On Truth and Falsity

  The Sin Offering and the Burnt Offering continued

After God cast Adam and Eve out of the garden of Eden, their children began to intermarry with the human race that God had already created. Genesis 4:16-17 (KJB). The children of these intermarriages inherited both spiritual death and free will from the descendants of Adam and Eve which greatly increased their intelligence. Genesis 4:17-22 (KJB). Adam and Eve had another son who replaced Abel called Seth. Seth and his posterity mostly refrained from intermarriage with the already existent human race. Genesis 4:25-26; Genesis 5:6-32 (KJB). At the first, the spiritual life in all humans had the good effect of causing all humans to call on God and worship Him. Genesis 4:26 (KJB). But over time, humans began to more and more allow their evil natures to dominate their good natures until the whole world became evil except for Seth's descendants who were Noah and his family. Genesis 6:5-11 (KJB). The fact that certain "sons of God," who were probably fallen angels, also mated with humans greatly increased the ruination of the human race. Genesis 6:1-4 (KJB).

God decided that He would have to destroy the entire human race with a worldwide flood except for Noah and his family. But it grieved God to have to do that. Genesis 6:5-7 (KJB). Noah and his family had been saved by God's grace. Genesis 6:8-10 (KJB). After the flood was over, and Noah and his family emerged from the Ark to repopulate the earth, God's grief caused Him to devise a plan whereby He could save the lost souls and spirits of every living human He had ever created. He would even save and restore to life all of the souls and spirits of the already existent human race who were confined to the regions of death. I Peter 3:18-22 (KJB).

God instructed Noah to make a burnt offering which symbolized His decision to effect a means to save the living souls and spirits of the entire human race. Because of the burnt offering, God would remove His curse from the ground so that He would be able to liberate all living humans from the regions of death. Genesis 3:17 (KJB). God recognized that the evil in the hearts of all living humans would not prevent Him from being able to save them from eternal, spiritual death. God would use His fiery wrath against evil to burn it all. Revelation 20:11-14 (KJB). And God determined that He would never again "smite;" that is, kill, all of His living humans as He had done with the flood. Genesis 8:20-21 (KJB). The Old Testament burnt offerings that God gave to the Israelites had this same symbolism. Even the meat offering, which was actually just flour mixed with oil and frankincense, could make humans holy, and they can be holy only if they are alive. Leviticus 6:14-18 (KJB). God determined that not only would His Son sacrifice Himself on a cross to save some living humans by His grace, but He would also cause His Spirit to descend into Hell to effect a burnt offering sacrifice that would save all of His living humans confined to the regions of death when He would appear to them in the end of the world. Revelation 5:11-14; Philippians 2:9-11 (KJB). This had to happen because Christ bore the sins and evil of the entire human race on His cross. I John 2:1-2 (KJB). Jesus' Spirit descended into Hell bearing the sins and evil of all living humans who would not become saved by grace, and He left all those sins and evil there when He ascended immaculate from the regions of death to reanimate the perfect body of Jesus so that He could rise from the dead victorious over all evil, sins, spiritual death, and all the works of the Devil. Psalm 16:9-11; Acts 2:25-31; I John 3:8; John 11:25; Revelation 1:17-18; II Peter 3:9-13 (KJB).

Jesus actually saved all whom He would save by His grace when He shed His blood and water on the cross, but that salvation cannot become effective for the believer until the Holy Spirit brings the blood of Jesus in spiritual form to the hearts of all humans who repent and believe in Christ as their Savior. I Corinthians 6:11 (KJB). The Holy Spirit also brings the spiritual water from the cross of Chirst to cleanse believers as they daily repent. I John 1:8-9 (KJB). In the same way, the Spirit descended into Hell to purge all of the sins and evil of the rest of humanity by the fiery wrath of God, but that form of salvation does not become effective until Jesus appears to all living humans confined to the regions of death and causes them all to repent and believe in Him of their own free will as the Lamb of God. Revelation 5:11-14; Philippians 2:9-11; Colossians 1:15-23 (KJB).