The World and the Word

              The Difference between Sin and Evil

When God assigned His punishments for the sins of His living humans, He mentioned only toil and sorrow in their earthly lives, and temporary separation from Him in the "cursed ground" for unrepentant sinners. God mentioned no eternal punishment in any form for His living humans that He created and loves and can never lose. Genesis 3:16-19. If God had an eternal punishment in a lake of fire for unrepentant sinners, then He would certainly have told humans about it at that time. God never withholds His truth from His people that they are capable of understanding. Titus 1:2. Revelation 20:11-15 clearly teaches that God will cast only the dead and evil nature of humans into the eternal lake of fire. Many of Jesus' teachings and parables reflect this same fact. In Matthew 7:17-19, Jesus taught that only a corrupt tree with no fruit whatsoever is cast into the fire. In Jesus' parable of Matthew 13:24-30, He taught that in the harvest, symbolic of His Judgment in the end of the world, the tares, symbolic of the useless and evil nature of humans, would be separated from the wheat, symbolic of all living and useful humans that He has created, and only the tares would be burned in the fire. In Jesus' parable of Matthew 13:47-50, Jesus taught that the good fish will be separated from the bad fish which He meant to be symbolic of the evil and useless nature of humans that will be cast into the lake of fire. In Matthew 15:13, Jesus taught that only the plants which His Father has not planted will be rooted up, symbolic of the evil that the Devil has planted into the inner beings of humans, and Jesus implied that the good plants that His Father has planted will be preserved, meaning all of the good lives of living humans that God has created. Psalm 36:6. In John 12:31-32, Jesus taught that only the Devil, and by implication all evil itself, will be cast out of His world. Jesus further taught that when this happens, all humans will be drawn to Him which happens to be a clear reference to Numbers 21:5-9. God did not order Moses to make a serpent of brass for the people to look to to be saved until after some of them had died which symbolized God's separation of total evil from all living humans that He created. I John 3:8; Hebrews 2:14-15.

God had Adam to call his wife's name Eve which means "the life giver." She would be the mother of all living humans whom God would create and love. Genesis 3:20. Living humans never become permanently dead to God. Luke 20:38. Because of this truth, God will raise all living humans, whom He had to consign to one of the regions of death, back to life in the end of the world. Revelation 20:5; I Timothy 6:13; John 5:28-29. God knows exactly how to cause every living human confined within the regions of death to repent and return to faith in the Lamb of God of their own free will. Revelation 5:11-14; Colossians 1:20; Revelation 21:5; Romans 8:18-23; Romans 11:29; Romans 11:36; Revelation 4:11.

Genesis 3:21 records that God killed an animal and covered Adam and Eve's nakedness and shame with its coat of skin. God shed the blood of an animal which symbolized the fact that the future Savior would shed His blood to save by His grace Adam and Eve and all future living humans who would repent and put their faith in His power to cleanse them of all their sins and evil with His shed blood while they were still alive in the flesh. Matthew 26:28; John 5:24; Revelation 1:5; I Corinthians 6:11.