Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                   Chapter Eight

                                                                                                                                              Verses 19-24 continued

With a compassionate heart still, Jesus preached to them that because they adamantly adhered to their materialistic, worldly natures, they were not able to believe that He came from God or that He was their spiritual Savior. Jesus informed them that because of their unbelief, they would die in their sins. But Jesus did not tell them that they would remain in a state of death forever. Hebrews 2:9. Jesus also did not tell them that their living souls and spirits that He had created and put into them would be cast into an everlasting lake of fire. Revelation 20:5; Revelation 20:11-15. If that had been true, then that would have been a message of extreme importance which Jesus would have to have told them.

Jesus also did not tell them that He had a plan to keep alive their living souls and spirits forever. Genesis 3:20; Luke 20:38; I Corinthians 15:22; Psalm 36:6; I Timothy 4:10; Ecclesiastes 3:14. Jesus did not tell them that in the end of the world He would appear to them within the regions of death, and He would cause them to repent and believe in Him as the Lamb of God their Savior of their own free will so that He could use His fiery wrath against evil to dissolve their systems in order to separate their living souls and spirits from their dead and evil natures. Revelation 5:11-14; I Corinthians 3:11-15; II Peter 3:9-13. Perhaps, Jesus only told them that they would die in their sins because He knew that that would be as much as they would be barely able to understand. Perhaps, He also told them that because He hoped they would finally open their spiritual natures to hear and believe His gospel and become saved by His grace. John 5:24.

But there came a time when Jesus did tell an unbelieving Pharisee who had invited Jesus to eat a supper that he should do good works because he would be rewarded for doing so "at the resurrection of the just." Luke 14:12-14. Since this unbelieving Pharisee could not have been saved by grace, then Jesus had to have spoken about the general resurrection in the end of the world. II Timothy 4:1; John 5:28-29. When Jesus said that this would be a resurrection of the "just," He could not have meant the justification that results from salvation by grace. Romans 5:1. Jesus could only have meant that He will raise the repentant soul and spirit of this Pharisee whom He created and loves from the regions of the dead and recreate him with rewards for his earthy good works and with a new life on His recreated earth. John 5:28-29; John 11:25; Revelation 5:11-14; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 22:11-12.