The World and the Word

                                                    The Wheat and the Chaff

The Light that John wrote about in John 1:9 can only be the image of God that He puts into every human that He creates. Humans may deny it, rebel against it, but it is in them nevertheless, and God can never lose it. Ecclesiastes 3:14. Even the worst humans being punished for their correction in the bowels of Hell still possess a Light within their beings which God will recover on Judgment Day in the end of the world and recreate to live on His recreated earth. Revelation 20:5; Revelation 21:1-5. But they will lose their former lives which they had on earth because much of their identities and personalities were formed by the influence of evil. God will have to recreate them as completely different, but righteous persons, and they will not remember their former lives on earth. John 12:25.

John wrote in John 1:16 that all humans have received the "fulness of God." God creates every human with His Holy image in them which manifests itself in good works that God has given to each of His images to do. Ecclesiastes 9:1. The Devil seeks to defeat God by permanently putting out this Light in at least one person. But God will never fail to cleanse, recover, and recreate His Light in every human stained by sin and influenced by evil. God will save some by His grace, and all others in His general resurrection in the end of the world. I Corinthians 13:8; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 21:1-5; John 5:28-29.

God's image that He has put into every person amounts to a type of elementary grace since God can never lose it. It is an eternal gift from God. Romans 11:29. But God can also give "grace for grace" which means that He can cleanse and recreate the souls and spirits of all who will repent and put their faith in the sacrifice and power of Christ while they are still alive in the flesh. Galatians 2:20; John 5:24.

God created humanity and its history in order to test His Love; that is, to prove that His Love for His creations can never fail. I Corinthians 13:8. Lucifer's rebellion called God's Love into question, not by God but by His creations. Lucifer refused to repent. God had to strip him of all the good that He had put into his system and exile him to earth as a totally empty and evil entity possessed of only a negative consciousness. Ezekiel 28:12-19. Satan falsely claimed that he had succeeded in annulling God's Love because God no longer loved him and he bragged about it. But God has a right to hate pure evil. Job 1:6-7. Satan knew that God had given humans free will, and he believed that he could cause at least one human to choose to totally rebel against God which would annul his living soul and spirit and prove that God's Love can fail. Job 1:11; Job 2:4-5; Job 2:9-10.

God creates every human system, some with a small image of Himself, and some with a large image of Himself. Romans 9:14-24. Those who possess a small image of God tend to never accept Christ as their Savior while alive in the flesh, but because they have free will, some do. Some of those who possess a large image of God never choose to accept Christ's salvation by grace, but they often tend to be good and religious people. In either case, God gave free will to humans to be used to create good systems. Even the worst humans have done some good works that God gave them to do, even Judas Iscariot. In Matthew 26:50, Jesus called Judas Iscariot "friend" which demonstrated that Jesus still saw some good in him. Humans can choose to do good or evil, but in either case, God's will will eventually prevail. God knows exactly how to turn evil systems into good ones. Psalm 50:23; II Peter 3:9. God even created the Pharaoh who opposed Moses for His honor and glory. Romans 9:17. God's creation of humans as He wills does not annul free will. Free will works because God has promised in John 6:37 that He will never fail to save by His grace anyone who chooses to repent and accept Christ as their Savior by faith. God will also cause every living human confined within the regions of the dead to choose to repent and return to faith in Christ as recorded in Revelation 5:11-14.