Interesting Questions

If lasting life is the portion of all when awakened, are they justified?

If not justified, are they still under condemnation?

If neither justified nor condemned, what is their condition?

The condition of the world on trial during the Millennial age will be neither one of justification nor of condemnation.

The “curse” of the whole world under divine condemnation, or sentence to death on account of Adam’s sin, will cease thoroughly and completely with the close of this Gospel age, with the close of the antitypical Day of Atonement. But if, when awakened, all past sins were fully and freely forgiven, and the world were on trial before the bar of the Heavenly Father, they would be subject to instant condemnation as unworthy, unfit to live, because the divine law is that only that which is perfect shall live. Hence God has provided the mediatorial Kingdom of Christ to deal with the poor world in its wretched and undone condition, after the divine sentence against mankind has ceased, has been cancelled, has been revoked.

The revoking of the sentence of death effects no restitution – the two things are entirely separate and distinct.

Take an illustration:

Suppose a man, justly condemned to death for murder, had already served twenty years of imprisonment, and in that time, he had become bald, lost half his teeth and to some extent his eyesight. Suppose that in some manner the cancellation of the sentence against him was accomplished and that he was set free, would the cancellation of the balance of the sentence restore to the man his teeth or his hair or his eyesight or anything else?

Surely not. But if a kind friend had in some manner effected a settlement of his sentence, we may be sure the same friend would be glad upon his release to assist him in any manner in his power – to make good so far as possible his loss. He could procure for him glasses that would aid his sight, false teeth and a wig, and that would come as near as the friend could go to doing that which the Lord Jesus (in whom all authority, power in heaven and earth has been granted) proposes to do for the human family by restitution processes.

The Millennial Kingdom (as headed by the Lord and his body, the Church) will have full charge of the human family. He who bought the race with his own precious blood, he who effected a cancellation of the sentence, is to be granted a thousand years to affect the restitution of so many of those whom he bought as choose to come back into harmony with God and his laws.

We have seen they will not be in a condemned condition, because their sins will be forgiven. For the same reason they will not be justified by faith, because it is better to be actually forgiven than to be merely “covered,” or reckoned forgiven. Their condition and relationship to Christ under the New Covenant provisions of mercy will be all that could be desired for them. A little confusion is apt to prevail in our minds for a time on this subject of justification.

Realizing how important is our justification, how indispensable to our relationship to the Father and our joint-heirship with Christ, we are now inclined to feel that a similar justification process would be necessary for the world by and by. But not so. If the world were to be on judgment before the Father they would need justification, that is, a reckoned imputation of righteousness, a covering with Christ’s merit, etc.; but they are not to stand before the judgment seat of the Father UNTIL the close of the Millennial age.

They are to be on judgment and trial before Christ, not as sons of Adam, under his condemnation, etc., but as individuals, taken just for what they are, judged according to their several abilities for obedience. At the close of the Millennial age, when Christ’s Kingdom shall be delivered up to God, even the Father (1 Cor 15:24), these will not need justification by faith in order to stand before him, because during the Millennial age they will have been tried according to their works (Rev 20:12), and only those justified by works will have any standing before the Father; and they, being perfect, will need no covering for imperfections, but be in just such a condition as the Father could approve and declare worthy of continued lasting life.”