The World and the Word

              The Advents and Judgments of Christ

When Christ comes back in His physical form on His white horse to defeat the evil armies of the Beast and the False Prophet and sends an angel to chain the Devil in the bottomless pit, He will take His rightful place as the King and God of this world to replace the Devil who was the former "god of this world." Revelation 19:15-16; II Corinthians 4:4. This return of Christ to the world in His physical form happens to be the same advent prophesied by the angels in Acts 1:11. This coming of Christ is commonly called "the second coming of Christ." But strictly speaking, there is no such thing as "the second coming of Christ." Christ comes continually, either in His spiritual form to His people saved by grace or in His physical form as He reveals Himself to the world or to His repentant, living humans confined to the regions of death. John 14:18; Luke 2:7; Revelation 5:11-14.

When Christ comes and establishes His millennial kingdom, He will appoint His Tribulation saints to be the judges of the nations. Revelation 20:4. At that time, Christ will effect a Rapture of the Tribulation saints. God calls this Rapture "the first resurrection" because it occurs at the beginning of His millennial reign. The last sentence of Revelation 20:5 really belongs to Revelation 20:6. Revelation 20:5 relates that God will resurrect all of His repentant, living souls and spirits that He created and loves from the regions of the dead at the end of His millennial reign.

The fact that Christ appoints only His Tribulation saints to be His judges in the beginning of His millennial reign proves that His Judgment, as recorded in Matthew 25:31-46, can only be His Great White Throne Judgment. The "sheep" and the "goats" of Christ's final Judgment happen to be inside every individual who receives judgment. The "sheep" represent the repentant, living souls and spirits of all humans whom God will resurrect from the regions of the dead. and the "goats" represent the evil natures of all dead humans that God will cast into the lake of fire. Revelation 20:5; Revelation 20:11-15.

God will use His fiery wrath against evil to dissolve every individual human system confined to the regions of death to separate their inner "sheep" from their inner "goats." Matthew 12:33-37; I Corinthians 3:11-15; John 5:28-29; Matthew 13:36-43; Matthew 13:47-50; Matthew 3:11-12; Matthew 15:13; Isaiah 45:20-25. The "brethren" of Matthew 25:40 represent all humans saved by grace who will be exempt from Christ's final Judgment. The "least of these" of Matthew 25:45 represent all living humans that God will recreate to live on His new earth. Matthew 25:41 proves that God created the lake of fire for the Devil and his angels, and by extension, for spiritual death itself that God cursed, not for any living human. Genesis 3:14; Genesis 3:17; Genesis 3:20; Luke 20:38. Matthew 25:41 agrees with Revelation 19:20, Revelation 20:10, and Revelation 20:15.