With foot-racers there is a prize offered likewise, but it is not the prize that is hung out to their view while on the race-course; it is not the prize toward which they run, but the mark. There is the quarter-mile mark, the half-mile mark, the three-quarter-mile mark, and the mile mark at the close of the race; and each racer watches for and encourages himself as he passes one or another of these marks by the way, until finally…
“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forward to those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” – Phil. 3:13,14. – Few in the nominal (or professing) church see any particular mark or any particular prize with definiteness; – to be sought and to be attained. The majority are merely fleeing…
“And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you today, you will be with Me in Paradise.” As stated in our last post only if the correct punctuation is applied by placing the coma in the correct position, that is after the word “today” can the harmony of the scriptures be maintained. Consider the following three: “Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from…
Excerpts taken from R1986 “He said to Jesus, Remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And he [Jesus] said to him [the penitent thief], Indeed I say to thee this day, thou shalt be with me in Paradise.” – Luke 23:42,43. Those who consider salvation to be an escape from everlasting torture to a paradise of pleasure, and dependent only on accidental circumstances of favor, see exemplified in this narrative the doctrine of election – that our Lord Jesus,…
NO CONDEMNATION POSSIBLE UNTIL AFTER TRIAL. If the worst class of non-elect do not deserve eternal torment, the less degraded certainly would not deserve it; and indeed, we are to remember that none of them can deserve any punishment until first of all they have had their trial. True, the whole race had a trial in father Adam, in Eden, and when he lost in that trial the whole race lost life and came under the sentence of death. But…
WHAT SAY THE SCRIPTURES RESPECTING THE NON-ELECT? In the Scriptures the NON-ELECT is composed of two classes: We have reversed the order of the two classes as they are presented in the original article for emphasis. The First class of the non-elect: from the Scriptural viewpoint is the world of mankind, including three classes: – (a) It includes those who have never had any knowledge of God’s provision of grace in Christ, and who consequently could not have gone on further…
WHAT HOPE IS THERE FOR THE INNUMERABLE NON-ELECT? Having found abundant Scripture evidence that God is selecting a little flock from amongst mankind to be joint heirs with our Lord Jesus in the Millennial Kingdom. That fact being proven, it cannot be questioned that all the remainder of mankind are non-elect. The question now is, What provision has the great Creator made for this class – numbering in the billions of all the families of the earth? Is this…
MORE SCRIPTURE REFERENCES TO THE ELECT. “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?“ (Rom. 8:33.) The Apostle is here pointing out that although this called class accepted of God to be his elect, and to run with patience the race set before them, and make their calling and election sure, have weaknesses of the flesh, in the overcoming of which they, as new creatures, are not always wholly successful, nevertheless, God looks upon the heart, and their…
OTHER SCRIPTURE REFERENCES TO THE ELECT. “I endure all things for the elect’s sake,” writes the Apostle Paul. (2 Tim. 2:10.) The Apostle’s sufferings whereby, as he said, he sought to “fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ [were] for his body’s sake, which is the Church” (Col. 1:24) – not for the world. The reason for this is evident: The Apostle knew the Lord’s plan to be to call and to elect during this Gospel…
IGNORANCE RESPECTING GOD’S ELECTION Even amongst professing Protestant Christians the majority do not know that there is an election. The leading denomination, Methodists, positively deny that there is an election; and even the large denominations which hold that an election is in progress (Presbyterians and Baptists, etc.) have totally false conceptions of its character: they regard God’s call or nomination as being the election itself, and hence the words of the Apostle in our text confuse rather than help them….