The World and the Word

              The Difference between Sin and Evil

Jesus did teach in John 3:15-16 that unbelievers would "perish." But that word does not mean that unbelieving living humans will be tortured in a lake of fire forever. Jesus meant by the word "perish" that He will dissolve the systems of unbelievers consigned to one of the three regions of death by the use of His fiery wrath in order to separate their living souls and spirits from their evil natures which is their spiritual death. Every human happens to be an extremely complicated living and intelligent system created by God with an evil spiritual nature that has been injected into them by the Devil. Matthew 15:13. The living nature of humans commits sins because it falls under the influence of its evil nature. Romans 5:12. Isaiah 64:6 informs humans that its righteousness, given by God, has been made filthy by sin. The main difference between sin and evil is that God will eventually cleanse and forgive all of the sins of living humans upon their repentance and faith, and He will separate the total unbelief of the evil natures of all humans from them for Him to cast into the lake of fire because it never repents. Matthew 12:31-32. God will save His whole creation, including all living humans. Romans 8:18-25; Colossians 1:15-25; Revelation 21:5. Humans consigned to one of the regions of death will "perish" in the sense that God will dissolve their systems by the use of His fiery wrath against evil, recover and recreate their repentant, living systems as righteous humans to live on His recreated earth, and cast their unrepentant, evil deaths into the lake of fire. I Corinthians 3:11-15; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 20:15. Recreated humans will not be the same persons they were on their former earth. John 12:25; Matthew 16:25.

In John 3:17, Jesus taught that He did not come to judge the world, but to save the world, meaning all mankind. God must make His Word good. Numbers 23:19. In the end of the world, when Christ does judge the world, He will cast only the separated, evil natures of humans into the lake of fire. Revelation 20:11-5. Christ will absolutely cleanse and forgive every living human whom He has created and loves according to Revelation 21:5.

In John 3:18-21, Jesus described exactly what His judgment of the living and dead unbelievers would be. He said nothing about the lake of fire, but He did say that total evil never comes to the light, meaning Himself. John 3:19-20. Jesus taught that the evil unbelievers remain in "darkness" which is the same as "the shadow of death" that has been cast into the world from the bottomless pit. Psalm 23:4. Since God put His truth into every image of Himself in every human, and since God gives every living human some good works to do, then according to John 3:21, every living human will eventually come to the Light. John 5:24; Revelation 5:11-14.

In John 8:24, Jesus told some living unbelievers that "ye shall die in your sins," but He did not say that they would spend an eternity in a lake of fire. That would have been the perfect time to warn them, and the rest of humanity, had it been true that living humans go to an eternal lake of fire. But God specifically taught that He casts only dead humans into the eternal lake of fire. Revelation 20:15.

In John 12:47, Jesus taught that He did not come to judge living unbelievers because He came "to save the world;" that is, all living unbelievers. In John 12:48, Jesus taught that He would reserve His judgment of dead unbelievers until the end of the world when He would judge them by His Word. Since Jesus came "to save the world," then all living humans will eventually repent and believe and be reconciled to God, some by His grace and all others by His mercy as they repent and believe in a great worship service provided for them by God in Revelation 5:11-14. Colossians 1:15-25. Revelation 20:5 records God's resurrection of all living believers from the regions of the dead. Revelation 20:11-15 records God's judgment of the dead unbelievers whom He will cast into the lake of fire. Their names cannot be found in God's Book of Life. Matthew 13:36-43; Matthew 13:47-50; John 5:28-29.

In John 12:31 and John 16:11, Jesus informed humans as to the kind of judgment He would make of the world while He was in it in the flesh. Jesus taught that He came to cast the Devil and all of his evil works out of His world. The god of this world had partial control of it. Luke 4:5-8; Job 1:7. The Devil meant to utterly destroy a part of God's creations. The Devil meant to torture living humans in Hell forever and thereby prove that God's Love can fail. Job 2:9. But through His suffering death, burial and descent into Hell, and glorious resurrection, Christ conquered the Devil and his partial control of the world, and He even took control of Hell and Death itself. John 16:33; Revelation 1:17-18; I Corinthians 15:26; I Timothy 6:13. I John 3:8 clearly teaches that Christ came to destroy evil and all the works of the Devil, not living humans whom He creates and loves.