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….
“Brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure.” – 2 Pet. 1:10. (R2727) Interest in the recent election of a President of the United States has been general throughout the whole world, and especially amongst English-speaking peoples: in fact, the exercise of the franchise by the public, whenever and wherever, is generally a matter of absorbing interest to “the children of this world” – whether the office be a high one, as that of President of the United…
“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of…
“This after-lesson is on the subject of the impossibility of having two masters, God and Mammon. Mammon represents earthly riches, not only financial wealth, but honor amongst men, etc. – the thing which was particularly hindering the Pharisees from taking the proper course and acknowledging their error and seeking for and obtaining mercy. Mammon still is a great hindrance to all who desire to be the Lord’s disciples. Whoever worships Mammon – and it may be self or wealth or…
The declaration of the Scriptures is that the apostle Paul and his company purposed to go into Asia, but that under divine providence he seemed to be hindered from going there, and that then God specially directed him in a dream, and sent him into Europe with the message – sending him, not to barbarians, but to the most enlightened and most cultured people of the then civilized world, the people of Greece. (Acts 16:7-10.) And we remember that later…