Account Paid in Full

In our previous post we alluded to the fact that the Great Company will play a pivotal role in God’s plan, that it is his purpose to use them to compensate for the willful sins of humanity, sins committed against evident light.

“Divine Justice must be fully satisfied before the New Covenant can be inaugurated, it includes not only a satisfaction for Adamic sin, but it embraces also stripes for partially willful sins, and satisfaction for certain gross injustices which mankind have committed when they had a knowledge of a better course and were in a measure responsible for their unjust words and actions. To an extent they were in ignorance, but often they were willfully so, and in proportion to the measure of responsibility will Justice require a recompense.

“At the close of the Jewish Age God had a reckoning with the nation of Israel, which was one of the most terrific times of trouble the world has ever known. The declaration of Jesus was that of that Age–that generation then living–God would require expiation for all the righteous blood that had been shed from the time of Abel to the time in which He was speaking.–Matt 23:34-36.

And these partially willful sins of the world are not fully covered by the Sin-offerings. In so far as they have been willful they must be expiated by punishment. These sins and trespasses are shown as placed upon the scapegoat class–the Great Company. In the great Antitype shortly to be enacted, these will be allowed to suffer for some of the partly willful sins of the world—especially the sins of Babylon. All the blood of God’s holy ones, from the beginning of this Gospel Age, will be required of the present generation, in the “great Time of Trouble, such as never was.”

The martyrs of the past, “the souls under the altar,” are represented symbolically as crying out for the vindication of Justice, saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood upon them that dwell on the earth!” They were bidden to wait until others of their brethren should be similarly killed, when the guilt of all will be avenged.–Rev 6:9-11.”

From the above we see that at the close of this Gospel Age there will be another squaring of accounts.

Now it may be asked, why require the full payment for all the wrongs of the two Ages–the Gospel Age and the one preceding, extending from the time the blood of righteous Abel was shed to the present time–at the closing of these Ages?

We answer, because the chief light of each Age comes at its close, and because those who sin against such light are worthy of more severe judgment than similar evildoers preceding them, who had less light. The Scriptural argument is that to endorse the wrongs of the past in the light of the present is to multiply the responsibility and to deserve the plagues of the whole.

We perceive also that much of the evil done against the Lord’s holy ones of the past has thus far failed of the punishment due. Great systems which in the name of Christ persecuted the true Church have practiced and prospered, but have not yet received their just recompense of reward.

But it seems that the legal expiation of these sins must be accomplished by the scapegoat class, as shown in the type. (Lev 16:20-22) Israel here represents the world. In this scapegoat type, the Lord pictures the sending into the wilderness of isolation and persecution the Great Company who, after consecration, were unwilling to go voluntarily “outside the camp, bearing the reproaches” of Christ. They shared not in the Sin-Atonement, but will be permitted, yea, forced, to bear the weight of some of the world’s willful sins, and thus to become dead to the world, that their spiritual being may be saved in the Day of the Lord Jesus.

This class, particularly large in the present day, will be delivered over to the Adversary, to suffer in this great time of trouble. Such of them as respond to these tribulations, faithfully and loyally, will be counted as overcomers and be granted palms of victory, as shown in Revelation 7, and will be privileged to share in the Marriage Supper of the Lamb and to be honorable servants of the Bride of Christ. If they fail to respond, and to wash their spotted robes in the blood of the Lamb, they will go into the Second Death.

It is this great trouble-time which the Little Flock, the Lord’s goat class of faithful sacrificers, will escape, and which the Great Company will not escape, but will share. They will come up out of this trouble with washed robes, made white in the blood of the Lamb. Their sufferings will not wash their robes, but in their sufferings they will learn to appreciate as never before their relationship to the Lamb of God and to His atoning merit, and will by faith be permitted to apply the same to their own cleansing. As we consider the experiences of these children of God, so soon to come, let us all the more manifest our love for the Lord, and all the more seek to lay down our lives faithfully in the service of our King, and in behalf of the Household of Faith.

Continued with next post.