The World and the Word

        The Advents and the Judgments of Christ

Christ came to His Church when He rose from the dead, and His judgment fell on the Devil and sin and evil itself, not on any living human. John 12:31; John 16:33. Christ had gained complete victory over all sin and death and the world and Hell and the Devil. Revelation 1:17-18; John 16:33; I John 3:8. The Devil still held some evil power in the world, but he knew that his time on earth was short. Revelation 12:12. Christ left His Church in the world as the "salt of the earth" to preach His gospel and to prove that His power in His Church can hold back the full force of evil in the world. Matthew 5:13. Nevertheless, in order to remove all doubt that God can save all living humans whom He loves, God will allow the Devil to exert his full force of evil in the world during the Tribulation period after God has removed the restraining power of the Holy Spirit invested in His Church at the Rapture of the Church. II Thessalonians 2:7-8. God will absolutely prove that His Love cannot fail by giving the Devil every possible opportunity to ruin His Love. The unbelievers of II Thessalonians 2:10-12 means the foreign, evil nature of humans that God will separate from all living humans for Him to cast into the lake of fire forever. Unbelievers do not believe because they never repent. Matthew 12:31-32. Active repentance and faith adheres to the faith that God puts into His image that He puts into every human being, but unbelief always adheres to the totally evil, dead natures of humans injected into them by the Devil. Romans 12:3; Revelation 21:8.

Jesus came to His Church on the day of Pentecost as His Holy Spirit and filled His Church with power to preach His gospel and to be able to stand against evil. Acts 2:1-4; Acts 1:8. Christ also comes to every individual believer and baptizes them into His Church the moment they repent and believe. Acts 2:37-41; Acts 3:19-20; Acts 10:44-48. In these three accounts in Acts, the pattern remains the same. First, the repentant believer becomes baptized by the Holy Spirit into the Church and becomes "born again" which means the Holy Spirit comes into the heart of the believer. John 3:3-8; Mark 1:8. When this happens, the Holy Spirit brings the blood of Christ from His cross in spiritual form and thoroughly cleanses the souls and spirits of repentant believers of all their sins and evil and recreates their souls and spirits with the perfect righteousness of Christ Himself so that God can accept them to live with Him in Heaven forever. Matthew 26:28; I Corinthians 6:11; John 6:63; John 17:23-26. God actually loves "born again" believers to the same extent that He loves His own Son. That is awesome! Second, the "born again" believers should receive water baptism by immersion to witness to the world that they have received spiritual cleansing as Christ commanded in Matthew 28:19-20.

The Holy Spirit washes away forever all of the sins and evil of repentant believers' souls and spirits with the shed blood of Christ and recreates them so that their souls and spirits can never sin again. They become forever saved by the grace of God. I John 3:9; Revelation 1:5; John 10:27-30. However, God allows believers saved by grace to retain their fleshly natures which will still cause them to sin. Romans 7:7-25; I John 1:8-10. God allows the members of His Church to sin to prove to the world that He will protect and save those to whom He openly demonstrates His Love even if they sin. Matthew 26:74-75; Romans 7:23-27; John 10:27-30. God will eventually bring all of His believers saved by grace to repentance. God keeps His covenant of grace just as He does with all His covenants. Romans 11:29; Psalm 89:34. But God will certainly punish His believers saved by grace in order to correct them. Hebrews 12:5-13. The Holy Spirit provides for the cleansing and forgiveness of "born again" believers when He brings the shed water of Jesus' cross to them in spiritual form as they daily repent of their sins. John 13:1-13; I John 1:8-9; I John 5:4-8.