The World and the Word

            The Advents and Judgments of Christ

Christ came to Moses in a fiery bush and told him that He would use him to liberate His people from bondage in Egypt. Christ judged the Egyptians with ten terrible plagues which ended with the deaths of the firstborn until Pharaoh chose of his own free will to let God's people go to freedom. The fact that Pharaoh asked Moses in Exodus 12:32 to "bless me also" proves that he chose to let God's people go because he hoped for a blessing from God for so doing. The fact that Pharaoh chose to go after the Israelites with his army to bring them back into slavery also proves that he chose to let them go of his own free will. Every human, deep within themselves, knows that they can do good or evil. How they choose depends upon their faith or their lack of faith in yielding to temptation. Exodus chapters 1-12.

Christ came to the Israelites and displayed His fiery wrath against evil from the top of Mount Sinai. God desired that the Israelites realize by faith that He had liberated them not only from bondage in Egypt but also from bondage to sin and evil by His grace. Exodus 19:1-7; I Peter 2:9. But the people rejected this covenant of grace and desired to prove their own righteousness by their obedience to laws from God. Exodus 19:8. Christ judged these people by a display of His fiery wrath against evil, but He did not kill any of them because He instructed Moses to command the people to sanctify themselves and to stay away from His fiery wrath. Exodus 19:9-25.

God sanctified the Israelites by giving Moses the Ten Commandments for them to strive to obey, but also to teach them that they would inevitably disobey them because of their weakness. But for their sins, God also gave Moses the sin offering to symbolize God's higher form of salvation by His grace, and He gave the burnt offering to symbolize God's lesser form of salvation by His use of His fiery wrath to separate their good and living natures from their evil natures. Leviticus 6:24-30; Leviticus 6:8-13; Leviticus 5:10; I Corinthians 3:11-15; John 5:24; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 20:15. The fire that God commanded should never go out which burnt the animal sacrifices symbolized the lake of fire into which God will cast all of the separated, evil natures of all humans. Revelation 20:15; Matthew 15:13. The ashes that the priest had to carry to a "clean place" symbolized all of the separated, living souls and spirits that God will raise from the dead for Him to recreate to live on His recreated earth. Revelation 21:1-5. God has an Infinite Intellect which gives Him the power to create a way to cause every living human confined to the regions of death to repent and believe of their own free will in the Lamb of God and become saved with God's lesser form of salvation. The free will of humans does not equal the Will of God. II Peter 3:9; Revelation 5:11-14; John 11:25. In Deuteronomy 4:40, God promised all Israelites who have been faithful to Judaism that He will recreate them to live forever in their own land on His recreated earth. But Ezekiel prophesied in Ezekiel 20:37-38 that God will demote all unfaithful Jews to an even lesser form of salvation which will be life among the Gentiles on the new earth.