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.