The World and the Word

             The Advents and Judgments of Christ

When Jesus came as the Holy Spirit to His Church, He also brought judgment to it. Christ imparts His Holy Spirit to the hearts of His believers so that their souls and spirits will no longer sin. I John 3:9. But Christ did not remove the fleshly natures of believers which adheres to their bodies and can still cause them to sin. Romans 7:15-25. God enjoins believers to reject the temptations of the flesh and adhere to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in order to stay away from sin and evil. Romans 12:1-2. But when believers inevitably do sin, God has promised that He will wash them in the water that Jesus shed on the cross which the Holy Spirit will bring to them in spiritual form as they daily repent of those sins. John 13:1-15. Although no believer saved by grace can ever lose their salvation, Christ will sometimes severely punish His believers who deliberately sin; that is, practice evil. Such was the case with Ananias and his wife Sapphira when they deliberately lied to the Holy Spirit. Acts 5:1-11. Christ will also discipline His believers who fail to daily repent of their sins of weakness in order to correct them. Hebrews 12:3-13.

Christ has promised that He will never lose a single believer saved by His grace. John 17:12-24; John 10:27-30. For this reason, Christ will sanctify His entire Church by washing it all in the water of His Word. Ephesians 5:25-27. However, some living humans saved by grace will give in to their fleshly nature and fall back into a life of sin and even some deliberate evil. Lot was a good example. Christ will not immediately accept these backsliders into Heaven at the Rapture of the Church because they failed to daily repent of their sins and evils and forsake them. Unless one forsakes one's sins, one has not really repented. God turns evil sins into sins of weakness upon repentance because the sorrow and humility He sees engenders His compassion. God never forgives evil because it never repents. Matthew 12:31-32. According to Matthew 5:25-26, backsliders will be in opposition to Christ at the Rapture of the Church. Christ will cast these backsliders into the "prison," which is the bottomless pit, where they will suffer torment until they remember that they were saved by grace and fully repent. When they repent, Christ will bring them out of the bottomless pit, thoroughly wash them in the water of His Word, and restore them to His Church in Heaven. According to Matthew 18:32-35, backsliders who fail to exercise compassion and forgiveness will be tormented in the prison until they truly repent. According to Luke 12:45-48, backsliders will be tormented until they repent.

When Christ appears to the world; that is, mankind itself, He only appears in His physical form. When Christ appeared to His Church and the Old Testament saints saved by His grace after His resurrection, He appeared in His spiritual body; that is, a body in which He can be physical or spiritual as He wills. Luke 24:36-43. Christ abides with His Church in His spiritual form; that is, His Holy Spirit. John 14:18. God will give spiritual bodies to all believers saved by grace so that they can live with Him in Heaven forever. Philippians 3:20-21. But when God resurrects all of His repentant, living humans from the regions of the dead to be recreated to live on His new earth, He will provide them with only righteous bodies in His image like those He gave to Adam and Eve. I Corinthians 15:35-50.

At the Rapture of the Church, Christ will appear to the world in His physical form only, but He will appear to His Church in His spiritual body. Revelation 1:7; Acts 1:10-11. The unbelievers of the world will claim that the Rapture did not happen, but many others will believe that it happened because they will have seen it with their own eyes. The Tribulation period will soon follow the Rapture. Those living humans who continue to believe in Christ until they are either martyred or until the end of the Tribulation will be saved by grace. These will be the Tribulation saints. Matthew 24:7-13.

After the Rapture, God will remove the Holy Spirit's restraint of evil from the world. II Thessalonians 2:7. God will allow the world to be wholly given over to the complete influence of evil. God will do this to demonstrate to humanity all of the terrible horrors that evil will cause them when God is not present to protect them. Those horrors will be one of the factors that will cause all living humans confined to the regions of death to cry out to the Lamb for their salvation as recorded in Revelation 5:11-14.

The World and the Word

             The Advents and Judgments of Christ

When Jesus walked the earth in human form, He dealt with the world as a whole when He preached to large crowds, to the Pharisees and Sadducees, and even to Pilate. He also dealt with individuals when He saved and healed them. Luke 7:36-50; Matthew 12:15. Jesus came to save all those who would not believe in Him at that time as well as all who would believe. The fact that Jesus would not judge the world while He was in it, but He reserved His final judgment of the evil, eternal deaths of humans until the end of the world and resurrects their living souls and spirits from the regions of the dead demonstrates the truth that Jesus came to the world to save every human who ever lived. John 12:47-48; Revelation 20:15; Matthew 15:13; Matthew 13:36-43; Matthew 13:47-50; Matthew 13:10-12; I John 3:8; I Timothy 6:13. When does Christ "quicken all things?" The only possible answer must be at the end of the world. Revelation 20:5. God never creates temporary life. Ecclesiastes 3:14; Luke 20:38.

After Jesus rose from the dead, He appeared in His spiritual body to His believers saved by grace. Jesus did this to instill faith in them that He was alive and had the power to save them forever. John 20:24-29. He did not appear to the world because from the time of His ascension He would deal with the world through His Church and the power of His Holy Spirit. He charged the Church to preach the gospel and witness to the world that He is alive and can save by His grace. Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 1:8. He also assured His Church that they can never lose their salvation that He had given them, and He promised them that He would always be with them. John 10:27-30; Matthew 28:20.

After His ascension, Jesus came back to His Church as the Holy Spirit to empower His Church to preach His gospel and to show the world that He can purify and change the hearts of men in order to give them His eternal life and to make them much better people. The Holy Spirit gave the Church "cloven tongues like as of fire" to symbolize that He would sanctify and purify His Church. Acts 2:3. God can cleanse sins with His fiery wrath against evil as well as with the blood of Christ. Isaiah 6:6-7. With this event, the Church became the body of Christ with His power to do His work in the world. I Corinthians 12:12-13. The Holy Spirit empowered the Church at Pentecost. He did not save the Church at that time. Christ saves only individuals one at a time. The Holy Spirit baptizes believers into the body of Christ when He washes them in the spiritual blood and water that flowed from Jesus' cross. John 6:63; I Corinthians 6:11. All of the Old Testament saints and Jesus' disciples, except for Judas Iscariot, became saved by grace in reservation before they became washed in Jesus' blood and water because God knew that He would certainly wash them from their sins in the future. In John 20:22, Jesus gave the Holy Spirit to His Church as individuals for the certainty of their salvation through His washing them in the spiritual blood and water from Jesus' cross. The Tribulation saints will be saved by grace in reservation until they get to Heaven when they will be cleansed by the blood and water from Jesus' cross. Revelation 7:11-17.

The World and the Word

           The Advents and Judgments of Christ

God creates every human to be an extremely complicated system with a body, soul, and spirit. I Thessalonians 5:23. The earthly body always dissolves after physical death. Genesis 3:19. The souls and spirits of humans saved by grace go to Heaven after their physical deaths. I Peter 1:3-4. The souls and spirits of humans who do not become saved by grace go to one of the three regions of death when they die according to the judgment of Christ. Christ appears to all humans following physical death. Hebrews 9:27; Revelation 20:13. God will cause every soul and spirit confined to the regions of death to repent and believe in the Lamb of God of their own free will. Revelation 5:11-14; John 11:25. When Christ comes with His final judgment in the end of the world, He will use His fiery wrath against evil to dissolve all things in Heaven and earth including all of the souls and spirits confined within the regions of death. II Peter 3:10-13. Christ will use His fiery wrath to extract His repentant souls and spirits from their dead natures which He will cast into the lake of fire. I Corinthians 3:11-15; Matthew 3:10-12; Revelation 20:15. Christ will raise all of His repentant souls and spirits from the dead and recreate them with new bodies to live on His recreated earth. Revelation 20:5; Revelation 21:1-5. Earthly bodies never inherit the kingdom of God. I Corinthians 15:50. When Christ comes to Rapture His Church, He will bring recreated, spiritual bodies with Him to clothe His resurrected and translated saints to live with Him in Heaven forever. II Corinthians 5:1-5; I Thessalonians 4:13-18.

God explicitly relates in Revelation 21:5, "Behold, I make all things new." God created all things, including all humans. This means God must recreate all living humans who ever lived, or this statement cannot be true. But it is true because it is the eternal Word of God. If any living humans ever go into the lake of fire then they will be lost from God forever and can never be recreated. Only the dead and evil natures of humans that God did not create and which the Devil injected into living humans will God cast into the lake of fire. Revelation 20:15; Matthew 15:13; Matthew 3:11-12; Matthew 13:36-43; John 5:28-29. God can never lose anything He has ever created. Ecclesiastes 3:14. God's Love can never fail. I Corinthians 13:8.

Jesus came to earth as a baby laid in a manger in Bethlehem. Luke 2:7. Jesus came as an ordinary human capable of suffering and death, but innocent and sinless. Hebrews 4:15. But Jesus was also God in human form. Matthew 1:23; John 1:14. Jesus had to have put off some of His heavenly glory in order to appear on earth as an ordinary human. As both God and a human, Jesus was able to take the punishment of the eternal deaths to which all humans are subject upon Himself on a cross. If God's Love had not done this, then all living humans would have been lost from Him forever. Hebrews 2:9; John 15:13; Matthew 26:50. Jesus also suffered for the sins of every human because sin causes eternal death. Romans 5:12. Jesus removed both the punishment and the cause of eternal death. As a sinless human, Jesus was able to cleanse and forgive the sins and evil of living humans saved by his grace with the blood and water He shed on the cross. I John 5:6-8. As a sinless human when Jesus died on the cross, He was able to leave the sins and evil of the rest of humanity behind in a fiery Hell when He rose immaculate from the dead. Psalm 16:10; Acts 2:27. God raised Jesus from the dead because He was an innocent human who did not deserve eternal death and because He is Holy God with the power to raise Himself from the dead. I Peter 3:18. For these reasons, Jesus saves all living humans whom He created and loves, some with a higher form of salvation and all others with a lesser form of salvation. I Timothy 4:10; I Timothy 6:13; Hebrews 2:9; I Corinthians 15:22; Luke 20:38; I Corinthians 15:26; I Peter 3:18-22; Colossians 1:15-23; Romans 11:29; Romans 11:36; Matthew 15:13; Ecclesiastes 3:14; Isaiah 45:21-25. Many other scriptures could be cited.

The World and the Word

                The Advents and Judgments of Christ

Jesus endorsed God's lesser form of salvation when He told the rich young ruler in Matthew 19:17 that he would "enter into life" if he kept the commandments which included the sin and burnt offerings for his forgiveness when he failed to keep the Ten Commandments. Jesus could not have meant salvation by grace because obedience to the law cannot save one by God's grace. Jesus had to have meant the promise that God gave to Moses in Deuteronomy 4:40 that faithful Jews will obtain a recreated life on a future recreated earth. Even the worst humans have done some good in life. For this reason, Jesus promised in John 5:28-29 that in the end of the world, He will raise all living humans from their graves for Him to recreate to inhabit His new earth. Revelation 20:5; Revelation 21:1-5. Jesus gave this same promise to the lawyer in Luke 10:25-28 who did not believe that Jesus was His Savior. God has promised a higher form of the lesser form of salvation to all faithful Jews in that He will allow them to be citizens of the nation of Israel that will rule the recreated earth. Isaiah 66:10-24.

Jesus also promised a Pharisee in Luke 14:14 that he would be rewarded for his good works "at the resurrection of the just." This Pharisee was not saved by grace, so Jesus had to have meant that God will raise the good image of God that He put into this Pharisee to a new life on earth as He promised in Deuteronomy 4:40. Jesus also informed a group of Pharisees in Luke 17:21 that "the kingdom of God is within you" by which He could only have meant the good image of God that He had put into them. In John 10:34-35, Jesus reminded the Jews who sought to stone Him that their scripture taught them that they were "gods" by which He could only have meant the good image of Himself that He had put into them. Psalm 82:6. Jesus often rebuked the Pharisees for their oppressive sins against their own people, but He also sometimes referred to some good works which they did which could only have come out of His good image in them. Matthew 23:1-36; Matthew 23:23. God can never lose anything He has ever created. Ecclesiastes 3:14. Even the worst humans demonstrate that they possess God's good image in them by the few good works they do. Jesus did warn the Pharisees that He would cast them into Hell for their evil works, but He did not say they would be there forever.

In Isaiah 66:22-24, the prophet informs all humans who ever lived who will still be in their graves in the end of the world that they will all come to Jerusalem to worship God on His recreated earth. They will also observe their own "worms," which symbolizes their separated, evil natures as they squirm in the lake of fire. Mark 9:44, 46, 48. In Revelation 22:11-12, God informs all living humans that He will extend His rewards to all of them whom He will raise from the dead in His general resurrection. Revelation 20:5; Matthew 16:27. God also informs that He will use His consuming fire, symbolized by the burnt offering, to dissolve all the systems of all humans confined to the regions of the dead in order to separate all of their filthy and dead natures from them for Him to cast into the lake of fire and raise their cleansed, living natures to a new life on His new earth. I Corinthians 3:11-15; Genesis 8:20-21; II Peter 9:9-13; Hebrews 12:29; Revelation 21:8.

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.

The World and the Word

 

                     The Advents and Judgments of Christ

 

When Christ gained all power over all of the regions of death after His resurrection, He changed them all to only places of temporary punishment for sins and evil. Revelation 1: 17-18. This victory over all sin and evil amounted to a removal of the permanent curse of the ground which Noah's burnt offering symbolized. God's curse means eternal death and separation from Him. But Christ changed that to temporary punishment and separation from God. Satan tried to get Job "to curse God and die" which meant he wanted to subject Job's living soul and spirit to permanent spiritual death. Job 2:9. Satan's temptation of Job symbolized his desire to cause the eternal deaths of all living humans. Job has been credited with great faith, but actually God did not allow Job to lose His faith. Job 19:25-27. God has allowed Satan to persecute the human race to the utmost to prove that the love and faith that God puts into the living souls and spirits of all humans can never fail. Some humans do curse God, but in the end, God will not allow their faith to fail. God creates all humans in His image which is good, and that good system cannot fail. Ecclesiastes 3:14. If God's Love cannot fail, then neither can His faith fail which stems from His Love. I Corinthians 13:8; Galatians 5:6; Romans 12:3. If all humans are alive to God, then they are permanently alive. Luke 20:38.

 

When Christ descended into Hell, He left behind there all of the sins and evil of all mankind that He bore on the cross, and He proved that He did that when He rose immaculate from the dead. Psalm 16:10; Acts 2:27. The burnt offering symbolizes this victory of Christ. Because of Christ's victory over all sins and eternal deaths, in the end of the world, Christ will use His fiery wrath against evil to judge and purge all living humans confined to the regions of death in order to separate their repentant lives which He will raise from the dead from their unrepentant, evil deaths which He will cast into the lake of fire. Revelation 5:11-14; I Corinthians 3:11-15; I Corinthians 15:22; I Corinthians 15:26; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 20:15. Christ will raise all of His living souls and spirits that He created and loves back to life from the regions of the dead and recreate them with new bodies to live on His recreated earth, and He will use His fiery wrath against evil to separate all of their sins and evil from them for Him to cast into the lake of fire. Revelation 20:5; Revelation 20:15; John 5:28-29.

 

Christ came to Abraham and promised to give him and his descendants, who would write His Word and bring the Savior into the world, the land of Palestine forever. God will have to raise them all from the dead to do this. God also promised Abraham that through him and his descendants, all of humanity will be blessed, meaning God will give all living humans either a higher or a lower form of salvation. Genesis 12:1-3; Genesis 17:6-8. God considers any curse against His people to be a curse against Himself. Curses against God proceed directly from the evil nature that the Devil injected into humans. Christ told Abraham that He will curse all humans who curse Abraham's people. Christ judges all who hate the Jews not only with punishment in their lives on earth, but He will also send their living souls and spirits to a fiery Hell if they do not repent and get saved by His grace. John 5:24.

 

The people of Sodom and Gomorrah displayed their contempt and hatred for Lot and his family when they tried to break down his door to get to the angels whom they thought were men and whom they knew that Lot had to protect. The angels punished these evil people by blinding them, and God destroyed them all with His fiery wrath against evil which symbolized the fact that God will send all who hate the Jews to a fiery Hell until Christ's final Judgment. At that time, Christ will separate their unrepentant, evil natures from them for Him to cast into the lake of fire, but He will raise back to life their repentant but puny good souls and spirits that He put into them when He created them for Him to recreate to live on His recreated earth. Revelation 5:11-14; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 20:11-15.

 

God has the right to create living humans with puny souls and spirits or strong souls and spirits as He wills. God does this to fully test His Love for His creations. Nevertheless, every human remains responsible for the choices he makes. Even the worst and most cruel humans have done some good works which proves that they still retain weak and puny souls and spirits that God will cause to repent in Revelation 5:11-14 so that He can raise them from the dead for Him to recreate. Romans 9:13-24.

The World and the Word

                                      The Advents and Judgments of Christ

All of the judgments of  Christ are directly connected to the comings of Christ. Christ comes to humanity in many different ways. Christ has come to humanity in the past; He comes to humanity in the present, and He will come to humanity in the future. With every coming of Christ, He makes a judgment.

Christ came to earth in creation which culminated in His creation of mankind whom He judged for his sins, but for whom He also promised an eternal salvation through a Savior who would suffer in their place to take away their sins and eternal deaths and give them all an eternal life, some by His grace and all others by His resurrection of His good image that He put into them that He can never lose. Genesis 3:20; Luke 20:38; Ecclesiastes 3:14; Romans 11:29.

Christ came to Noah after the flood and judged all humanity by giving Noah a burnt offering which symbolized God's recovery and preservation of all life that He had created. In the flood, God killed all evil humans in such a way as to put them in danger of eternal death and separation from God, but in His compassion, God could not allow them to remain in that condition. So He gave Noah a burnt offering to symbolize His future salvation of them and the rest of humanity to a lesser salvation than that of grace. Genesis 3:20-21; Psalm 36:6. When God killed all evil humans in the great flood, He consigned their souls and spirits that He had created in His image to the cursed ground which holds the bottomless pit which, at that time, was a place of eternal death. But with Noah's burnt offering, God symbolically and actually removed the curse from the ground so that He could give His life back to all humans through the death, burial, and resurrection of His Son. For this reason, Christ went to these living humans in their prison to inform them that if they would believe in Him, He would liberate them all from eternal death. They all believed which means Christ will raise all of their living souls and spirits that He created from the dead in His final judgment, and He will give them new bodies and a new life on His recreated earth which constitutes His lesser form of salvation. Hebrews 2:9; I Peter 3:18-20; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 21:1-5.