We continue with the subject of,

The Millennium and the End of Sin

The Resurrection of Condemnation

In our previous post we were reviewing a few important questions related to the second resurrection. First and foremost, what a resurrection actually entails, secondly what the Resurrection of Judgement consists of and lastly here,

When will this second resurrection take place?

In Revelation 20:5 it is stated: “The rest of the dead [those who were not raised in the first resurrection] did not live again until the thousand years were finished”

“The prophet John, the writer, had just recounted the matter of the first resurrection; that they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But this begs the question:

Who exactly will they be reigning over?

A dead world! An uninhabited world as our Adventist friends suggests?

Heavens no! but nevertheless a world which will not have attained to life, in its proper sense, until the thousand years are finished.

What do we mean?

From God’s standpoint this word “live” has a particular significance. Adam was alive before the sentence of death came, and from the moment he became a transgressor and under sentence he became a dying man instead of a living man. That represents the condition of all the world. All have a measure of life, as they exist today, but all are in a dying, not a living, condition. They may not all be in the tomb, in the grave yet, but God does not recognize them as alive.

During the millennial age conditions will be reversed, and instead of the race going down the broad road that leads to destruction, more and more into degradation and sin and death and corruption, the order will be reversed, and they will be going up the highway of holiness, rising, and rising, and rising, out of corruption, out of death — but they won’t get out of death totally, not fully, until the close of the age.

They will not live, in the sense that God speaks of it, until the thousand years are finished. Then, having come to the condition of perfection, having received all that was lost, they will live again in the same sense that Father Adam lived before he transgressed.”

We would here like to present some excerpts (edited) on the Millennium and the Judgement to come which might prove beneficial to some.

ERROR ABOUT JUDGMENT DAY

“A very serious error has crept into the minds of many, and they speak of the day of judgment as though it were a day of damnation. They take a great many un-scriptural ideas concerning it, suggesting that Christ would descend in glory and sit upon the rim of a cloud, and the earth would turn upon its axis and a few here and there would come to Him, while to the world in general He would say, “Damn you! Damn you!” An awful picture for a Christian minister to present to his hearers!

There are very distorted ideas in the minds of people in general concerning this day of judgment. The Scriptural view is that it is the whole millennial age, the thousand-year judgment day, for “a day with the Lord is as a thousand years.” During that thousand-year day the whole world is to be judged; not judged in the way that is commonly taught, but with righteous judgment. We use the word judge in the sense of trial — that is the ordinary thought in the word.

One must be tried BEFORE being sentenced, and this thought is contained in the Scriptural use of the word judgment. During the gospel age all of the Lord’s people are on trial, on judgment; there is the judgment day before the Lord, and we shall be required to give an account. The reckoning will be totaled up at the end of the trial (“krisis” period Strong’s # 2920), and a decision (“krima” Strong’s # 2917) passed. It is very nice to speak about God saving a man instantly, but even in the Methodist church (according to their church creed) they have a few months’ probation before a person will be received into that earthly church.

How about receiving a man into the glorified church? Do you not think that it will take time for each individual to develop the proper character in order to become members of the little flock? Will it not require some probationary experience first?

Is not the Lord having us now in our various trials and difficulties under a process of preparation, to make us “meet for the inheritance of the saints in light,” as the apostle says?

PAST SINS DO NOT COUNT

When you started on your trial, when all Christians started on their trial, were they tried for the sins that are past? Are you being tried now for the sins that are passed?

No, God mercifully forgives your sins; they were committed in ignorance and weakness before you knew Him. They are not counted against you at all. As the apostle speaks of the blessing of God concerning the “sins that are past through His forbearance.” (Rom 3:25) You are forgiven, the Lord’s mercy is exercised toward you, and you hear of His pardon; “Blessed is the man whose sins are forgiven, whose transgression is covered!” “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” (Psa 32:1; 103:12)

Then how will it be with the world?

He is the same God, He is no respecter of persons, that He should forgive your sins that are past, and should thrash all the others for their sins.

If you believe God exercised mercy toward you, and forgave you your sins, then believe also that the Lord has a similar arrangement for the world. I am not speaking of willful sins; I understand that everyone willfully sinning will receive punishment to the extent of the willfulness, but sins that are committed in ignorance and blindness will be forgiven through the merit of Christ. For instance, Peter says of those who crucified the Lord: “Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers.” (Acts 3:17) God was able to forgive them, and our Lord’s prayer was: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” That is the kind of a God we love; that is the God of the Scriptures, and that is the reason we love and worship and appreciate Him. He is a merciful God, that He should be reverenced, as the Psalmist says.

The world, then, is not going to be on judgment for the sins that are past. To a certain extent every sin that everyone commits has an effect upon the individual at the time. You know how certain weaknesses and sins of youth have been a burden to many even down to their old age. You know they have suffered more or less, although they had the forgiveness of the Lord. So, with the whole world. The world, in proportion as they degraded themselves, have in themselves the punishment for their sins, a certain degradation, and during the millennial age, when they come to the great uplifting time that God has promised through Jesus, those degraded ones will have that much more of a journey to go before they shall get back to that justified, perfect condition which must be attained before they will be approved in God’s sight.

“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel (and through them to the rest of the world) … I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” (Heb 8:8:12)

Continued with next post.