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.