whatever God creates lasts forever. He can never lose anything He has ever created. Ecclesiastes 3:14. God warned Adam and Eve that if they sinned by eating the forbidden fruit, they would become subject to spiritual death. Genesis 2:7. As soon as Adam and Eve disobeyed God, Satan took advantage of that weakness and injected spiritual death into the beings of Adam and Eve. Genesis 3:7. To become aware of one's physical and spiritual nakedness before God is to become aware of one's physical and spiritual death. Since every human has inherited spiritual death from Adam and Eve, then every human possesses a dual nature; that is, a good life created in God's image which can never die and a spiritual death which is foreign to humans. Luke 20:38; Genesis 3:20; Romans 5:12.

Adam and Eve disobeyed God because He had given them free will which allowed them to choose whatever they desired. Satan desires to overthrow and murder God and take His place. Isaiah 14:12-14. Satan believed that God had made a huge mistake when He gave free will to Adam and Eve, and if God can make mistakes then He cannot be Almighty which caused Satan to believe that he could find a way to murder God. John 8:44. Satan believed that by injecting spiritual death into humans which causes them to sin, he could eventually annul the spiritual life of at least one human that God created and loves, and thereby prove that God's Love can fail. Satan believed that if God can fail, then Satan would eventually find a way to murder Him. Job 1:6-12; Job 2:1-10; I Corinthians 13:8.

Job represents the fate of all humans. Job had freely chosen to strictly adhere to the good life that God had put into him, and so God had judged him to be as perfect as a sinful person can be. Job 1:8. When Satan told God that he would cause Job "to curse God and die," Satan meant that he would annul Job's spiritual life and cause him to become as totally evil as Satan is. But God had put a faith in Job that could not fail, and God has put His faith in every human that cannot fail no matter how evil they may become. Romans 12:3. But human faith would have failed and God would have lost humans to evil and spiritual death forever if He had not come to earth Himself to suffer that evil and spiritual death in man's place. II Corinthians 5:21; Hebrews 2:9. Job realized that his faith could not fail when God revealed to him that he had a Redeemer in Job 19:25-27.

God allowed Satan to attempt to directly murder Him when the sin and evil of mankind nailed Jesus to a cross in 31 A.D. I Corinthians 13:8. But Christ's Love proved to be triumphant over evil and spiritual death when He rose from the dead to rescue all humans from spiritual death. Hebrews 2:9-14; I Timothy 4:10; I Timothy 6:13; II Timothy 1:10; I Corinthians 15:26; I Corinthians 15:22; Luke 20:38; John 11:25; John 12:47. God has to save all humans because He can never lose anything that He has ever created and loves. Ecclesiastes 3:14; I Corinthians 13:8.

Sin causes spiritual death which is totally evil, and spiritual death, in turn, causes sin. It is a vicious cycle. Romans 5:12. The evil part of human nature continuously influences the good image of God in human nature, and because of free will, causes it to sin. Humans possess no power whatsoever to cleanse themselves of the filthiness of this vicious cycle. This condition makes the good lives of humans subject to eternal spiritual death. But because of His Almighty Love, Christ possesses the power to rescue all humans from sin and spiritual death by suffering their sins and spiritual deaths in their place. Christ also gained complete victory over all sin and evil by His resurrection from the dead in order to liberate all humans from the sin that causes spiritual death and from the eternal spiritual death that causes sin. Hebrews 2:9; II Timothy 1:10; I Corinthians 15:26; II Corinthians 5:21; I Corinthians 15:22; Revelation 20:14; Revelation 22:11-12.