DID THE RANSOM SECURE FULL RESURRECTION?

We ask then, what did our Lord mean by limiting his answer to “they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that age and the resurrection”?

Will not the whole world be accounted worthy to obtain full resurrection?

Did not our Lord’s death purchase full resurrection for all the race?

We answer, No. Our Lord’s death was the propitiation, the satisfaction, whereby the sins of the whole world shall be cancelled, and whereby, therefore, the whole world may be awakened from the sleep of death and brought out of the great prison-house, the tomb. But such awakening and coming forth is with a view to their enlightenment, that they may all come to the knowledge of the Truth to the intent that by such knowledge and by obedience to it they might be saved, recovered, delivered completely out of all weaknesses and imperfections – brought gradually step by step, up, up, up, out of sin and death-conditions to full perfection and life-conditions; and this condition of absolute perfection or life from the dead is resurrection “out from among the dead” who will refuse to use those opportunities.

The raising up will proceed during the thousand years from the time of the awakening of the individual until he shall have attained to the full perfection of manhood – all that was lost in Adam. Then he will be resurrected – that will constitute his resurrection. Thus, he will attain unto “that world,” that perfect dispensation (or “age”), which God has designed shall be the ultimate and everlasting condition of all who love and obey him. But some will be awakened from the tomb who will not be accounted worthy to attain such a lifting up to perfection, mental, moral and physical, because of their failure to respond to the blessed privileges and influences of that time.

Now, as respects those who, at the close of the Millennial age, will have demonstrated their obedience to the Lord, and who shall be accounted worthy of that perfect state, and to be made perfect themselves, lifted clear out of death – such will neither marry nor be given in marriage. The Lord does not say what will be the intermediate conditions during the Millennial age, and this leaves us to infer that mankind and womankind, being awakened from the tomb in precisely the same conditions in which they went into it, will possess the same gender distinctions as at the present time. What will be the regulations of that time we are not told, but we have confidence in the Lord that he will be abundantly able to direct the course of mankind wisely for their benefit, instruction and uplift.

The end of the uplifting process, the end of the Millennial age, will mark a change in the human constitution by gradual development, a change so great that by that time those who will be ready to pass beyond the Millennial age into the everlasting conditions will not only be perfect in the sense and degree that Adam was perfect before he sinned, but also before mother Eve was taken from him and made a separate being. That is to say, gender conditions will gradually pass away, and be no more in mankind, even as it is not found in angels, and as it was not in man before the separation into sexes was affected in Eden for the purpose of propagating the race and filling the earth.

SEXUAL DISTINCTIONS TEMPORARY.

It will be remembered that during the first thousand years after the fall, not only was life much longer than at present, but births were much less frequent than now; and so, we presume that during the Millennial age the propagation of the species will gradually diminish and will finally cease, mankind gradually losing the sex functions. Sex will no longer be necessary; for man will no longer be alone, as he was at first, to need a companion, for the whole earth will then be filled with perfect beings (filled with Lord’s spirit, one toward another), and all the wicked, the incorrigible, will be destroyed. It is to this we understand that our Lord referred, saying, “Neither can they die any more, for they are equal unto the angels, and are the children of God, being children of the resurrection.” As the angels do not die, neither will the perfected human beings die.

Eternal life is the gift of God through Christ for all of Adam’s race who would receive it upon conditions of absolute obedience, and the (final) test which will take place in the close of the Millennial age (Rev 20:7-9) will guarantee that none remain to pass beyond into the perfect dispensation except those who, like the angels, having been tested, will be in no danger of falling, and will therefore die no more. Those who pass that inspection at the close of the Millennial age will be accepted of the Father as his children, and the intermediary or mediatorial Kingdom of Christ over them will terminate. They will become God’s children by the resurrection – by the raising up processes of the Millennial age, administered through the glorified Christ – the same that elsewhere is called “the resurrection by judgments,” because the rewards and penalties of obedience or disobedience will follow promptly, having the effect of constraining to righteousness and uplifting from sin-and-death conditions.

In applying this Scripture thus to the world of mankind, and it’s raising out of death conditions during the Millennium and its attainment to life everlasting and to the condition where there will be no further marrying, we have no desire to imply that there will be marrying in the glorified Church. On the contrary the Church is married to the Lord. As old creatures they are dead; as New Creatures they never will be married to any but the Lord; and when in the resurrection they come forth to glory, honor and immortality it will be to conditions like to their Lord, “far above angels, principalities and powers and every name that is named.”

Continued with next post.