The World and the Word

                                    Nothingness and Reality

Five times in the gospels Jesus taught about the difference between a person who has something and a person who has nothing. Jesus' teaching must be very important since He repeated it five times. Matthew 13:12; Matthew 25:29; Mark 4:25; Luke 8:18; Luke 19:26. Jesus did not limit His teachings to His followers saved by grace. Every human possesses a life made in God's image given to them by God. Genesis 1:27; Genesis 3:20; Luke 20:38. Whatever God creates lasts forever. Ecclesiastes 3:14. This fact can only mean that God must recover all living humans from the threat of eternal spiritual death because all living humans possess useful and creative systems. Hebrews 2:9; I Timothy 6:13; I Corinthians 15:22. God must recreate all living humans, some by His grace who receive the righteousness of Christ by faith while still alive in the flesh, and all others He will raise from the dead, after they all repent and believe, to recreate to live on His recreated earth with the original righteousness that He put into the first humans. John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14; John 5:28-29; Revelation 21:1-5. God will reward every recreated, living human for their good works. Matthew 10:42; Matthew 16:27; Revelation 22:12.

But Jesus also taught in these five verses that every human also possesses nothing. Jesus said that this nothingness will be taken from every person. If even the real and useful idea of nothing can be taken from a person, then that person will be reduced to a "less than nothing" which is absolute nothingness; that is, spiritual death. Isaiah 40:17. This absolute nothingness can only be destructive and evil. Satan injected evil into all humans which causes them to sin. The evil serpent caused Adam and Eve to sin from the outside which opened a door into their inner beings so that the Devil could inject spiritual death into them which would cause them to sin from the inside. Matthew 15:16-20; Romans 5:12. Sin causes spiritual death and spiritual death, in turn, causes sin. When Jesus taught in Mark 4:25 that he who has shall be given more, He meant that He would give His grace to living souls who believe in Him while still alive in the flesh. Humans saved by grace inherit all that God possesses. Romans 8:14-17. This means living humans not saved by grace actually possess nothing. Spiritual death can annul their lives. The second part of Mark 4:25 has a double meaning. The idea of nothing can indicate absolute nothingness which is spiritual death. This means that when a living human not saved by grace and in possession of nothing physical dies, God must consign that living person to one of the regions of spiritual death subject to an eternal state of absolute nothingness. Revelation 20:13. But Jesus did not teach that that absolute nothingness would last forever. The double meaning of this verse means that Christ will take away this absolute nothingness to restore every living human to life. Praise God! Jesus came to save every living human from sin which causes spiritual death and from spiritual death itself which causes sin. John 6:51; Hebrews 2:9; I Timothy 6:13; John 5:24; John 5:28-29; Revelation 5:11-14; Revelation 20:5; Daniel 12:1-3; Revelation 20:11-15; Revelation 21:1-5; Revelation 22:11-12.