Commentary on the Gospel of John

                                  Chapter Fourteen

                                                                                                                                               Verses 28-31 continued

Jesus' disciples believed in Jesus as the Son of God and their Messiah before He went to the cross, but they did not understand much about what He would do for them in His death, burial, and resurrection. As Jesus prophesied to them, when they saw Him after His resurrection He would explain to them the Old Testament scriptures about His mission to the world which would make their faith much stronger. Luke 24:44-45. The Old Testament saints had a vague faith in the mission of their coming Messiah and His sacrifice for them which gave them a weak consciousness about His shed blood. But because of their inexplicit faith, God sent their souls and spirits to Paradise located next to Hell when they died. When Jesus came to them in His Spirit to preach the gospel to them, then their faith increased, and they were washed in the blood of Jesus, and Christ translated them all in body, spirit, and soul, along with Paradise itself, to Heaven after His resurrection. Matthew 27:51-53; Ephesians 4:7-9. In the Church Age when the gospel is clearly preached by human messengers, the Holy Spirit washes those who believe in the gospel with the blood of Jesus and recreates their souls and spirits the moment they believe. John 5:24; I Corinthians 6:11; II Corinthians 5:17. But believers in the Church Age must await the Rapture of the Church for God to recreate their bodies to be spiritual bodies like those of Jesus. I John 3:2. God honors a vague faith in Christ because he knows that He will make the gospel clear to the believers' understanding at a later time. God saved Noah by His grace simply because Noah used a pitch to seal the Ark, and that word "pitch" means the same as atonement. Genesis 6:8; Genesis 6:14.

Believers in the Church Age who never hear a clear presentation of the gospel by a human messenger, but who nevertheless become converted to a vague faith in Christ by a direct witness of the Holy Spirit may have to wait until the Rapture of the Church to become washed in the blood of Jesus. Colossians 1:23. Tribulation saints will certainly have to wait until they get to Heaven to be washed in the blood of Christ because during the Tribulation the Holy Spirit will not be active in the world to wash them in the blood of Jesus. II Thessalonians 2:7; Revelation 7:9-17. Tribulation saints whose faith does not endure until they become washed in Jesus' blood will lose their salvation by grace. Matthew 24:13; Matthew 22:10-14.