[Photograph above: Coleraine
Courthouse,
WORTHY OF THE
KINGDOM
By Thomas W. Finley
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Unless otherwise noted,
Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN
STANDARD BIBLE, ©1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, by
The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Scripture quotations marked
“NKJV” are taken from the New King James
Version. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982, by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked
AMP: Scripture taken from THE AMPLIFIED
BIBLE, Old Testament copyright © 1965, 1987 by the Zondervan Corporation.
The Amplified New Testament copyright © 1958, 1987 by The Lockman
Foundation. Used by permission.
Scripture quotations marked
NIV: Scripture taken from the HOLY
BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984
International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.
-------
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE Page 7
CHAPTER 1 - The Rich Young Ruler Page
1
The
The Overcoming
Christian Life Page 1
Salvation by Grace and
Reward According to Works Page
2
The Salvation of the
Soul Page 2
The Judgment Seat of
Christ
Page 2
CHAPTER 2 - Eternal Life and the
CHAPTER 3 - “No One is Good Except God
Alone” Page 11
CHAPTER 4 - The Kingdom of God Page 17
The Lifting of the
Curse Page18
Satan Will Be
Bound Page 19
Sickness
Eliminated Page 19
Peace Page 19
Righteousness Page 19
Joy Page 19
Comfort Page 19
Material
Prosperity Page 19
Holiness Page 20
Fullness of The Holy
Spirit Page 20
CHAPTER 5 - “Then Who Can Be Saved?” Page 23
A Gift Page 28
A Reward or Prize Page 28
By Grace through
Faith Page 29
According to
Works Page 29
Salvation from Eternal
Death to Eternal Life with God Page
30
Salvation from Loss
and Ruin Page 30
Salvation of the
Spirit Page 33
Salvation of the
Soul Page 34
Justification by Faith Page 34
Justification by
Works Page 35
The Judgment upon Sin
and Unbelief Page
36
The Judgment upon the
Believer’s Works Page
38
Becoming a Child of
God (Sonship) Page
38
Growing (Maturing) as
Sons of God (Discipleship) Page
38
Receiving Eternal
Life Page 40
Eternal Life in the
Coming Age Page 40
Election According to
Grace Page 40
Choosing According to
the Believer’s Preparation Page
40
Entry into the
Entry into the
Heirs as Children of
God Page 41
Fellow Heirs with
Christ in His
CHAPTER 6 - “Sell All That You
Possess” Page 45
The World Page 46
Self-denial Page 46
The World’s
Influence Page 50
Preoccupation with
Daily Affairs Page
53
Hints for Victory in
Self-denial Page 54
CHAPTER 7 - The Judgment Seat of Christ - Part I Page 57
Some Categories of
Judgment Page 59
Entry into the
Kingdom Page 61
Confession and Denial
at the Judgment Seat Page
74
Faithfulness Needed to
Enter the Kingdom Page
76
CHAPTER 8 - The Judgment Seat of Christ - Part II Page
81
Sharing Authority with
Christ Page 81
The Outer
Darkness Page 84
The Judgment upon the
Household Slaves Page
85
Gehenna Page 87
The Forgiveness of
Sins Page 94
“Forgive and you will
be forgiven.” (Lk.
6: 37,
NKJV) Page 100
“And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.”
(Matt. 6:
12) Page 101
The Fear of the
Lord Page 103
Mercy Page 109
God’s Principle of
Individual Judgment According to Works Page
109
Conclusion Page 111
CHAPTER 9 - “…And Come,
Follow Me” Page
115
A Seeking Heart Page 116
CHAPTER 10 - “For My Sake” Page 121
Let us look at these
four motivations that Jesus gave us. Page
121
For My Sake Page
121
For My Name’s
Sake Page 121
For the Gospel’s
Sake Page 122
For the Sake of the
Conclusion Page 122
-------
PREFACE
Living by Christ and for His coming Kingdom has been a
growing aspiration for me for years. As most of those who “desire to live godly in Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 3: 12), I am constantly aware of my shortcomings.
Nevertheless, I am stirred and encouraged to “press on
toward the goal for the prize.” (Phil.
3: 14).
Perhaps you can identify with these feelings, or, perhaps, you feel the need to
be encouraged to “run the race.” For the purpose
of stirring us all to “run with endurance the race that
is set before us” (Heb. 12: 1), I offer
this writing.
Encouragement to run the
race, in my experience, comes not only from the inward working of the Holy
Spirit, but also very much from God’s Word.
I have found that the Holy Spirit has especially used certain truths and
principles from the Bible to not only encourage me, but also to remind me again
and again with focused clarity what is the goal of the race and how to “run in such a way” that I “may
win” (1 Cor.
9: 24).
This writing is not
designed to be an exhaustive treatise on truths of the coming Kingdom and
lessons related to it. Some key truths
and principles will be touched, however, and it is hoped that this will be an
inspiration to the reader to search for more truth. For this reason, a list of suggested reading
is also included. How grateful I am to
those servants of God whose ministries have touched my life, helping me to know
more of the depths of God’s Word.
In my effort to make this
work readable for most Christians, I have tried not to make it too technical in
tone. My burden is not to make an airtight legal case for theological points.
However, some of the truths will probably be new to the reader, and I must,
therefore, of necessity lay down some proof of these points from the Scriptures
in sufficient detail to convince the objective reader. If further study or proof is required, the
suggested reading listed at the end can, I assure you, do a thoroughly
convincing theological job. My burden is
not theological argumentation, but it is the conveying of much needed truth,
along with practical exhortation, to help us all run the race in such a way as
to be approved by Him.
Finally, I must tell you,
dear reader, that it is my conviction that the hour of the Lord’s appearing and
His Kingdom has drawn very near. Therefore, I feel compelled to take up Paul’s
final charge to Timothy: “I solemnly charge you in the
presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to
judge the living and the dead, and by His
appearing and His kingdom: preach the word,
be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience
and instruction. For the time will come when
they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting
to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate
for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths.” (2 Tim. 4: 1-4)
* *
*
Page 1
CHAPTER
1
THE RICH YOUNG RULER
Recently, while studying the story of the rich young
ruler in the Gospels, this writer had an important realization. In that short
narrative lay several of the key truths concerning the coming Kingdom of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Like tiny flower seeds that need only to be nurtured in
order to produce mature plants with a variety of shapes, colours, textures and
scents, these key truths are awaiting development in order to become clearly
seen and appreciated for their richness. The desire to develop and share these
truths with others has resulted in this writing. Although these truths, which
are also contained in so many other passages of Scripture, could be presented
in a topical, systematic way, I have felt to use this story in the Gospels as a
means to introduce these significant truths.
Because much of this teaching
will seem new to most readers, a word of caution is in order. Please resist the
temptation to discard new ideas out of hand that do not seem to fit with
previously learned theological perspectives. Admittedly, this is hard for all
of us to do. However, if we are truly seeking the truth of the Scriptures, we
will not be afraid of examining new ideas to see if they may be sound. This was
the noble attitude of the Bereans (Acts 17:10-12).
Further, if you will read the entire book with an open mind, leaving unanswered
questions temporarily aside, you will begin to see a complete harmonious
picture of the truth emerge as you near the end of the work. And, most
importantly, the Biblical ideas covered will leave you with two important
things. Firstly, you will have an understanding of the Bible that harmonizes
many passages that were previously difficult to harmonize. Secondly, you should
have a renewed desire to follow our Lord Jesus Christ in full obedience, along
with a fresh hunger for His Word.
Here are some of the key
truths we will be looking at in this book:
The
There will be a literal
1,000 year Kingdom where Christ openly reigns. We will see that this future
form of God’s Kingdom includes a renewed earth where righteousness dwells. It
will be proven that it was this Kingdom, as a future life, that the Jews in
Jesus’ day sought to qualify for as a result of righteous living. Much of
Jesus’ teaching about the future must be understood with this background in
mind. This future 1,000 year Kingdom, called the millennium, will precede the
eternal state. It is here that the overcoming believer in Christ will receive
positive rewards for obedience to Christ during the believer’s lifetime. The
foretaste of God’s life that we enjoy now (Eph.
1: 13-14) can be enjoyed in its rich fullness during
that age, prior to eternity.
The Overcoming
Christian Life
No Christian wants to live
in recurring failure, lukewarmness or a backslidden state. Although the will of
the believer is of great importance in the Christian life, this life is not
lived by the effort of the believer’s will. We will explore the practice of the
genuine Christian life, which life is the experience of the Spirit of God being
supplied to the believer by faith, thus enabling him to carry out all of the
severe demands of discipleship.
Page 2
We shall also see that the
overcoming life is tied to the matter of future reward in the coming
millennium.
Salvation by Grace
and Reward According to Works
There are two great principles
that govern our relationship with God and His righteous dealings with us. One principle is salvation by grace through
faith, and the other principle is reward according to works. These principles are distinct and their
respective elements should not be confused.
Scores of Bible passages must be properly related to only one of these
two principles or else theological confusion will result. (A comprehensive categorization of such
passages will be included in this work.)
The principle of salvation by grace through faith gives us the wonderful
good news that God saves us from eternal perdition by His gift of grace in
Christ, which we simply receive by faith (Jn. 3: 16). Works are not involved. On the other hand, works are altogether
integral to the other principle. All
believers will be recompensed (rewarded) according to their works. This recompense, as we shall see from the
Bible, can take on either a positive or a negative nature.
The Salvation of
the Soul
All Christians have their
human spirits saved for eternity at the moment of the new birth. The Bible, however, also speaks specifically
of the salvation (preservation from loss) of a believer’s soul, which is
indicated in Scripture to be a future matter connected with Jesus’ return. The future salvation of a believer’s soul has
to do with the enjoyment of positive reward in the millennial Kingdom. On the other hand, Scripture reveals the
possibility of loss of enjoyment by the believer’s soul during that coming
age. The salvation of the soul is
related to the principle of reward according to works.
The Judgment Seat
of Christ
All believers will give an
account to God of the lives they have lived as a Christian. We will explore in this book the many aspects
and details of this judgment that will piece together the full picture of this
future momentous event. Included in this
examination is the complex issue of the forgiveness of sins. We will learn that all sins committed before
we became Christians will not be dealt with at this judgment. Post conversion sins that have been confessed
will also not be subject to Christ’s judgment at His Judgment Seat. Unconfessed sins, however, will be subject to
a certain temporal condemnation there.
Christ’s righteous judgment upon His believers will be according to our
works and will impact us primarily during the coming millennium. Therefore, we
can now see how all of these key truths are linked together. We Christians should be serious about living
an overcoming life, because there will be a future judgment upon us according
to the principle of reward (recompense) according to works (how we have lived
our lives). This judgment will determine
to what degree we will experience an enjoyment in our soul, or loss of
enjoyment, during Jesus’ future 1,000 year reign.
For ease of reference
Matthew’s account of the rich young ruler is presented below. Reference will be made to the other accounts
in Mark and Luke at times because of variance in details. This story is recorded in Matthew 19: 16-30, Mark 10:17-31 and Luke 18: 18-30.
And behold, one came to Him
and said, “Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I
may obtain eternal life?” And He said to him “Why
are you Page 3 asking Me
about what is good? There is only One who is good; but if you wish to enter into life, keep
the commandments.” He said to Him, “Which ones?”
And Jesus said, “You shall not commit murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear
false witness; Honour your father and mother;
and You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”
The young man said to Him, “All these things I have
kept; what am I still lacking?” Jesus
said to him, “If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
But when the young man heard this statement, he went away grieved; for he was
one who owned much property.
And Jesus said to His
disciples, “Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.
And again I say to you, it
is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the
Then Peter answered and
said to Him, “Behold, we
have left everything and followed You; what then
will there be for us?” And Jesus said to them, “Truly
I say to you, that you who have followed Me,
in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His
glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve
thrones, judging the twelve tribes of
* *
*
Page 4
Page 5
CHAPTER
2
ETERNAL LIFE AND
THE
The rich young ruler had
surely heard the amazing reports of the miracles wrought by Jesus and of His
selfless ministry to the common people.
So he had determined to go to Him through whom God was working and ask
Him the question that burned in his soul.
He was so concerned about the matter that Mark records that he “... ran up to Him and knelt before Him, and began asking Him, ‘Good
Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’”
(Mk. 10: 17). To
understand this question concerning “eternal life”,
we must consider the background. Alfred Edersheim indicates that this was not
an unusual question, but one that was commonly posed to rabbis by their
disciples.
It is easy for us
Christians to get confused by the young ruler’s inquiry, as this writer once
was, because of our frame of reference. 1 To informed Christians, the matter of having eternal
life is primarily viewed as the present possession of God’s life through the
new birth. Eternal indicates that the life described is inherently
endless and this word “life” (zoe in Greek) is commonly used in the New
Testament to denote “‘life as a principle, life in the absolute sense, life
as God has it, ... and of this life men become
partakers through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ (John 3:
15) who becomes its author to all such as trust in Him (Acts 3: 15), and who is therefore said
to be ‘the life’ of the believer (Col. 3: 4). ... Eternal life is the present actual possession of the
believer because of his relationship with Christ.’” 2 However, as with all terms in any language there are
multiple meanings. The real meaning in any given instance is dependent upon several
factors, including the context and the historical background. Since the rich young ruler asked the
question, we must consider what he meant by it, and then we need to consider how the Lord
Jesus’ answer confirmed or modified the young ruler’s understanding of “eternal life”.
The Jews in Jesus’ day had
no concept of possessing God’s eternal life (zoe)
internally and thus “having eternal life”. When
Jesus tried to explain to Nicodemus about the new birth by which God’s Spirit
gives life (zoe) to our human spirit (Jn. 3: 6), it
became obvious that Nicodemus, a “teacher of Israel”
(Jn. 3: 10), did not
know of these matters. Jesus then
explained to him of His wonderful mission as the Redeemer sent into the
world. He told Nicodemus that just as
the cure for the snake-bitten, rebellious Israelites in the wilderness was
accomplished by their looking upon a brass serpent lifted up on a pole by
Moses, so the Son of Man would be lifted up (Jn. 3: 14) on the cross to bear man’s sin, in order that
“WHOEVER
BELIEVES may in Him HAVE ETERNAL LIFE” (Jn. 3: 15). So, this possession of eternal life, obtained through believing in the
Redeemer, is a second birth wrought in man’s spirit by the Holy Spirit at the
moment of belief (Jn. 3: 6; 5: 24). Of such a potential possession of eternal
life, the Jews who witnessed Christ’s ministry were totally ignorant. Indeed, this matter was a mystery hidden by
God until the New Testament era (Col. 1: 26, 27).
Therefore, it was not this kind of “eternal life”
about which the rich young ruler so anxiously inquired.
The concept of “eternal life” that was held by the rich young ruler
had to do with the obtaining of the blessed condition in the “world to come”.
The New International
Page 6 Dictionary of New Testament Theology makes these
comments concerning “eternal life” in relation
to the age to come: “The expression ‘eternal life’ (zoe aionios), corresponding to the basic
meaning of aion,
lifetime, as defined by the OT, is to be understood primarily as life which
belongs to God. From the Book of Daniel
onwards ‘eternal life’ is an expression of the longed-for eschatological
blessings of salvation, life in the
coming age (cf. Dan. 12: 2).” 3
The same reference work also comments: “Over against
the present life there stands the life to come (Mk. 10: 30; 1 Tim. 4: 8, ‘Godliness is of value in
every way, as it
holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come [zoes tes nyn kai tes
mellouses]’). It is described as ‘eternal life’ (zoe aionios; Matt. 19: 16; par. Mk. 10: 17, Lk. 18: 18; Matt. 25: 46; cf. 2 Tim. 1: 10, zoe kai aphthersia, life and
immortality).” 4
To further understand the rich young ruler’s idea of this future age
characterized by eternal life, it will be helpful to look at remarks concerning
this coming period from a book entitled Palestinian Judaism in the Time of Jesus Christ:
What we have learned about
man’s fate after death helps us to see more clearly into the question of time
and eternity. The ancient Semites had
great difficulty in understanding this latter notion, to designate it, they had
only the very imprecise term, olam. This
word meant “time,” considered as the mysterious
mass of the past or future. By extending
the meaning of the word, it was possible to come to a wider conception of
time. At the eve of the Christian era
and under the influence of Greek thought, olam had come to
be understood not only in a temporal sense but also in spatial terms,
corresponding to the Greek term, kosmos.
The possibility of distinguishing between two periods, two kinds of time, was
then considered. There would be the time of unhappiness and corruption in which
humanity was living, and the “new age,” a time
in which unhappiness and corruption had been eliminated. This distinction appears first and above all
in the Apocrypha; we find it mentioned by the rabbis from the first century
on. The two ages succeed one another and
prepare for one another; one is the vestibule, the other the main hall.
When will “the world to come” take place? If the time of reward is placed after the
resurrection, in a renewed world, it means that happiness and the absence of
corruption will only then make their appearance. But as belief in retribution and judgment
after death becomes more accepted, the time of reward starts much earlier. The
usual expression in referring to this time, olam haba, is commonly translated as “the world to come,” the world that has not yet begun
and will be inaugurated by the resurrection.
But several second-century texts expect it to start immediately after
death. 5
This excerpt tells us a few
basic things we must keep in mind: (a) the Israelites of that day saw two
different ages; (b) the duration of the future age was not clear to them; (c)
the current world was one marred by corruption; (d) the world to come, however,
was seen as a time when unhappiness and corruption were absent. The Jewish
thought of the early first century viewed the coming age as one inaugurated at
the future time of the resurrection (see Dan.
12: 1, 2). It was entry into that future world,
or age, which the young ruler had in mind when using the term to obtain, or
“inherit,” eternal life.
To further understand the
young ruler’s seeking after the blessedness of such a coming age, we should
note the basis upon
which he hoped to gain entry to that blessed Page 7 world to come.
The basis was altogether wrapped up with righteous living and
works. “What
good thing shall I do … All these things I have
kept; what am I still lacking?” (Matt. 19: 16, 20). It was a common notion among the Israelites that
the new age would be ushered in by the resurrection, but that only the
righteous (those who have lived
righteously) would participate in the blessed world to come. In speaking of common Hebrew thoughts of the
time, the book last quoted notes:
This shows that the
essential character of the resurrection is LIFE
as a reward for the righteous. As a
matter of fact, in many representations the resurrection is reserved
exclusively for the righteous, and only they will ENTER ETERNAL LIFE. This is
Josephus’ feeling in the matter, and he attributes it to the Pharisees: “The Pharisees believe the soul to be immortal, and that
rewards and punishments will be awarded to those who, while alive, had devoted
themselves to vice or virtue. The soul will then be taken to eternal prison or
it will receive the faculty to come back to life” (Antiquities of the
Jews, XVIII, i, 3, par. 14)… Nevertheless, the
universalist concept [that all persons will be resurrected] was also
maintained. It was the only logical
position if resurrection was for the sake of judgment, as suggested by Daniel (12: 2), “Many of those who
sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; some
shall live forever, others shall be an
everlasting horror and disgrace.” 6 (emphasis added)
Other sources confirm that
the general understanding of the Jews during Christ’s lifetime was that the
individual’s righteous or unrighteous living determined whether reward or
punishment awaited him in a future age.
In commenting on the intertestamental literature and its effect upon the
evolution of Jewish theology, the Encyclopedia Judaica
states the following:
THE WORLD TO COME
The apocalyptic writings
after Daniel (though in this book the terms themselves are not used) divide the
time after God’s great eschatological interventions as “this (present) time” (olam ha-zeh) and “the time to come”
(olam ha-ba, lit.,
“the coming time”; cf. I En.23:1; IV Ezra 7: 30, 43; Test. Patr. Abraham
19, B 7). It is only in the latter period, the eschatological period in the
strict sense, that full retribution, for good and evil, is meted out by God to
every man.
Retribution:
Was the rich young ruler’s
understanding of having eternal life, namely entry into the blessed age to come
after the resurrection, and his understanding of how to obtain it, namely
through righteous living, confirmed or denied by the Lord? I believe that the
text will show that to a great degree, with careful modification, his notions
were confirmed by the
Lord Jesus. To aid in our
interpretation, we need to keep in mind that after the young ruler left the
Lord (Matt. 19:
22), Jesus immediately used the encounter as
a springboard to teach His disciples concerning the age to come (down through at least verse
30 in our present consideration).
Page 8
The Lord’s first direct
answer to the ruler’s question was “... if you wish TO ENTER INTO LIFE, keep the commandments” (Matt.
19: 17). This shows that Jesus agreed with the ruler’s
concept of entering into a realm
of blessing (i.e., a realm characterized by life -- zoe). This realm was
further defined by Christ in verse 23 when
He laid down the lesson to be learned from the encounter: “Truly I say to you, it is hard
for a rich man TO ENTER THE KINGDOM OF
HEAVEN.” In the next verse
Jesus substituted the phrase “TO ENTER THE KINGDOM OF GOD” (v. 24). All three of these terms (life,
It is imperative that we
have a clear understanding of what the Lord Jesus Christ meant when He used the
term “the age to come” (Mk.
10: 30; Lk. 18: 30). 8 Otherwise, we will be confused in our theology
concerning salvation. (Note that the King James Version uses the term “world to come” but the New King James Version uses the
more accurate term “age to come”). The New Testament Greek word for age is aion. W. E. Vine defines aion as “an age, era ... signifies a period of indefinite duration or
time viewed in relation to what takes place in the period. The force attached to the word is not so much
that of the actual length of a period, but that of a period marked by spiritual
or moral characteristics”. 9
“Ages” in the Bible can come to a definite end (Matt. 13: 39, 40; 28: 20). It is significant to note that in speaking of
the future, the Bible uses not only the term “the age
to come” (Matt. 12: 32; Mk. 10: 30; Lk. 18: 30; Eph. 1: 21; Heb. 6: 5), but also the term “the
ages to come” (Eph. 2: 7). This shows us that there is more than one
coming period in God’s plan. Thus, the
period called “the age to come” can not speak of
eternity.
Page 9
When Jesus used the term “the age to come”, He spoke of the age that immediately
follows the close of the present age.
This age ends with cataclysmic judgments connected with the time of the
“harvest” (Matt.
13: 39, 40; Rev. 14: 15). This
world system is being ruled by Satan (Lk. 4: 5, 6; Jn. 12: 31; 1 Jn. 5: 19) during
the present age (2 Cor. 4: 4). At the end of this age, however, Satan will
be overthrown and bound (Rev. 12: 10; 20: 1-3). Then
the Lord Jesus Christ will return from heaven with authority to rule (Lk. 19: 12, 15) and set up His [millennial] Kingdom on
the earth (Rev.
11: 15), sitting on His glorious
throne in Jerusalem (Matt. 25: 31; Is. 2: 1-3; 24: 23; Mic. 4: 7, 8). As the
Lord pointed out, the time of reward for His faithful followers will be
realized “in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne” (Matt. 19: 28). The regeneration is the time of restoration of the earth that has been
under the curse. 10 Another passage also shows us that the inauguration of this era begins
with the return of Jesus Christ: “that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, whom
heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things
about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time”
(Acts 3: 20-21).
Therefore, “the age to come” is the age
of restoration and begins with the second advent of
Christ. We will look at the
glory of this restoration later.
The “age to come” is also known as the “millennium” (1,000 years, Latin). This is because Christ’s reign upon the
earth, inaugurated by His second advent, will last 1,000 years. Revelation 20:
4, 6 both
speak of overcoming believers reigning
WITH Christ for this definite period: “and
they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years ... but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with
Him for a thousand years”. We get
further understanding of this period of Christ’s earthly reign from another
passage: “... then comes the end, when He (Christ) delivers up the kingdom to the God and Father,
when He has abolished all rule
and all authority and power. For He must REIGN UNTIL He has put
all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be abolished is death” (1 Cor. 15: 24-26). These
verses show us that Christ’s earthly, theocratic rule lasts until the last
enemy, death, is abolished. Scripture
tells us that death is abolished at the end of the 1,000 year period (Rev. 20: 7-14; 21: 4). In
conclusion, therefore, we can identify with certainty the “age to come” of which Jesus spoke. It is an age that begins with the literal
return of the Lord Jesus Christ to earth to set up His Kingdom. He reigns for a period of 1,000 years. The 1,000 years of His earthly rule from
Having established that the
Lord Jesus did confirm the young ruler’s idea of obtaining eternal life as
involving entry into a future blessed age, we now return to the other side of
the question. The rich young ruler
assumed entry into that coming age of blessing was gained through one’s
righteous living. Did Christ agree? He not only agreed, but He substantially
raised the standard of obedience to God.
The young ruler had an admirable record of obedience to the
commandments, but still wondered if it was enough. It was then that the Lord caught him totally
off guard by advising him, “One thing you still lack;
sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor,
and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me” (Lk. 18: 22). The
Lord raised the level of obedience beyond the morality of the law to include an
abandonment of this world’s goods and a total denial of self-will to follow a
person, the Lord Jesus. Notice that which
Page 10 the Lord did not
tell the ruler. He didn’t tell him to believe in Him and
thus have eternal life (Jn.
6: 47). No. Rather, Jesus told him that he must do
something very difficult for a rich man to do in order to obtain eternal [aionios]
life (Lk. 18: 22-25, 29, 30). Thus,
the Lord substantially confirmed the principle that the highest standard of
practical righteousness (not positional righteousness) is required
for entry into His coming millennial Kingdom.
Let us keep in mind, however, that we are not speaking about the
believer’s eternal
position with God, but only of the
matters related to the millennium.
Relative to our
understanding of Kingdom matters, this chapter has been a very important
one. We have learned some fundamental
things. Eternal life is the present
possession of every born again believer by virtue of the new birth secured
through faith in Christ. This eternal
life is Christ in us as our life (Col. 1: 27; 3: 4). There is
another meaning, however, to the term “eternal life”
in Scripture. This meaning refers to the future magnified enjoyment of that life in the realm of the blessed
age of restoration to come, Christ’s millennial Kingdom. It is this eternal life which is at issue in the
story of the rich young ruler. Jesus
used that important encounter with the young ruler to give His disciples, and
us, an important lesson concerning His coming Kingdom. Participation in the blessings of that “age to come” is dependent upon the highest standard of
practical righteous living
in the disciple’s daily life. This
is a different righteousness than imputed or positional righteousness, which is
a gift (Rom. 5:
17) received through simple faith in the
Saviour (Rom. 3:
22).
If these principles are correct, then they will be confirmed throughout
the New Testament.
* *
*
Page 11
CHAPTER
3
“NO ONE IS GOOD EXCEPT GOD ALONE”
The rich young ruler was
advised by Jesus to sell all that he possessed, distribute it to the poor and
to “come, follow Me” (Lk.
18: 22). Upon hearing of this heightened requirement
to inherit eternal life, the Bible records that the ruler became very sad and
went away. He had been so eager to gain eternal
life that initially he had run up to the Saviour. Now, his countenance had
fallen and he went away sorrowful, full of dejection and discouragement. He was discouraged because he saw the high
price required for obtaining eternal life, and he realized he was unwilling and
unable to pay such a price. This matter
was particularly discouraging to him because in the past he had always been
diligent to keep the known requirements of God, even from his youth. Because of
his successful “track record”, he had eagerly
inquired of Jesus, “Good teacher, what shall I do
to inherit eternal life?” (Mk. 10: 17). He was
ready, as he always had been, to do whatever was required. We can understand, therefore, what a great
effect Jesus’ answer had on him, for Jesus now presented him with a demand that
for the first time in his life the young ruler was totally unable to carry out.
Perhaps you too, dear
brother or sister, sometimes feel discouraged when you realize the high standards
set forth in Scripture for our Christian living. Also, perhaps after reading the previous
chapter, you may now be feeling anxious concerning the suggested demands
outlined for entry into Christ’s coming millennial Kingdom. Take heart.
Do not “go away sorrowful”. There are lessons here with the rich young
ruler which should greatly relieve and encourage us.
Jesus truly loved the rich
young ruler (Mk.
10: 21) and He truly loves you and
me. It was at the very time that Jesus “felt a love for him” that He laid before the young
ruler the impossible demand (Mk. 10: 21). Christ did it for the purpose of trying to
help him to recognize something very basic, namely, that “No one is good except God alone” (Mk. 10: 18). The young ruler had come to Jesus with
confidence in his goodness.
“What good
thing shall I do
that I may obtain eternal life?” (Matt.
19: 16). Jesus immediately tried to help him come to
some realizations. By advising the ruler
that “there is only One who is good” (Matt. 19: 17), He exposed the young man’s faulty
self-righteousness and pointed him toward God as the only good One.
When the ruler addressed
the Lord as “Good Teacher”, Jesus replied, “Why do you call Me good? No
one is good except God alone” (Mk. 10: 18). Regardless of the deserved respect the ruler
had for Jesus, the Lord was trying to reshape the man’s thoughts to see that no natural man is
good. This truth was clearly stated even
in the Old Testament: “There is no one who does good”
(Ps. 14: 3). At the
same time, the Lord Jesus was trying to cause the ruler to conclude (which he
may have later) that if this man Jesus was
good, then He was unlike the rest of mankind. If He was good, which His living and deeds
proved (Jn. 8: 46; 18: 38; Acts 10: 38),
then He should be acknowledged as God.
Indeed, He should be acknowledged as the prophesied Immanuel, “God with us” (Is. 7: 14; Matt. 1: 23). In
conclusion, Christ’s loving and careful dealing with the young man was designed
to make the man admit his lack of goodness and to cause him to recognize that
Jesus, as the true Good One, was indeed God manifest in the flesh (1 Tim. 3: 16). I
believe we can have much hope that Christ’s words Page 12 to him, along with His probable loving intercession
for him to the Father, later bore fruit in the ruler’s conversion and
discipleship.
These thoughts should bring
us to some critical and fundamental conclusions concerning the Christian life.
The Christian life begins with the confession that we are not good. In
the parable of the Pharisee and the tax-gatherer (Lk. 18: 9-14), Jesus
pointed out that the tax-gatherer was justified because he came to God
admitting his sinfulness: “God be merciful to me,
the sinner” (v.
13).
In contrast, the Pharisee approached God on the basis of his “track record” of good works. In other words, we begin our Christian life
by abandoning any hope in who we are and what we have done and, instead,
placing our trust in who the Lord Jesus is (God come in the flesh) and what He
has done (accomplished our redemption through His death on the cross -- Rom. 3: 22-25). On such
a principle of faith in Christ, God can justify us,
declaring us righteous (Rom. 3: 26; 4: 5).
After beginning the
Christian life by faith in Christ, we should continue our walk by faith. Our trust is not in ourselves, nor should the
righteous life that God expects be one worked out by our effort. The principle of the law involves what we can do to meet the
demands of God. The principle of faith
involves what Christ in us, as our
new life, can do to meet the demands of God (Gal. 2: 15 - 5: 14). 12
The apostle Paul told us
that the person that he formerly was, the old “I”,
was crucified with Christ (Gal. 2: 20). Paul had been a zealous, religious person,
capable of doing much that was right under the standard of the Old Testament
Law (Phil. 3: 6).
However, he had learned to “put no confidence in
the flesh” (Phil. 3: 3). That is, Paul abandoned all confidence in his ability to meet the righteous standard of
God. In Philippians
Chapter Three Paul spoke firstly of counting all of his past efforts
under Judaism “as loss for the sake of Christ” (v.7). Then, he
went on to speak of his Christian walk:
More than that, I count all things to be
loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus My Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ,
and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own
derived from the Law, but that which is
through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of
faith (Phil. 3: 8, 9).
The righteousness Paul
spoke of here was not initial justification (imputed or positional
righteousness). This is proven by the
context. The sequence of experience that
Paul describes in Philippians 3: 8-12 is one
portraying his pursuit of a more intimate knowledge of Christ. In other words, it describes his desire to grow in Christ, not to find
Christ initially. The righteousness that
Paul speaks of in this passage is not of Paul’s own efforts to keep the law,
rather it is a righteous living that comes from
God Himself through Paul’s exercise of faith (v. 9).
Christ living in us to be our
daily righteous living is a matter of faith. But what is faith and where does it come
from? “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ” (Rom. 10: 17). Faith
is the exercise of our trust in what God says in His Word. Miles Stanford comments:
Page 13
... true faith must be based solely on scriptural facts ... Hebrews 11: 1 leaves no question
about this: “Faith is the substance of things
hoped for, the
evidence of things not seen.” Faith standing on the facts of the Word of God
substantiates and gives evidence of things not seen. And everyone knows that evidence must be
founded on facts. All of us started on
this principle when we were born again--our belief stood directly on the
eternal fact of the redeeming death and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ, as recorded in I Corinthians
15:1-4. This is the faith by which we began, and it is the same
faith by which we are to “stand” (16: 13), “walk” (2 Cor. 5: 7) and “live” (Gal. 2: 20). “As ye have therefore
received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him” (Col. 2: 6). 13
Faith trusts in what God
says He has already done for us or given to us. Concerning the matter of living
a dedicated righteous life, as Jesus required of the young ruler, nothing is
more crucial than faith, especially our faith in our spiritual union with
Christ. My union with Christ, shown in
the Scriptures, tells me that the old man was crucified with Christ at the
cross, and that I was raised with Him from the grave to live out a new life, which
is Christ living in me (Rom. 6: 3-7; Gal. 2: 20; Col. 3: 3, 4a). These truths are precious. We should memorize such passages and meditate
on them daily. As we use these verses in
our communion with God, He will have a way to make them real to us. “And as we exercise faith in God’s fact, we begin to receive
the benefits of that finished work in experience.” 14
How often, dear Christian,
do we hear a sermon or word of exhortation and immediately “set ourselves” to carry it out. All such efforts are doomed to failure and
are portrayed by the pitiful struggle depicted in the seventh chapter of
Romans. Our failure is because we tried! On the other hand, perhaps after some of
these failures, we may sense God calling us to some new requirement, some new
area of rightness in our lives, and we shrink from the call because we fear we
just can not meet the demand. This
failure, too, is based on the same faulty perspective. God wants us to live righteous lives, but not
by our effort.
No, it is not I, my natural
self with its resources, that must meet God’s standard of righteousness. The
righteousness He seeks must come from Christ, on the ground of faith. Such faith in Him and His Word results in
Christ living in me.
The following comments on
faith will also help us:
Faith is dependence upon God. And this God-dependence only begins when
self-dependence ends. And
self-dependence only comes to its end, with some of us, when sorrow, suffering,
affliction, broken plans and hopes bring us to that place of self-helplessness
and defeat. And only then do we find
that we have learned the lesson of faith; to find our tiny craft of life
rushing onward to a blessed victory of life and power and service undreamt of
in the days of fleshly strength and self-reliance. 15
The exercise of faith,
however, does not mean we are passive.
No, with a prayerful spirit we must constantly seek God (1 Thess. 5: 17) and
dwell in His Word often (Jn.
8: 31). Charles Trumball
remarked:
Page 14
The effortless
life is not the will-less life. We use
our will to believe, to receive, but not to exert effort in trying to
accomplish what only God can do. Our
hope for victory over sin is not “Christ plus my efforts,” but “Christ plus my
receiving.” To receive victory from Him
is to believe His Word that solely by His grace He is, this moment, freeing us
from the dominion of sin. And to believe
on Him in this way is to recognize that He is doing for us what we cannot do
for ourselves. 16
Also, the great chapter in Hebrews on faith tells us of the activity of the life of faith: “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to
God must believe that
He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him” (Heb. 11: 6).
Where the rich young ruler went
astray is where we can also go astray.
We are often presented with situations beyond our ability. This is the point of testing. If we are used to depending on ourselves,
upon our resources, we may either try to overcome in the situation and fail, or,
like the ruler, we may be so overwhelmed by the demand presented that we “go away sorrowful”.
But God has brought us to that very situation of demand in order for us
to realize His supply in Christ. This
experience is pictured in that which He did to the children of
Only a few highlights have
been given here of some of the keys to the victorious life in Christ. You will recall that the purpose of this
writing was to touch on principles, but not to treat them exhaustively. If the reader is not thoroughly grounded in such
truths, I strongly urge you to immerse yourself in the books noted in the
suggested reading. We all daily need
reminders on these matters because we easily fall back into old habits. A continual review of these principles is
recommended.
“No
one is good except God alone” (Mk. 10: 18). What a refreshing realization this is! It relieves us. We do not have to depend on ourselves, our
resources, to meet God’s high standards of righteous living. Instead, we should
look to Christ and put our faith in Him.
He can do in us what we can not do ourselves (Phil.
4: 13). Of course, this matter is a learning
process. We will learn this lesson over
time through many experiences.
In the chapters ahead, we
will see some very challenging requirements from the Scriptures. Remember this thought along the way: God
never lowers His demands of righteousness to accommodate our weakness. But, with His demand,
He grants us His supply in Christ to meet the demand.
Page 15
Finally, as we continue to
look at Kingdom truths and principles, please notice one very significant
feature. Our preparation for the coming Kingdom is very much related to our
experience of the indwelling Christ, or, if you will, to the sanctifying work
of the Holy Spirit. In this chapter we
saw the necessity of appropriating the experiential righteousness of Christ by
faith in order to have the manner of life that God requires. In future chapters we will again see the
working of the Holy Spirit of God in the believer’s life as the believer makes progress
towards the Kingdom.
*
* *
Page 16
Page 17
CHAPTER
4
THE
We now approach a most
inspiring view of the future. We
Christians need inspiration and vision in order to be steadfast in our
race. How can we resist the pull of the
world and inbred sin upon our souls? One
very positive help in this regard is our vision of the future. Moses is our example. “By faith Moses,
when he had grown up,
refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of
God, than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin; considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the
treasures of Egypt; for he was LOOKING TO THE REWARD” (Heb. 11: 24-26). Here Moses represents the faithful Christian
(Heb. 3: 5). He
refused to enjoy his earthly heritage and the pleasures of sin, because he saw
something more valuable than all the treasures of
the great Egyptian empire. He was “looking to the (future) reward.”
This reward, as we shall see, is something to be realized in
the future millennial Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. A day is coming, a time of 1,000 years, that
will be more glorious and wonderful than anything we could possibly imagine (1 Cor. 2: 9).
Before describing this
glorious Kingdom in detail, it will be helpful to the reader to realize some
key ideas concerning the use of the word “kingdom”
in the New Testament. The Greek word used for kingdom is basileia. This
word is used numerous times in the New Testament and one must carefully analyze
its usage in any particular passage to determine its exact meaning and
reference. George E. Ladd states: “The primary
meaning of the New Testament word for kingdom, basileia, is ‘reign’ rather than ‘realm’ or
‘people’. A great deal of attention in
recent years has been devoted by critical scholars to this subject, and there
is a practically unanimous agreement that ‘regal power’, ‘authority’ is more
basic to basileia than
‘realm’ or ‘people’.” 17
Theologian George Ladd goes on to tell us,
however:
This definition of the word
basileia must be taken as the
point of departure for the meaning of the ‘
The coming millennial
Kingdom is needed to outwardly, visibly reverse the universal rebellion of man,
and to establish the righteous reign of God so that His will is done “on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt.
6: 10).
Presently, the world is riddled with sin and rebellion with all their sorrowful
consequences. But there is a coming age
of 1,000 years that will witness conditions that are in total contrast to this
present age. Moreover, the fundamental
reason for this contrast is that during that 1,000 years the Lord Jesus Christ
will have undisputed, absolute rule over the earth (Rev.
11: 15). All of the marvellous conditions and
blessings manifested during that era are due solely to His rule.
Let us look now at some of
the magnificent features of that future form of the Kingdom.
The Lifting of the
Curse
The fall of Adam brought in
a curse upon the earth (Gen. 3: 17-19). Under the
curse, man must labour among thorns and thistles to produce food. This means the cursed earth frustrates man’s
efforts to make a living. This will be
changed during the millennium when all creation is released from its bondage to
corruption (Rom. 8:
21).
At that time, “the desert shall rejoice, and blossom like the rose” (Is.
35: 1,
KJV). “Instead
of the thorn bush, the cypress will come up and
instead of the nettle the myrtle will come up; and
it will be a memorial to the Lord” (Is.
55: 13). Also, the aggressive, destructive nature of
the animal kingdom will be undone and “the wolf will
dwell with the lamb, and the leopard will lie
down with the kid, and the calf and the young
lion and the fatling together; and a little boy
will lead them” (Is. 11: 6). “And the lion will eat straw like the ox. And the nursing child
will play by the hole of the cobra, and the
weaned child will put his Page 19 hand on the viper’s den. They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain”
(Is. 11: 7, 6-9). This lifting of the curse may be gradual,
occurring in significant stages during the millennium. 19
Satan Will Be Bound
The devil, man’s hateful
enemy (1 Pet. 5:
8), will be bound during the 1,000 years (Rev. 20: 1-3) so that man
will cease to be the victim of his machinations.
Sickness Eliminated
The healings Christ
performed in His earthly ministry foreshadowed the Kingdom condition (Matt. 8: 16-17; Heb. 6: 5). In that
future age the full realization of what He accomplished on the cross in respect
to our bodily healing will be made evident (Is.
53: 4-5). “And no resident will
say ‘I am sick’; the
people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity” (Is. 33: 24). “Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. Then the lame will
leap like a deer, and the tongue of the dumb
will shout for joy” (Is. 35: 5-6).
Peace
His reign will bring in
peace. “And He
will judge between the nations, and will render
decisions for many peoples; and they will hammer
their swords into plowshares, and their spears
into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and never again
will they learn war” (Is. 2: 4).
Righteousness
“Behold
a king will reign righteously, and princes will
rule justly” (Is. 32: 1). “But with
righteousness He will judge the poor, and decide
with fairness for the afflicted of the earth” (Is.
11: 4a).
Joy
“The
whole earth is at rest and is quiet.
They break forth into shouts of joy” (Is. 14: 7). “So the ransomed of
the Lord will return; and come with joyful
shouting to
Comfort
“Shout
for joy, O heavens! And rejoice, O earth! Break forth into joyful shouting, O mountains! For the Lord has
comforted His people, and will have compassion
on His afflicted” (Is. 49: 13).
Material Prosperity
“And
they shall come and shout for joy on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the bounty of the Lord--over the grain, and the new
wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; and their life shall be like a watered garden, and they shall never languish again” (Jer. 31: 12).
Page 20
Holiness
“They
will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord”
(Is. 11: 9a).
Fullness of The
Holy Spirit
“I
will pour out My Spirit on your offspring, and
My blessing on your descendants” (Is.
44: 3b).
This listing of Kingdom
blessings is not all-inclusive. We can
see from it, however, that the coming age will be more wonderful than man has
ever dared dream. But there is more. Beyond the aspect of blessing lies the
dimension of deeply significant purpose.
All philosophers and psychologists would agree that man yearns for
fulfilment, a fulfilment that is not realized through the mere satisfaction of
the basic human physical and emotional needs.
So man has tried to achieve fulfilment through accomplishment (i.e.,
work, sports, etc), service to fellow man in noble causes, or other means. Although these may add to man’s feelings of
worth, something is yet missing. We must
reach back to God’s original purpose for man in the activity of creation in
order to understand man’s role in the coming Kingdom.
God’s last item of creation
was man. Man is seen to hold a unique
and pre-eminent place among God’s creatures. “Then God
said, ‘Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness, and
let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over
the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on
the earth’” (Gen. 1: 26). Among God’s creation, man alone is created in
God’s image, and man alone is designated to have the rulership over the
earth. To be in God’s image simply means
that man, in his living and character, is to express what God is like. Only man can fulfil this role among the creatures
of Genesis Chapter One, since only man possesses characteristics that are found
in God. Dr. Scofield points out that “While God is infinite and man is finite, nevertheless man
possesses the elements of personality similar to those of the divine Person:
thinking (Gen.
2: 19-20; 3: 8); feeling (Gen. 3: 6); willing (Gen. 3: 6-7). That man has a moral
nature is implicit in the record and is further attested by the N. T. usage (Eph. 4: 23-24; Col. 3: 10).” 20 Such a unique equipping also prepares man to be
commissioned with the responsibilities of rulership over the other items of
created earth.
It is in the coming Kingdom
that all that was lost through the fall will be more than restored. The fellowship we have now with God will be
intensified then as the New Covenant is realized in the fullest possible way (Jer. 31: 33-34; Heb. 8: 6-12), and our bodies will be redeemed, giving us
freedom from the presence of sin (Rom. 8: 23). As a
result, we will spontaneously radiate the life of Christ, thus being “in His image”.
Further, and most significantly, God will share His dominion over the
earth with all overcoming believers (Matt. 25: 21, 23; Lk. 19: 17, 19; 2 Tim. 2: 12; Rev. 2: 26-27; Rev. 3: 21; Rev. 20: 4, 6).
As there was a Sabbath rest
in which God enjoyed His completed creation, so there is a future Sabbath rest
(Heb. 4: 9). A
number of Bible teachers, including notable early church fathers, have believed
that God’s redemptive plan follows the pattern of His creative plan. There were six days of creative activity
followed by the Sabbath day of rest wherein the completed work was
enjoyed. In like manner, some writers
feel that God restores the creation through “six days”
(six days meaning 6,000 years per 2 Pet. 3: 8) Page
21 of
redemptive activity and then has a Sabbath day rest of 1,000 years--the
millennium. Scholars have determined
that this concept of seven millenniums of God’s earthly activity was the common
belief among Jews at Christ’s time and that this belief was widely held by the
early church. 21 It should be observed that God
patterned
The significance of
Christ’s coming Kingdom of 1,000 years is that it is a time when man’s purpose
will be finally realized. God can truly
rest at that time because His intention in man’s creation will at last be a
reality. Thus, after prophesying of the sublime conditions of that future era
in the first nine verses of Isaiah 11, Isaiah
then concludes with the thought that there “his rest shall be glorious”
(Is. 11: 10, KJV).
The future millennial Kingdom was foreshadowed by the type of the
Sabbath in the Old Testament. (A Biblical “type”
is some person, place or thing in the Scriptures that presents a picture of
some future reality.) There, after completing His redemptive work with man, God
will rest in satisfaction as He views man, in His image, ruling over the earth.
Before we conclude this
chapter, we need to underscore something very notable about this coming
Kingdom. A prominent characteristic of
this Kingdom will be the pervasive element of eternal life, the life of God. God’s purpose for man is that we might share
His unique life. When Jesus came at the
first advent, He announced that His intention in coming was “that they (His sheep) might
have life and might have it abundantly” (Jn. 10: 10).” In His prayer in the upper room on the night
before His death, Jesus prayed for all those who would become believers in Him:
“... that to all whom Thou hast given Him, He may give eternal life. And this is eternal
life, that they may know Thee, the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent” (Jn. 17: 2-3). Although we have this life now (Jn. 3: 16), the
fullness of the experience of this life, which is the fullness of our knowledge
of God, will be realized in the coming age.
The following comments from George
Ladd are helpful:
Jesus said to
Nicodemus, “unless one is born
again, he cannot see the
The rich young ruler really
did not know the true and rich meaning of the eternal life he asked of
Jesus. He thought it simply involved
resurrection from the dead with life in a future realm of blessings. However, when Jesus held out to him the
prospect of entering “into life” (Matt. 19: 17) in the next age, He was offering the highest
possible experience for man. The
millennial age will be saturated with God’s life. In speaking of the millennial earth, Isaiah
prophesied: “They will not hurt or destroy in all My
holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea” (Is.
11: 9;
compare Jn. 17: 3).
In this chapter we have
seen a rich, significant and beautiful vision of the coming age. We have glimpsed some of the glory of the
coming
Like Moses, may we set our
eyes on that coming Kingdom reward, forsaking the pleasures of sin and the
riches of this life. More than anything,
we should desire to be there with Christ in His glorious Kingdom.
* *
*
Page 23
CHAPTER
5
“THEN WHO CAN BE SAVED?”
This chapter contains a
critically important Scriptural discussion.
The reader is urged to “stick with it”
throughout the chapter and to think and seek the Lord about it. Sometimes doctrinal concepts are hard to
understand, but we must learn to seek the truth, if we are Christ’s disciples,
because He told us that “the truth shall make you free”
(Jn. 8: 32).
We return to the story of
the rich young ruler. Jesus had told the
ruler that if he wished to “enter life”, that
is, if he wished to experience the glorious realm of life in the next age, the
ruler needed to do three things: keep the commandments, sell his possessions
and give to the poor, and follow Christ.
Upon learning of these requirements, the rich young ruler went away
grieved, apparently unwilling to give up his possessions. Jesus then told His disciples, “Truly, I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to
you, it is easier for a camel to go through the
eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter
the
The disciples’ question
concerning “being saved”, in its context of the
coming Kingdom, opens the door for us to explore some very important Biblical
truths and issues. And it is maintained,
dear Christian reader, that these truths are not peripheral to the core of
basic Christian doctrine. Rather, these truths are crucial to the Christian’s
understanding of his relationship with God and his responsibilities toward
God. Further, these principles have the
utmost bearing upon the believer’s future for at least 1,000 years, which is
surely a long time from the perspective of human experience. Therefore, I entreat you, in the name of Christ
and for the sake of the truth, to be noble like the Bereans and examine the
Scriptures to see whether these things be so (Acts
17: 11).
Shortly, two great
principles of the New Testament will be explained that govern many passages and
teachings found there. If a Christian
has a clear view of these two different and separate principles, much
difficulty in understanding many passages in the Bible can be eliminated. A correct understanding of these two
principles, and how certain Bible themes are related to them, will also help
the Christian to resolve long-standing issues of Scriptural debate.
Before proceeding to the
principles, let us say a word about the term “saved”,
since it has been introduced in the story of the rich young ruler and is so germane
to the two principles. The verb “to save” in the Greek text is sozo.
It means “to save, deliver, make whole, preserve from
danger, loss, destruction.” 26 We Christians tend to take a very narrow view of “being saved”, thinking of it as being exclusively
applicable to the spiritual salvation of man, whereby Christ “saves” the sinner from the penalty of hell to the
promise of heaven. Of course, as we
shall see, there is application of the term in that type of realm. However, we must remember that the verb
itself is not a “theological verb” with an
explicit theological meaning, such as just stated. Rather, sozo
is just Page 24 another verb in the Greek language, and its meaning in any passage
must be determined by the normal rules of interpretation, not by a preconceived
notion. The verb is used in the New
Testament for a variety of “savings” or “deliverances”.
It is used of saving sick people from disease or death and restoring
them to health (Matt. 9: 21-22; Mk. 5: 23), of
delivering persons from demon possession (Lk. 8: 36), and of delivering people from danger and
death (Matt. 14:
30; Acts 27:
20). Therefore, the deliverance or “salvation” involved in any passage must be determined
by looking at the context and comparing it to other Scriptures. Not every Biblical mention of salvation for man necessarily means a
saving of the person from an eternity in the lake of fire to an eternity with
God; only certain passages carry this meaning.
The two great principles
will be called “SALVATION
BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH” and “REWARD ACCORDING TO WORKS”. Please take time now to briefly review the
table on the following two pages that outlines these two principles. Under the heading of each principle on the
table some “related matters” are listed. These “related
matters” are Biblical topics or doctrines which must be seen as related
to the general principle in order to be properly understood. As we examine these matters and review the
verses noted, it will become apparent that these matters are indeed in harmony
with the respective governing principle.
Page 25
SALVATION BY GRACE
THROUGH FAITH
RELATED MATTERS
REWARD ACCORDING TO
WORKS
RELATED MATTERS
1. A gift. Eph. 2: 8-9; Rom. 5: 17.
1. A “reward” or “prize”
(recompense). Matt. 5: 12, 46; 6: 4, 6, 18; 10: 41, 42; 16: 27; Lk. 6: 35; 1 Cor. 3: 8, 14; 9: 17, 24; Phil. 3: 14; Col. 2: 18; 3: 24; 2 Tim. 4: 14; Heb. 2: 2-3; 10: 35; 11: 26; 2 Pet. 2: 13; 2 Jn. 8; Rev. 11: 18; 22: 12.
2. By grace through
faith (unmerited; not conditioned by works on man’s part). Eph. 2: 8-9; 2 Tim. 1: 9; Rom. 3: 24-28; Rom. 4: 1-16; 11: 5, 6; Tit. 3: 5.
2. According to works
(man’s cooperation with God; the reward is conditional upon man’s works). Matt. 16: 27;
3. Salvation from
eternal death to eternal life with God. Jn. 5: 24; Eph. 2: 5; Tit. 3: 7; Rev. 20: 14, 15; 21: 6, 7.
3. Salvation from loss
and ruin during the millennium to the enjoyment of Christ’s
4. Salvation of the
spirit. Jn. 3: 6;
4. Salvation of the
soul. Matt.
16: 25,
26; Mk. 8: 35-37; Lk. 9: 23-25; 17: 32, 33; Jn. 12: 25; Heb. 10: 38, 39; Jas. 1: 21; 1 Pet. 1: 9.
5. Justification by
faith. Lk. 18: 13, 14; Rom. 3: 24, 26, 28; 4: 5; Gal. 2: 16; 3: 24.
5. Justification by
works. Matt.
12: 37; 1
Cor. 4: 4; Jas. 2: 21, 24, 25.
Page 26
SALVATION BY GRACE
THROUGH FAITH
RELATED MATTERS
REWARD ACCORDING TO
WORKS
RELATED MATTERS
6. The judgment upon sin
and unbelief. Mk. 16: 16; Jn. 3: 18; 5: 24; 12: 48; Rom. 5: 15, 16, 18; 2 Thess. 2: 12.
6. The judgment upon the
believer’s works. Matt. 5: 22-30; 12: 36, 37; 24: 42-51; 25: 14-30; Lk. 12: 42-48; 19: 12-27; Jn. 5: 29; Rom. 2: 1-11, 16; 14: 10-12; 1 Cor. 3: 12-15; 4: 5; 2 Cor. 5: 10; Heb. 10: 26, 27, 30; 13: 4; Jas. 2: 12, 13; 5: 9; 1 Pet. 1: 17; 4: 17.
7. Becoming a child of
God (sonship). Jn. 1: 12; Gal. 3: 26.
7. Growing (maturing) as
sons of God (discipleship). Matt. 10: 25a; 16: 24-28; 19: 27-29; Mk. 10: 28-30; Lk. 6: 40; 9: 23-26, 61, 62; 14: 26-35; Acts 14: 22; Phil. 3: 8-14; 1 Thess. 2: 12; 2 Thess. 1: 5; Heb. 10: 35-39; 2 Pet. 1: 4-11.
8. Receiving eternal
life. Jn. 3:15, 16, 36; 5: 24; 6: 47; 10: 28; 20: 31; Rom. 6: 23; 1 Jn. 5: 11.
8. Eternal life in the
coming age. Matt. 18: 8, 9; Mk. 9: 43-47; 10: 28-30; Lk. 18: 28-30; Jn. 4: 36; 12: 25;
9. Election according to
grace. Eph.
1: 4; Rom. 9: 11; 11: 5, 6; 1 Pet. 1: 1, 2.
9. Choosing according to
the believer’s preparation. Matt. 22: 14; 2 Pet. 1: 10; Rev. 17: 14.
10. Entry into the
present
10. Entry into the
future
11. Heirs as children of
God. Rom. 8:17; Gal. 3:18, 29; 4: 6, 7; Eph. 1: 10, 11; 1 Pet. 3: 7.
11. Fellow heirs with
Christ in His coming Kingdom. Matt. 5: 5; 19: 29; Mk. 10: 17, 29, 30; Rom. 8: 17; 1 Cor. 6: 9; Gal. 5: 21; Eph. 5: 5; Col. 3: 24; Heb. 1: 14; 6: 12; Jas. 2: 5.
Page 27
It is obvious that two key
words in these principles are “grace” and “works”. There
is a danger in reducing these principles to simply “grace”
or “works”, because of many past arguments
concerning “salvation” in regard to these
terms. But for the sake of simplicity of
reference only, let’s term
them the grace principle and the works principle, with the full realization
that we are not talking
just about “salvation” by grace or works.
The grace and the works
principles contrast different items. In
a particular Scriptural sense, the terms grace and works are actually mutually
exclusive. In speaking of God’s election
of grace in relation to the remnant of saved Israelites that had recognized
Jesus as the Messiah, Paul wrote:
“In
the same way then, there has also come to be at the present time a remnant
according to God’s gracious choice. But
if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis
of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace”
(
In this passage, grace
means God’s unmerited favour, or gift, in choosing the Israelites to
participate in the eternal salvation of God (from final condemnation and unto
eternal life). The same principle
applies to God’s choice of any Gentile in eternal salvation. In relation to this salvation, grace means
that salvation is altogether a gift from God and is not in any way earned,
merited or worked for by the recipient.
As the epistle to the Ephesians tells us: “For
by grace you have been saved through faith; and
that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works,
that no one should boast” (Eph. 2: 8-9).
In context, we can tell
that the salvation spoken of above is one from spiritual death to an eternity
with God, with the sinner being made alive in Christ. We see the antithesis between “grace” and “works”. However, it is very important to note that
this antithesis is within
the framework of our eternal
salvation. In other words, it is only our final
salvation for eternity future that is purely a matter of grace with nothing
whatsoever to do with works. To become a
Christian and to “be saved” from the final
condemnation of an eternity in the lake of fire to the enjoyment of an eternity
with God is a matter of grace,
not of any works of ours.
After
we have been born again into the
family of God by His grace, however, our works are not disregarded by God. On the contrary, our works as a believer
figure very directly into the equation of our relationship with God and His
dealings with us. Our salvation for eternity
is “not as a result of works, that no one should boast” (Eph.
2: 9). However, in the very next verse, the Bible
tells us that it is God’s intention that the saved person should have works: “for we are His workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus for good works, which God
prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2: 10). Thus, there is a matter of works related to
our post-conversion experience. Based
upon the works, or doings, of the believer, God
will “reward” him. Actually, the word reward is
misleading since we may think of a reward as only something positive. However,
the Greek words used in the reward passages are neutral and carry the meaning
of recompense, to pay according to the nature of the work or
doing. When one studies the various
verses where these words are used, one finds that the “pay
back”, or recompense, can be positive or negative. As we shall see, the recompense that God
renders to a [regenerate] believer for his doings, according to Scripture, can
be “good” or “bad”.
Page 28
As we go through the “related matters” listed on the table, remember that
each one ties in to its respective governing principle. In that way, the interpretation of the cited
passage becomes clear and comprehensible.
Historically, much confusion in Christian doctrine has resulted from
trying to relate a particular passage to the wrong principle! Also, since the time of the Protestant
Reformation with its emphasis on salvation by grace, the grace
principle has become so dominant that the “works”
principle has either been unknown, heavily clouded and misunderstood, or even
wrongly blended with the grace principle.
We will not cover all of
the related matters in complete detail.
This is an introduction that hopefully will encourage you to do more
study on your own. Some of the matters
will be looked at from one perspective or another in the chapters that
follow. Please have your Bible handy in
order to read some of the verses yourself as we approach each related matter
shown on the table. Let’s begin.
A Gift
There is the matter of pure gift in the Bible. “For by grace you have
been saved through faith; and that not of
yourselves, it is the gift of God”
(Eph. 2: 8). How we
all rejoice in this! We never need to
strive or work to receive this gift! The gift is free; there is no cost to us.
The gift is not earned or merited, but we must take notice that this gift applies only to a specific salvation.
A Reward or Prize
We must pay close attention
to the Scriptural context of the reward or the prize. The context will always show us that the reward,
or recompense, is connected with works,
not a gift. The recompense is always earned by the
recipient. Actually, some passages will
show us that every
man (believer and non-believer) will
be recompensed according to his works.
The recompense will, of course, differ between believer and
non-believer. Now let’s look at one
passage.
24 Then Jesus said to His
disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me,
let him deny
himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 25 For whoever wishes to
save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses
his life for My sake shall find it. 26
For what will a man be profited, if he gains the whole
world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man
give in exchange for his soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His
Father with His angels; and will then recompense every man according to his deeds” (Matt. 16: 24-27).
Note that verse 27 starts with “for”,
meaning it is an explanation or commentary on what was said in the previous
verses. So verse
27 is telling us that the Son of Man will recompense men according to
their deeds. In context, the deeds are
the deeds of disciples mentioned in the previous verses, namely deeds of
denying one’s self, taking up one’s cross, following Jesus Christ, and losing
one’s life. The Greek word for both “soul” and “life” in the
above verses is psuche. Self-denial means to deny one’s soul its
gratification. The meaning of psuche will be explained
in detail in the next chapter. These
things are great works of
an obedient disciple, not a gift simply
received! These actions are not free;
they are costly! Yet, a “saving” is mentioned here. How can [initial] salvation be
here when works and recompense are mentioned?
This “salvation” is not the same
salvation that is mentioned in Ephesians 2: 8! Also,
the salvation in Page 29 Ephesians 2: 8 has
already happened to us with lasting results.
Here is a rendering of that verse by Greek scholar Kenneth Wuest in his expanded
translation: “For by grace you have been saved in time
past completely, through faith, with the result that your salvation persists through present
time.” The salvation of Matthew 16, however, is future and is based on the
disciple’s works during his lifetime. “For whoever
wishes to save his life shall lose
[future tense] it; but
whoever loses his life for my sake shall
find [future tense] it ... for the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His
Father with His angels; and will then recompense every man according to his deeds” (Matt. 16: 25, 27). The
future “shall find it” is rendered “shall save it” in the parallel passages
of Mark 8: 35
and Luke 9: 24.
This future salvation will be explained later.
Here are some brief
comments on some other reward or prize verses.
The “reward of the inheritance” (Col. 3: 24), according to the context, is dependent on the
rightness of our service. If we do not
watch ourselves, we can lose what has been accomplished in us, and this will
cost us some reward (2 Jn.
8).
Even the great apostle Paul warns us to run the race (conduct our
Christian lives) in a disciplined manner because only “one
receives the prize” (1 Cor.
9: 24). This implies that there will be those
Christians in the race who will not receive
the prize. Even Paul himself was careful
to discipline his sinful body so that he might not be disqualified from the
prize (1 Cor. 9: 27; cf.
By all these Scriptures we
can see how the reward, or the prize, is not a gift. It is
definitely something that costs
the disciple much carefulness, effort, discipline, endurance, and
suffering.
By Grace through
Faith
(Unmerited; not conditioned by works on man’s part)
The gift of eternal
salvation is by grace through faith.
Grace tells us that this salvation is freely given out of God’s
goodness, not because of our doing. Faith is simply the way we receive this
gift of salvation.
“But
to the one who does not work, but believes in
Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is
reckoned as righteousness” (Rom. 4: 5).
According to Works
(Man’s cooperation with God. The reward is conditioned
upon man’s works.)
All men are responsible to
God for their actions and will be judged and recompensed according to those actions. “Who
will render to EVERY man according
to his deeds” (Rom. 2: 6). A believer’s eternal salvation with God is
not affected by his deeds, but a believer’s deeds will affect him directly. The believer is responsible before God to
live a righteous and holy life, producing proper works. If the [regenerate] believer does
not fulfil this calling, he will suffer.
Paul was a master builder laying a foundation of Jesus Christ among the
Corinthian believers (1 Cor.
3: 10).
Yet he warned the Corinthians (and us) to be careful how we build upon this
initial foundation.
Page 30
“But
let each man be careful how he builds upon it.
For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if
any man builds upon the foundation with gold,
silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will
become evident; for the day will show it, because it is to be revealed by fire; and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work
which he has built upon it remains, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work is
burned up, he shall suffer loss; but he himself
shall be saved, yet so as through fire” (1 Cor. 3: 10-15).
Contrary to what many believe and teach, Christians do not automatically
produce good works or fruit. Christians
may or may not cooperate with the work
of the Holy Spirit in their lives [or be indwelt
by the Holy Spirit]. Those in
Although God can and does
chastise us during our lifetime (Heb. 12: 4-14), the real recompense according to our deeds
comes from the Lord Jesus at His return. “Behold,
I am coming quickly, and
My reward is with Me, to render to every man
according to what he has done” (Rev. 22: 12; see
also Matt. 16:
27).
Salvation from
Eternal Death to Eternal Life with God
(The salvation that is by grace through faith)
“For
God so loved the world that He gave us His only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in Him should not perish [eternally], but
have eternal life.” (Jn.
3: 16)
“Truly,
truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has
eternal life, and does not come into judgment [final condemnation], but has passed out of death into life” (Jn. 5: 24).
Salvation from Loss
and Ruin
(During the millennium to the enjoyment of Christ’s
millennial kingdom)
We have already discussed
the Greek verb sozo (to save) from
which the word salvation is derived. Salvation
means deliverance from a negative state or peril, such as Page 31 disease
or death, to a positive state, such as safety, health or prosperity. The salvation by grace we dealt with in the
previous “related matter” is for the unbeliever. It is offered to the
unbeliever so that by grace through faith he can escape God’s condemnation and
be given eternal life. The salvation
about to be discussed is for the believer. It deals with the believer’s state during the
coming 1,000 year Kingdom age.
The New Testament contains
many warnings to believers. Some indeed
seem quite intense and frightening. Because these warnings seem so strong, many
teachers feel they have to do with an eternal condemnation, or being [eternally] lost. Thus, two main schools of thought [within
christendom]
have arisen to explain these verses. One
school that we could generally call the Arminian school (from Jacobus Arminius,
1559-1609), feels that the serious warnings are indeed addressed to real
believers and the issue at risk is eternal
salvation. In other words, this school
teaches that [regenerate] believers
can lose their [initial] salvation. The
other school, which we will call the Calvinist school (after John Calvin,
1509-64), contends that such a view would compromise a salvation by grace, not of works. Therefore, they explain these warnings by
saying that the verses are not addressed to true believers, but to “professing”, nominal Christians only, religious
people who are not genuine “possessors” of the
new life in Christ. The problem of these
warning passages is resolved by applying them to the right principle. Both
schools wrongly tried to relate the passages to the matter of eternal salvation.
These warning sections in
Scripture in fact deal with a recompense to the [regenerate] believer that
can involve great loss and even punishment, but not the loss of the believer’s
eternal salvation. The salvation
cited in this related matter involves deliverance from negatives that do not
equal eternal condemnation, and the ushering in of positives that are realized
in the coming Kingdom age (1,000 years), not life in eternity.
As we begin to touch the
future negative possibilities for Christians, some readers may react: “If He paid it all, then why should I have to ‘pay’ for my
failure?” The matter of our sins before and after conversion will be
touched upon more in a later chapter.
However, please take note of a couple of Scriptural facts now. Since we have been redeemed, God rightly
feels that we should be the most responsible persons, obedient to His will. “As obedient children, do not
be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behaviour; because it is written, ‘You
shall be holy, for I am holy’” (1 Pet. 1: 14-16). God’s
grace is never a license to sin (
We will not now look at all
the verses cited under this related matter, but let’s examine the parable of
the talents of money in Matthew 25: 14-30.
“For
it is just like a man about to go on a journey,
who called his own slaves, and entrusted his
possessions to them. And to one he gave five talents, to another, two, and to another, one, each according to his own ability; and he went on his journey. Immediately the one who had received the five
talents went and traded with them, and gained
five more talents. In the same manner the one who had received
the two talents gained two more. But he who
received the one talent went away and dug Page 32 in the ground, and hid his master’s money. Now after a long time
the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. And the one who had
received the five talents came up and brought five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you entrusted five
talents to me; see, I have gained five more talents.’ His master said to him, ‘Well
done, good and faithful slave; you were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things, enter into the joy of your master.’ The one also who had received the two talents came up and
said, ‘Master, you
entrusted to me two talents; see, I have gained two more talents.’ His master said to him ‘Well
done, good and faithful slave; you were faithful with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’ And the one also who had received the one talent came up and
said, ‘Master, I
knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you do
not sow, and gathering where you scattered no
seed. And
I was afraid, and went away and hid your talent
in the ground; see, you have what is yours.’ But
his master answered and said to him, ‘You wicked,
lazy slave, you knew
that I reap where I did no sow, and gather where
I scattered no seed. Then you ought to have put my
money in the bank, and on my arrival I would
have received my money back with interest.
Therefore take away the talent from him, and
give it to the one who has the ten talents.’ For
to everyone who has shall more be given, and he
shall gave an abundance; but from the one who
does not have, even what he does have shall be
taken away.
And cast out the worthless slave into the outer darkness; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Surely this parable speaks
of the responsibility of Christian
stewardship. The “man ... called his own
slaves, and entrusted his possessions to
them” (v. 14).
The only difference in the slaves was their ability, which was reflected in the
amount of money entrusted to them. There
is no hint that they had different relationships to the master, such as two
being real slaves and the third one a pretender. “Now
after a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with
them” (v. 19).
This verse speaks of Christ’s return and [the time and place (See Heb. 9: 27. cf. Luke 20:
35; Rev. 6: 9-11, R.V.) of] the Judgment Seat from where He evaluates the
believer’s deeds. The first two slaves
were “good and faithful” in using what was
entrusted to them by the master. Thus, the master (the Lord) rewarded them: “I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master” (vs. 21, 23).
However, the slave who had the one talent of money did nothing to
multiply it for the Lord. Consequently, “his master
answered and said to him, ‘You wicked, lazy slave’” (v. 26). The way Jesus related the story makes it
impossible to logically and honestly view this servant as anything other than
what he is explicitly defined as being--a servant of the master. There is no latitude in the parable for a
false servant or pretender. The rebuke
was for slothfulness, which the master considered as wickedness. Beyond the rebuke, the master also took away
the entrusted possession from that point on (v.
28), and then he commanded, “and cast out the worthless slave into the outer darkness;
in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of
teeth” (v. 30). The slave was worthless; he gained nothing
for the Lord.
Faithful service to Christ
is the qualification for sharing authority in Christ’s coming Kingdom. The
parallel passage in Luke 19: 12-27 portrays
the faithful servant being given authority over ten cities or over five cities.
(See also 2 Tim.
2: 12;
Rev. 2: 26;
3: 21.) Also, it seems reasonable that the coming [millennial] Kingdom in
which Christ finally rules and where God’s intention for man is realized (see
Chapter Four), is the “joy” of the Page
33 master (Matt. 25: 21, 23). The faithful slaves receive an entry into this
joyful realm as well as a stewardship to reign with Christ there.
Thus we see that both types
of slaves (which represent believers), the good ones and the wicked ones, will
be recompensed according to their works. This
recompense takes place when the Lord returns and calls us to His Judgment
Seat. There is a positive reward for the
faithful Christian, which involves a real deliverance or salvation from potential loss into a very wonderful
and joyful situation. On the other hand,
there is a negative recompense to the “worthless”
believer, an absence of deliverance or salvation
from loss and ruin. The “worthless” believer
experiences weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Both the positive and negative recompenses relate to the coming
Dare we say that Christ has
only faithful and profitable slaves and that the wicked, lazy slave represents
a false believer, a mere “professor” but not a
“possessor”?
The words of the parable do not support such a notion. Also, if Jesus
wanted us to recognize our falseness, our unreal profession, He would have
designed the parable differently, so as to stimulate us to have genuine faith
in Him, whereas the parable stimulates us to diligence in works. As it stands, the parable is a rebuke to
the worthless slave because of his laziness, not because of his lack of genuine trust in the
Lord. This portion of Scripture (as well as its parallel in Luke 19) is designed to deal with our lack of
diligence in using our spiritual gifts to gain some profit for the Lord. Do we not all know genuine Christians,
perhaps ourselves, who have buried their responsibilities in the ground?
Comments on other verses
under this related matter will be held for later. The reader is encouraged, however, to
eventually study the other verses, considering them in light of the governing
principle.
Salvation of the
Spirit
Man is a three-part being. 27 “Now may the God of peace
Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your
spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without
blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1
Thess. 5: 23).
The spirit of man is the
God-conscious part of him, and it is that part that God initially deals with in
His salvation. It is man’s spirit that
receives new life when man is born again. “That which
is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the
Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again’” (Jn. 3: 6-7). Here we see God’s Spirit giving birth to the
human spirit. The eighth chapter of
Romans talks of our life in the Holy Spirit and declares: “and if Christ is in you, though
the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of
righteousness” (v.10).
Because of the imputed righteousness of Christ received by faith (Rom. 3: 28), God is able to give life to our human
spirit. Being made alive in our spirits
has to do with our [initial and eternal] salvation by grace through faith. “Even when we were
dead in our transgressions, [God] made us alive
together with Christ (by grace you have been
saved)” (Eph. 2: 5).
Page 34
Salvation of the
Soul
In addition to the
salvation of the spirit, the Scripture also speaks of the salvation of the
soul. These are two different
matters. The soul has a close kinship to
the spirit but is distinct (Heb. 4: 12).
The soul is where man’s natural life really lies. The soul is the place of man’s
personality. The main faculties of man’s
soul are his mind, his emotion, and his will.
The Greek word for soul is psuche,
from which we get the term psychology.
The word psuche takes
on broad usage in Scripture, as explained by Watchman Nee:
Zoe (one Greek word for life) is the highest life, the life of the
spirit. Whenever the Bible speaks of eternal life it uses this word. Psuche refers
to the animated life of man, his natural life or life of the soul. The Bible
employs this term when it describes the human life. ... The New Testament
consequently employs the Greek word psuche for both “soul” and “soul
life”. Hence we know “soul” not only is one of the three elements of man but also is man’s
life, his natural life. In many places
in the Bible, “soul” is translated as “life”. ... “I do not
account my life of any value”
(Acts 20: 24). ...” “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (Jn. 10: 11, 15, 17).
The word “life” in these verses is “soul” in the original. It is so
translated because it would be difficult to understand otherwise. The soul actually is the very life of man.
As we have
mentioned, “soul” is one of the three elements of man.
“Soul life” is man’s natural life, that which makes him exist and animates him.
It is the life whereby man today lives; it is the power whereby man becomes
what he is. 28
The salvation, or preservation,
of one’s soul (or life) is a matter related to one’s works or doings, not to
grace. We have already discussed Matthew 16:
24-27
under the related matter of “reward or prize”.
The word for “life” in that portion of the Bible
is psuche.
“If
anyone wishes to come after Me; let him deny
himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life [psuche] shall lose it; but whoever
loses his life [psuche] for My sake shall
find it. For what will a man be profited,
if he gains the whole world, and forfeits his soul? For the
Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and will then
recompense every man according to his deeds” (Matt. 16: 24-27).
The soul of the believer
will be preserved from loss (and thus experience fulfilment) or suffer loss at
Christ’s return, depending upon the believer’s following of Christ now in
self-denial. This topic will be covered in more detail in the next chapter.
Justification by
Faith
This was the great truth of
the Reformation that was discovered by the seeking monk, Martin Luther. We are
declared righteous by God through our faith in Christ.
“Being
justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ
Jesus” (Rom. 3:
24). “For we maintain
that a man is justified by faith apart from works of law” (Rom. 3: 28).
Page 35
This justification is based
upon the work of Christ.
“... through the one act of righteousness there resulted
justification of life to all men. For as through
the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be
made righteous” (Rom. 5: 18-19).
Justification by
Works
We have received an imputed
righteousness by God through our faith in Christ and His work (Rom. 3: 26, 28). The
principle of reward according to works, however, still remains for the
believer, and there is a coming day in which Christ will judge the
righteousness of our actual living. In other words, there is a second, future justification
that is decided at the Judgment Seat of Christ based upon our works, not Christ’s work.
Paul spoke clearly of the justification by faith in Romans Chapters
Three and Four. But God used James to
unveil the second justification. I can
do no better than to quote D. M. Panton
concerning the second justification of the believer:
So the Holy
Spirit has selected a second apostle through whom to reveal the second
justification with startling emphasis. “Was not Abraham our father JUSTIFIED
by works, in that he offered up
Isaac upon the altar? ... by works was faith made
perfect: ... by works
a man is justified, and not only by faith” (Jas. 2: 21). That Abraham’s second
justification was a justification before God, not men, is clear, because God
alone--apart from Isaac--was present when he was so justified (Gen. 22: 16). James is not speaking of works before faith, that is,
works of law: for “faith wrought with his
works, and by works was faith made perfect”: faith was already there. The justification of James, therefore, is not
justification unto eternal life. Scripture strenuously denies that works
before faith can ever justify: “by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified” (Rom. 3: 20).
But works done after
faith, works done in faith,
the ‘work of faith’(1 Thess. 1: 3) does justify for reward. “If any [disciple’s]
work shall abide, he shall
receive a reward. “If any [disciple’s] work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss:
but he himself shall be saved” (1 Cor. 3: 15)--as already possessed of the
justification unto life. “I
know nothing against myself; yet am I not hereby justified” -- with the second justification: even a
conscience void of offence in a regenerate apostle cannot ensure that: nothing
can (apart from a special revelation) but the Judge upon the Bema --“but he that judgeth me is the Lord. Wherefore the
Spirit bids us, --“So speak ye, and so do, as men that are to be judged by a law of liberty”
(Jas. 2: 12) -- the law, not of Moses, but of Christ.
God called Abraham,
and he believed; God proved Abraham, and he endured: the two justifications were then complete. For his justification by faith Paul
points to the moment of his regeneration; for his justification by works James
points to his final act of accomplished obedience. Both justifications are
demanded from every human soul. First, justification by blood, then
justification by obedience; first, justification by faith, then justification
by works; first, justification for life, then justification for reward; first,
the escape of Israel out of Egypt, then the escape of Caleb and Joshua out of
the wilderness; the one is an adjudication on a transferred righteousness
through the obedience of Another; the other is an Page 36 adjudication on an active righteousness
through obedience of our own. For
blessed is “the man unto whom
God reckoneth righteousness apart
from works” (
If one looks carefully at
the context of James Chapter Two, one will see that the justification that
James speaks of is in connection with the future judgment.
“So speak and so act, as those who are to
be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment will be
merciless to one who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment” (Jas. 2: 12-13).
These verses regarding the
coming judgment are then immediately followed by: “What
use is it, my brethren, if a man says he has faith, but
he has no works? Can that faith save him” (v. 14)?
The Scriptural context of this salvation
is the coming judgment upon works. This
is a salvation that has its potential realization at Christ’s future judgment
of believers! What is this salvation? It is
a salvation from loss and ruin in the coming age to the enjoyment of Christ’s
Kingdom. In fact, James has already
mentioned the Kingdom in this chapter in verse five. “Listen,
my beloved brethren; did
not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised
to those who love Him?” Those who love Him refuse
to love the world (Jas. 4: 4-10; 1 Jn. 2: 15) and they obey
Him (Jn. 14: 15). The
salvation that James is dealing with is the [future] salvation of the soul,
which he mentioned earlier (1: 21-22), achieved through obedience (works), not
faith. So we see that this
justification is tied to the principle of reward according to works. This view solves the age-old problem of Bible
students concerning the reconciliation of Ephesians
2: 8-9
(salvation by grace, not of works) with James 2:
14, 24
(salvation by works). These two passages speak of two different salvations.
The Judgment upon
Sin and Unbelief`
God is the judge of all men
(Heb. 12:
23). He
judges, decides judicially, concerning every man. Chapter Five of Romans tells us that sin
entered the world through Adam’s disobedience (Rom.
5: 12).
The result of sin’s entry into the human race was death (Rom. 5: 12; 6: 23). This death was a spiritual death. W. E. Vine comments:
Death is the
opposite of life; it never denotes non-existence. As spiritual life is “conscious existence in
communion with God”, so spiritual “death” is “conscious existence in separation
from God.” “Death in whichever of the above mentioned senses it is used, is
always, in Scripture, viewed as the penal consequences of sin, ...” 30
God’s judgment, therefore,
is death upon a sinful mankind. Note
what Romans teaches us.
“But
the free gift is not like the transgression. For if by the transgression of the one the
many died, much more did the grace of God and
the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus
Christ, abound to the many. And the gift is not
like that which came through the one who Page 37 sinned; for on the one hand the judgment
arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation, but on the
other hand the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in
justification. ... So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all
men, even so through one act of righteousness
there resulted justification of life
to all men” (Rom. 5: 15-16, 18).
These verses tell us that
God has already had a judgment (a judicial decision) resulting in condemnation
upon mankind (a judgment against man). Sinful man is under the condemnation of
spiritual death. God, however, through
Christ’s substitutionary death, has made the way for us to be justified
(acquitted and in right standing with God), so that we could have spiritual
life. This “justification
of life” (Rom. 5: 18),
bringing us out of spiritual death, is received by faith (it is not of
works). It is received by trusting in
Christ’s work of redemption (Rom. 3: 24-26).
With these thoughts in
mind, we can see God’s judgment upon
unbelief in the following verses from the Gospel of John:
“And
as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up;
that whoever believes may in Him have eternal life. For God so loved the
world that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whoever believes in Him should not perish, but
have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world
to judge the world, but that the world should be
saved through Him. He who
believes in Him is not
judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten
Son of God” (Jn.
3: 14-18).
Also, we can now understand
John 5: 24
which says:
“Truly,
truly I say to you, he who
hears My word and believes Him who sent Me, has
eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”
Here we see that our faith
in the gospel concerning Christ removes us from the realm of God’s judgment of eternal
spiritual death and passes us into the realm of eternal life with God. When this Scripture states that the believer
does not come into judgment, it means, in context, the judgment concerning
eternal death, the condemnation of God upon all men. Through our faith in Christ, this judgment is
passed! We are forever out of the
condemnation of eternal death, having trusted in Christ’s redemption from it.
God’s judgment is now upon
man’s unbelief in Christ. Why? Because God has done everything in Christ to
bring man out from under God’s condemnation of eternal death. Jesus said when the Holy Spirit came He would
convict the world of sin--“concerning sin because they do not believe in Me”
(Jn. 16: 9). Christ also tells us that “he who has disbelieved shall be [future tense] condemned” (Mk. 16: 16). Unbelieving man is already under God’s condemnation (Jn. 3: 18; Rom. 5: 16), yet
there will be a future judgment scene when dead unbelievers will be raised to
appear before God’s throne (Rev. 20: 11-15). There each one will be judged according to
his deeds (v. 13),
yet they are finally
cast into the lake of fire because
their names were not found in the book of life (v. 15; note: a sinner receives life through belief in
Jesus; Jn. 3: 16). So, Page 38 although sinful man is under God’s condemnation due to
sin (Rom. 5:
16), he remains under that condemnation due
to unbelief (Jn. 3: 18).
Perhaps an illustration
will help. One time this writer heard a
radio preacher telling a true story about a convicted criminal. He was in jail and under the sentence of
death. While on death row the governor
of the state issued a pardon for him.
The condemned man refused the pardon!
It is our belief that the matter went to a judge and the judge upheld
the man’s right to refuse the pardon. He
was put to death as originally sentenced. Why did he die - because of the
original death sentence? Yes, but one
could also say it was because he refused the pardon! So sinful man is under judgment, not just
because of God’s condemnation upon his sin, but eventually because man refuses
to accept the forgiveness that God has provided in Jesus Christ.
It should be very easy for
us to see how this matter of judgment upon sin and unbelief is related to the
principle of salvation by grace through faith.
The deliverance, the salvation, is from death to life (Jn. 5: 24), and it
is achieved by grace (Rom. 5: 15) through
faith (Jn. 3: 15-18).
The Judgment upon
the Believer’s Works
We have seen that the
unbeliever can pass out of the judgment of eternal death through believing in
Christ. Once the person becomes a believer in Christ, he is never again in that
danger (Jn. 5: 24; 6: 40; 10: 27-29). However, the Bible makes it very plain that a future judgment awaits every believer. Paul told the Corinthian assembly:
“For
we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may be
recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2 Cor. 5: 10).
The issue at that judgment is
not our faith in Christ, but our deeds
after we have come to faith. The
verdict upon us will not be in the realm of eternal death or life, but the
verdicts will cover a range of other possibilities. We will study this matter in more detail in
future chapters.
Becoming a Child of
God (Sonship)
Starting the Christian life
is simply a matter of being born again as a child of God. This is a matter absolutely related to the
grace principle. One of the greatest chapters
in the Scripture concerning our salvation by grace, apart from works, is
Chapter Three of Galatians. There we
find the simplest statement of a profound truth: “For
you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3: 26).
Growing (Maturing)
as Sons of God (Discipleship)
Becoming a member of God’s
household (Eph. 2:
19) simply involves being born into it as a
son (Gal. 3:
26). Today, a couple may bring a new baby
home from the hospital. The start of
life was fairly simple for the child. The development of that child over the
maturing years, however, will not be simple.
Much feeding, nurturing, training, educating, discipline, and experience
will go into that process. Who can tell
ahead of time exactly how the child will develop? Some will be more responsive to the efforts
of their parents than others. Some will
give themselves diligently to their school work, while others will hardly study
or maybe even drop out. Some will be respectful and Page 39 obedient to their parents and those in authority, but
others will demonstrate a rebellious attitude.
Some will be generous and others will be selfish.
So it is with the children
of God. Each individual will respond to
the maturing process differently. Our
maturation is not automatic: It requires our cooperation with the Lord (2 Pet. 1: 5-10). Yes, we are to “grow
in grace” (2 Pet. 3: 18, KJV),
but this is not positional grace, it is experiential grace. It is the grace of God’s life supplied to us
by our constant seeking, dependency in faith, and cooperation with God (1 Cor. 15: 10; 2 Cor. 12: 8-10; Gal. 3: 5; 2 Tim. 2: 1; Heb. 4: 16; Jas. 4: 6-10; 1 Pet. 4: 10-11).
Perhaps someone will quote Philippians 1: 6 as a “promise” that
God will automatically mature us in readiness for the future day of Christ. In
this verse Paul declares to the Philippian believers: “For
I am confident of this very thing, that He who
began a good work in your will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” Professor
John Hart of Moody Bible Institute states that the “good work” in this verse has an accepted interpretation other than
the sanctification of the believer.
Professor Hart, along with a number of other Bible teachers, point out
that, according to the context, this “good work”
refers to the Philippians’ participation with Paul in the work of advancing the
gospel. 31
Although every believer is
equipped with God’s life within, nothing could be clearer from the New
Testament than that believers vary in their degree of cooperation with God and
their subsequent maturity and actions. Many are seen as “still fleshly” (1 Cor. 3: 1-3). Some
that should have progressed have not (Heb. 5: 12). Some have regressed to the law (Gal. 4: 9-11, 21). Instead
of persevering, some fail miserably (1 Tim. 1: 19; 2 Tim. 4: 10; Rev. 2: 4-5; 3: 2-3; 3: 15-19). In fact, much of the exhortation and
admonition in the New Testament is given precisely because the saints were not progressing! If the saints’ continuance in holy living
were automatic, then there would have been no need for the apostles to write
many convicting and prodding words! The
teaching that all true believers basically continue onward and upward with God,
except for an occasional slip here or there, is not in accordance with the
record of God’s truth or with our experience.
We all know genuine Christians who are languishing or have given
themselves over to the world or the flesh.
We will not examine all of the applicable Scriptures on this subject,
but there is a considerable amount of good reading available on the topic. 32 The point is that the maturing of a believer requires
the individual’s cooperation with God.
Maturing as a Christian may
also be viewed as the process of discipleship. By following Christ in obedience, we grow into
His likeness. As you read the verses
listed for this related matter, this view becomes clear. Discipleship involves
finishing what we have begun in our Christian life (Lk. 14: 26-35). Yet, this concerns our works--our
doings. We must be willing to “hate” our family and even our own life (v. 26). The
disciple must be willing to “give up all his own
possessions” (v. 33).
Although the Lord wants us to realize the cost of discipleship ahead of
time (Lk. 14: 28-29), this matter is not settled once and for
all. We can be in the process of
discipleship, and yet “become tasteless” (Lk. 14: 34).
Following the Lord in discipleship is not an irrevocable decision. Rather, it is a thing that we Christians must
come to grips with every day as the Lord tells us: “If
anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny
himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (Lk. 9: 23). Let us be reminded, however, that we must
not try to follow Christ out of our own energy.
This matter of following the Lord is achieved by grace supplied by God
through our seeking after it. We
should be encouraged that every day, and even every hour, we can “draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy [forgiveness for our
failures] and may find grace Page
40 [spiritual supply and strength] to help in time of need.” (Heb.
4: 16). Our cooperation with the Lord always begins
with our seeking after Him and His supply of grace. This supply of spiritual life, the life of
Christ, is one we appropriate through our contact with Him in prayer,
meditation on His word, and worship to Him in praise and singing. Yes, God
expects us to grow up, but He generously supplies the means for us to do it if
we are willing to come to Him for this supply (Gal. 3: 5; Heb. 4: 16).
Receiving Eternal
Life
“Whoever
believes may in Him have eternal life” (Jn. 3: 15). “And the witness is
this, that God has given us eternal life
and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have the life”
(1 Jn. 5: 11-12). When
we receive Christ by faith, we receive the eternal life of God and are thus
born again (Jn. 1: 12-13; Jn. 3: 6-7).
Eternal Life in the
Coming Age
All believers already possess
the eternal life of God and shall not lose it (Jn. 10: 28). This
life is God’s life realized in the Holy Spirit (Jn 6: 63). Today,
our experience of the Holy Spirit is limited, and is likened to a down payment
in Scripture. “That (Spirit) is the guarantee of our inheritance--the first fruit, the pledge,
and foretaste, the down
payment on our heritage--in anticipation of its
full redemption and our acquiring (complete) possession
of it, to the praise of His glory” (Eph. 1: 14, AMP). What
the verses cited in the table under this matter tell us is that there awaits a greatly increased measure of the experience of
this eternal life in the coming 1,000 year Kingdom age as a reward to those who
diligently follow Christ in this age. As previously discussed, the [millennial]
Election According
to Grace
The verses noted here on
the table show us that God chose us to participate in His plan of redemption
before we were even born. This choosing
is clearly a matter of grace, a gift (not works), and pertains to our position
in Christ. It is related to salvation by
grace through faith.
Choosing According
to the Believer’s Preparation
In contrast to our election
by grace is our being chosen according to our preparation. Someday, Christ will make a judgment and
choose those believers who will participate in His coming Kingdom. This is not a matter of grace, but of
preparation on the believer’s part. The
parable of the marriage feast in Matthew 22:
1-14
addresses this matter. Space does not
permit a full exposition of this parable here, but the reader can find this
exposition elsewhere. 33 The
Entry into the
In the parable of the two
sons in Matthew 21: 28-32 the Lord Jesus rebuked the chief priests and
the elders (Matt. 21:
23).
This parable compares the submissive son to the tax-gatherers and
harlots, and the rebellious son to the leaders of
Entry into the
Although the present
God will render a righteous
judgment as to which believers will be worthy of
participation in the coming Kingdom and which will not. The Thessalonian believers are an example of
worthy ones according to the Scripture:
“And
this is a cause of our mentioning you with pride among the churches (assemblies) of God for your steadfastness--your unflinching endurance and patience--and your firm faith in the midst of all the persecutions and
crushing distresses and afflictions under which you are holding up. This is positive
proof of the just and right judgment of God to the end that you may be
deemed deserving of His kingdom--a plain
token of His fair verdict (which designs) that
you should be made and counted worthy of the kingdom of God--for the sake of which you are also suffering” (2 Thess. 1: 4-5, AMP).
Heirs as Children
of God
The Greek word used for “to inherit” is kleronomeo. Kleronomeo “strictly
means ‘to receive a lot’ (kleros, ‘a lot’, nemonai, ‘to possess’); then, in a more general
sense, ‘to Page 42 possess oneself of, to receive as one’s own, to obtain’”. 34 The verb and its derived noun (inheritance) do not often carry
our English meaning wherein one becomes an heir upon the death of a
relative. The verses noted here tell of
the inheritance, the possession, that we receive as believers simply by virtue
of our being children of God.
No other conditions are attached.
Fellow Heirs with
Christ in His
Christ has been made “heir of all things” (Heb.
1: 2).
When He returns, He will set up the Kingdom on the earth and inherit (possess)
it (Lk. 19: 11-12; Heb. 1: 6-9). We have an opportunity to be fellow heirs,
co-possessors of His coming Kingdom, but such a possession is conditional for
us. Romans 8:
18-20
speaks of the glory of that coming Kingdom.
These verses are preceded by Romans 8:
17, which speaks of the condition
whereby we might inherit this
Kingdom. The Greek text may be rendered
as follows with only a slight, permissible change in the punctuation:
“... and if children, then heirs--heirs of God, and joint heirs
with Christ if indeed we suffer with Him, that
we may also be glorified together”. 35
This rendering is by Greek
professor Zane Hodges who makes
these pertinent comments: “Under this rendering of the
text, there are two forms of heirship.
One of these is based on being children of God. The other is based on
suffering with Christ. This distinction is crucial for understanding the New
Testament teaching on this subject”. 36
Christ’s enduring obedience
included suffering (Phil. 2: 8; Heb. 5: 8; 12: 3). As a result, He was given the highest
position by God and will rule over all (Phil. 2: 9-10; Heb. 1: 9; 12: 2). Our
sharing of His rulership will also require obedience and suffering (2 Tim. 2: 12; Rev. 2: 26; 3: 21).
Conversely, a disobedient life will cause us to forfeit
the Kingdom inheritance (1 Cor.
6: 9; Gal. 5: 21; Eph. 5: 5). According to the context, these warnings of disinheritance are
addressed to Christians, as
indicated in the passages cited below.
“On
the contrary you yourselves wrong
and defraud, and that your brethren. Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not
inherit the
In this passage, Paul was
warning the believers who were doing
unrighteous things. He was warning
them, essentially saying, “You who are practicing sin
(i.e. defrauding your brother -- v. 8), don’t you know,
don’t you realize that persons who practice sin shall not possess the
“Now
the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outburst of Page 43 anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of
which I forewarn you just
as I have forewarned you that those who practice such things shall not inherit
the kingdom of God” (Gal. 5: 19-21).
The church in
“But
do not let immorality or any impurity or greed even be named among you, as is proper among saints;
and there must be no filthiness and silly talk,
or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks. For
this you know with certainty, that no immoral or
impure person or covetous man, who is an
idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of
Christ and God” (Eph. 5: 3-5).
This has been a long
chapter, and yet only some of the verses related to the two principles have
been highlighted. This is evidence of how pervasive these principles are in the
New Testament. Perhaps an illustration of the two principles will help to
clarify this crucial matter in the reader’s mind. Have you ever been to a nice country club for
an outing? If so, the club may have had a cloak room at which to check one’s
hat and coat. The attendant takes your garments, gives you a check stub, and
then puts away the hat and the coat. Let’s imagine that, for the sake of easy
retrieval, the attendant puts all the ladies’ hats on one shelf and all the
men’s hats on another shelf. A man’s hat on a lady’s shelf would be out of
place! These two principles are like the two shelves. There are lots of
passages in the New Testament that belong on these two “shelves”, but each passage needs to be placed on the proper
one! Otherwise, we will get confused,
even about the principles themselves! If
one were to look at a shelf with both men’s and women’s hats on it, one might
say at one time it is a shelf for men’s hats, and at another time that it is a
shelf for lady’s hats. This has happened
in the field of Bible doctrine over the centuries. Most teachers have tried to tie everything to
eternal salvation. Since they see only
this one shelf, the reward verses are also placed there and grace is
confused. On the other hand, some have
seen the matter of reward (or recompense) for Christians, but have tried to
transfer the term of “grace” from the other
shelf to at least partially apply to the matter of reward. Some have not allowed “scary” recompense verses to enter the cloak room at
all, thinking that surely these are not “hats”
belonging to Christians, but only to false believers! All of this confusion is because neither
believers nor teachers have a clear view of these two very different but very
important principles. And both principles apply to
every believer.
This chapter has probably
been thought-provoking for the reader.
These principles help us see how balanced and wise our God is. He knows that we were helpless to save ourselves
(
It is hoped that by now our
reader has a greater interest in cooperating with God in light of these
things. The next chapter will highlight
some very significant items related to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives
to prepare us for participation in the coming Kingdom. Before reading the next chapter, therefore,
why don’t you take some time now to pray, asking the Lord to enlighten you and
grant you grace so that you may cooperate with the work of the Holy Spirit in
your life.
* *
*
Page 45
CHAPTER
6
“SELL ALL THAT YOU POSSESS”
We now come to a great
lesson in the story of the rich young ruler, a lesson which pertains to us all,
not just the rich.
We have previously learned that
the Lord Jesus was truly trying to show the young man how to have eternal life in the next age. In the case of the rich young ruler, the Lord
was trying to point out a fundamental problem which was keeping him from
gaining entry into the coming Kingdom.
It is this fundamental problem that will now be dealt with in this
chapter.
Most believers think that
if we could just conquer sin we would be pleasing to God. Of course, sin is a detriment to our
relationship with God and can cause us to miss the Kingdom enjoyment (1 Cor. 6: 9-10; Gal. 5: 19-21; Eph. 5: 5). As
respects moral matters that we normally classify as sin, however, the rich
young ruler had kept these commandments (Matt. 19: 17-20)! 37
Jesus was desirous, however,
of touching another matter with this young man, something apart from the issue
of sin and morality. According to the
Biblical revelation, he still lacked something beyond the realm of “sin”. After the man said he had kept the commandments
from his youth, Jesus said to him, “One thing you still
lack; sell all that you possess, and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven, and
come, follow Me” (Lk. 18: 22). After
the young man went away grieved, the Lord stated this great lesson of
discipleship: “... Truly, I say to you, it is hard for a
rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.
And again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle,
than for a rich man to enter the
We must try to explore the
depth of meaning of this lesson in light of the whole record of Scripture. Was the Lord simply saying that only “rich” people will have a hard time getting into the
coming Kingdom? What is the problem with
“riches” anyway?
Put simply , the riches here represent man’s self-indulgent enjoyment
and preoccupation with the things of this world. Such enjoyment so occupies and usurps man
that man is unable to fully follow the Lord.
The Lord Jesus’ requirement for the young man (beyond the moral
commandments), was stated in an exceedingly simple way -- just dispose of your
possessions and “come, follow
Me.”
As believers, don’t we want
to “follow the Lord”? If we do, then we must learn the lesson
presented here. We must come to grips
with the issue of “selling all that we possess.” In application, the Lord is not just dealing
with rich people. Based upon this
encounter, the Lord spoke of “everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or
mother or children or farms for My name’s sake” (Matt. 19: 29).
Houses, family Page 46 and farms do not necessarily equate with being rich, so this means the
Lord broadened the principle of the “rich man”
to include us all.
From the world’s
perspective, a rich man has certain advantages.
He seems to have a great security.
“A rich man’s wealth is his strong city. And like a high wall
in his own imagination” (Prov.
18: 11).
He can have a life of ease, comfort,
and pleasure (see
Lk. 12: 16-19). The
rich man is also accorded special recognition
by others (Jas. 2: 2-3). However,
these very items (security, ease, comfort, pleasure, and recognition) are the
ones that we must be willing to give up if we are to be His disciples.
The World
Beyond sin, we believers
face a problem that is related to what the Bible calls “the world”. The world (kosmos,
Greek), in the sense we are speaking of here, means the entire ordered
arrangement of things in human society. Of course, sin is included within the
expansive realm of the world, but the world encompasses many things that are
not strictly “sin” in the moral sense. Note these words from the apostle John:
Do not love the world, nor
the things in the world. If anyone loves
the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the
flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the
Father, but is from the world. And the
world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God
abides forever. (1 Jn.
2: 15-17)
This passage from First
John tells us that the world system has some built-in lusts, or strong desires,
that are common to men within the system.
The lust of the flesh refers to the passionate desires of our bodies,
and the lust of the eyes refers to the longings of the soul of man to possess
and experience things seen through the eyes.
The boastful pride of life is that sense of pride that springs up within
man and may stem from a myriad of sources: success, talent, looks, wealth,
position, family, accomplishment, nationality, etc.
Now, imagine yourself as
the rich, young ruler that came to the Lord.
Jesus has just told you that you need to sell all that you have and give
the proceeds to the poor. What “losses” will flash through your mind? All of the opportunities to pamper and please
yourself are suddenly gone. Your menu of
steaks and rich foods is now replaced by beans, and you don’t even know how you
will get them. All the pleasures that you
enjoyed -- the outings, the banquets given for friends, the sporting activities,
the travel, the splendid flocks, the fine clothes-- all of these are gone
forever.
Finally, the recognition
and attention you were accustomed to as an important person of wealth are
destined to end abruptly. “The poor is hated even by
his neighbour, but those who love the rich are
many” (Prov.
14: 20).
So, we can understand that this cost was considered too great by the rich young
ruler. He had wanted to inherit eternal
life, but the price was too high. He
went away sorrowful.
Self-denial
A comparison of two verses
will demonstrate that what the Lord required of the rich man was just a
specific application of the general requirement for all disciples.
Page 47
Matt. 16: 24
Matt. 19: 21
Then Jesus
said to His disciples,
Jesus said
to him,
“If anyone wishes to come after Me,
“If you wish to be complete,
let him deny
himself, and take
up his cross
go and sell
your possessions and give to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven;
and follow
Me.”
and come, follow Me.”
Jesus was calling the rich
man to discipleship, to follow Him and learn of Him. To understand what this discipleship
involves, we need to look carefully at Matthew 16: 24-28 to see
how relevant were Christ’s words to the rich man.
24 Then Jesus said to His
disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me,
let him deny himself, and
take up his cross, and follow Me. 25 For whoever wishes to
save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses
his life for My sake shall find it. 26
For what will a man be profited, if he gains the whole world, and
forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in
exchange for his soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His
Father with His angels; and will then recompense
every man according to his deeds. 28 Truly, I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who shall not
taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom. (Matt. 16: 24-28)
Please notice several key
words in this portion of God’s word. One key word is soul (psuche) in verse 26. In the Greek, this same word appears in verse 25 translated as “life”.
So the life in verse 25 refers to the same
thing as the soul in verse 26. Further, the
term “himself” in verse
24, although not the word psuche,
refers to the soul also. This is proven
by the parallel passage in Luke, where Luke 9:
25 speaks of forfeiting “himself” but Matthew 16:
26 speaks of forfeiting his “soul”.
So the three terms “himself”, “life”, and “soul” all refer to the same thing here in Matthew 16.
Remember that the soul is that part of man that contains the mind, the
emotion and the will of man. Thus the
soul is really the very life (the inner, non-physical life) of man. One writer has stated that “the word ‘soul’ signifies, as we have said, the natural or personal life
of the individual man, in the broadest sense, including all the experiences,
sensations, and emotions pertaining thereto.” 38
Further, this passage
speaks of one denying himself and taking up his cross (v.
24). Then, since verse
25 starts with an explanatory “for”, we
naturally must consider such self-denial as equivalent to “losing one’s soul.” The contrast to losing one’s soul
is to save it. Remember that the word
for “to save,” sozo, means “to save, make whole, preserve from danger, loss, destruction.”
39
Now, let’s put these
thoughts together and begin to understand this passage. Jesus is teaching concerning saving one’s
soul, that is, keeping it from loss or Page 48 destruction, versus losing one’s soul, that is,
allowing it to suffer loss. Look at the
verses that just precede this section (read Matt. 16: 21-23). Here
Jesus was telling His disciples that “He must go to
Fallen man wishes only to please
his soul, doing what keeps it whole and happy, preserving it from any suffering
or loss. Jesus immediately gave the needed teaching after Peter expressed the
natural thought of man. Jesus taught His disciples that if anyone wished to
come after Him (to really follow Him), that person must be willing to deny himself and take up
his cross. That person must be willing
to lose his soul. This could mean to the point of physical
death, martyrdom, if need be, although that is not the explicit point here. Jesus is not teaching that every disciple must
so prove himself by being a martyr. Only
God’s sovereign will decides who will be martyred; it is not our decision. But God wants us to be willing to deny ourselves so completely.
In our experience, what does
it really mean to “deny ourselves”, “take up the cross”, and “lose
our soul”? A few quotes from some insightful teachers will help us
here. Watchman Nee comments:
“Let
him deny himself” -- Denying the self means
disregarding one’s self or renouncing one’s privileges. To deny oneself denotes a setting aside of
the self in seeking the mind of God, so that in all things he may not follow
his own mind nor be self-centered. ... “And take
up his cross, and
follow Me”-- this is even deeper than denying
the self. For self-denying is only the
disregarding of self whereas taking up the cross is obeying God. To take up the
cross means to accept whatever God has decided for the person and to be willing
to suffer according to the will of God.
By denying the self and taking up the cross we may truly follow the Lord.
40
In commenting on a parallel
passage in John 12: 25,
Philip Mauro observes:
Loving the soul
signifies indulging it in the things it craves; and hating the soul signifies
depriving it of those gratifications. ... From the above passage (John 12: 25) and from other Scriptures, it clearly
appears, as we have already said, that the soul of man is that part of his
being which is capable of experiencing sensations arising from relations with
created things -- “the world”.
The actual functions of seeing, hearing, tasting, etc., are performed by
the organs of the body; but the experiences and emotions resulting therefrom
are realized in the soul. 41
Watchman Nee
also comments that, “To save the soul denotes gaining
for oneself happiness and joy to his heart’s fullest satisfaction. To lose the
soul, on the other hand, speaks of losing one’s joy, desire and satisfaction.”
42 Additionally, he
writes the following concerning the salvation of the soul:
“Whoever
shall lose his life for My sake”--This is the
self-denial and cross-bearing spoken of in the preceding verse. Losing the soul is the same as denying the
self. The Lord concedes that if for His
sake Page 49 anyone is willing to forsake all the pleasures of the soul
and to suffer according to the will of God, he will find the soul. It simply
means that whoever is willing for the sake of the Lord to deny his own thoughts
and desires so as not to be satisfied with the things of the world but instead
to undergo much suffering, he will at another time be given by the Lord his
heart desire with full blessing and joy. 43
Finally, Philip Mauro states: “Manifestly, the expression ‘losing
one’s soul’ is a strong figure of speech for
voluntary parting with those things which delight or gratify the soul.” 44
Now we can return again for
a moment to the rich ruler. What was the
problem that Jesus was addressing? This rich man was not willing to “lose his soul” in order to follow the Lord. He enjoyed the pleasures of this world. The pleasures he indulged himself in were not
immoral things, as has already been noted.
The pleasures were just “the good things of life.” His refusal to give up his riches simply
unveils his refusal to give up the enjoyment of this world. He was unwilling to suffer such a loss to his
soul.
Let us look again at Chapter Sixteen of Matthew.
“For what will a man be profited if he gains the whole world” (v. 26). “Gaining the world” is linked to ‘saving the life [soul]” (v.
25).
The fallen soul of man seeks its gratification in the things of this
world. In this world, the earthly realm
of human society, there are many attractions for man’s soul. Indeed, the Bible tells us that the world
itself is “outfitted”, in a sense, with man’s
desires for gratification; these desires are built into the world system and
feed upon it for satisfaction. “For all that is in the
world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the
eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from
the Father, but is from the world.
And the world is passing away, and also its lusts” (1 Jn. 2: 16-17).
Jesus has spoken here that
a man will not “be profited
if he gains the whole world, and forfeits
his soul” (Matt. 16: 26). In other words, even if a person could
somehow gain all the benefit and pleasure that could be derived from the entire world, this “income” of pleasure could not produce a profit for
him when it is offset by the forfeiture (or loss) of his soul! Dear Christian, here is a statement we must
seriously think about. What does it
mean? Consider that the next verse
explains it, because the next verse again starts with a connective or explanatory
“for”. “For the Son of
Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels; and will THEN RECOMPENSE every man ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS” (v. 27).
What the Lord Jesus is
telling us here in these verses (Matt. 16: 24-27) is that if a believer decides to save his soul
now, in this life, “he shall [future tense] lose it” (v. 25), or forfeit it, when Christ returns and
renders judgment upon us according to our deeds. To lose your soul, therefore, means that your
soul will suffer loss at that time. And
the loss to your soul at that time will be so great that it will more than
offset the pleasure your soul could have gained during your lifetime if it had
been possible for you to “gain the whole world”! We are talking about the potential here of a
very significant future loss
to the believer. Dear Christian, we must take this word of
our Lord very seriously.
The future gain for the
believer (“shall find it”--future tense, v. 25), or the
future loss (“shall lose it”-- future tense, v. 25),
according to the context, involves the Lord’s recompense at His return and the
coming Kingdom. A believer who denies the self (loses the soul) in this age
will be rewarded with “finding his soul”, that
is, having his soul Page 50 experience joy, pleasure and satisfaction in the coming Kingdom
age. Conversely, a
believer who does not allow his soul to suffer loss in this age, will receive a
recompense from the Lord that will cause his soul to suffer loss in the Kingdom
age.
The recompense in verse 27 is tied
to the Kingdom in verse 28, and the glory of the Kingdom is depicted in the
verses that follow. Matthew 17: 1-8 (cf. 2 Pet. 1: 16-18) is a preview of the coming Kingdom. Notice that only the closest disciples were
chosen to go with the Lord onto the Mount of Transfiguration. The
transfiguration is a foreshadow of Christ in His glory during the coming
age. Participation in the glories of that age is a reward, dependent upon
self-denial. This is also in view in
the story of the rich young ruler (see Lk. 18: 24-30).
The World’s
Influence
We need to look further at
the topic of the world and its effect upon the believer so that we can see how
the Holy Spirit is trying to work in our lives. We are in the world system. If
we could have God’s unhindered spiritual sight, we would most certainly be
amazed at how much we are unconsciously and adversely influenced by the world
system around us. It is needful for us to recall that we are in a spiritual
battle. Our adversary, the Devil, is “the ruler of this
world [kosmos]” (Jn. 12: 31). Further, “the whole
world lies in the power of the evil one [Satan]” (1 Jn. 5: 19). He is not only the ruler of the kosmos, but he is also termed “the god of this age [aion]” (2 Cor. 4: 4,
NKJV). The current age (aion) is
nothing more than the present form of the kosmos,
or world system, which takes on different forms throughout history. Satan is a terribly powerful being and the
Bible depicts him as very subtle (working insidiously, secretly, or
imperceptibly) (Gen.
3: 1), and extremely deceitful (2 Cor. 11: 3; Rev. 12: 9). The
Second Chapter of Ephesians shows us how, through the kosmos, he works
in man to place man essentially under his control.
…you
formerly walked according to the course [aion] of this world [kosmos], according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of
disobedience.
Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. (Eph. 2: 2-3).
Although these verses speak
of how all believers once lived in such a condition, as is the common lot of
all unbelievers, they do not indicate that we are no longer subject to being
deceived by Satan’s world after conversion.
The world is still an active enemy of the Christian after conversion (Jas. 4: 1-10; 1 Jn. 2: 15). The
interesting thing in the verses cited above from Ephesians is that they show
how Satan (the prince of the power of the air) exercises control over people by
getting them to follow, to go along with, “the course
and fashion of this world ... under the sway of
the tendency of this present age” (Eph.
2: 2,
AMP).
How can this be? Simply put, it is because the course of this
world is designed, by Satanic forces, to appeal to the cravings within man. “Among these we as well as you once lived and conducted
ourselves in the passions of the flesh-- our
behaviour governed by our corrupted and sensual nature; obeying the impulses of the flesh and the thoughts of the mind”
(Eph. 2: 3, AMP).
Notice that not only the lusts of the flesh are involved, but also the “thoughts of the mind”.
Remember how Satan worked within Page 51 Peter’s mind to object to the Lord’s suffering (Matt. 16: 21-23). Also, Romans 12: 2
admonishes us: “And do not be conformed to this world [aion, age], but be transformed by
the renewing of your mind.” Any
conformity we have to the world’s ways is due to our mind not having been
renewed in particular matters.
Satan’s goal in so using
the world (kosmos), which is
under his control, is simple. It is to
keep people from knowing God, loving God, serving God, obeying God and growing
in God. He uses the world to attract,
distract and preoccupy people, whether believers or unbelievers, so that they
will not know God or progress with God.
The Greek word for “world” is kosmos,
which means system or organization.
Satan not only employs the necessities of life, such as people,
activities and things, to preoccupy man, he furthermore organizes them into numerous
individual systems in order to intensify his grip upon man. The world today resembles a university, in
which are many different departments, such as eating, drinking, clothing,
marriage, funerals, literature, music, money and fame -- more than we can
enumerate. The aggregate result is a
world university, occupying man with many courses. One by one, these courses enslave and possess
man, causing him to completely forsake and forget God and go along with the
current of the world. Man believes that he
is handling and enjoying all these, but actually, without realizing Satan’s
deception, he has fallen into the hands of the evil one and is controlled and
tricked by him. Therefore, the world
denotes the enemy’s scheme, system, and organization to usurp the place of God
in man and finally to gain full possession of man. 45
This quote shows us that
the world has many departments, much like a university. Some of the departments will fit the “taste” of some people more than others. One person may be attracted by sports while
another might enjoy recreational reading.
This world offers attractions and activities that suit every kind of
personality.
Satan’s world also contains
a huge religion department, with one section carrying a Christian label. Remember that he “disguises
himself as an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11: 14), meaning that he can disguise his activities
as “Christian.”
All Christian activities
must be put to the test. What is their
source? Do they glorify Christ exclusively? Are they thoroughly
Biblical? Does the Spirit bear
witness? Are the activities so designed
to strictly build up and nourish the spirit?
I regret to tell you that my spiritual discernment convinces me that
many of today’s Christian activities and projects are not of the Lord. And, in respect to the point here, many “Christian” activities today, I strongly fear, are
designed to appeal to the soul
of man. These activities simply
gratify the soul’s natural likes and longings.
In other words, these activities are helping Christians “save” (preserve) their souls today. Any such activity would be inspired by subtle demonic forces,
working through the souls of seemingly well-meaning believers. Was not Peter, the great apostle, himself
deceived (Matt.
16: 23)?
The world is designed to
rob God of our love. The apostle John
wrote to Christians, “Stop loving the world, or the things that are in the world. If anyone persists in
loving the world, there is no love of the Father in his heart” (1 Jn. 2: 15, Williams). Do you feel that your love of God and Christ
has waned? If so, it is probably because
your Page 52 affections are on
the things of this world. Our love for
God is to be supreme (Lk.
10: 27).
We should love our families, but we must be careful that our heart loves Christ
foremost. This is also a matter related
to the salvation of our souls:
“He
who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy
of Me.
And he who does not take up his cross and follow after Me is not worthy
of Me. He
who has found his life shall lose it, and he who
has lost his life for My sake shall find it” (Matt.
10: 37-39; see also Lk. 14: 26-27).
In the materialistic society
of the western world, possessions and the enjoyment of amusements and
recreation have become a great snare to the people of God. The majority of believers have been
influenced by the “course of this world”. The mind-set here is that of a “consumer” society: Get a good job so you can make
lots of money. Use your money to buy whatever you want (in other words, please your soul -- save
it!). When you think of a car, don’t
think “transportation”. Instead, think status, think power, think
leather seats. Think what will make you feel good! Always think in terms
of “moving up” to a better neighbourhood and a
bigger house with more amenities. Be
sure to get the latest fashion, and don’t neglect getting the proper name
brand, especially one that can be “recognized”,
maybe by a distinctive logo. Now is the
time to have more hobbies; this is the leisure life! Since you like sports, why not a season
ticket? You can afford filet mignon now;
it’s your money, so forget the hamburger!
ENJOY YOURSELF!
Dear brother or sister, is
not God disgusted with this attitude? If
you believe the money you earn is your money-- which you can spend however you
like in order to enjoy yourself -- then based upon the authority of the Word of
God you need to repent. The attitude of
the materialistic consumer society in the western world is utterly against
God’s Word
“He
who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is
unrighteous also in much. If therefore you have not been faithful in
the use of unrighteous mammon, who will entrust the true riches to you? And if you have not
been faithful in the use of that
which is another’s [namely God’s], who will give you that which is your own?” (Lk. 16: 10-12).
“So
therefore, no one of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own
possessions” (Lk.
14: 33).
(Here Christ speaks of our willingness to let go of all of our
possessions. This is the opposite of the
attitude that wants to increase and enjoy possessions.)
Besides robbing God of our
love and affection, preoccupation with the things of this world prevents us
from serving God and from doing His will.
This truth was taught by Jesus Himself: “No one
can serve two masters; for either he will hate
the one and love the other, or he will hold to
one and despise the other. You cannot serve God
and mammon” (Matt. 6: 24).
God wants to meet our
legitimate needs. If we, however,
attempt to fulfil our lusts, seeking satisfaction in possessions and pleasures
beyond our legitimate human needs, then we have been caught by Satan’s world
and are guilty of saving our soul. We
have been deceived by the mind-set of the world. “What
God allows is restricted to Page 53 natural requirement; and hence we should only seek for the
supply of needs and not the gratification of lusts!” 46
Dear Christian, may I ask
you to think about some questions? Why
did you buy the car you now have? What
influenced your decision on where to live?
Do you need all the clothes that you buy? Or, did it just make you “feel good” to buy special things that just please
your soul? What about your hobbies and
leisure time activities? How much
attention do you pay to them? How much
entertainment and television do you indulge in for pleasure? Are you a great sports fan? Do you crave good novels? How much affection do you have toward the
things you do in your “free time”? Are you a music lover that frequently goes to
concerts? (I fear that even many “Christian”
concerts may cater to the love of music rather than to the glory of God.) Do you welcome and cherish opportunities to
be recognized and praised by others, thus feeding your inward pride? May God
open our eyes to see how much we may be captured by the things of this world,
robbing God of our love and service.
Preoccupation with
Daily Affairs
Apart from the issue of
pursuing the gratification of our lusts, the Bible indicates that even our
involvement with things necessary to our human existence can become an
entanglement to us. We all need clothes,
food, houses, and jobs. Our families are
also part of our fundamental human existence.
Yet, these are things in the world and they can be sources of anxiety
and preoccupation. To be overly involved
in them is to be entangled in the world and usurped by it. Thus, we may not be able to fully love God,
know God and His will, and serve God.
Note the following observation:
“Actually, when
a believer pursues the Lord, he is seldom usurped and entangled by things
beyond his living necessities. On the
contrary, he is usually usurped and entangled by things that are needed for
living. Therefore, when the Lord on earth called people to follow Him, He did
not ask man to forsake that which exceeded his daily needs, but stressed that
he should forsake the involvements of his daily life, such as parents, wives,
children, lands, houses, etc. If these
necessities usurp man, they seize the Lord’s place in man. Of course, the Lord Jesus did not ask us to
forsake our responsibility, but He desired us to relinquish the entanglements
of people, activities and things. For
this reason, in the Epistles, the Lord teaches us again through the Apostles
that we should honour our parents, treat our wives fittingly and care for our
relations, etc.” 47
Therefore, we see that
although the Lord warned that the rich would have difficulty in entering the
Kingdom, his application of that teaching to the disciples made it clear that
one must leave not only the excess riches, but even the necessities of
life. Luke’s gospel tells us:
“And
Jesus looked at him and said, ‘How hard it is
for those who are wealthy to enter
the
Page 54
Hints for Victory
in Self-denial
How do we get released from
the entanglements of the world? Do we
literally sell all of our possessions?
Do we move away from civilization to a kind of monastic environment? Let us first be very clear concerning one
thing: the biblical answer is not asceticism.
Asceticism involves the religious self-discipline of depriving one’s
self of things good in themselves (food, warmth, comfort, etc.) for the sake of
spiritual attainment. Paul condemned
this practice as one that itself involves worldly principles!
“If
you died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in
the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, ‘Do not handle,
do not taste, do not
touch!’ (which all refer to things destined to
perish with the using) -- in accordance with the
commandments and teachings of men? These are
matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and
self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence” (Col. 2: 20-23).
Space does not permit us to
detail here all of the spiritual helps related to disengaging the believer from
the world. For this, the reader needs to
consult the suggested reading list for help in Christian growth (especially Love Not the
World by Watchman Nee).
However, some observations now follow in overview.
First, we need to be
continually conscious of the “world” and the “saving of the soul” as issues for us, not thinking of
immorality or “sin” as the sole issue. To this end, we should study the Scriptures
on this subject and pray for God to enlighten us and sensitize us. In conjunction with this, it would probably
be very helpful for us to read the writings of men of God who have seen these
things clearly from God’s Word and from experience.
Secondly, we need to go to
the Lord in prayer and deal with Him over the issue of “selling all”. Jesus told us,
“So therefore, no one of
you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions” (Lk. 14: 33). Here,
He is talking about having an attitude of releasing -- inwardly letting
go of -- all of our possessions and relationships in order to follow Christ.
This self-denial is
primarily a heart matter, a matter of willingness. He is not saying that every believer needs to
literally get rid of all he owns (this would be against the record of the New
Testament). However, our heart should be
so willing to relinquish these things, that if the Lord speaks to us to actually
dispose of some possession, we would be ready to do it. In our heart, we need to “leave” (let go of in terms of primary affection and
involvement) job, house, family and material possessions in order to follow Him
(Matt. 19:
29).
He wants our heart to be free from the entanglement of these things (2 Tim. 2: 4).
We need to tell the Lord
that we are willing, by His grace, to suffer loss to our soul in this age; that
is, we are willing to give up the enjoyments that please our soul. We need a caution here. We must be very genuine with God and
sincerely ask for His enlightenment in our life as to what needs to be dealt
with. Watchmen Nee comments: “But the things in
which we usually take great delight are things about which we are insensitive
as to our being entangled.”48
Page 55
Thank God that His Word
tells us that He has already dealt with the problem of the world at the cross. “But may it never be that I should boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal.
6: 14). We need to take this word, meditate on it,
and claim it every day, preferably praying it to the Lord. This truth is our release from the grip of
the world and the attractions within us to it.
We need to exercise our faith in the accomplished fact of what Christ
did to us and the world on the cross.
Remember that Luke 9: 23 tells us
that self-denial and bearing our cross is a daily matter. I
believe that specific prayer is needed every day, mainly because the world is so
deceptive and so easily entraps us subconsciously.
How do we know when we are
being “of the world” instead of just “in the world” (Jn. 17: 14-18)? There
is no set of rules in the Bible as to what is “worldly”
behaviour or indulgence. The following
comments on this subject are important:
So a serious problem faces
us here. As we have said, presumably
there must be a limit. Presumably God
has drawn somewhere a line of demarcation.
Stay within the bounds of that line and we will be safe; cross it and
grave danger threatens. But where does
it lie? We have to eat and drink, to
marry and bring up children, to trade and to toil. How do we do so and yet remain
uncontaminated? How do we mingle freely
with the men and women whom God so loved as to give His Son for them, and still
keep ourselves unspotted from the world?
If our Lord had limited our
buying and selling to so much a month, how simple that would be! The rules would be plain for any to
follow. All who spent more than a
certain amount per month would be worldly Christians, and all who spent less
than that amount would be unworldly.
But since our Lord has
stipulated no figure, we are cast on him unceasingly. For what? I think the answer is very
wonderful. Not to be tied by the rules,
but that we may remain all the time within bounds of another kind: the bounds
of His life. If our Lord had given us a
set of rules and regulations to observe, then we could take great care to abide
by these. In fact, however, our task is
something far more simple and straightforward, namely, to abide in the Lord
Himself. Then we could keep the
law. Now we need only keep in fellowship
with Him. And the joy of it is that,
provided we live in close touch with God, His Holy Spirit within our hearts
will always tell us when we reach the limit! 49
As we walk closely with
God, we will begin to realize the Holy Spirit’s subtle promptings and movings. When we
start to engage in some worldly activity, begin to let pride swell up, or crave
some possession that God has not desired us to have, there will arise within us
an uneasiness, a certain repulsion deep within our spirit reacting against the
longing of our fallen soul. It is then
that we must yield to the Lord, agreeing with Him that our self must be denied
and put to death. With full dependence
upon Him, and not using our energies to fight the cravings, we must allow the
Holy Spirit to crucify, to cut off, that longing within our soul that wants to
be gratified at that moment. As we grow
in Christ, we will also discover that some things of the world that used to
have a strong hold on us no longer even present an inward struggle. Further, our sensitivity to the world and its
entanglements is also a progressive matter:
Page 56
Also, by God’s sovereign
arrangement, we should realize that each one of us has a different place in
society. Some are well educated and may have professional jobs with good
salaries, whereas others may be impoverished.
God does not expect that all persons in the church should have the same
standard of living. The Bible shows that
believers may be rich, yet they must handle riches properly (1 Tim. 6: 17-19). Each
believer must learn how God wants him to live, how he should use his money,
when he is being entangled by the world, and when he is being tested by God in
the matter of self-denial.
One more help: God has
given us His Word in order to effect a separation from the world
(sanctification) within us.
“I
have given them Thy word; and the world has
hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not ask Thee to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even
as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the
truth; Thy word is truth. As Thou didst send Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.”
(Jn. 17: 14-19)
We should read and meditate
upon His Word every day (Matt. 4: 4). The more
time we prayerfully spend in the Word of God, the more opportunity God has to
sanctify us from the world.
The lesson of the rich
young ruler is this. He loved this
world. He loved the pleasures his money
afforded him; they were a delight to his soul.
He made a very bad and costly decision.
He decided to trade the pleasures of this world for the eternal life to
be experienced in the next age. He gave
up a thousand years in the glory of the coming Kingdom, even forfeiting ruling
with Christ, in order to hold onto his worldly enjoyment. Dear Christian, are you making such a tragic
trade? May we learn from his negative
example.
Finally, I conclude with an
amazing thought. As we let go of the
world in our hearts and allow our souls to suffer the loss of earthly
pleasures, we find, even now, that our soul has a new enjoyment! The enjoyment of the worldly things is
replaced by the enjoyment of Christ!
This enjoyment is the increasing experience of eternal life, in which
God becomes more precious and real to us (Jn. 17: 3). As a result, we feel more detached from the
world, but more attached to Christ. What a glorious thing! Our foretaste of
eternal life in the coming Kingdom is being deepened and expanded. Praise be to
His Name!
* * *
Page 57
CHAPTER
7
THE JUDGMENT SEAT
OF CHRIST - PART I
The desire to obtain
eternal life in the next age is what brought the rich young ruler to
Jesus. You will recall that Christ
identified that desire as being one to “enter into life”
(Matt. 19:
17), or “to enter
the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 19: 23). These
terms were used concerning entry into the realm of the blessed Kingdom in the
coming age. When and where will it be
decided who will enter the Kingdom? This
matter, and others, will be decided at the Judgment Seat of Christ.
Our appearance at the
Judgment Seat of Christ will be the most awesome event of our lives. Let us try
to picture the scene from Scripture.
“I
kept looking until thrones were set up, and the
Ancient of Days took His seat; His vesture was
like white snow, and the hair of His head like
pure wool. His throne was ablaze with flames, its wheels were a burning fire. A river of fire was flowing and coming out from before Him; thousands upon thousands were attending Him; and myriads upon myriads were standing before Him; the court sat, and the books
were opened” (Dan. 7: 9-10).
This scene in Daniel
Chapter Seven is connected with the end time judgments of God since the
destruction of the Antichrist is mentioned in verse
eleven, and since Christ, the Son of Man, is presented before the
Ancient of Days to receive His Kingdom in verses 13
and 14.
The same scene is presented in Chapters Four and Five of the book of
Revelation. The duration of this court session may last several years as
judgments are meted out upon an unrepentant earth. It is in this scene that the seventh trumpet
is sounded, heralding the announcement that “The
kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He will
reign forever and ever” (Rev. 11: 15; compare
Dan. 7: 14). Immediately after this announcement the
twenty-four elders who were seated on their thrones before God fall on their
faces and worship God. They declare that
God’s reign has begun, and then they recount the events of that general time
period: “And the nations were enraged, and Thy wrath came, and the time came for the dead to be judged and the time to
give their reward to
Thy bond-servants the prophets and to
the saints and to those who fear Thy name, the small and the great, and
to destroy those who destroy the earth” (Rev.
11: 18).
Chapter Seven of Daniel
reveals at least two specific judgments that emanate from the court
session. One is the judgment upon the “little horn” (the Antichrist). This judgment is seen
in verses 11 and 26. The other judgment is that which is in favour
of the saints so that they may possess the Kingdom (vs.
18, 22, 27).
It is not my desire here to
try to determine precisely when and where the Judgment Seat of Christ takes place.
However, I believe it does take place when He returns (Matt. 16: 27; Rev. 22: 12), and in the presence of the Father and His
angels (Rev. 3:
5). Revelation
11: 18 cited above seems to confirm
that the scene presented in the Seventh Chapter of Daniel and the Fourth and
Fifth chapters of Revelation would include the judgment and reward of the
saints. What an awesome and fearful scene we Page 58 see here! One
day we will appear there. We will see
God’s throne as flames of fire, and a stream of fire will be flowing out from
before Him. Around His throne will be
other thrones (probably angelic rulers) and a myriad of angels. It is in this setting that the Scripture
records, “The court sat, and the books were opened” (Dan. 7: 10). The books are a record of the doings of those
to be judged (compare Rev. 20: 12, which
is a later judgment that includes dead unbelievers). Into this courtroom comes
One called the Son of Man. Unto Him all
judgmental authority is given. “For not even the Father
judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to
the Son” (Jn. 5: 22, see
also Acts 10: 42; 17: 31; 2 Tim. 4: 1). This
scene, it seems, pictures the court in which we believers are to be judged one
day.
The Greek word bema is
used of Christ’s Judgment Seat in Second Corinthians
5: 10 and Romans
14: 10. Some teachers have argued
that this word, bema, was
used in Greek literature as a reward seat for the judge viewing contestants in
the Grecian athletic games. Therefore,
they say this word carries the notion of honour and reward rather than justice
or judgment. 50 Thus, they conclude that at Christ’s Bema, He will simply reward and honour the victorious
runners in the Christian race. Those who
do not run so well will just not receive a (positive) reward according to this
view.
However, the Scripture
never once uses bema in
the setting of an athletic contest with rewards. In Matthew 27:
19 Pilate sat at the judgment seat. From there he decided the life or death fates
of two men, Jesus and Barabbas. In Acts 18, Gallio heard
charges of wrong against Paul while seated upon the bema (v. 12), and Sosthenes
received a beating in front of it. In Acts 12: 21,
Herod delivered an address to the people from the judgment seat, but since he
did not give God the glory, an angel of the Lord struck him at the bema so that he
died. In Acts
25, Paul was brought before the bema
(vs. 6,
10, 17)
for judgment, with accusers bringing charges against him, trying to get him
punished. Overall, Scripture references
portray the bema as a
place of examination and true judgment.
This is in agreement with the two uses of the word bema in connection with Christ’s Judgment Seat:
“But
why do you judge your brother? Or why do you
show contempt for your brother? For we shall all
stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it
is written: ‘As I
live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to Me,
and every tongue shall confess to God.’ So then
each one of us shall give account of himself to God” (Rom. 14: 10-12, NKJV).
“For
we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2 Cor. 5: 10).
There are a large number of
New Testament verses related to the coming judgment of believers. Because it is our desire to avoid making this
book lengthy, not all the verses will be covered nor will a detailed exposition
be given. It is hoped that the reader
may be stimulated into studying this subject more as he or she reads the
Scriptures. Let us begin, however, to
look at some of the aspects of the Judgment Seat in the light of God’s Word.
At the Judgment Seat, the
lives we lived as believers will be revealed for what they really were. “For we must all appear and be revealed as we are before the
judgment seat of Christ” (2 Cor. 5: 10, AMP).
The Greek word for “appear” in this verse
Page 59 carries the idea
of being made manifest, open, fully revealed.
This verse then continues: “that each one may be
recompensed for his deeds in the body, according
to what he has done, whether good or bad.” This is a summary verse concerning the
Judgment Seat, indicating all that we have done will be judged. It will be helpful for us, however, to see
some of the categories this judgment will include. The list below may not be inclusive.
Some Categories of
Judgment
1) Our words.
“But I say to you that every careless word that men
shall speak,
they shall render account for it in the day of judgment. For by your words you
shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned” (Matt. 12: 36-37).
2) Our motives.
“Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the
time, but wait until the Lord comes who will
both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives
of men’s hearts; and then each one’s praise will
come to him from God” (1 Cor.
4: 5).
3) Our stewardship of money and possessions. “He who is faithful in a very
little thing is faithful also in much; and he who
is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much. If therefore you have not been faithful in the use of
unrighteous mammon, who will entrust the true
riches to you? And if you have not been faithful
in the use of that which is another’s, who will
give you that which is your own?” (Lk. 16: 10-12)
4) Our stewardship of our spiritual gifts and
responsibilities. (Matt. 25: 14-30; Lk. 19: 12-27; see comments in Chapter
Five on these passages.)
5) The nature of our service. (1 Cor. 3: 11-15; this matter will be addressed below.)
6) Our relationships with others. (Matt. 5: 22-26; 6: 14-15; 7: 1-2; 18: 23-35; Rom. 14: 10; Jas. 5: 9; more will be said about this topic in Chapter 8.)
7) Our conformity to God’s holy standards. (1 Cor. 6: 9-11; Gal. 5: 19-21; Eph. 5: 3-5)
Judgment upon the nature of our service
Item five above, the nature
of our service, deserves particular comment at this juncture. The Bible records that the work Christians do
to build up the body of Christ will be tested at the Bema. In the
third chapter of First Corinthians Paul addressed this matter. He declared that
he had laid the foundation of God’s building in
“But let each man
be careful how he builds upon it. For no
man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus
Christ. Now if any man builds
upon the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work
will become evident; for the day will show it, because it is to be revealed with fire; and the fire
itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work which he has built upon it
remains, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s
work is burned up, he shall suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as
through fire” (1 Cor. 3: 10b-15).
Page 60
The judgment will be a
testing time. The purging fires of God’s
judgment will test each believer’s work to see of “what
sort it is” (v. 13). One
sort is depicted by gold, silver and precious stones, signifying that work
produced by God’s working in and through the believer. These materials stand the test. The other materials (wood, hay and straw) are
consumed by the fire. These materials
signify the fleshly, natural works of man which do not build up, such as the
fleshly works of envy, strife and division noted in verses
three and four.
In principle, all work done
by man in the energy of the natural life, without God as its source, is fleshly
and unacceptable to God, no matter how good it may appear. That was the lesson of Saul in his attack on
Amalek (1 Samuel 15). Amalek represents the flesh of man impeding
his progress toward the good land. God
wanted the Amalekites totally destroyed, but Saul kept the best of the spoil,
that which was “good”, to offer to God. God
utterly rejected this. God wants the
totality of the old man crucified no matter how good or capable he may be (Gal. 2: 20; Phil. 3: 3-9). The one
whose work stands the test receives a positive reward. However, “if any
man’s work is burned up, he shall suffer loss” (v.
15).
The exact nature of this suffering of loss is not fully defined here, so
it is presumptuous of Bible teachers to say it simply means that the believer
will lose all positive reward. Actually,
the context contains a strong indication that the suffering of loss may involve
definite punishment, since Paul continues his warning to the Corinthians in the
next two verses as follows:
“Do
you not know that you are a
Here Paul must still be talking
about how the local church at
Paul is warning the
Corinthians that if any one of them is destroying the local church there
through fleshly work, that, in turn, “God will destroy
him”! W. E. Vine comments on the use of this verb in this verse as
follows: “With the significance of destroying, it is
used of marring a local church by leading it away from that condition of
holiness of life and purity of doctrine in which it should abide, 1 Cor. 3: 17 (KJV, ‘defile’), and of God’s retributive destruction of the offender who
is guilty of this sin”. 51
God’s destruction of the
believer here may well speak of ruin to the failed disciple
during the coming 1,000 year age, since in context the warning is closely
connected to the matter of the Judgment Seat. It cannot speak of eternal destruction,
escape from which is secured by grace.
Even the Holy Scripture here gives that assurance when it declares, “he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be
[finally, eternally] saved, yet so as
through fire” (1 Cor.
3: 15).
We have seen by the
foregoing categories of judgment that Christ’s future examination of believers
is very thorough. It touches our words,
our motives, our stewardship of material possessions, our faithfulness in the
use of our spiritual gifts, the nature of our service to God (fleshly or spiritual),
our relationships with others, our Page 61 conformity to God’s holy standards and, in summary, all of the deeds
done in the body (2 Cor.
5: 10).
Entry into the
Kingdom
Next, we need to look at
the most crucial determination that will be made at the Bema. After a
believer is examined there, Christ will decide if that believer will enter the
blessed, glorious realm of His 1,000 year Kingdom, or if the believer will be
denied entry. Entry or exclusion to the
coming Kingdom has been a dominant theme of this book. It was noted earlier that entry to that realm is the main subject
matter in the story of the rich young ruler.
Let us now examine the
eight portions of God’s Word (not counting duplicate Gospel narratives) where
the phrase “enter the kingdom” is mentioned in
the New Testament. We shall see that
seven of the eight portions have to do with works for entry into the
Sermon on the mount applicable to [‘disciples’ (5: 1, 2, R.V.) and regenerate] believers
The first two mentions of
entry into the coming Kingdom are found in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew.
Already, a few readers may be feeling uncomfortable because you have been
taught that the Sermon on the Mount is for the Jew, not the believer. Therefore, this matter must first be dealt with,
or some of you will not be able to receive the lessons presented to us in this
passage of Scripture. The view that
claims that the Sermon on the Mount does not apply directly to believers is one
that endorses an extremely rigid dispensationalist perspective. This school declares that everything before
the cross was “legal” and addressed to the Jew.
Lewis Sperry Chafer, a proponent of this view, says this concerning the Sermon on the
Mount: “As a rule of life, it is addressed to the Jew before
the cross and to the Jew in the coming Kingdom, and is therefore not now in
effect”. 52 One significant reason why Chafer and others were afraid to assign
direct application of the Sermon on the Mount to the believer involves the
matter of “works”. They feared that grace would be mixed with
law. However, as we have seen, it is
necessary to separate these two principles and apply them rightly. Because
these teachers did not see this distinction, and only had the believer under
the grace principle, they had no way of applying the Sermon on the Mount to [regenerate] believers. They
were honest with the context of the Sermon on the Mount and saw that the
righteousness required for entry into the Kingdom (Matt.
5: 20)
was not
imputed righteousness, but practical righteousness. Chafer
commented on this works aspect of the Sermon on the Mount as follows:
“All
the kingdom promises to the individual are based on human merit. ... It is a
covenant of works only and the emphatic word is do. ... as the individual forgives, so will he be
forgiven. And except personal righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the
scribes and Pharisees, there shall be no entrance into the kingdom of heaven.
To interpret the righteousness which is
required to be the imputed righteousness of God, is to disregard the teaching
of the context, ...” 53
Page 62
To thus discount the Sermon
on the Mount as not applicable to believers is itself, however, a significant
problem. As theologian George Ladd has stated: “It is immediately obvious that a system which takes this
greatest portion of Jesus’ teaching [The Sermon on the Mount] from the Christian in direct application must receive a
penetrating scrutiny”. 54
The reasons why we must
believe that the Sermon on the Mount is meant for Christians are as follows:
1) It was addressed to ‘disciples’ (Matt. 5: 1), learners and
followers of Christ.
2) Jesus’ teaching before the cross was not all “legal” or “law”. Although the Lord was certainly teaching righteous
requirements, it was not the Old Testament Law; neither was it taught to the
exclusion of grace. “The law and the prophets were proclaimed until John; since then
the gospel of the
3) The claim that the Sermon on the Mount was for the
unregenerate Jews before the cross and also for them in the Kingdom is
untenable. The demand for practical righteousness in the
Sermon on the Mount is higher than that presented under the Old Testament Law (Matt. 5: 20-48). How could unregenerate Jews be expected to
keep Jesus’ elevated standards when just the Law itself was a yoke they were
unable to bear (Acts 15: 10)? No
unregenerate person could be expected to obey the commands of the Sermon, for
its requirements exceed the Law, which God had given to prove to man his
inability to keep God’s standard, thus revealing to man his sinfulness (Rom. 3: 19-20).
L. S. Chafer
says that the other application of the Sermon on the Mount, indeed the main one
for him, is to show the conditions of life IN
the coming millennial Kingdom among the Jews.
This contention simply cannot be supported by the language in the
Sermon. There is no hint that the Sermon on the Mount is a prophecy depicting
life IN the coming Kingdom. To the contrary, it is clearly seen, by
normal understanding, to be an admonition to live a righteous life in order to ENTER the
coming Kingdom (Matt. 5: 20; 7: 21).
The verb in Matthew 5: 20 is
in the emphatic future negative: “For I say to you that
unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the
kingdom of heaven”. Here, the [‘disciples’] living of a
righteous life is seen as a condition
precedent to one’s entrance into the Kingdom, not as a depiction of
one’s living within the Kingdom.
4) Jesus
surely anticipated that the disciples He taught and trained for the three and
one-half years before the cross were going to be the very ones who would found
and instruct the church. In fact, He
laboured all night in prayer concerning the choice of His apostles for the
church (Lk. 6: 12-13). That
three and one-half years of teaching was not to be wasted by being only
marginally applicable to the church.
Page 63
Jesus did present things to
His people the Jews first (Acts 3: 25-26), but
upon their rejection of Him, the door was then open to the Gentiles to
participate with the believing Jews in the blessings of God (Rom. 11: 15-17). Before
the cross, and before His final rejection by the Jewish leaders, Jesus
anticipated Gentile participation in the coming Kingdom (Matt. 8: 10-13). The final and conclusive proof that Jesus
intended the Sermon on the Mount for the church is found in the great
commission at the end of Matthew’s gospel (the book which contains the Sermon
on the Mount):
“And
Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying,
‘All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on
earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all
the nations, baptizing them in the
name of the Father and the Son and Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I
commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to
the end of the age’” (Matt. 28: 18-20). (The emphasized words show that Christ’s
teaching in the Sermon on the Mount is to be taught to the church, not just to
Jews, and obeyed.)
Enter the Kingdom in Matt. 5: 20
Now let us return to the
task of looking at the eight passages explicitly using the term “enter the kingdom”. The first passage is Matthew 5: 20,
which has already been cited. Entry into
the coming Kingdom is a major theme of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5: 20; 6: 33; 7: 21). A
reading of the Sermon on the Mount reveals that the entire discourse entails Christ’s demands of practical righteousness upon the disciple. Faith and free gift are not seen. That is
because the millennial Kingdom is in view rather than eternal salvation by
grace.
Much of the Sermon on the
Mount deals with Christ’s raising of the standard of righteousness beyond the
Mosaic Law. The beatitudes touch matters
of the heart that were never mentioned in the do’s and don’ts of the Law (Matt. 5: 3-12). It is with such qualities of character that
we are to shine out our “good works” to the Father’s glory (Matt. 5: 16). Jesus
also deals not just with the outward act of murder, but with the inner attitude
of anger (Matt.
5: 21-26). Additionally, the righteousness that Christ
teaches goes beyond the Law’s prohibition of adultery and touches the root
problem of lust (Matt. 5: 27-30). He
uses the Old Testament standard of God relating to lawful retribution as a
springboard to deal with man’s inner problem of retaliation and unforgiveness (Matt. 5: 38-48).
Jesus’ teaching continues
as He exposes man’s outward piety for selfish purposes of recognition, and
advises that God only rewards worship and good deeds done in secret solely for
the Father’s glory (Matt. 6: 1-18). He
warns against greed and living for the enjoyment of self in this life (Matt. 6: 19-24). He deals with our anxious preoccupation with
our needs at the expense of seeking God’s Kingdom and His righteousness (Matt. 6: 25-34). In Chapter Seven, He exposes our
self-righteous and judgmental attitudes (Matt.
7: 1-5). He deals with our selfish mind-set, teaching
us to focus on meeting the needs of others (Matt.
7: 12).
These requirements of the
Sermon on the Mount are all exceedingly high.
Thus, the path of discipleship that ultimately “leads
to life” is narrow and constricted, and “few are
those who find it.” (Matt 7: 14).
Taking the narrow way that leads “to life”
is just another way Jesus portrayed qualifications
for entry into the coming Kingdom (see Matt. 19: 17, 23, 24).
Page 64
It is therefore obvious
that the Sermon on the Mount focuses on a practical righteousness that exceeded
the Mosaic standard. Thus, the first of our eight “entry”
passages reads: “For I say to you that unless your
righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5: 20).
Enter the Kingdom in Matt. 7: 21
The second “enter the kingdom” verse is Matthew
7: 21. “Not
everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom
of heaven; but he who does the will of My Father
who is in heaven.” How shall we understand this verse? According to the context, the doing of the
will of the Father must include the keeping of the righteous standards set
forth in the Sermon on the Mount; it must involve the walk along the narrow way
that leads to life. Jesus confirms this
when He states in conclusion just three verses later: “Therefore, everyone who hears these words of Mine, and acts upon them may be compared to a wise man, who built his house upon the rock” (Matt. 7: 24).
To do the will of the
Father is to keep His commandments, especially the teachings of Jesus in the
Sermon on the Mount. Again, we must note
that the whole surrounding context of Matthew 7: 21 is the doing of practical righteousness. Some in that day will address Christ, “Lord, Lord”. Are these false believers? “Lord” was the way Christ was addressed by His chosen
apostles (Jn. 13: 9, 13), and Scripture tells us that “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit”
[Of course, I am speaking of a sincere confession] (1
Cor. 12: 3).
Returning to the Sermon on
the Mount, Jesus highlights the possibility that the believer is genuine, but
his doing of God’s will is absent. To
interpret doing “the will of My Father” here as simply believing in Christ violates the
principle of interpretation according to the context. Nothing
in the context of the Sermon on the Mount remotely stresses trusting in Christ
or the gospel. Rather, its
conclusion is in hearing the words of Jesus and doing them; this is doing God the Father’s will.
Some interpreters may
argue, however, that the context shows those denied entry to the Kingdom in verse 21 are false believers (professors of Christ
but not possessors of [regeneration and] the
Spirit), since some are rejected by the Lord in verse
23 with the declaration, “I never knew you.” To understand this verse, let’s look
carefully at verses 21-23.
21 “Not everyone who says to Me,
‘Lord, Lord’, will enter
the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is
in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from
Me, you who practice lawlessness’” (Matt. 7: 21-23).
We can see in these verses
a picture of the Judgment Seat of Christ. “On that day”
(v. 21)
is the day of judgment. I believe it is
clear that verse 21 and verse 22 both speak of the same scene since both verses
depict people before the Lord confessing “Lord, Lord”,
with Christ in turn making a judgment upon them. It is significant to note Page
65 that almost all interpreters agree
that only believers will
appear at Christ’s Judgment Seat.
Verse 21 is a general statement by Jesus made as part of the
conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount.
Let us review the Sermon in order to see Jesus’ conclusion. After so
much admonition concerning doing righteousness (Matt.
5: 1
through 7: 12),
the Lord then concludes that there are two ways for the disciple: the narrow
way and the broad way. He then warns the
disciple that in his search to find the narrow way there will be false prophets
who will try to mislead the disciple (Matt. 7: 15-20). After
this warning, Jesus speaks of the coming judgment. It is at the coming judgment that the fate of
those who appear before Him will be decided relative to entry into the Kingdom.
On that judgment day,
people will appear before Christ and confess Him as “Lord”.
Christ makes a general statement in verse 21
about the judgment. He says that not
everyone who confesses Him as Lord will enter the
This interpretation is
marvellously confirmed when we study a parallel passage. Luke 6: 20-49 contains Christ’s discourse on the plain (Lk. 6: 17). This
message by Jesus mostly contains statements that are also found in the Sermon
on the Mount. If you read verses 46-49 in Luke 6, you will see these as a parallel to Matthew 7: 21-27. First
there is the confession “Lord, Lord”, and then there is Christ’s teaching concerning
the wise man building upon the foundation of the rock by hearing and doing
Christ’s words. Note how Luke 6: 46
reads: “And why do you call Me, Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say”? Therefore, “doing the
will of My Father” is hearing and obeying Christ’s words. In Luke 6:
46 Christ reveals that some may call Him Lord,
but not actually obey His words, thus denying His Lordship in practice, in their living
and conduct.
“I
never knew you”
Let us continue now with Matthew 7: 22-23. After
portraying the general judgment scene with two classes of persons saying “Lord, Lord” in verse 21, Christ reveals a more specific case in
the next two verses. He states that many will confess “Lord,
Lord” in that day and present to Him their works. Jesus rejects these persons by not only
saying “I never knew you”, but also by giving
His criticism of their doings, characterizing them as lawlessness.
It is crucial that we
really think about and come to a correct understanding of Jesus’ words “I never knew you.” Please take careful note of what He
does not say. He does not say to them, “You never knew Me”. If this faulty one appeared before Christ in
the day of judgment as merely a “professor” (a person
professing Christ, but with no genuine relationship with Him), it would seem
the Lord would judge him by saying something like, “you
claim to know Me by calling Me ‘Lord, Lord’, but you never really knew Me. You never had a genuine
relationship with Me. Depart from Me,
you unbeliever.” But the Lord did
not say this. Instead, He said “I never knew you”. The Lord spoke from His perspective, His “knowing” of the person, rather than the person’s Page
66 knowing of the Lord. Yet, actually speaking, doesn’t the Lord know
everyone thoroughly? Of course, He does
know everyone, even the secrets of their hearts (Jn. 2: 24; 1 Cor. 4: 5), but He
doesn’t have a vital spiritual union with all people.
The answer to the puzzle
lies in our understanding of the word “know” in
this passage. Every sound Bible
interpreter knows that a word must be interpreted according to its
context. If you look up a word in the
dictionary, it will usually have from two to five meanings. How does one know which meaning is intended
in any instance? One must look at the context where the word is used.
The word for know in this
verse is the Greek word ginosko. Of course, it can carry the usual meaning
of “know”, meaning to have knowledge of or to be
acquainted with. However, this word can
also mean to acknowledge or recognize in a certain sense. A standard Greek lexicon comments on the use
of this word in Matthew 7: 23 as follows: “acknowledge, recognize as that
which one is or claims to be ... I
have never recognized you Mt. 7: 23.” 55
Thinking of the word in
this way we can easily understand the passage.
The Lord has told us in verse 21 that
many will come to Him calling Him Lord, but He will deny them entry to the Kingdom because
they are not those who do the will of the Father. So we see the scene again in verse 22 as those coming to Jesus, calling Him
Lord and presenting their works as evidence of doing the Father’s will. At that point, Christ will respond to them
something like this: “You come to Me calling Me ‘Lord’ and claiming to be persons doing the will of
the Father. I have never
acknowledged you as such persons. Depart
from Me; you are those who practice
lawlessness.”
Jesus disapproves them
because He does not recognize
them as doers of
the Father’s will. Rather, He calls them
doers of “lawlessness”. Then, based upon this forecast of future
judgment, He tells His disciples in the next verse, “Therefore, everyone
who hears these words of Mine and acts
upon them, may be compared to a wise man
...” (Matt. 7:
24).
The problem with the
disapproved ones was that their works were not in accordance with the righteous
principles of God, as expressed in the words of Christ. Yes, they may have prophesied, they may have
cast out demons and even did some works of power. But they did these things in a way
disregarding the words of Christ (or the will of God).
Perhaps they did these
things to be noticed by men in violation of Matthew
6: 1.
Maybe they were greedy and did them for financial gain contrary to the
teaching in Matthew 6: 24. Some
ministers love the “wages of unrighteousness” (2 Pet. 2: 15) and some suppose that “godliness is a means of gain” (1 Tim.
6: 5). Perhaps some did their works for the Lord
Jesus with an attitude of pride (“I’m God’s man”),
rather than being poor in spirit (Matt. 5: 3). Perhaps they simply did things for the Lord,
using His name, but what they did was just according to their natural energy
and talent (“wood, hay
and straw”; 1 Cor. 3: 12). It is
possible for those who supposedly serve God to be deceived into thinking that
they are doing God’s will (Jas. 1: 22). It is even possible for believers to be
genuinely endowed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, yet they themselves may be
fleshly in their walk and use the gifts in a fleshly way. The church in Corinth is a proof of this (1 Cor. 1: 7; 3: 1-3; 6: 7-8; 11: 17-22; 13: 1-3; 14: 9-16; 20-28).
Page 67
Watchman Nee comments on
these crucial verses in Matthew 7: 21-23:
“Why
did the Lord say, ‘I never knew you’? The next sentence explains: ‘Depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness.’ Please remember that the Lord did not tell
them to depart from eternal life. In the
original Greek the meaning of workers of lawlessness is people who do not
follow the rules, keep the law, or abide by the regulations. In the eyes of God, to do evil does not mean
only to do bad things. It does not
matter how much one has done; as long as he has not hearkened to God’s demand,
His judgment, and His sovereign arrangements, it is evil in God’s eyes. If this word ‘lawlessness’ were translated as ‘evil’, as some versions have done, many would have the ground to
argue. The problem here is not a matter
of doing evil, but a matter of being unprincipled. What are the principles? The principles are God’s word. But what is God’s word? God’s word is God’s
will. If you are not doing the will of
God, no matter what you do, the Lord Jesus would say that you are lawless. Those who do things according to their own
self will have no part in the kingdom of the heavens. 56
The reward of
the kingdom of the heavens is based on the obedience of man. If one is not faithful while living on the
earth, though he will not lose eternal life, he will lose the kingdom of the
heavens. ...
First the Lord mentioned this matter in verse
21.
Following this, in verses 22 and 23, He explained the matter to us in the way of a
prophesy. There will be many, not only
one or two, who will not do the will of God. ...
Here the Lord Jesus tells us what will happen before the judgment seat. He says, ‘In
that day.’ Hence, this does not refer to today,
but to the future. There are many who
work hard but do not see the light of God in their lives. When the time of judgment comes, and when
Christ begins to judge from the house of God, those Christians will have light
for the first time. They will see that
they are off in their standing and in their living. 57
Verse 23: The Greek word for knew is the same as the word for acknowledge in Romans 7: 15. There, in Romans 7: 15, I
do not acknowledge means ‘I do not consider
[it] right.’
Here, I never knew you
may be translated ‘I never
approved of you’; that is, ‘I
never considered what you are doing as right.’”58
A great deal of space has
been devoted to this “enter the kingdom” portion
in the seventh chapter of Matthew because it is possibly the most commonly
misunderstood portion in the Gospels. As
a final confirmation as to the real truth presented here, here is one more
lexicon’s definition of ginosko
and two translations of Christ’s word “I never knew
you”. Ginosko: “In the sense of to know, as being what one is or professes
to be, to acknowledge, with the acc. (Matt. 7: 23).” 59 “Never have I acknowledged you” (Matt. 7: 23, The Emphasized New Testament: A New
Translation, J. B. Rotherham). “At no time did I
recognize you” (Matt. 7: 23, The Four
Gospels, E. V. Rieu).
Enter the Kingdom in Matt. 18: 3
The third New Testament
mention of “enter the kingdom” occurs in Matthew 18: 3.
Page 68
At that time the disciples
came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the
kingdom of heaven?” He called a little child and had him stand among
them. And He said, “I tell you the truth, unless
you change and become like little children, you
will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Therefore, whoever
humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven”
(Matt. 18:
1-4,
NIV).
There is an interesting
relevant background to the disciples’ question to Jesus. If one reads the
parallel passages in Mark 9: 33-37 and Luke 9: 46-48, it will be seen that the disciples had just
been having an argument among themselves concerning which one of them was the
greatest! In light of this, Jesus used the opportunity to show them the
character and holiness issues related to entering the future Kingdom. Robert Govett, the great teacher of the
Kingdom truths in the nineteenth century, comments as follows:
“The
apostles inquire of Jesus, ‘Who then is the greatest
in the kingdom of heaven?’ There had been a strife among them which of
them should be the greatest. Jesus
replies, ‘Except ye turn (Greek) and become as little children, ye shall not
enter into the kingdom of heaven:’ 18: 3. Is not that clear and startling? That
to apostles! ‘You are inquiring which of you will get the chief place in
the kingdom? I tell you, you will not enter it at all, unless you put away from you
these ambitious jostlings, these bitter strifes with
one another!’ Here, methinks, is the exclusion which I teach.” 60
Govett’s comment on
exclusion is in respect to a believer’s exclusion from participation in the
blessed realm of Christ’s 1,000 year Kingdom.
All of us who do not let the Holy Spirit put to death the
prideful and ambitious contentions within will find ourselves rejected by the
Lord Jesus Christ for entry into His Kingdom on the day of judgment.
Enter the Kingdom in Matt. 19: 23, 24
The fourth and fifth
instances of the phrase “enter the kingdom” are found
in the story of the rich young ruler (Matt. 19: 23-24; parallels: Mk. 10: 23-25; Lk. 18: 24-25). Of course, the reader is now thoroughly
familiar with the emphasis of this story.
The entire context of the story concerns the call to absolute discipleship. The lesson Jesus presented to His followers
was that unless one is willing to sell all (give up the enjoyment of the self
in this age) and follow Him, there would be no entry into the coming Kingdom. The
coming Kingdom was presented as a conditional reward for those who would leave
all to follow Him.
Enter the Kingdom in Mark
9: 47
The sixth mention of “enter the kingdom” is found in Mark 9: 47.
“If
your hand causes you to sin, ‘cut it off. It is better for you
to ENTER INTO LIFE maimed, rather than having two hands, to
go to hell [literally., ‘Gehenna’], into the fire that shall never be quenched -- where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.’
And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to ENTER LIFE lame, rather than having two feet, to
be cast into hell [literally, ‘Gehenna’],
into the fire that shall never be quenched -- where ‘their worm does not die,
and Page 69 the fire is not quenched.’ And if your eye
causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to ENTER
THE KINGDOM OF GOD with one eye, rather than
having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire -- where ‘their worm does not die, and
the fire is not quenched.’ For everyone will be
seasoned with fire, and every sacrifice will be
seasoned with salt. Salt is good, but if the salt
loses its flavour how will you season it? Have salt in
yourselves, and have peace with one another”
(Mk. 9: 43-50, NKJV,
emphasis added).
This fearful and amazing
passage is one that I suspect most teachers of eternal security prefer to
avoid! Why? Because escape from the fire
is linked to dealing with sin (works), not faith in Christ. And how can unbelievers be expected to deal with sin in their
lives? They can not be expected to since
they are slaves of sin (Jn. 8: 34; Rom. 6: 16-20). So, this is a word to disciples, not
unbelievers (Mk.
9: 31, 33, 38). It is
a word to those who already have a
relationship with Christ and have the potential power to deal with sin.
This portion of God’s Word
warns us that believers who are unrepentant and do not deal with sin in this
life will not enter the future
Enter the Kingdom in John
3: 5
The seventh verse to use
the term “enter the kingdom” (or here, “enter into the kingdom”) is John
3: 5.
“Jesus
answered and said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is
born again, he cannot see the
This passage has caused
difficulties for many expositors because it seems that baptism is here linked
with entry into the
Page 70
The stress in Jesus’
response to Nicodemus was the matter of a spiritual birth (in the human spirit)
by the Spirit of God. Jesus mentioned
the matter of being born five times in verses 3-8. We
interpret this birth to mean an entry into the present stage of the
The complication of this
passage comes in verse five when Jesus
speaks of “born of water and the Spirit.” But,
please note that Jesus mentions the water only once in the five references to
being born in this passage. He mentions
“born of the Spirit” three times. And, He seems to shorten His reference to being
“born of water and the Spirit” (v. 5) to just “born of the Spirit” in verses
six and eight.
It seems most natural,
considering that Jesus’ audience was only Nicodemus, that “water” refers to John’s baptism. John had been baptizing for some time and Nicodemus
was surely aware of it. It is doubtful
at that point that Nicodemus had undergone John’s baptism, because the
Pharisees later claimed that (to their knowledge) “no
one of the rulers or Pharisees has believed in Him.” (Jn. 7: 48). So, in
Jesus’ counsel to Nicodemus, He stated that John’s baptism was needed for this
new birth. What is John’s baptism? The Scripture terms it as a “baptism of repentance” (Acts
19: 4). Further, Luke tells us that John the Baptist
came “preaching a baptism of repentance for the
forgiveness of sins.” (Lk.
3: 3). This certainly does not mean that those who
were simply water baptized by John were forgiven. Only the blood of Christ can obtain
forgiveness (Rom. 3:
25; Eph. 1: 7; Heb. 9: 12-11-14, 22). No baptism can cleanse us (1 Pet. 3: 21). But,
John’s ministry did introduce Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin
of the world (Jn.1:
29).
John’s ministry was to “make ready the way of the Lord” (Lk. 3: 4), to introduce the One who would baptize with the
Holy Spirit (Lk. 3: 16). “I baptized you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me ... He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” (Matt. 3: 11). John’s
ministry announced the Kingdom and told
of the coming King of
The conclusion is that “water” in John 3: 5 really meant, to Nicodemus, that repentance was
needed on his part to recognize the Messiah and his need of Messiah’s
salvation. Nicodemus needed to accept
John’s baptism, which meant he would accept Jesus as the Messiah and as the One
who could take away his sins as the Lamb of God.
Page 71
If he would do so, that
would make the way for him to be born of the Spirit of God. Repentance in salvation is just the other
side of the coin of faith. It means to
have a change of mind about Jesus and our need to trust in Him alone for
salvation. It means turning from every
other confidence (such as the Pharisee’s confidence in their keeping of the
works of the Law) to trust (believe) solely in Jesus. The new spiritual birth still requires this
repentance, but to believe in Jesus really includes this change of mind. In the context of salvation, repentance
includes faith and faith includes repentance (Lk. 24: 47; Acts 10: 43; 11: 17-18). The two go together not as two separate
items, but as two aspects of one action.
It is at the moment of
belief that we pass from death to life (Jn. 5: 24; Rom. 3: 26. 5: 1-2). This
means that we are transferred into a new realm (the
Believer’s baptism follows actual belief in Christ, so water
baptism is simply an outward testimony of the inner faith and life we already
possess (1 Pet. 3: 21). It is normative for baptism to immediately
follow belief, and they are viewed together in the New Testament in the
conversion process (Acts 8: 12; 16: 14-15, 31-34). Entry
into the spiritual
Enter the Kingdom in Acts
14:22
The final verse using the
term “enter the kingdom” is Acts 14: 22:
“... strengthening the souls of the disciples,
encouraging them to continue in the faith, and
saying, ‘Through many tribulations we must enter
the kingdom of God’” (Acts 14: 22).
“Through many tribulations” strongly
implies faithful endurance through trials, without succumbing to the temptation
to quit or turn back (see 1 Thess.
3: 3). This thought is linked with the apostles’
exhortation to “continue in the faith” in the
same verse. Faithful endurance under hardship is a great theme in the Bible and has
much to do with the reward of the coming Kingdom.
The writer to the Hebrews
exhorted the wavering Hebrews to “remember the former
days, when, after
being enlightened you endured a
great conflict of suffering, partly, by being made a public spectacle through reproaches and tribulations,
... Therefore, do not
throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so
that when you have done the will of God, you may
receive what was promised” (Heb. 10: 32, 33, 35-36). This
passage in Hebrews connects faithful endurance through tribulations to the
coming reward in the Kingdom.
Also, Jesus Himself said, “No one, after putting his hand
to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (Lk. 9: 62). In
summary, Acts 14: 22
views entry into Page
72 the coming Kingdom as being at the end of the long path of faithful
endurance through tribulations.
These eight New Testament
passages using the term “enter the kingdom” do
not imply simple faith. No, rather we
see that they entail the following elements: practicing righteousness (Matt 5:
20), doing
the will of God (Matt. 7: 21), dealing with pride and ambition (Matt 18: 3), letting go of riches (used for self
indulgence) (Matt. 19:
23, 24), dealing with sin in the disciple’s life
(Mk. 9: 47), following
Christ in baptism (Jn.
3: 5),
and enduring faithfully through
tribulations (Acts 14: 22).
Therefore, entrance into
the coming Kingdom is a matter of works,
not of grace (gift). There are some teachers
who feel that overcoming (victorious) Christians will rule and reign with
Christ in the Kingdom, while defeated Christians will simply lose their reign,
but still be in the Kingdom realm with Christ.
Apparently, these teachers do not see the full extent of the coming
judgment upon believers. Subconsciously,
they may still be affected by the grace concept in relation to the Kingdom,
thinking God will be gracious to His children so as to at least allow them to
be in the blessed Kingdom realm. I truly
wish they were correct, but Scripture
will not allow me to agree with them.
God’s justice will be exercised at Christ’s Judgment Seat and every
person will be recompensed for their deeds.
Christ would not be just if He
gave a positive reward (participation in the glory and blessing of His Kingdom)
to a believer who lived a defeated life.
After reviewing all of
these requirements of obedience and endurance for Kingdom entry, the reader may
be overwhelmed by the demands presented.
Once again we need to be reminded that what is impossible with man is
possible with God (Matt. 19: 26). All of
these demands reveal our need to come to Him for His supply of grace and
strength. Paul stated, “I can do all things through Him
who strengthens me.” (Phil. 4: 13). Our source of the Christian life must be
Christ Himself. In union with Him, we
can overcome every obstacle, whether internal or external.
To be vitally “in Christ”, we need to daily draw near to Him with a
true heart in the Word and in prayer; furthermore, we need to have “our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience“ (Heb. 10: 22) , by sincerely confessing all of our
failures. Through such daily practices
we will find that we can indeed be in union with Christ and learn from Him,
growing in grace. The overcoming
Christian life is not that complicated or difficult if we can learn to contact
Him as our source. It is exceedingly
difficult, however, when we attempt to carry it out with our own energy.
Another entry into the Kingdom
Before we leave the matter
of entry to the Kingdom, we should note that there is another portion in the
Gospels where Jesus speaks explicitly of entry without using the exact wording
“enter the kingdom”.
“Then
they brought little children to Him, that He
might touch them, but the disciples rebuked
those who brought them. But when Jesus saw it, He was greatly displeased and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to Me, and do not forbid them; for of
such is the
This is an intriguing passage. It does not seem coincidental that this story
of Jesus’ encounter with the little children is recorded just before the story
of the rich young ruler in all three of the synoptic Gospels. In both encounters (with the children and
with the rich ruler), Jesus spoke of entering the
In one encounter the little
children were brought to Jesus; in the other, a young man came seeking
Him. In the first scene, very small
children with no capability came to Him and He received them. In the second scene, a very capable, vigorous
young man approaches Him. Jesus puts no
demand upon the children and rebukes those who hinder them. He makes it so easy for them to come to Him
and He receives them in His arms, blessing them. In contrast, to the rich young ruler, Jesus
makes the encounter difficult, raising the stakes beyond the man’s
capability. As respects the children,
the Kingdom is simply received at
a point in time. To the rich ruler, the
Kingdom will cost all that he has and includes the demand to follow Christ for
a life time. In the first scene, the
Lord declares that the
I believe the lesson is
this: The Kingdom which the “children” receive
(and thus enter) is the present Kingdom (the present stage of the
To the ruler, on the other
hand, Jesus required the highest price to be paid for the blessing of
inheriting eternal life (in the age to
come). This is the coming stage of
the Kingdom, manifested in the millennium,
granted according to works. It is
not a Kingdom received, but one “purchased” at a
great price. This is the Kingdom bestowed as a reward.
In these consecutive
accounts of the little children and the rich young ruler, God presents to us a
beautiful picture of the successive stages of the Christian life. The first stage is portrayed by the young
children. Here the new birth of the
believer is pictured, where one simply comes to Jesus and receives the Kingdom
by receiving Jesus (Jn.
1: 12; Col. 1: 13).
Following that, there is the call to discipleship in the believer’s
life. This call is pictured by the young ruler, showing a maturing one. This call to discipleship demands that the
maturing one give up all to follow Christ in order to enter the future
manifestation of the Kingdom. All
believers are indeed children of God.
But only some believers will meet the demands of total discipleship and
thus be rewarded with eternal life in the millennial Kingdom.
Page 74
Confession and
Denial at the Judgment Seat
The Bible reveals a
distinctive feature of the Judgment Seat of Christ in regard to the believer’s
entry or non-entry into Christ’s coming Kingdom. It involves our name being confessed by
Christ in approval, or us being denied by Christ in disapproval. Let’s look at several New Testament passages
in order to develop this concept.
Matthew 10: 32-33 and Luke 12:
8-9 are
sister passages concerning confession and denial. These verses occur in similar contexts. Matthew 10: 16-39 and Luke 12:
1-12 are
displayed below as the contexts of these verses.
16 “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; therefore be shrewd as serpents, and innocent as doves. 17
But beware of men; for
they will deliver you up to the courts, and
scourge you in their synagogues; 18 and you shall be brought before governors and kings for My
sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles.
19 But when they
deliver you up, do not become anxious about how
or what you will speak; for it shall be given
you in that hour what you are to speak. 20
For it is not you who speak, but it is the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you.
21 And brother will
deliver up brother to death, and a father his
child; and children will rise up against parents,
and cause them to be put to death. 22 And you will be hated
by all on account of My name, but it is the one who has endured to the end who will be
saved. 23 But whenever they persecute you in this city, flee to the next; for truly I
say to you, you shall not finish going through
the cities of
24 “A disciple is not above his
teacher, nor a slave above his master. 25 It is enough for the
disciple that he become as his teacher, and the
slave as his master. If they have called the head
of the house Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household! 26 Therefore do not fear
them, for there is nothing covered that will not
be revealed, and hidden that will not be known.
27 What I tell you
in the darkness, speak in the light; and what you hear whispered in your ear, proclaim upon the housetops. 28
And do not fear those who kill the body, but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body
in hell. 29 Are
not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not
one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. 30 But the very hairs of
your head are all numbered. 31 Therefore do not fear; you are
of more value than many sparrows. 32 Everyone therefore who shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven.
33 But whoever shall
deny Me before men, I will also deny him before
My Father who is in heaven.
34 “Do not think that I came to
bring peace on the earth; I did not come to
bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I came to set a man
against his father and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; 36 and a man’s enemies
will be the members of his household. 37
He who loves father or mother more than me is not
worthy of Me. 38 And he who does not take up his cross and follow after Me is
not worthy of Me. 39 He who has found his life shall lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake shall find it.”
(Matt. 10:
16-39)
Page 75
1 “Under these circumstances, after
so many thousands of the multitude had gathered together that they were
stepping on one another, He began saying to His
disciples first of all, ‘Beware of the leaven of
the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. 2 But there is nothing
covered up that will not be revealed, and hidden
that will not be known. 3 Accordingly, whatever you have
said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and
what you have whispered in the inner rooms shall be proclaimed upon the
housetops. 4 And
I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. 5 But I will warn you whom
to fear: fear the One who after He has killed
has authority to cast into hell; yes, I tell you, fear Him! 6 Are not five sparrows
sold for two cents? And yet not one of them is
forgotten before God. 7 Indeed, the very hairs of your
head are all numbered. Do not fear; you are of more value than many sparrows. 8 And I say to you,
everyone who confesses Me before men, the Son of Man shall confess him also before the angels of
God; 9 but he
who denies Me before men shall be denied before the angels of God. 10 And everyone who will
speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be
forgiven him; but he who blasphemes against the
Holy Spirit, it shall not be forgiven him.
11 And when they
bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not become anxious about how or what you should speak in
your defence, or what you should say; 12 for the Holy Spirit
will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.’” (Lk. 12: 1-12)
If you read the entire
Matthew passage carefully, you will see that the context reveals several
things. Please note that Jesus was talking
to His disciples in preparation for sending them out for ministry (Matt. 10: 5). However, Christ’s instructions eventually
blend into a prophetic forecast for the end time (Matt.
10: 17-23). That Matthew 10:
17-23 is
a prophecy of the end time given by Jesus is proven by the fact that the events
of that passage did not take place at the time the twelve disciples went
out. Also, most of the same forecast
events are mentioned in Jesus’ prophecy of the end time in Mark 13: 9-13. In this
way, Christ in His office of prophet (Deut. 18: 18)
followed the pattern of the Old Testament prophets. They would often speak of one event and in
the same speaking foretell another event that would occur centuries later. There would be no hint, however, in their prophesying
of the huge time gap between the two events (example: Isaiah prophesied of
events related to Christ’s first and second coming in one verse without a hint
of a huge time gap: Is. 61: 2).
Christ’s prophecy here
concerns the end time trauma of the believers. (Believers will be here during
the great tribulation and during the troublesome time of birth pangs preceding
it. The “rapture”
debate will not be engaged here. Please
note, however, that even the pre-tribulation rapturists hold that many people
will become believers after the rapture event and will live on the earth during
the turbulent times just before Christ’s open appearing).
During the difficult end
time days, believers will be delivered up to courts (Matt.
10: 17),
being betrayed even by their families (Matt.
10: 21).
At that time, they should not fear the officials of the tribunals that may kill
them; rather, they should fear disobeying God (Matt.
10: 28).
These persecuted disciples (Matt. 10: 24-25) should be faithful to take up the cross and
follow Jesus (10: 38),
thus losing the soul (10: 39). They may have Page 76 to follow Christ all the way to physical death (Matt 10: 21, 28), just as Christ obeyed the Father by going to
the cross.
When these disciples are
before the courts (Matt. 10: 17, 19), they should not fear their inquisitors (10: 28, 31), because God is watching over them,
acknowledging their sacrifice, even as He watches a sparrow fall to its death (10: 29). Before
the court they should speak by the Spirit of God (Matt.
10: 20)
and not fear to confess Christ (10:
32).
To confess Christ then will probably mean death, but, as a result,
Christ will confess the name of such a disciple before the Father (Matt. 10: 32). The
disciple who endures in following Christ in this way to the end shall be saved
(Matt. 10: 22), which
would be the salvation of his soul (10: 39) in the
Kingdom, granted at the Judgment
Seat.
The confession of Christ here,
which is the acknowledgment by the believer that he is a follower of Christ, is
just the final test of the believer’s faithful endurance in obedience to
Christ. The disciple will have followed
Christ before that time. His testimony
will eventually lead to his betrayal, and he will be brought before the
court. As he stands there in that final
climactic moment, he can decide to deny Christ and be spared the sentence of
death, or to confess Christ and accept death.
We see, therefore, that
this confession is just the final link in the chain of obedience that the
disciple has forged through the days and years gone by. It signifies his utmost willingness to obey,
and it testifies to his prior endurance in discipleship. If the disciple denies Christ then, however,
Christ will deny him before the Father (Matt.
10: 33).
The passage in Luke is
generally the same. Please note, however, that the confession or denial by
Christ in these verses is not “before the Father”
(Matt. 10: 32-33), but “before the angels of God” (Lk. 12: 8-9). This change leads us to yet another passage, Revelation 3: 5,
where the resolution is presented, when Christ says of the overcomer in
Faithfulness Needed
to Enter the Kingdom
With these two different
cases (the singular case presented in the two Gospels and the case in
Revelation) resulting in Christ’s confession, it seems that we are moving
toward a general principle. Such a
principle was apparently formulated into a saying in the early church as
recorded in Second Timothy:
“It
is a trustworthy statement: For if we died with
Him; we shall also live with Him; if we endure, we
shall also reign with Him; if we
deny Page 77 Him, He also will deny us; if we
are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself” (2
Tim. 2: 11-13).
In introducing this
statement in verse 10, Paul was indicating
that he was enduring “all things for the sake of those
who are chosen, that they also may obtain the
salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory.” I believe the salvation referred to here is the full scope of salvation available
to the believer, including the salvation of the soul to be experienced by the
overcoming believer during the millennium. This interpretation is confirmed
by the trustworthy statement (vs. 11-13).
The glory here (v. 10) is modified by the adjective aionios. To
always translate this word as “eternal” is a
great mistake. The word is derived from aion (age). Thus, it can mean “belonging
to the aion”. 61 In some cases it can mean eternity (referring to the
“age” of eternity), but in many cases it means “age lasting,” in reference to the millennial age. 62 The glory in
this verse is the glory of the coming 1,000 year Kingdom age. The “trustworthy
statement” (v.11) contains conditional promises. Reigning with Christ is shown to
be conditional. “If we endure (following Christ in obedience), we shall also reign with Him (in His 1,000 year
Kingdom)” (v. 12). However, “if we deny Him (deny His ruling in
our lives or refuse to confess Him), He also will deny us” (that is, not acknowledge us
before the Father and His angels) (v. 12).
The scene with God the
Father and His angels is the scene of the Judgment Seat (Dan. 7: 9-10; Rev. 4: 3-5; 5: 11). The Son of Man is there (Dan 7: 13; Rev. 5: 6-7). We will appear before Christ to be judged
according to our deeds (2 Cor.
5: 10),
and will have to give an account (Lk.
19: 15; Rom. 14: 10-12). At that time, it seems, Christ will either
confess our name or deny us. If He
confesses our name, that means He has accounted us worthy of the Kingdom and we
may enter it (Matt. 25:
21; Lk. 19: 17; 2 Tim. 2: 12a). On the other hand, if we have not been
faithful, He will deny us. That is, He
will not acknowledge us as being worthy of the Kingdom. We will be denied entry
into the Kingdom.
This denial is seen in
Christ’s reply to those who claimed they did many things in His name: “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from
Me, you who practice lawlessness’” (Matt. 7: 23). In context,
this scene concerns Kingdom entry (Matt. 7: 21).
The denial is also seen in
the case of the foolish virgins who did not gain the extra measure of oil. 63 “And while they were going
away to make the purchase, the bridegroom came,
and those who were ready went in with him to the
wedding feast; and the door was shut. And later the other
virgins also came saying, ‘Lord, Lord open up for us.’ But he
answered and said, ‘Truly, I say to you, I do not know
you’” (Matt. 25:
10-12).
This denial is also manifested
toward those who did not strive to enter by the narrow door (signifying
diligent preparation for entry into the coming Kingdom): “He will say, ‘I tell you,
I do not know where you are from; depart from Me, all you
evildoers’” (Lk.
13: 27). These rejected ones are “cast out” of the Kingdom (Lk. 13: 28). These three instances give actual words of denial, but there are
other cases in Scripture that show the fact
of denial (i.e., Matt. 22: 11-14; 25: 30; Lk. 19: 26).
The matter of the Judgment Seat
is definitely implied in the story of the rich young ruler. Jesus’ call to the
young ruler to forsake all and follow Him deals with the Page
78 issue of entering the
Kingdom. It is this entry into the coming Kingdom that is of the greatest
importance at the Judgment Seat of Christ.
Many may be curious to know
more details. Will those believers who
enter the Kingdom reign in heaven over the earth or upon the earth? Some teachers believe that the overcoming
saints will reign over the earth from the New Jerusalem (termed the “Kingdom of the Heavens”), while the saved remnant of
Israel and the approved surviving Gentiles (not actually “born again”) will be on the earth (Matt. 25: 32-34). Other teachers see it differently.
I am not sure of these details
and I will leave them for others to explore.
My burden is simply to show that there is a participation in the coming
glorious Kingdom that can be gained or lost by the [regenerate]
believer. And, regardless of whether the
overcoming saints are in an earthly or a heavenly part of the Kingdom, the
primary aspect of this rewarding experience will be the same. The chief characteristic of the Kingdom
reward for the overcomers will be the experience of the fullness of God’s life (see
Chapter Four).
Therefore, this Kingdom holds immense value and purpose for every child of
God. It is the prize for which Paul ran
with self-control (1 Cor.
9: 24-27). It is
the prize toward which he pressed (Phil. 3: 14). It is also the great Sabbath rest which we
must enter through diligence (Heb. 4: 9, 11). The great
prospect of entering the Kingdom, then, should capture the attention of every
believer. Our eyes should be fixed on
this goal. Our daily living and our service to God should all be directed and restricted
by our view of the coming judgment and the coming Kingdom. Indeed, it was these very matters that
governed Paul’s final charge to Timothy in the last chapter of his inspired
writings (2 Tim. 4:
1). May we take heed and watch ourselves, so
that we may be counted “worthy of the kingdom” (2 Thess. 1: 5).
* *
*
Page 79
Page 81
CHAPTER
8
THE JUDGMENT SEAT
OF CHRIST - PART II
After His encounter with
the young ruler, Jesus told His disciples about the Kingdom reward that awaits
everyone who leaves houses, farms and family for His sake. But what about those believers who do not
give up all to follow our Lord? What
awaits them at Christ’s Bema? We saw that they forfeit the blessing and
glory of the Kingdom. However, there are some further details yet to be seen
concerning this.
The Scripture also tells us
of other issues, besides Kingdom exclusion, that come out of Christ’s judgment
of believers. We need to look at these
other issues. Why? Because they are rarely ever taught, and yet
they relate directly to our future welfare.
Surely, we should have a desire to know the truth about our future,
especially if it is significant truth.
Our actions today will influence our welfare tomorrow. So please approach this chapter with prayer,
an open mind, and a willingness to see what the Bible really says. “If you abide in My word, then
you are truly disciples of Mine; and you shall
know the truth, and the truth shall make you
free” (Jn. 8: 31-32).
It is at the Judgment Seat
where the consequences of the life we have lived as believers is decided. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ,
that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the
body, according to what he has done, whether
good or bad” (2 Cor.
5: 10). If the deeds done were good or bad, then the
appropriate recompense can be good or bad.
To argue otherwise is illogical and defeats any true judgment according
to works. “Shall
not the Judge of all the earth deal justly” (Gen.
18: 25)? All of the many passages in the New Testament
that deal with the potential future rewards, positive and negative, can not be
covered here in detail. I can introduce
the reader, however, to many of these verses in this chapter in the hope that
it will stimulate you to search further.
It is your future.
Sharing Authority
with Christ
As previously stated, the
important most important characteristic of the future Kingdom for the
overcoming believer will be his experience of the fullness of the life of
God. A second outstanding feature for
these blessed believers will be the investiture of responsibility by Christ to
reign as his fellow rulers during that age. Human beings were created to be
productive and to rule over God’s creation (Gen.
1: 26).
Those believers who have
proven faithful to Christ in this age in various ways will be rewarded with
rulership in the next age. We see this
truth in a number of Scriptures. In Matt. 25: 21, 23 (as well
as in Lk. 19: 17, 19) the good and faithful slaves are given
authority over many things (in Luke, authority over cities). The faithful slave in Matt. 24: 47 was put “in charge of
all his [the master’s] possessions.” The
martyred overcomers who refuse to worship the beast or to receive his mark also
reign with Christ for 1,000 years (Rev. 20: 4).
Page 82
To the overcoming saints in
Thyatira, the Lord Jesus promises: “And he who
overcomes, and he who keeps My deeds until the
end, to him I will give authority over the
nations.” (Rev. 2: 26) This promise finds its fulfilment in the
millennium, as do all the promises to the overcomers in the seven churches of Revelation 2 and 3. The overcomer in the church of Laodicea, who
responds to the Lord’s call to abandon lukewarmness and “buy” (pay a price for) genuine spiritual experience,
is similarly promised future authority: “He who
overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with
Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down
with My Father on His throne.” (Rev. 3: 21) In
summary, “If
we endure, we shall also reign with Him.”
(2 Tim. 2:
12)
Particularly worthy of
comment under this heading are the five crowns that can potentially be awarded
to believers. A crown is a symbol of one
having authority, ruling over a certain kingdom. Watchman
Nee comments that “a crown represents a position
in the Kingdom.” 64 Each of these five crowns is awarded to a believer based upon some
aspect of the believer’s faithfulness in the Christian life.
The imperishable crown
“Do
you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way
that you may win. And everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control
in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an
imperishable. Therefore I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way,
as not beating the air; but
I buffet my body and make it my slave, lest
possibly, after I have preached to others,
I myself should be disqualified” (1 Cor. 9: 24-27).
Paul presented this crown
as one to be gained only by the successful runner, not by all in the race. It is awarded on the basis of self-control,
especially the keeping in control the body from which sin so easily emanates (
To live one’s life in
self-control, with victory over the sinful passions of the flesh, is surely a
great accomplishment worthy of a certain honour being bestowed by God. Let us be spurred by this prospect and not
give in to our passions, but instead put to death the deeds of the body by the
Spirit (Rom. 8:
13).
Of course, even as we learn the way of victory by the Spirit we will
have some failures. These failures can
be erased from our record through confession and the cleansing blood of the
Lord Jesus. (1 Jn.
1: 9)
The crown of rejoicing
“For
what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing?
Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord
Jesus Christ at His coming?” (1 Thess. 2: 19, NKJV)
This crown is awarded on the
basis of fruitful labour for the Lord in the lives of others. According to the context of First
Thessalonians Chapter Two, this labour includes the sharing of the gospel (vs. 2, 4), as well as the shepherding of others in order
to prepare them for the coming Kingdom (2: 7-12). Our joy in the next age will be Page
83 especially magnified if we are
those who help others to know the Lord and to grow in Him.
The crown of righteousness
“In
the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous
Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also
to all who have loved His appearing” (2 Tim.
4: 8).
This crown is given to
those who love His appearing. Do you
yearn for the Lord’s appearing, or are you indifferent? Do you watch for the Lord’s appearing or is
His coming just a doctrinal matter to you?
Also, in context, I believe that the matter of the Lord’s appearing was
an incentive to Paul for righteous living and proper service (2 Tim. 4: 1), and, therefore, he fought the good fight,
finished the course and kept the faith (4: 7). Based
upon Paul’s righteous living, motivated by his love of the Lord’s appearing, he
was assured of being awarded a crown of righteousness
by a righteous Judge. What a marvellous recognition by the Lord in
that Day! All who are living righteously
in anticipation of His return will be awarded special position and
responsibility in Jesus’ Kingdom.
The crown of life
“Blessed
is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he
has been approved, he will receive the crown of
life, which the Lord promised to those who love
Him” (Jas. 1:
12). “Do not fear
what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to
cast some of you into prison, that you may be
tested, and you will have tribulation ten days.
Be faithful
until death, and I will give you the crown of
life.” (Rev. 2:
10)
This age is an age filled
with trials and tribulations (Jn.
16: 33). All
kinds of troubles can afflict us: sickness, the death of loved ones, poverty,
dealings with difficult people and situations of all types, and even
persecution for our faith. The
experience of these trials could cause us to lose heart and wane in our love
for the Lord and our service to Him.
But, amazingly, some believers grow in their love and single-minded
devotion to Him in spite of all these things.
There is a coming day of reward when Christ will reward all these
suffering ones who have remained steadfast.
What an encouragement and incentive this should be for believers
undergoing tribulation!
This crown is promised to
the believer who remains faithful under trial and does not succumb to it. He loves the Lord in spite of his trial and
does not become bitter. And it is his
love for his Lord that keeps him faithful.
The crown of glory
“Shepherd
the flock of God among you, exercising oversight
not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God;
and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness; nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory”. (1 Pet. 5: 2-4).
The crown of glory is a
reward presented to the genuine, faithful, godly and pure shepherds of the
flock. They have a pure desire to see
others grow in the Lord. They Page
84 sacrifice their time, their money
(Acts 20: 33-35), their energy and even their lives to see
believers progress with Christ. They do
this out of love, and out of the Lord’s will, not out of selfish desires. A special reward of glory awaits them for
such a caring life. But, all of those
who have claimed to be shepherds, yet do not meet these exacting requirements, will
be disqualified.
D. M. Panton
comments on the conditional nature of any crown’s award:
That a crown may
be lost to a believer is as certain as any truth in the Holy
Scripture. “hold fast that which thou hast, that no one take thy crown” (Rev. 3: 11).
For crowns are rewards, not given unless the conditions are fulfilled. “If also a man contend in the games, he is NOT CROWNED, except he have contended lawfully” (2 Tim. 2: 5). As God has made holiness the passport to the crown, so the crown
is only the manifestation of the holiness.
A crown is given, not at the beginning of a race, but at the end; it is
the circlet of glory granted only to the successful runner; and a successful
runner is an athlete who has carefully observed the regulations of the race. 65
Degree of reward in the
coming Kingdom can vary. As respects
crowns, some believers may be awarded one crown and others may receive
several. From the parable of the minas (Lk. 19: 11-27), we see that one faithful believer gained ten
minas from one mina and was given authority over ten cities. Another faithful believer gained only five
minas and was given authority over five cities.
Also, those who are persecuted and falsely accused on account of Jesus
will receive a great reward
in the Kingdom (Matt. 5: 11-12), as will those who love their enemies and do
good to them (Lk. 6: 35). The great reward is in
distinction from a more common reward (Matt.
6: 1-6).
The Outer Darkness
In the last chapter we saw that
some believers will be denied entry to Christ’s coming Kingdom. We also
discussed this matter somewhat in Chapter Five
under the heading, “Salvation from loss and ruin
during the millennium to the enjoyment of Christ’s millennial Kingdom”.
There, we looked at the parable of the talents (Matt.
25: 14-30). In that parable we see that the lazy slave
does not enter the joy of His master (i.e., the Kingdom) like the faithful
slaves did (Matt. 25:
21, 23). Rather, the master (the Lord) judges the
slothful slave by taking away his stewardship (vs.
28-30),
and having him “cast out”. “And cast out the worthless slave into the outer darkness,
in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of
teeth” (v. 30).
The phrase “the outer darkness” is used three times in Scripture (Matt. 8: 12; 22: 13; 25: 30). It
seems to be implied also in Luke 13: 28 where the rejected ones are “cast out” of the Kingdom. All of the four references cited depict the
place of outer darkness as one where the inhabitants experience “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” The Lord Jesus used this picture of being
cast out into the outer darkness as an illustration of exclusion from His
millennial Kingdom. G. H. Lang, one of the great expositors of the twentieth century,
explains the use of this illustration and its impact on the excluded one:
A too little
considered feature of the three references to “outer darkness” is that each
pictures a house of feasting. ... In Matthew 25 Page
85 the lord of the house
has returned thither from his journey, which is to be celebrated as a time of
joy, implying a feast; it is to share this joy of their lord that the faithful
servants are welcomed, whereas the unfaithful man is cast into outer
darkness. In the second instance the man
is bound hand and foot.
This element of
the one picture really gives the clue to the interpretation, when it is
remembered that in the East such a festivity usually took place at night.
Staying in a native quarter in
It were but an
event to be expected that an Oriental despot, of royal or lesser rank, if
offended with one of the slaves, should order that he be bound and thrown into
the garden. There the unfortunate man, with common Eastern emotionalism, would
bewail the dark and the cold, and the danger from hungry dogs and jackals, and
would gnash his teeth at being deprived of the pleasures forfeited…
It is outside
the kingdom of heaven when pictured as the temporary festivity at the return of
the Lord of the house or as the wedding feast of the son of the house. It is
marked by loss of liberty (bound hand and foot), by forfeiture of privilege (the “joy of the lord”), by decrease of knowledge
(the pound withdrawn), by deprivation of
service and reward (“have
thou authority”). It will be
healthful that these solemn elements
weigh upon our minds and warn and stimulate, though where and how the realities they picture will be experienced may
not be known. 66
The Judgment upon
the Household Slaves
Now we come to the matter
of specific negative judgments rendered to the believer at the Bema. I have already mentioned Kingdom
exclusion and its correlative term, “outer darkness”. Beyond Kingdom exclusion, certain varying chastisements are possible
for the disobedient believer. One of the clearest and most forthright
passages concerning these chastisements is in Luke Chapter Twelve.
35 “Be dressed in readiness,
and keep your lamps alight. 36 And be like men who are
waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast, so that they may immediately open the door to him when he
comes and knocks. 37 Blessed are those slaves whom the master shall find on the
alert when he comes; truly I say to you, that he will gird himself to serve, and have them recline at the table, and will come up and wait on them. 38 Whether he comes in the
second watch, or even in the third, and finds them so, blessed are
those slaves. 39 And be sure of this, that if
the head of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he Page 86 would not have allowed his house to be broken
into. 40 You
too, be ready; for
the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not expect.”
41 And Peter said, “Lord, are You addressing this
parable to us, or to everyone else as well?”
42 And the Lord said,
“Who then is the faithful and sensible steward, whom his master will put in charge of his servants, to give them their rations at the proper time? 43 Blessed is that slave
whom his master finds so doing when he comes. 44
Truly I say to you, that
he will put him in charge of all his possessions. 45 But if that slave says
in his heart, ‘My master will be a long time in
coming,’ and begins to beat the slaves, both men and women, and to eat
and drink and get drunk; 46 the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not
expect him, and at an hour he does not know,
and will cut him in pieces, and assign him a place with the unbelievers. 47 And that slave who knew
his master’s will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, shall receive many lashes, 48
but the one who did not know it, and committed deeds worthy of a flogging will receive but few.
And from everyone who has been given much shall much be
required; and to whom they entrusted much,
of him they will ask all the more” (Lk. 12: 35-48).
In verse
41 Peter had inquired to whom the Lord intended to apply His parable
concerning being “dressed in readiness” (Lk. 12: 35-40). This
parable speaks of the disciple’s need to
be prepared for the Lord’s sudden return. It is important to note the story
that Jesus used for the lesson. The parable involves slaves who are waiting for
their master’s return. The Lord said that those slaves who were on the alert and ready for the master’s return would be
blessed.
To whom, then, Peter asked
in verse 41, is this matter of readiness for
the master’s return addressed? In His answer, Jesus spoke of the “faithful and sensible steward” whom the master has put
in charge of “his servants”. Jesus is talking
about the servants of His household. We see, therefore, that Jesus’ answer to
Peter’s question (v.41)
picks up the same theme as the parable Jesus had just spoken: the readiness of
the household slaves for their master’s return.
In verses
42-46, Jesus is addressing those in charge
of the household service, that is, the
leaders among the servants. So,
Jesus intended this portion of His answer to
apply to Peter and other leaders.
After dealing with the leaders, I believe verses
47 and 48 (beginning with “And that slave ... ) declare a general principle applying to all the servants of the
household. Surely Christ’s word to
be ready for His return is intended for every [regenerate] believer, for every “slave”
in His service. So Jesus, in His reply
to Peter, indicates that His word concerning readiness applies to all of the
slaves of His household, but He has a particular word to the leaders concerning
this matter. This is because leadership
always carries a unique responsibility (Heb.
13: 17).
In studying this portion of
God’s Word, we should first recognize that in the New Testament God only
considers believers as His slaves. Only
those who belong to Him does He entrust with service to Him. Some stewards He puts “in charge” of His household service. If these leaders faithfully feed the flock (Lk. 12: 42), then
they will be blessed when the Lord comes and will be given great responsibility
(vs. 43-44). Note, however, that verse
45 begins “but if that slave”. This indicates that the same slave (a leader) can either
faithfully feed the flock or mistreat the flock. A second slave, a “false”
Page 87 slave, is not
introduced. It is the same slave, but with a different attitude. This slave is now
seen as thinking his master’s return is delayed (Jesus’ coming again) and begins to mistreat his “fellow slaves” (Matt.
24: 49). Also, he starts to eat and get drunk. This signifies his indulgence in the pleasures of this world.
Luke 12: 46 graphically
tells what will happen to such a leader.
The Lord’s return will catch him by surprise, and Christ’s judgment upon him will be to “cut him
in pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers.” I cannot
explain to you what all of this means specifically. Please note that the word translated “unbelievers” very possibly instead means “unfaithful” here (see RV and AMP). It seems a mistake to reduce the obvious severity of
the Lord’s language (“cut him in pieces”--
literally, cut in two) to something like a
strong rebuke. I do believe the
Lord’s words indicate severe
chastisement. If God inflicts
judgmental sickness and death in this age (1 Cor. 11: 28-32), then He
can inflict genuine and significant chastisement upon His return. Some have attempted to explore the exact
meaning and details of the Lord’s judgments here, but I will not attempt to do
so. The “cutting
in two” may indeed be literal, but it does not have to be since the
beating in verse 45 is most probably not
literal. 67
Continuing on to verses 47 and 48,
we see the Lord’s pronouncements upon any slaves in His service, which are in
relation to knowing and doing His will.
The slave who knows the Lord’s
will and is disobedient receives “many lashes”. It seems doubtful that these “lashes” are literal, but since a whipping is the
illustration of the story, then the reality must also be “painful”.
Also, just as “ignorance of the law” is no excuse in the human
court, so ignorance of God’s will is no
reason for escape from chastisement in the heavenly court. The slave who is disobedient due to ignorance
receives a few lashes. Why will Christ
discipline the disobedient? He tells us
at the end of verse 48: it is a matter of stewardship and responsibility. Slaves are responsible to their master to
carry out their duties. At the Bema, Christ’s believers
are judged under the status of “slaves”
(servants), not “sons”.
Once again we see that preparation for the Lord’s coming judgment is related to obedience to
His will. Leaders must be
obedient in their calling.
Additionally, every Christian is
responsible to know and do God’s will.
This word should be a real
warning to us. We should be those
slaves of our Lord who study God’s Word
and listen for His voice so that we may know His will. Then, by His grace, we should live by faith
and be a doer of the Word, not a hearer
only.
Gehenna
There is another series of
verses that also constitutes a serious warning of possible future judgment upon
disobedient believers. These we may call “Gehenna
truths”, because of their reference to a place termed Gehenna. I expect that almost every reader will be
shocked at the idea that a judgment involving Gehenna could apply to a [regenerate]
believer. This in not a novel
interpretation, however, originated by this writer. There are several other
Christian teachers that I know of who have endorsed this truth (see the endnote). 68 Gehenna is a valley situated outside of
Page 88
Again, in regard
to the penalties -- in ordinary language, “the Judgment” and “the Council” were names given to the local Jewish Courts, which had
cognizance of minor offenses, and to the Supreme
Court, or Sanhedrim, at Jerusalem, respectively; while the Hell of Fire --
literally, the Fiery Valley of Hinnom -- indicated a prerogative of the
Sanhedrim, by which they were able to order that the body of an executed
criminal should be conveyed to the Valley of Hinnom, and there be cast, amid
the sewage of the city and every kind of offal and corruption, into one of the
numerous fires which were kept ceaselessly burning for the purpose of consuming
the filth. 69
Gehenna, a fiery valley, is a picture (an illustration)
of a future severe judgment. It
seems unlikely to me that this judgment is literally carried out in the
The Greek word Gehenna has
its derivation from the Hebrew term Ge-Hinnom, which
literally means the “
The translators should have
simply translated the word as Gehenna, or the “
The question arises,
however: Is Gehenna equivalent to the “lake of fire”
(Rev. 19:
20; 20: 10, 14, 15; 21: 8)? In answering this question, the first obvious
observation is: If these places are identical why would the New Testament use
two different terms? We should also note
that all of the New Testament Gehenna verses are directed toward God’s people, either toward the disciples ([regenerate] believers), or toward the Jews. The “lake of fire”
verses are directed toward unbelievers. Believers can be “cast into” Gehenna (Mk.
9: 47).
However, the Bible never explicitly says believers can be “cast into” the lake of fire. T he Scripture does
definitely indicate that unbelievers will be cast into the lake of fire (Matt. 25: 41 -- cf. Rev. 20: 10; 12-15).
It is important to note that
rabbinical thought at Christ’s time identified the judgment of Gehenna with a
punishment upon sinners. In his classic
work The
Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Alfred Edersheim describes for us the teachings on Gehenna in the
two schools of Jewish theology that were existent in Christ’s day. 70 Both schools considered Gehenna as a place of
punishment. This thought was probably
derived from an eschatological (end-time) extension of Jeremiah’s prophecy on
Gehenna (Jer. 7: 30-31), or from the judgments of Gehenna that were
placed upon Page 89 certain dead criminals by the Sanhedrin. Both schools viewed Gehenna
as a place for certain classes of sinners (including the Jews), with one class
suffering temporal punishment there and another class suffering eternal
punishment.
Therefore, when Jesus spoke
of the future punishment of Gehenna, this would not have been a new theological
thought to His audience. Also, the minds
of the hearers were conditioned to consider that such a punishment could be
temporary or eternal in nature. With such a range of possibilities presented
for Gehenna by the Rabbis, we must look to Jesus’ usage of the term and to
Scripture to truly understand the term.
New Testament references to Gehenna
The first Gehenna verse to
consider is Matthew 5: 22: “But I say to you that
everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court;
and whoever shall say ‘Raca,’ shall be guilty
before the supreme court [literally, the Sanhedrin]; and whoever shall say, ‘You
fool,’; shall be guilty enough to go into the
fiery hell [literally, Gehenna].” This warning word is addressed
to disciples (Matt. 5:
1) in the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus was dealing with the sin of anger within us.
As a picture of governmental
judgment upon such sin, Jesus used the Jewish justice system of that day. The first judgment is at the gate and is a
local jurisdiction. The second judgment concerns a more serious offence, and is
one handled by the Sanhedrin, the highest tribunal among the Jews. The third and gravest offence was calling
someone “stupid” or a “fool”,
which is a more serious term of contempt than “Raca”. According to the verse, this offence
deserves a sentence of Gehenna, which could be passed upon a dead person’s body
by the Sanhedrin.
After the threats of
judgment in verse 22, Jesus immediately gave
the lesson of application for the disciples in verses
23 through 26. That these verses constitute the lesson is
seen by the use of the word “therefore” in verse 23.
23 If therefore you are
presenting your offering at the altar, and there
remember that your brother has something against you, 24 leave your offering
there before the altar, and go your way; first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and present your offering. 25 Make friends quickly
with your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, in order that your opponent may not deliver you to the judge,
and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. 26 Truly I say to you, you shall not come out of there, until you have paid up the last cent. (Matt. 5: 23-26)
For His Jewish audience,
Jesus used the picture of presenting the offering at the altar in verse 23.
This picture has its realization in the New Testament believer’s
experience when he comes forward to God in prayer at the throne of grace. If there the believer realizes his brother is
offended with him (due to him calling him “Raca”, or a “fool”),
he needs to immediately leave his prayer closet and seek out his brother in
order to be reconciled. Then he can return to his prayer time with God.
The lesson continues in verse 25. The “opponent”
is the offended brother. The figure of
being with your opponent on the way to the judge is explained by Pember:
Page 90
What follows is,
apparently, taken from the usual mode of procedure in Roman Law, which was, of
course, supreme in
The application is simply
this: We need to be reconciled with our offended brothers while we are still in
this life. After death, the
judgment comes
(Heb. 9: 27), and
Christ our judge can then order us thrown “into prison”
(v. 25).* This casting “into
prison” in verse 25 in the lesson
refers back to the judgment of Gehenna in verse 22.
Christ then solemnly confirms the
warning: “truly I say to you, you shall not come out of there, until you have paid up the last cent” (v. 26). This
verse implies that the penalty is only temporary, and the temporality of it
will be confirmed by other related passages.
[* Therefore,
judgment must take place in “hades” (the
underworld of the souls of the dead), and before the time of “the First Resurrection” (Rev.
20: 4b-6, R.V.)!
See Lk. 20: 35; Phil. 3: 11. cf. Matt. 16: 18b; Lk. 16: 23, 28b; Rev. 6: 9-11; Rev. 20: 12. 13, R.V.
etc.]
Brothers and sisters, this
is an exceedingly serious word to us from the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount. It shows that we must be very careful to
clear up all offences we have wrongly caused toward our brothers and sisters in
Christ. According to this passage in
Matthew Five, certain offences will place us in danger of the Gehenna judgment,
a picture of a very severe dealing by God.
Besides the sins related to
anger and its ugly vented words, Christ also dealt with other sins that could
cause us to be cast into Gehenna.
Continuing on in Matthew Chapter Five, Jesus mentioned the sin of
adultery in verse 27 and then taught that
lust in the heart is its equivalent (v. 28). This sin
is committed by looking upon a woman with the intention to lust for her (“looking at” differs from just “seeing”). Then Jesus declares that if this action of the eye is not
severely dealt with, the penalty of Gehenna will ensue. “And if your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members
perish, than for your whole body to be cast into
hell [lit., Gehenna]” (Matt. 5: 29, NKJV).
Jesus then continued: “And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members
perish, than for your whole body to be cast into
hell [lit. Gehenna]” (Matt. 5: 30, NKJV). So, the lesson is the same for the
sinning hand.
The portions on the sinning
eye and the hand have a parallel in Matthew 18:
8-9,
which deals with the eye, the hand and the foot. The other parallel passage is
in Mark 9: 43-49. Both of
these portions of Christ’s teaching are addressed to disciples. Therefore, these warnings are meant for
disciples of Christ (“if your hand”).
As indicated in the last chapter, these warnings could not be to
unbelieving sinners. They would have no
capacity to deal with their sin.
Further, a sinner is not kept out of “hell”
by the work of putting
away sin. He needs the Saviour with His
redeeming blood to be kept out of “hell”
(meaning eternal torment).
Although the Gehenna fire
cannot be quenched (Mk. 9: 43), this does
not mean that the sinning disciple will remain in this fiery place
forever. This verse signifies that Page
91 while one is in Gehenna the fire
will be unrelenting. Our destiny in
eternity is a matter of grace by faith, not our dealing with sin in our lives.
The Gehenna
judgment upon believers takes
place during the coming millennium. This is shown by the casting into Gehenna
(marginal reading, Mk. 9: 43, 47) being contrasted with the terms “to enter life” (Mk.
9: 43)
and “to enter the
You may now be worried
about how we “pluck out the eye” and “cut off” the hand.
These terms signify getting rid of sin.
We can deal with the root of sin before it bears fruit (an act of sin)
if we, by the Spirit, are putting to death the deeds of the body (Rom. 8: 13). We believe it is this experience that the
Lord is primarily dealing with here. He
wants us to grow in this experience.
However, as long as we are in this body, we will end up sinning
sometime. If we do sin, we can erase its
record against us through confession and the cleansing of Jesus’ blood (1 Jn. 1: 9). To repent from sinful activity and confess it
is also a dealing with sin (Prov.
28: 13).
The other primary Gehenna
passages for believers are Matthew 10: 28 and its parallel in Luke
12: 5. These portions were discussed in Chapter
Seven, but a few comments are made here.
(If you wish to refresh your memory, read Matthew
10: 16-33
and Luke 12: 1-12.) Both
of these passages are addressed to disciples.
They involve disciples being hated by men and delivered up before
courts. The Lord warns us that in such
cases “a disciple is not above his teacher ... if they have called the head of the house Beelzebub, how much more the members of his household” (Matt. 10: 24-25). In other words, false accusations will be
brought against the disciples at these tribunals. Although we realize these opposers will
desire to put us to death (Matt. 10: 21), the
Lord Jesus tells us not to fear them.
Rather, He explicitly warns us to fear
God instead:
“And
do not fear those who kill the body, but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell [literally, Gehenna]”
(Matt. 10:
28).
“And
I say to you, My friends, do not be
afraid of those who kill the body, and after
that have no more that they can do.
But I will warn you whom to fear: fear the One who
after He has killed has authority to cast into hell [literally, Gehenna]; yes, I tell you fear
Him!” (Lk. 12: 4-5).
What amazing portions of
the Bible these passages are. Jesus is
clearly warning His followers, even His friends, that when they stand before
the courts they should not fear those who can inflict the penalty of physical
death upon them. Rather, they should
have a greater fear of God, because He can “destroy”
(cause to suffer ruin or loss of well-being) both the soul
and body in Gehenna.* In context, it is the specific disobedience of the
disciple in denying Jesus before the men of the tribunal that apparently leads
to such a judgment. How costly it will be to refuse to confess Christ before such a court! I
believe the time is rapidly approaching when disciples of Christ will be so
tested. May we take His grace to be faithful to Him even unto death (Rev. 2: 10).
[* That is, I believe, ‘the loss
of well-being’ of the “soul” in “Hades”;
and the decomposition (‘corruption’) of the “body” in
the grave above - for 1,000 years after
“the first Resurrection”! See Gal. 6: 8ff. cf.
Col. 3: 25; with Num. 16: 33 and Rev. 2: 20-23, R.V.]
The only other verses in the
New Testament using the term Gehenna are James 3: 6
and Matthew 23: 15,
33. James 3:
6 talks about the tongue set on fire by
Gehenna. This verse uses Gehenna to
illustrate God’s view of the damaging potential of the Page
92 tongue. It is not speaking here of a judgment for the
use of the tongue, but simply using the known fiery filth of Gehenna for the
purpose of an illustration.
The verses in Matthew 23 call for a more detailed explanation in
order to be properly understood. These
verses open a door of insight into God’s judgment upon His people that probably
only a few have fully understood. Therefore, it is worthwhile for us to spend
some time on this matter in order to put Gehenna into complete Biblical
perspective.
The primary content of Matthew 23 is Christ’s strong condemnation of the
Jewish leaders of His day for their personal lives and for their faulty
leadership of God’s people. In this
context, the two verses on Gehenna appear. “Woe to you,
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites,
because you travel about on sea and land to make a
proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell [Gehenna, marginal reading] as
yourselves.” (v. 23). (In other words, those who follow the
practices of these leaders will also merit a Gehenna judgment.) “You serpents, you brood of
vipers, how shall you escape the sentence of
hell [Gehenna]?” (v. 33)
Here, the judgment of
Gehenna is not addressed to believers in Christ, but to unbelieving Jews. In considering this matter, we should keep in
mind that God views all persons upon this earth as belonging to one of three
groups, either to the Jews, the gentiles, or the church of God (1 Cor. 10: 32). Once a
Jew is saved in the New Testament sense (through faith in Christ and the new birth),
that person becomes part of the
Judgment upon the Jews considered
Just as Christ deals with
Christians at His Judgment Seat in order
to determine which believers will enter His 1,000 year Kingdom, so He must
also deal with the Jews. After all, it
was to the Jews first that the promises of the Messianic Kingdom were made, and
it was the Jews who were looking for this hope (Lk. 17: 20; Acts 1: 6). Recall
from the discussion of the rich young ruler in Chapter
Two that his hope was to have “eternal life”
in the “world to
come”, which the exegesis in
that chapter identified as the 1,000 year
Revelation 11: 18 tells us that
during the season when God’s wrath falls upon the earth
at the end of this [evil] age, that “... the time came for the dead to be judged,
and the time to
give their reward to Thy bond-servants the prophets and to the saints
...” This judgment [in
‘Hades’ and before
‘the first resurrection’] includes the Jews, as well as the New Testament
saints, as we shall soon see.
This verse in Revelation 11 is placed in the time frame when Christ
possesses His [Messianic] Kingdom at the close of the [present and evil] age (Rev. 11: 15-17).
The parallel passage in
Daniel also reveals the Son of Man taking His dominion (Dan. 7: 13-14). It is in the judgment scene of Daniel 7 (vs. 9-10; 13-14) that the
following declaration is made: “until the Ancient of
Days came, and judgment was passed in favour of
the saints of the Highest One, and the time arrived when the saints took possession of the
kingdom.” (v.
22).
Also note other verses later in Daniel 7:
“But the court will sit for judgment, and his [the Antichrist’s] dominion
will be taken away, annihilated and Page
93 destroyed
forever. Then
the sovereignty, the dominion, and the greatness of all
the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be given to the people of the
saints of the Highest One.” (vs. 26-27). The
references to saints here must, at a minimum, include the Jews, since Daniel’s visions concern his people (Dan. 9: 24; 10: 14).
One of the clearest Old
Testament verses concerning God’s judgment upon the Jews occurs in Daniel 12: 2. Immediately
before this verse, in Daniel 12: 1, we are told of the end time tribulation of the
Jews and the marvellous deliverance of some of them alive out of this
trial. Then, the angelic messenger to
Daniel foretold the judgment upon all of the dead Jews: “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the
earth shall awake, some to everlasting
[olam] life,
some to shame and everlasting [olam]
contempt.” (Dan.
12: 2,
NKJV)
According to Daniel 12: 2, then,
this judgment upon the dead Jews shows a positive possibility and a negative
possibility. On the positive side, this judgment upon resurrection will result
in a sharing of life in the 1,000 year Kingdom age (just as New Testament
believers, in possessing the Kingdom, share in eternal life in that age - Lk. 18: 29, 30). The word misleadingly translated “everlasting” is olam
(which was defined somewhat in Chapter Two).
The Hebrew word olam
has a range of meanings in relation to time. The Theological Word
Book of the Old Testament points out that olam is usually
translated by the Greek word aion (age) in
the Septuagint ([LXX] - the Greek
translation of the Old Testament), and that “neither
the Hebrew nor the Greek word in itself contains the idea of endlessness
...” 72 This work further
states that, “Both words came to be used to refer to a
long age or period ...” 73
The New Testament also
shows that only some Jews will be approved for participation in the coming
Messianic Kingdom. After the Roman
centurion acknowledged Christ’s divine authority, Jesus commented, “Truly I say to you, I have not
found such great faith with anyone in
It was to the Jews that the
Kingdom should belong, as promised by the prophets. However, even though certain Jews of the Old
Testament era (such as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who are mentioned in the verse
above) would be in the Kingdom according to Jesus, there will be some Jews that
will be cast out into the outer darkness (outside the glory of the
Kingdom). So just as we see a parallel
to the New Testament saints in Daniel, which shows that approved Jews possess
the Kingdom, so we also see a parallel of disapproved Jews being cast into the
“outer darkness”, as are some disapproved Christians (Matt. 22: 12-13; 25: 26-30).
With the groundwork laid
above, we can now explain the matter of the Gehenna judgment upon certain Jews
in Matthew 23: 33.
This judgment is a further Jewish parallel to a Gehenna judgment upon
believers. You will recall that
believers can be cast into Gehenna for certain sins, and this judgment should
be viewed as a more severe judgment than “outer
darkness.” The sins of the Jewish
leaders in Matthew 23 were so offensive to
Jesus that He indicated that they were worthy of the severe Page
94 judgment of Gehenna. In Matthew 23:
14 the Lord Jesus warned that these scribes
and Pharisees would receive “greater condemnation.”
Let us summarize these
thoughts on the Gehenna judgment. The
Old Testament mention of the valley of Hinnom shows that it was a place of judgment upon God’s people,
not the nations, who rebelled against Him (Jer. 7: 30-34). Also, the Sanhedrin used this valley in
Jesus’ day to carry out a punishment upon the worst criminals of Jewish
society. Jesus used this very term to
point to a future judgment upon Jewish leaders who lived hypocritical lives and
misled others (Matt. 23: 13-36). For
such condemnable actions, Jesus declared to them: “You
serpents, you brood of vipers, how shall you
escape the sentence of hell
[literally, Gehenna]?”
(Matt. 23:
33). This judgment will be given [in ‘Sheol’ / Gk. ‘Hades’ (Acts 2: 27, 34. cf.
2 Tim. 2: 18; Rev. 6: 9-11), and therefore will occur before the resurrection of the ‘blessed and
holy’ dead (Heb. 9: 27; Rev. 20: 6)] when the Lord
Jesus judges His people in order to decide which ones are worthy of possessing
His future earthly [millennial] Kingdom (Dan. 7: 18,
22)
and inheriting age-lasting life therein (Dan.
12: 2).
Similarly, Jesus used this
term to warn His New Testament believers concerning dealing with certain
flagrant sins in their lives, and contrasted this judgment with “entering life” (Mk. 9: 43) and entering “the kingdom of God.” (Mk.
9: 47). It seems, therefore, that this judgment is a most serious judgment of
Christ upon His disobedient people and involves a chastisement during the
millennial age. This may be the most
negative judgment Scripture reveals for [regenerate] believers
under the principle of reward according to works. However, another judgment, “the blackness of darkness” [literal translation for 2 Pet. 2: 17 and Jude 13],
appears to be a very severe judgment for apostate
Christian teachers. This “blackness of darkness” judgment may be even worse than
the Gehenna judgment. This severe
judgment is discussed by Gary Whipple in his book, Shock
and Surprise Beyond the Rapture.
God wants us to have pure
lives, which requires dealing with all sin.
If we refuse to repent, confess and deal with sin, we may face Gehenna
in the next age. If we deny Christ
before men, particularly at the public tribunals where we may be summoned to
suffer death for His Name, we may also be denied by Him and judged with
Gehenna.
The Forgiveness of
Sins
Christ’s judgment of the
saints at His Bema will
be according to their works. Good deeds
will receive a positive reward, whereas bad deeds will receive a negative
reward. Some may perhaps object to the
possibility of negative reward on the ground that Christ’s death on the cross
was the place where all sins were judged by God.
Once a person accepts
Christ as his Saviour, his substitute to die in his stead for sin (Rom. 5: 8; 1 Pet. 2: 24; 3: 18), should
that person then have to suffer in any way for his sin? To answer questions of this type requires us
to be balanced and to accept all of the Biblical truth. One of the important subjects in the Scripture
that will help us balance out our views concerning God’s dealing with the sins
of the believer is the matter of forgiveness.
Two Greek words are
predominately used in the New Testament both for God’s forgiveness of man and
for man’s forgiveness of man. One verb
is aphiemi and the other verb is charizomai. Aphiemi fundamentally means “to send
forth, send away” and is used in the New Testament of remitting or forgiving
debts or sins. 74 Charizomai most Page
95 commonly in the New Testament
means “to pardon, to graciously remit a person’s sin.”75 Some preachers like to use the term “to release” as an equivalent.
As believers in Christ, God
has forgiven us, released us from the just penalty due for our sins. What is that penalty? The penalty for man’s sins is spiritual
death, eternal separation from God (“the wages of sin
is death”; Rom. 6: 23). The
Bible assures us that those who believe in Christ will not suffer the judgment
of eternal death, but through Christ have passed out of death into life (Jn. 5: 24; 3: 16). We shall never come under this penalty of
eternal spiritual death because Christ suffered death in our stead (1 Pet. 2: 24; 3: 18). This forgiveness has its basis in the blood
of Christ (His death on the cross). “In Him we have
redemption, through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph. 1: 7).
We should rightly stress
that there is an “eternal forgiveness” that all
believers in Christ possess. Such
eternal forgiveness is ours by virtue of our union with Christ. This is “positional
truth”, as it shows what we possess due to our position in Christ. This truth assures us that all of our
sins have already been forgiven in Christ (Eph.
1: 7; Col. 2: 13). We are
never in danger of losing this eternal forgiveness.
However, there is more than
one type of forgiveness in the New Testament.
Watchman Nee describes four types of forgiveness in Love One Another. He
calls them eternal forgiveness, borrowed forgiveness, communional
(fellowship) forgiveness and governmental forgiveness 76. Nee defines “borrowed forgiveness” as the forgiveness that the
church acknowledges and grants in accordance with the Holy Spirit (Jn. 20: 22-23). The term fellowship forgiveness will be
covered below. Governmental forgiveness
deals with God’s administration upon our lives and circumstances, and may
include His chastening of us after we have confessed our sin. We will discuss this forgiveness more below.
The Bible clearly shows us
that even though the forgiven sinner is released from the eternal penalty for sin, this does not mean that he cannot suffer some temporal, lesser
penalties for sins he commits after being born again. Let’s look at some examples from Scripture.
Ananias and Sapphira were
part of the community of faith. When
they lied about the sale price of their land, God killed them for this sin,
and, as a result, “great fear came upon the whole
church” (Acts 5: 11). In
One must see the
distinction between those truths that speak of our position in Christ and those
that speak of our experience under God’s government. Otherwise, we will be confused about
forgiveness. A great Plymouth Brethren
writer, C. H. Mackintosh, had this
to say to someone who wrote to him about passages that dealt with God’s
governmental hand:
Page 96
These, and
numberless other Scriptures in the Old Testament, as well as many similar
passages in the New Testament, unfold to us the deeply important subject of
God’s moral government. Now, to be
merely a subject of God’s government is one thing; to be a subject of His
unchangeable grace is another. We should
never confound them. To elaborate this
point, and to refer to the various passages which illustrate and enforce it,
would demand a volume: we would here only add our full persuasion that no one
can understand the Word of God who does not accurately distinguish between man
under government and man under grace. In
the one case he is looked at as walking down here, in the place of responsibility and danger; in the other, he is
looked at as associated with Christ above, in the place of inalienable
privilege and eternal security.77
The verses below
demonstrate that there is a type of post-regenerational forgiveness that is conditional (if the believer confesses, or if the believer forgives
those who offend him, then forgiveness is granted to him by God).
“And
forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our
debtors” (Matt. 6: 12, part of
the “Lord’s prayer” taught to the disciples).
“And
whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you
your transgressions.” (Mk. 11: 25)
“If
we confess our sins, He is faithful and
righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
(1 Jn. 1: 9)
Do these verses mean that
if the believer does not fulfil these conditions he then stands under God’s
eternal condemnation? No, because these
verses are not dealing with our eternal forgiveness, but with other aspects of
forgiveness.
Aspects of forgiveness
To understand this
conditional forgiveness, we must learn more about forgiveness. A contemporary author, Wendell E. Miller, sees forgiveness somewhat differently than Watchman Nee. Miller views forgiveness only as “judicial” or “fellowship”
forgiveness. His insights are helpful,
although I believe his thoughts should be complemented by the views of
forgiveness outlined by Watchman Nee. In
his book entitled, Forgiveness: The Power and the
Puzzles, Miller categorizes man’s forgiveness by God into four
kinds:
Initial judicial
forgiveness -- release from the
penalty of sins committed before saving faith and justification --
dependent upon saving faith
Initial fellowship
forgiveness -- release from
alienation of fellowship caused by sins committed before saving faith
and justification -- also dependent upon saving faith
Page 97
Repetitive judicial
forgiveness -- release from the
penalty of sins committed after saving faith and justification --
unconditional (dependent only upon
the faithfulness of our Advocate, Jesus Christ).
Repetitive fellowship
forgiveness -- release from
alienation of fellowship by sins committed after justification --
dependent upon our confession of our sins. 78
Admittedly, Scripture does
not describe forgiveness with labels such as “judicial”
and “fellowship”. Yet, the conclusion of many
Bible students is that there seems to be one aspect (or category) of forgiveness
that deals with the believer’s eternal and positional standing before God and
another aspect that seems related to our experience of temporal fellowship with
Him.
Wendell Miller
sees God’s “judicial forgiveness” of sins as a
release from the penalty of sin. This
judicial forgiveness is initially granted to the unsaved sinner at the moment
of belief. According to Miller, judicial
forgiveness is thereafter kept vitally effective for us on a repetitive basis
by Jesus Christ as our Advocate and High Priest. Some may disagree with Miller on the
repetitive nature of judicial forgiveness, seeing it more as a matter
accomplished once for all by the work of the cross, and completely applied to
the believer at the moment of initial faith.
In any case, I believe Miller sees the eternal aspect, and only views
the repetitive nature of judicial forgiveness as the application in time of an eternal reality.
Christ is seen as our
Advocate (parakletos, Greek) in First John 2: 1: “My little children,
I am writing these things to you that you may not sin. And if anyone sins,
we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” Miller points out that the only condition
here for Christ’s work of advocacy is our sin.
As our Advocate, Christ is our legal representative presenting our case
before the Father. Whenever we sin, He
applies continuing judicial forgiveness for us based upon His work on the
cross.
Christ’s function of
advocacy for forgiveness in First John is essentially the same as His priestly
work in Hebrews where He is the mediator of the New Covenant (Heb. 8: 6), which guarantees God’s forgiveness of our sins
(Heb. 8: 12). In
Romans, Christ is also portrayed as the One who maintains our eternal,
positional justification by His action of intercession at the right hand of God
(Rom. 8: 33-34).
How grateful and full of
praise we should be to our Lord Jesus for His ministry of intercession on our
behalf, keeping our eternal relationship with God the Father secure! Yet, when we sin we do realize that there is
a genuine problem in our fellowship with God.
In the first chapter of First John, the apostle John emphasizes this
experience of fellowship and tells us how sin breaks it: “If we say we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness
[sin], we lie and do not practice the truth” (1 Jn. 1: 6). Importantly, John goes on to tell us how to
restore this broken fellowship: “If we confess
our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive
us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn. 1: 9).
God’s forgiveness in 1 John 1: 9 is
termed by Miller as “repetitive fellowship forgiveness.”
This forgiveness by God is described by Miller as God’s release from “alienation of fellowship.” We see, therefore, the
importance of a believer’s confession Page 98 of his sins.
The Greek word for confess is homologeo
which literally means “to speak the same thing.”
79 When God says
something we have done is sin, then we need to agree with Him, to speak the
same thing. In other words, what God
judges as sin in our life, we must agree by also judging it as sin. This certainly means that we are repentant
concerning that particular sin. Once we
confess, God is faithful to forgive us.
Although God’s forgiveness is based solely upon the blood of Christ,
this fellowship forgiveness is obtained through our confession.
Since this matter of
confessing our sins is so important, we need to learn more concerning God’s
speaking to us about our sins. Firstly,
we should recognize that God’s speaking to us about our sins is based upon His
Word. The Bible is the “language” God uses to speak to us. This is why First John 1: 10
says: “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word
is not is us.” This verse means
that we may reject the truth of God’s Word as respects our sin. If we do this, we can enter a stage of
self-deception (1 Jn.
1: 8).
Therefore, our real need is to spend time in God’s Word so that we can know the
Lord and His truth. Then we will be able
to understand His speaking to us in the conviction of sin. Biblical knowledge helps make our conscience
properly sensitive to sin (1 Cor.
8: 7; Heb. 4: 12-13).
God’s conviction of sin is
always specific. God speaks to us about
a particular sin, and it is that sin that we must confess in order to receive
forgiveness and cleansing. Blanket
prayers such as “Lord, pardon and forgive us our sins”
are of no avail and are unscriptural. We
need to be persons in the Word of God and persons truly seeking God’s
conviction. Then we will know when we
have sinned.
Sometimes our conscience
may feel uneasy and yet we simply cannot put our finger on any specific
sin. Even when we ask God, we do not get
a revelation of the problem. This may be
the accusation of Satan, to which we can reply, “Who
will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is
the one who justifies” (Rom. 8: 33). We can stand on the justification provided by
Christ’s blood. Another remedy in such a
situation may be to pray as David did, when he prayed: “Who can understand his errors? Cleanse me
from secret faults” (Ps. 19: 12,
NKJV). Such a sincere prayer can help
restore our sense of peace with God.
It is important that we
understand what is accomplished through confession and what is not. First John 1:
9 says that “if we
confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous
to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” Firstly, due to our confession God can
release us from the alienation that our sin causes in our fellowship with a
holy God. Confession restores the
fellowship. Secondly, He cleanses away
the stain caused by the defilement of our sin.
Although we may
subjectively feel the “stain” of our unrighteous
actions, it is God’s view of this stain upon the “garment”
(Jude 1: 23;
Rev. 3: 4) of our conduct that is the real concern
here. The stain of sin upon us is seen
by a holy God and hinders our fellowship with Him. Our action of repentance and confession is our
part of the cleansing process, and, once cleansed by God, we can again have
true fellowship with Him (2 Cor.
6: 16 - 7: 1; Heb. 9: 22; 10: 22; Jas. 4: 8).
There is another benefit of
this cleansing, however, that appears to point to Christ’s evaluation of us at His
Judgment Seat. When speaking of the
coming day of the Lord, Peter admonished the recipients of his letter: “Since all these things are to be Page
99 destroyed
in this way, what sort of people ought you to be
in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and
hastening the coming of the day of God ... Therefore,
beloved, since you look
for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless,
and blameless ...”(2
Pet. 3: 11,
14).
The Greek word here for spotless is aspilos,
which is used figuratively in these verses for moral conduct.
When Christ returns and we
are summoned to His Bema, how can we be found by Him spotless? Surely, throughout our earthly experience as
a believer we have many times had our “garment spotted by the flesh”
(Jude 1: 23,
KJV), when we yielded to the lusts of our flesh. Also, there have been times
when we loved the world and indulged ourselves in its pleasures, rather than
obeying God’s command “to keep oneself unstained by the world.”
(Jas. 1: 27). How
can these spots and stains be washed away?
The way to be found spotless by Christ at His coming is to confess our
sins now. If we confess our sins,
agreeing with God’s condemnation of them, then He will “cleanse us from all
unrighteousness.”(1 Jn.
1: 9)
Later in his first epistle,
the apostle John specifically urges us to be cleansed in preparation for the
Lord’s appearing: “Beloved, now we are children of God, and
it has not appeared as yet what we shall be. We
know that, when He appears, we shall be like Him, because
we shall see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies
[cleanses] himself, just
as He is pure.”(1 Jn.
3: 2, 3). We
believe, therefore, that sins which are repented of and confessed now will not
be judged with a specific negative judgment at Christ’s Judgment Seat. 80 Conversely, if we do not confess our sins now, these
sins will be manifested at the Bema and recompensed (1
Tim. 5:
24; 2 Cor. 5: 10). These
ideas will be confirmed when we review some principles from Ezekiel later in
this chapter.
From the comments above, we
can realize that there is much benefit for us in the confession of our
sins. Yet, we must understand that such confession does not resolve all the
problems that our sins create for us.
God’s governmental action may fall upon us.
Governmental forgiveness
In Love One Another, Watchman Nee gives an illustration of God’s governmental dealing
with us. He tells a parable of a young girl
who stole food from a kitchen cabinet while her mother was away. When confronted by her mother, the girl
confessed her disobedience and asked for forgiveness. The mother grants the forgiveness and kisses
the girl. Fellowship is restored. However, due to the disobedience the mother
changes her way of doing things. The
next time she leaves the house she locks the cabinet. This action on the mother’s part constitutes
a change in her way with the girl. Nee
explains further:
What is
government? Government is a way. God’s government is God’s way, God’s
administration. The mother may forgive the girl’s sin and restore their
fellowship, but next time she will lock both the cupboard and the kitchen doors
when she goes out. In other words, she
has changed her way. To restore
fellowship is easy, but to restore the way is not so easy. The mother is afraid that her daughter may do
it again. She cannot give the daughter
full liberty but has to put on some restraints.
Her way has changed. Remember,
God treats us a similar manner. Communional Page
100 forgiveness
is relatively easy to get. He who
sincerely confesses his sin will have his fellowship restored. At the moment he confesses his sin, God
restores fellowship with him. It may be
that God’s discipline will immediately come upon him; God may not give him as much liberty as he
enjoyed before.
Again, another
day may come when God removes His disciplinary hand - and this we call
governmental forgiveness. In the case of
the mother, this would mean that the day comes when she feels her daughter is
now dependable, so she leaves the doors unlocked. This is governmental forgiveness. 81
Confession does not
necessarily remove from us the consequences of our sins. For example, if a Christian commits a crime
he may be imprisoned. God is not
obligated to miraculously release such a believer from prison just because he
confesses his sin. God’s governmental hand will most likely allow such a one to reap what
he has sowed (Gal. 6: 7) In Love One Another, Watchman Nee describes certain
verses as expressly dealing with God’s governmental forgiveness: Matt. 9: 2, 5-6; Jas. 5: 15 and Matt. 6: 14-15; 18: 21-35. 82 He indicates that other passages also, however, are related to the
matter of God’s governmental dealing (such as the passage in Galatians chapter
six noted above).
Consider David’s sin with
Bathsheba. When Nathan the prophet
confronted David regarding his sins in this matter (2
Sam. 12:
1-13), David was truly repentant and
his confession recorded in Psalm 51 is one
of the great Bible passages on confession and repentance. Yet, even after David’s confession the Lord spoke through
Nathan of a negative penalty that God
had determined appropriate for that situation: “Then
David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the
Lord.’ And Nathan said to David, ‘The Lord also has taken away your sin; you shall not die.
However, because by this deed you have given occasion to the enemies of
the Lord to blaspheme, the child also that is born to you shall surely die’”
(2 Sam. 12:
13-14).
Notice that Nathan assured David that there was forgiveness from God, and,
hence, David would not die.
God’s governmental action
upon David also included a declaration from God that “‘the sword shall never depart from your house,
because you have
despised Me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.’”
(2 Sam. 12:
10). Additionally, the Lord said that evil would
arise from David’s own household and shame him in the sight of all (v. 11-12). This
was fulfilled by his son, Absalom. All
of these disciplinary actions were God’s governmental hand upon David for his
sin, in spite of David’s confession and
restoration of fellowship with God.
Finally, it should be noted
that although no specific negative judgment should befall us at Christ’s
Judgment Seat for confessed sins, we
could still experience a loss of positive rewards that potentially could have
been gained if we had proven faithful.
Aside from the need of confession
in order to receive forgiveness, it is very interesting that God has another
requirement in order for us to receive His forgiveness. We
must forgive others before God can forgive us. The forgiveness God grants
upon our forgiveness of others may be fellowship forgiveness, and also may
include governmental forgiveness. Note
the following Scriptures:
“Forgive
and you will be forgiven.” (Lk.
6: 37,
NKJV)
Page 101
“And
forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Matt. 6: 12.)
“And
whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone; so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you
your transgressions. But if you do not forgive; neither will your Father who is in heaven forgive your
transgressions.” (Mk. 11: 25, 26)
In his book, Forgiveness: The Power and the Puzzles, Wendell Miller describes two types of
forgiveness that relate to the believer’s forgiveness of others. Here are his summary comments:
Vertical forgiveness -- unconditional release to God through prayer of the
offended believer’s supposed right to get even -- release of the penalty that
he might want to inflict on the offender.
Horizontal forgiveness
-- conditional (dependent upon repentance of the offender) release from alienation
caused by the offender’s offence.
Vertical forgiveness is
upward in direction -- man unconditionally (without the necessity of the
offender’s repentance) releases to God whatever penalty
he might want to inflict, or might erroneously think that he has a right to
inflict, on the offender.
Horizontal forgiveness is
horizontal in direction -- in response to the offender’s repentance, the
offended person grants forgiveness to the offender - releasing him from the
alienation caused by his offense. ... Fellowship with
God is dependent upon the faithful obedience to God’s commands -- practicing
both vertical forgiveness and horizontal forgiveness. 83
The importance of our willingness to forgive others
Vertical forgiveness is
seen in Mark 11: 25
and horizontal forgiveness is seen in Luke 17:
3. Our concern here, however, is not the
study of these two types of forgiveness, but rather how God’s forgiveness is predicated upon our willingness to forgive
others. In this regard, let us look
at the parable on forgiveness in Matthew 18:
21-35:
21 Then Peter came and said to
Him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin
against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?”
22 Jesus said to him,
“I do not say to you, up
to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.
23 For this reason
the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a certain king who wished to settle
accounts with his slaves. 24 And when he had begun to settle them, there was brought to him one who owed him ten thousand
talents. 25 But
since he did not have the means to repay, his
lord commanded him to be sold, along with his
wife and children and all that he had, and
repayment to be made. 26 The slave therefore falling down, prostrated himself before him, saying ‘Have patience with me, and I will repay you everything.’ 27 And the lord of that
Page 102 slave felt compassion and released him and forgave him the
debt. 28 But that
slave went out and found one of his fellow slaves who owed him a hundred
denarii; and he seized him and began to choke
him, saying, ‘Pay
back what you owe.’ 29 So his fellow slave fell down and began to entreat him,
saying, ‘Have patience
with me and I will repay you.’ 30 He was unwilling however, but
went and threw him in prison until he should pay back what was owed. 31 So when his fellow
slaves saw what had happened, they were deeply
grieved and came and reported to their lord all that had happened. 32 Then summoning him,
his lord said to him, ‘You
wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt
because you entreated me. 33 Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave,
even as I had mercy on you?’ 34 And his lord, moved with anger, handed him
over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him. 35 So shall My heavenly Father also do to you, if each of you does
not forgive his brother from your heart.”
Here Jesus was plainly
teaching Peter that forgiven sinners
should forgive their offending brothers.
In verses 32 and 33, the lord (Christ) of the slave (the believer)
called the slave to account as respects his unforgiveness. This may picture Christ calling us to account
at the Bema. The temporal judgment that follows may be
represent Christ’s judgment at the Judgment Seat. On the other hand, if certain details of the
parable are not pressed, the judgment
may apply during this life. Since
the slave had no mercy on the fellow slave, “his lord,
moved with anger, handed
him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him” (v. 34). The
unforgiving slave had already
been released from
his debt (v. 27),
yet now the lord handed him over to the
torturers until repayment
was made.
This parable is an
illustration of the truth concerning forgiveness of the believer. On the one hand, our judicial forgiveness has
been accomplished for us eternally by Christ’s redemption (Matt. 18: 27; Eph. 1: 7), and it
is kept effective by Christ’s advocacy.
On the other hand, our fellowship
with God is disrupted by sin (the sin of unforgiveness
of others in the parable, verse 30), and
we may also fall under God’s discipline,
which we will have to endure until God
grants governmental forgiveness. Such forgiveness during the next age may [or
may not] be a
possibility (Matt. 12: 32).
Notice that the judgment of
the torturers is implied as being temporary (“until he should repay”, v. 34). The
temporal penalty here is graphically portrayed as torture. Although this is a parable and the term “torturer” is not strictly literal, this picture was
chosen by the Lord to convey a grave reality.
This parable should make us very
sober and concerned about the matter of forgiving others. We are warned that this consequence may
befall us (verse 35). Therefore, we
should have mercy towards
others (v. 33)
since an action of mercy now will affect
Christ’s judgment upon us at His Judgment Seat. “For
judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over
judgment” (Jas. 2: 13).
We have seen that the
forgiveness of sins is a somewhat complex matter, but a serious one. Even though Christ has paid the eternal
penalty for our sins, the Christian must be very concerned about sin in his
life. Sin may bring in grave
consequences. However, through our forgiveness
of others and the confession of our sins, fellowship with God can be restored
and we can be cleansed. May the Lord give us all a heart to
practice these things in sincerity.
Page 103
Finally, please note that
none of the severe judgments we have discussed in this chapter should be
confused with the erroneous Roman Catholic doctrine of “Purgatory.” The reward passages clearly teach that the believer’s
bad works can be subject to recompense
by the righteous Judge. However,
through confession to God, the disciple can be cleansed by Jesus’ blood and any
specific negative recompense avoided.
The Catholic doctrine severely perverts this truth by claiming that the
Christian himself must “atone” for his sins in
order to effect his cleansing. Further,
the doctrine of Purgatory claims that good deeds can be done, or money given, to
the Roman Catholic church by the still living “faithful”
in order to lessen the intensity or duration of punishment upon souls suffering
in Purgatory. This proposition is patently unscriptural. For further commentary on this matter, the
reader may consult the “Note on Purgatory” in
D. M. Panton’s book, The Judgment Seat of Christ,
beginning on page 67.
The Fear of the
Lord
There are other verses
showing both positive and negative recompense in the future for believers (see
the table containing the two principles in Chapter
Five). However, we will not
explore all of these verses; the reader has been presented a good overview of
some of the major possibilities already.
With this background we can now understand one of the most fundamental,
yet often overlooked or misunderstood passages concerning the principle of
reward according to works. This passage of Scripture in Romans Chapter Two was written to the Christians in
“Therefore
you are without excuse, every man of you who
passes judgment, for in that you judge another, you condemn yourself; for you
who judge practice the same things. And we know that the judgment of God rightly
falls upon those who practice such things. And do you suppose this, O man, when you pass judgment
upon those who practice such things and do the same yourself, that you will escape the judgment of God? Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and
forbearance and patience, not knowing that the
kindness of God leads you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and
unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and
revelation of the righteous judgment of God,
who will render to every man according to his deeds: to those who by
perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor
and immortality, eternal [Gk.
‘aionios’] life; but to those who are
selfishly ambitious and do not obey the truth,
but obey unrighteousness, wrath and indignation. There will be tribulation and distress for
every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew
first and also of the Greek, but glory and
honour and peace to every man who does good, to
the Jew first and also to the Greek. For there is no partiality with God. For all who have
sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law; and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the
Law; for not
the hearers of the Law are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified. For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively
the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law
to themselves, in that they show the work of the
Law written in their hearts, their conscience
bearing witness, and their thoughts alternately
accusing or else defending them, on the day when, according to my gospel, God
will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus. (
Page 104
This passage shows us the
future day of judgment according to works.
The opening verses begin by addressing the self-righteous person,
whoever he may be. The application of the
passage is clearly intended, however, for every
person since we read that “the righteous judgment
of God” will be rendered “to EVERY MAN according to his deeds.”
These Scriptures tell us that
there is no partiality with God in judgment, and that all mankind will fall
into two categories: the ones who persevere in doing good and the ones who obey
unrighteousness. The judgment is based
upon deeds and takes
place in the future day of judgment when “God will
judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus.”
Those “who by perseverance
in doing good seek
for glory and honour and immortality” will receive “eternal life” as
a reward from this future judgment.
Since this “eternal life” is based upon
works, not grace, and since it is received in the future through Christ’s judgment, not now through faith, it must be the reward of eternal life granted to the overcoming
Christians in the coming Kingdom age (Mk. 10: 30). No
unbeliever could ever receive this reward because no unregenerate person can
persevere in doing good (Rom. 3: 12).
The balance of mankind will
fall into the other category: “those who are selfishly
ambitious and do not obey the truth, but obey
unrighteousness.” This category obviously
includes unbelievers, but it also includes
Christians who have lived failed and unrepentant lives, since every man must fall into
one of the two categories. Not all Christians persevere in doing good. A number of passages have already been
mentioned that show that genuine Christians can live failed lives. We must be honest with the Scriptures and
with experience. Many [regenerate] believers
practice unrighteous things (1 Cor.
6: 8-10; 2 Cor. 12: 21; 13: 2). Those
who persist in these things and are unrepentant (Rom.
2: 4-5), will
fall into this category of judgment.
The fate of those who “obey unrighteousness” should make us properly fearful
of God. These persons will be subjected
to God’s “wrath and indignation.” What is God’s
wrath? The New Bible Dictionary defines
it as follows:
The permanent
attitude of the holy and just God when confronted by sin and evil is designated
His “wrath”. It is inadequate to regard this term
merely as a description of “the inevitable process of cause and effect in a
moral universe” or as another way of speaking of the results of sin. It is rather a personal quality, without
which God would cease to be fully righteous and His love would degenerate into
sentimentality. His wrath, however, even
though like His love it has to be described in human language, is not wayward,
fitful, or spasmodic, as human anger always is.
It is as permanent and as consistent an element in His nature as is His
love. This is well brought out in the
treatise of Lactantius, De ira Dei. 84
God’s Word clearly tells us
that unbelievers will experience God’s wrath. His wrath “abides” upon the unredeemed (Jn. 3: 36). The unregenerate are viewed as being “by nature children of wrath” (Eph.
2: 3) and
“vessels of wrath” (Rom.
9: 22).
As persons who are not children of God, the unredeemed will face the
awesomeness of God’s unmitigated wrath in the future day of judgment.
Page 105
Now let us turn to the
believer who “obeys unrighteousness” and is not
repentant. I believe that he, too, will
experience some measure of God’s wrath and will suffer “tribulation and distress” upon
his soul. He will not receive the
same measure of judgment as the unbeliever, however, who will undergo the
everlasting judgment of God.
The wrath of God considered
Although many may feel that
Scripture portrays believers as delivered from any wrath of God, I believe that a careful
examination of the New Testament will show that this is not the case. [Also, it
should be noted that the Old Testament clearly revealed that the [redeemed] people of God were subject to His wrath due to
their disobedience (i.e., 2 Chron. 29: 8; 34: 21-25; Jer. 6: 8-11; 21: 4-6)].
To support their contention
that believers are exempt from wrath some may quote Romans
5: 9-10:
“Much more then, having
now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God
through Him.
For if while we were enemies, we were
reconciled to God through the death of His son,
much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by [literally, in] His life.” These
verses actually show us two aspects of the Christian life. Justification and reconciliation are seen
here as having to do with Christ’s death. It is by our faith in the redemptive act of
Christ on the cross that we are justified initially (Rom.
3: 24-26).
Salvation, or deliverance, from the wrath of God in these verses,
however, is not dependent on Christ’s death.
These verses reveal that a second step is needed.
The salvation “from the wrath of God through
Him” in the
first verse is explained in the second verse. “Much
more, having been reconciled [the
completion of the first step], we shall be saved by His life. [the second
step]” After the initial step of reconciliation there is the need for the
disciple to learn to live by (or “in”) Christ’s
life. Justification is by our objective
belief in Christ’s death on the cross.
Living by His life, however, deals with our subjective experience after
initial faith.
Only through our living by
His life can we overcome indwelling sin and live victoriously. However, such victorious living is not
automatic for the Christian. Not all
believers will pursue and gain this experience.
This theme of living by His life is the content of the following three
chapters in Romans. God’s wrath is His
holy attitude in opposition to sin. If we live by Christ’s life (and
if we confess our sins when we do not), then we shall be saved from God’s wrath
at the Judgment Seat. This is the meaning of these verses.
There are two passages in
First Thessalonians that some claim show that Christians will not be subject to
God’s wrath. The first passage reads:
“For
they themselves report about us what kind of a reception we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and
true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven,
whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who delivers
us from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1: 9-10).
Page 106
This epistle has a strong
eschatological (end-time) tone to it. Verse ten above speaks of the Thessalonian
believers waiting for Jesus from heaven “who delivers
us from the wrath to come.”
The deliverance from wrath
here is linked with Christ’s descent from heaven. Also, note that the wrath here is specific (“the wrath to come”). The verse does not say that Jesus delivers us
from “all wrath”. I believe that there is some ground in the
Scripture to consider that “the wrath to come” is
very probably that particular wrath which God pours out upon the earth at the end of this age. The Book of Revelation portrays God as
pouring out physical judgments upon the earth and unrepentant mankind. As He
begins some of His more severe judgments with the sixth seal, men of the earth
cry out to the mountains and to the rocks: “‘Fall on us
and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath
has come; and who is able to
stand?’” (Rev. 6: 16 -17.) Later
in the book the twenty-four elders before the throne review the cataclysmic
events of that period and declare: “And the nations
were enraged, and Thy wrath came”
(Rev. 11:
18).
In Revelation Chapter
Fourteen there are two reapings directed from the heavens. Firstly, Christ reaps the “Harvest of the earth” with His sickle (Rev. 14: 15). After
this, an angel with another sickle reaps “the vine of
the earth” and throws its clusters of grapes “into
the great wine press of the wrath of
God” (Rev. 14: 19). The first reaping by Christ pictures a
rapture or removal of believers from the earth in all probability. That occurs
before the second reaping which pictures the wrath of God descending upon
unbelievers upon the earth.
Further on in Revelation
the apostle John records: “And I saw another sign in
heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels who had seven plagues, which are the last, because in
them the wrath of God is
finished” (Rev. 15: 1). These fearsome
plagues are poured out as physical judgments upon rebellious mankind living on the earth at that
time. “And I heard a loud voice from the temple,
saying to the seven angels, ‘Go and pour out the seven bowls of the wrath of God into the earth’” (Rev. 16: 1).
Finally, the nineteenth
chapter of Revelation pictures Christ on a white horse, with heavenly armies
following Him, descending to do battle with “the kings
of the earth and their armies, assembled to make
war against Him who sat upon the horse, and
against His army” (Rev. 19: 19). The
Scripture says of this warring Christ: “And from His
mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He
may smite the nations; and He will rule them
with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press
of the fierce wrath of God,
the Almighty” (Rev.
19: 15).
All of the verses noted
above in Revelation point to a specific wrath that God will mete out to
rebellious sinners living upon the earth at the very end of this age. It would seem that when Jesus comes back to
earth from heaven, it is this wrath (“the wrath to
come”) from which [‘accounted worthy’ (Lk. 20: 36, A.V.)] believers may be delivered (1
Thess. 1: 10). This wrath is connected with God’s judgment upon the earth. The wrath mentioned in Romans 2: 5, however,
is more specifically connected to the judgments rendered to individuals before
Christ’s Bema and at
the great white throne (Rev. 20: 12), since
it is in context with the principle of future judgment in Romans 2: 6.
The other verse in First
Thessalonians pertaining to wrath is: “For God has not
destined us for wrath, but for obtaining
salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5: 9). Page 107 In context, this verse is talking about the sudden destruction that
will come upon earth dwellers when the day of the Lord comes like a thief in
the night (1 Thess.
5: 2-3). The
verses preceding verse nine (the “wrath” verse)
speak of our need to be sober and to live as sons of the light, in contrast to those
of darkness who will be overtaken by the destruction of the day of the
Lord. Those of darkness “shall not escape” that destruction (1 Thess. 5: 3). It seems likely that the deliverance from
wrath that is the believer’s portion through Christ in verse nine is, in
context, a deliverance from the wrath to be poured out upon the earth during
the day of the Lord. This “salvation” - [i.e., the future deliverance] - from wrath
here matches the one that is portrayed in the first chapter of First Thessalonians. It is
not the wrath that may be experienced through Christ’s adjudication at the
Judgment Seat.
Besides the verses in
Romans Chapter Two, which indicate God’s wrath may be experienced by a
Christian, there are some other Scriptures which should be noted. In Christ’s parable concerning forgiveness (Matt. 18: 23-35), the
unmerciful slave (the believer who would not forgive his brother’s debt) was
summoned to appear before his lord (picturing an appearance by the believer at
the Judgment Seat). After the lord
verbally chastised the wicked slave, the Bible records: “And his lord, moved with anger, handed
him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him” (Matt. 18: 34).
Although not every detail in a parable can be pressed for explicit
meaning, this matter of being “moved with anger”
seems significant here, and it pictures Christ’s wrath at His Bema toward believers who would not forgive fellow believers. The Greek word here for anger is the verbal
form of orge, the Greek word for wrath.
The last portion of
Scripture we will examine concerning the potential for a believer to experience
God’s wrath is Hebrews 3: 1 - 4: 11. This
lengthy passage is not quoted here, but if the reader will refer to it, it will
be seen that the writer to the Hebrews is using the wilderness experience of
the Israelites as the basis for admonition to the Hebrew believers.
The recipients of the
Epistle to the Hebrews were genuine believers (Heb.
3: 1) who
were in danger of slipping backwards into Judaism. Hebrews is very much a book concerning the
coming Kingdom of Christ, and the great warning passages in Hebrews focus on
the danger to the disciple of losing his portion in that coming Kingdom (see
end note number one in Chapter Nine). The future 1,000-year
The possibility of any
believer falling away in this manner is highlighted in the next verse: “But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called ‘Today’, lest any one of you be hardened by
the deceitfulness of sin:” (Heb. 3: 13). This
passage points out how the Israelites failed to believe and obey God while in
the wilderness. Therefore, the entire
generation that came out of
The Scripture records that
because of their unbelief and subsequent disobedience, God became angry with these
Israelites (Heb. 3: 10, 17). Therefore, God’s judgment fell upon them: “‘I swore in My wrath,
they shall not enter My rest’” (Heb. 3: 11; 4: 3). Based
upon this wrath and its consequent judgment of God upon the children of Israel,
the writer to the Hebrew believers warned his readers: “Therefore, let us FEAR lest, while a promise remains
of entering His rest, any one of you should seem
to come short of it” (Heb. 4: 1). Also, the writer concluded: “Let us therefore
be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall
through following the same example of disobedience” (Heb. 4: 11).
The author was warning
those believers that if they were not diligent in obeying God’s word to them,
then God, in His righteous wrath,
would pronounce judgment upon them
as He did upon the Israelites in the wilderness. The result of that judgment would be that
they would not enter “His rest”, which is the Sabbath rest for the people of
God -- the future 1,000-year Kingdom. A
more detailed exposition of this Scriptural type can be found in the works
listed in the recommended reading section on the Kingdom at the end of this
book.
Now let us return for a moment
to the passage we read in Romans Chapter Two. Besides “wrath
and indignation” toward those who disobey the truth, the Bible states
that “There will be tribulation and distress for
[literally, upon] every
soul of man who does evil” (Rom. 2: 9). This governmental
judgment will be experienced in varying degrees and duration, dependent upon
one’s status (believer vs. unbeliever), but all who do evil will experience
this very real judgment.
It is interesting to note
that the soul of man
is emphasized as the particular part upon which such judgment falls. For the believer, the judgment described here
in Romans matches the concept of “losing the soul”
in the Gospels. The loss of well-being
to the soul of the believer takes place during the coming Kingdom age, as
we have already seen. Thus, even we
believers should have a proper fear of God’s wrath. Let us recall some other severe words that
the writer to the Hebrews wrote to those Jewish believers who were in danger of
backsliding into Judaism: “For we know Him who said
‘Vengeance is Mine, I
will repay.’ And again, ‘The Lord will judge His people.’ It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living
God” (Heb. 10:
30-31).
Today the “fear of God” is a lost virtue. Most Christians have reduced the thought to
one of worshipful reverence. We do need
to revere God, but if one reviews the words and language of the Bible
objectively, he will see that we also need a certain true “fear” of God. 85 We must carry within us a knowledge that we are
beings responsible to God, and that if we turn away from Him in disobedience,
He will visit judgment and chastisement upon us.
According to the verses we
have seen, this judgment can be severe.
The picture of a fiery valley (Gehenna) is awesome and fearful, whatever
the reality. “Many lashes” and “few lashes”, “cutting in
pieces” (Lk.
12: 46-48) and other judgments should truly sober
us. When Paul wrote of the anticipated
Judgment Seat of Christ where we would be recompensed (2
Cor. 5: 10), he immediately followed the thought with: “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men; ...”(2 Cor. 5: 11, KJV).
Page 109
We need a healthy, balanced
view of God. We should trust Him and open our heart to Him. We know that He loves us and is “for us” (Rom. 8: 31). Yet, we
must balance this view with a knowledge that God is an impartial Judge. If we
are not obedient to Him and remain unrepentant, then we will experience His
wrath at the Judgment Seat. Peter wrote to believers: “And if you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each man’s work,
conduct yourselves in fear during the
time of your stay upon earth” (1 Pet.
1: 17). Robert Govett rightly stated: “The fear of God is as much a principle needing to be
impressed upon the believer’s mind as the love of God.” 86
Also,
Solomon wrote: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” (Prov. 9: 10a)
Mercy
Today is the “day of salvation” (2 Cor. 6: 2) in which grace is received (2 Cor. 6: 1). The coming day, however, is a day of justice,
when God in righteous judgment will recompense every man according to his deeds (
Paul expressed a prayerful
hope that Onesiphorus might “find mercy from the Lord
on that day” (the day of judgment) (2 Tim.
1: 18). Paul was hopeful of this mercy because of
Onesiphorus’ faithful service to the apostle.
Jesus also told us in the beatitudes: “Blessed
are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy”
(Matt. 5:
7). If we are merciful in our dealings with
others now, not requiring strict justice, but overlooking and forgiving the
offences of others, then there may be mercy for us at the coming Judgment
Seat. James tells us that mercy can
triumph over Judgment (Jas. 2: 13). On the other hand, James tells us that “judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy”
(Jas. 2: 13). Christ
gives us the same lesson in the parable on forgiveness (Matt. 18: 23-35).
God’s Principle of
Individual Judgment According to Works
In concert with the idea of
believers experiencing forgiveness along the path of our lifetime, there is a very
interesting principle revealed in Ezekiel.
In two sections of Scripture there, God declared His principle of
judgment with which He would judge each individual Israelite according to his
ways. Since these passages are very
similar, only the one in Ezekiel Chapter Eighteen will be quoted. The reader may also wish to refer to the
parallel passage (Ez.
33: 11-20).
20 “The person who sins will die. The son will not bear
the punishment for the father’s iniquity, nor will
the father bear the punishment for the son’s iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself,
and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself.
21 But if the wicked
man turns from all his sins which he has committed and observes all My statutes
and practices justice and righteousness, he
shall surely live; he shall not die. 22 All his transgressions
which he has committed will not be remembered against him; because of his righteousness which he has practiced, he will live. 23 Do I have any pleasure in the death of the wicked,” declares the Lord God, “rather
than that he should turn from his ways and live? 24 But when a righteous man turns away
from his righteousness, commits iniquity,
and does according Page 110 to all the abominations that
a wicked man does, will he live? All his righteous deeds which he has done will
not be remembered for his treachery which he has committed and his sin which he
has committed; for them he will die. 25 Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not right.’ Hear now, O house of
These Old Testament
Scriptures seem to provide a biblical “type”
which foreshadows God’s dealings with New Testament believers according to the
principle of reward according to works.
In the Old Testament type, or picture, obedience or disobedience of the
individual Israelite resulted in physical death or life in accordance with the
highlighted principle of judgment according to one’s doings (Ez. 18: 30; 33: 20).
The application to the New
Testament believer (the fulfilment of the type), however, does not involve
physical life or death. Although a New
Testament believer can suffer physical death for disobedience (1 Cor. 11: 29-30; 1 Jn. 5: 16), the application of this passage does not
focus on such a judgment. Rather, these
Scriptures find their New Testament counterpart in the gaining of
eternal life in the coming Kingdom age, or in the suffering of loss to the soul
of the believer during that age.
This conclusion is based upon the fact that these passages in Ezekiel
are specifically addressing God’s dealing with the individual child of God in
relation to the principle of reward (or judgment) according to the individual’s
deeds. In the New Testament, this
judgment is revealed as not occurring until
the lifetime of
the believer is over (unless
he is raptured), and he appears at the Judgment Seat of Christ upon Christ’s return (2 Cor. 5: 10; Matt. 16: 27).
An examination of the
details of these verses in Ezekiel unfolds some interesting parallels to New
Testament truth. God’s principle of
judgment here in Ezekiel tells us that if a wicked Israelite turns from his
ways and practices doing good, he will save his life and not die. Further, the passage states that “all his transgressions which he has committed will not be
remembered against him” (Ez.
18: 22).
Does this description not
portray the repentance and confession of sins by the believer? Also, does not the practicing of
righteousness which brings life that is mentioned in Ezekiel parallel the
perseverance in doing good that is noted in Romans
2: 7 as the basis of the reward of
eternal life in the coming age?
Page 111
Conversely, “When the righteous turns from his righteousness and commits
iniquity, then he shall surely die in it”
(Ez. 33: 18). The
New Testament states, similarly, that those who do not endure to the end
in obedience shall not receive the salvation of their souls (Matt. 10: 22; Heb. 10: 35-39), but will be denied by the Lord (2 Tim.
2: 12) and suffer tribulation and distress upon
their souls (
This great principle of
judgment is both encouraging and motivating.
It is encouraging because if we have left the pathway of the Christian
race and stopped fully following our Lord Jesus, we can repent and confess and
He will forgive us. Our sins will not be
remembered against us at the Judgment Seat (Ez. 18: 22; 1 Jn. 1: 9). Thus,
we can be encouraged to begin again.
This principle also
motivates us to endure, to not stop following our Lord Jesus. We have this motivation because we realize
that if we decide to deny Him at any point and begin to walk in disobedience,
our prior obedience will not avail for us.
We can be sure that He will deny us in turn (2
Tim. 2: 12).
The danger of His judgment then becomes very real. If anyone thinks that this principle of
judgment as explained here is not right (not just), then he needs to read Ezekiel 18:25, 29 and 33: 17, 20 and
take up his argument with God. The New
Testament revelation portrays realities that parallel the Ezekiel principle.
Conclusion
This chapter and the
previous one have discussed the Judgment Seat of Christ in some detail. If we are honest concerning the revelation of
God’s Word, we will have to admit that at the Judgment Seat a believer in Christ
can receive either positive rewards or fearful negative consequences. God is a wise and just Father. He holds out these positive and negative
recompenses as great incentives for obedience from His children, just as He did
in the Old Testament in Deuteronomy Chapters 27-30. Unfortunately,
these incentives have not been properly taught to believers. Who can tell how much damage to the cause and
testimony of Christ has been done by the lack of teaching on these truths?
Our Christian life time is
a time of testing. At the Bema, Christ will decide who
will be worthy of the Kingdom according to His principles of judgment. D. M. Panton describes the current time
of testing well:
Officers are
required for the administration of a kingdom: so God has deliberately
interposed a prolonged period between the two advents, that our Lord might be
enabled to so test His servants, in His absence, as to discover which are
fitted for positions of responsibility and trust at His return. The Nobleman,
before He departed laid plans for the selection of officers to aid Him in the
administration of the Kingdom; He devised a plan for bringing to light who
those officers are on His return; this plan is in operation at the present
moment, purposely so contrived as to reveal individual capacity for office, and
personal fitness for trust; and -- most impressive of all -- the Long Journey is now nearly over, and at
any moment the investigation may begin.
87
Page 112
Dear brother or sister,
don’t you want to be one approved at Christ’s Judgment Seat? Do you feel that you may have unconfessed
sins? Is it possible that you are still
harbouring bitterness and resentment toward others, instead of forgiving them? Have you been earnestly seeking to know and
serve Him, or have you been off the pathway of the Christian race? If God is touching you on any of these
matters, why not spend some time on your knees before Him right now? He has been waiting for you to do just that.
* *
*
Page 113
Page 115
CHAPTER
9
“…AND COME, FOLLOW ME”
We have seen a preview of
the next age and the possibilities it holds for the believer. But how can we
attain the positive things God would bless us with in the coming Kingdom? And
how can we avoid the negative possibilities? For a fresh answer, let us return
again to the narrative of the rich young ruler.
We have already learned
much from Christ’s dealing with the rich young ruler. Jesus confirmed that in
the Kingdom age the reward of eternal life and the sharing of authority will be
given to those who have left all to follow Him. We have also learned that the
rich ruler needed to lose his soul by selling all of his possessions and giving
them to the poor. Likewise, we also need to lose our souls, denying them
satisfaction in this age, in order to gain our souls in the coming Kingdom age.
Beyond this requirement, however, the Lord also said something very simple, yet
very profound, to the young ruler: “... and come,
follow Me.” (Matt.
19: 21).”
The way to the Kingdom is
to follow Christ. Previously, the matter
of obedience was stressed as the key to entering the Kingdom (i.e., Matt. 7: 21). Obedience is just another perspective on the
matter of following Christ. I want to underscore the term “follow Me”, however, for significant reasons.
Firstly, this term “follow” tells us that Christ is leading every disciple
in a particular way. Christ’s leadership, experienced through the Holy Spirit’s
work in our lives, is leading us every day, onward toward the Kingdom. In
typology, the Old Testament saints of Israel were led out of Egypt and through
the wilderness by Moses (typifying Christ) and the pillar of cloud (typifying
the Holy Spirit) (1 Cor.
10: 2).
This leading of God was to take them onward to enter the good land (Ex. 3: 8), which typifies the believer’s entry into the
coming [Millennial] Kingdom (Heb. 3: 1 - 4: 11). 88 Of the entire generation that left
So far, the matter of “follow” has been stressed. The second significance of the phrase “follow Me” lies in the word “Me”.
The development of the Christian life, which is the way to the Kingdom, must be
a matter exclusively between the believer and the living, indwelling Christ
Himself. We Christians are so prone to substitute and rely on many things other
than Christ Himself for our spiritual progress! Please hear me carefully: we
may receive some help and guidance from servants of God, churches, programs,
conferences, ministries, and the like, BUT
THESE CAN NOT MATURE US, nor can they bring us ultimately to the
Kingdom. It is Christ alone whom we must
learn to know most intimately, for
it is Christ alone who sanctifies (Heb. 2: 11).
In order to follow Him, we
must get to know Him. We must be able to recognize His leading. It is the
Lord’s voice we must learn to know and heed, not the preacher’s. It is the Holy Spirit’s conviction we must
recognize, not the demand of the law or Page 116 “principles”, however
well taught. It is the Holy Spirit’s
intuitive leading we must know and follow, not just a Scriptural formula, or
the advice or counsel of a trusted elder, preacher, or Christian brother. It is
Christ alone we must follow, not an apostle, a godly pastor, or a gifted
teacher. It is Christ we must trust, not a leader or ministry. It is the living Christ alone we must obey
and serve. “It is the Lord Christ whom you serve”
(Col. 3: 24). Of course, it should also be obvious that all
leading of God’s Spirit must be compatible with His word. It is for this reason
that in order to know Christ we must also get to know Him through His word. The
Bible is the “language” the Holy Spirit uses to
speak to us.
Our God is a jealous God.
We may labour within a church or ministry, but we must be very careful not to
let that entity, or persons within it, usurp the headship and leadership of the
living Christ Himself. Moses went up on
the mountain to receive instructions and the two tablets of stone from God (Ex. 24: 15-18). While
he was on the mountain, the people made a golden calf to go before them, thus
replacing Moses’ leadership, because they did not know what had become of Moses
(Ex. 32).
This incident provides a picture of Christ’s ascension and His time of absence
between the two advents.
Moses went up to meet God
on the mountain for forty days (Ex. 24: 18), which
is a Biblical period of testing (Matt. 4: 1-2). Likewise, Christ ascended to God’s presence,
and during His absence there is a time
of testing for the disciples. Will we make something like a golden calf to
go before us as our leader while He is away? The calf was worshipped in
Egyptian religion, and the calf the Israelites made was proclaimed to be their
deliverer (Ex. 32:
4). Will we substitute something religious
for the living Christ? Will a religious
routine, or church attendance and activity, or good things done “for the Lord” (instead of from the Lord), or a
specific doctrinal position, or a certain ministry or church become a “golden calf” for us?
It is also interesting to
note that the worship of the calf was associated with feasting and dancing (Ex. 32: 6, 17-19; 1 Cor. 10: 7). This signifies that the people’s worship
activity was designed to satisfy their lust for fleshly enjoyment; it was not
purely for the glory of God. Further, the calf was made from the people’s
earrings, ornaments for self glory (Ex. 32: 2). What
warning and instruction there is for us in this example. When Jesus says, “and come, follow Me”, the summation of it is this: we
must seek to really know Him quite intimately in order to recognize His
leading, and then we must follow Him alone.
We have a living Christ. “So let us know,
let us press on to know the Lord” (Hos. 6: 3).
A Seeking Heart
There are many things to
help us know the Lord. We can learn from others who have more experience and
for this reason I urge you to read some of the books which pertain to Christian
growth that are listed in the recommended reading section at the back of this
book. They will help you to learn more concerning the work of the Holy Spirit
in your life. But there is one indispensable, fundamental thing we need above
all else in order to know Him: we need a seeking heart. If we stir up our
hearts to seek the Lord, He will bring all the right helps along in their
proper time for us. On the other hand, we may have much Bible knowledge, read
many spiritual books, and attend many Page 117 conferences and meetings, but if we do not have a seeking
heart to know and follow Him alone, we will miss Him. We will end up with
religion, maybe even proper (Christian) religion, but we will not know Christ
intimately.
The Christian life is not a
round of activities: Bible study, prayer, church attendance, witnessing. It is
not doing good or standing up for righteousness. The Christian life is Christ Himself. And the development of this life,
His life in us, is the way to the coming Kingdom. How can we follow Christ?
How can we gain the coming Kingdom? The key to being a follower of Christ is
to be a seeker of Christ. To follow Christ, we must know Him. To know
Christ, we must seek Him. The key does not lie in being a busy doer. The secret
is found in being a diligent seeker, a seeker of Him. “He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him”
(Heb. 11:
6, NKJV).
In Philippians
3: 7-14
we can really sense Paul’s seeking to know Christ:
7 But whatever things were gain
to me, those things I have counted as loss for
the sake of Christ. 8 More than that, I count all
things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my
Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all
things, and count them but rubbish in order that
I may gain Christ, 9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law,
but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, 10 that I may know Him, and the
power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;
11 in order that I may attain to the
resurrection from the dead. 12 Not that I have already
obtained it, or have already become perfect, but I press on in order that I may lay hold of that for
which I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. 13 Brethren, I do not regard myself as
having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies
ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call
of God in Christ Jesus.
In verses
eight and ten, Paul speaks with great
fervency of his desire to know Christ.
Paul’s experiential knowledge of Christ’s resurrection power, and his
fellowship of Christ’s sufferings, conforming him to his Lord’s death, all lead
on to Paul’s hope that “... if, by any means, I may attain to
the resurrection [out-resurrection] from the dead”
(v. 11,
NKJV). This special word for resurrection (exanastasis)
appears only here in the Greek New Testament. It is best translated “out-resurrection”, and it pertains to the
special state of [immortality] resurrection
in the coming age for all overcoming believers who attain to that state. It is related
to the “prize” Paul pressed on for in verse fourteen. Since the prize is obtained only
by “pressing on”, and
since the out-resurrection must be attained
by believers, these things point to reward in the coming Kingdom. 89 So we see that in this passage the reward is a result
of earnestly seeking Christ.
Many principles could be
presented on the Christian life, but if we miss the most crucial spring from
which all else flows, we will get nowhere. All progress begins and continues
through our earnestly “seeking the Lord”.
Admittedly, there are times when we may drift from such seeking, and the Lord,
in His mercy, seeks us in order to draw us after Him again. His intention, as
it was with Peter after he returned to fishing in John
21, is to stir our love for Him that we might again seek Him.
Page 118
It would be very
encouraging and enlightening for you to research all of the passages concerning
“seeking” the Lord in an exhaustive concordance.
It is so interesting that in these passages God does not give much detail on
how to seek the Lord. Rather, He simply unveils the picture of earnest seeking.
If we earnestly seek, we
shall find. How we will find will vary.
As an encouragement for you to seek Him, some of the Bible passages on “seeking the Lord” are detailed below.
“But
from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him if you search for Him
with all your heart and all your soul” (Deut.
4: 29).
The above verse is so
encouraging. It follows several verses wherein God promised to judge
“And
after the Levites left, those from all the
tribes of Israel, such as set their heart to
seek the Lord God of Israel, came to Jerusalem
to sacrifice to the Lord God of their fathers” (2
Chron. 11: 16,
NKJV).
This is another encouraging
verse. Jeroboam took the ten tribes of
On my bed night
after night I sought him whom my soul loves;
I sought him but did not find him. “I must arise now and go about the city; in the streets and in the squares I must seek him whom my
soul loves.” I sought him but did not find him.
The watchmen who make the rounds in the city found me,
and I said, “Have you
seen him whom my soul loves?” Scarcely had I
left them when I found him whom my soul loves; I
held onto him and would not let him go (Song
of Songs. 3: 1-4a).
The seeker here in the Song
of Songs typifies the believer, and the one who is sought is Christ as the
bridegroom (2 Cor.
11: 2).
“And
you will seek Me and find Me, when you search
for Me with all your heart” (Jer.
29: 13).
“Seek
the Lord, all you humble of the earth who have
carried out His ordinances; Seek righteousness, seek humility. Perhaps you will be hidden in the day of the
Lord’s anger” (Zeph.
2: 3).
Page 119
But without faith
it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a
rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Heb. 11: 6, NKJV).
“And
come, follow Me” speaks of our simple and pure devotion to Christ
Himself (2 Cor. 11: 2-3). Above all, we need to be zealous concerning
this. The best way to preserve the
purity of our relationship to Jesus Christ is to be an earnest seeker of
Him. Let us not be satisfied with
religion, or any religious substitute for Him, but “let
us go out to Him outside the camp” (Heb.
13: 13).
*
* *
Page 120
Page 121
CHAPTER
10
“FOR OR MY SAKE”
Our final look at the story
of the rich young ruler concerns Jesus’ words to His disciples about leaving
all to follow Him. After the young ruler went away sorrowful and Jesus spoke of
the difficulty of entering the [coming
Messianic and Millennial] Kingdom
of God, Peter queried: “Behold, we have left everything and followed You; what then will there be for us” (Matt. 19: 27)? Jesus
answered his question, telling him about sitting on the twelve thrones, judging
the twelve tribes of
“And
everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or
children or farms for My name’s sake, shall receive many times as much, and shall inherit eternal life” (Matt. 19: 29).
Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, there is
no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or
children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel’s sake, but that he shall receive a hundred times as much now in the
present age, houses and brothers and sisters and
mothers and children and farms, along with
persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life” (Mk. 10: 29-30).
And He said to them, “Truly I say to you, there is
no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of
the kingdom of God, who shall not
receive many times as much at this time and in the age to come, eternal life” (Lk. 18: 29-30).
Let us look at these four
motivations that Jesus gave us.
For My Sake
I feel this is the most
precious of the four motivations. Why
should we “leave” all the comforts and
enjoyments of this age in order to follow Him? Simply for His sake. We would do it simply because we love Him and
want to please Him. If we have a heart
loving Him above all else, we will want to make Him happy. Our faithfulness to
Him will be more important to us than any earthly love or allegiance. This motivation is very personal. It involves
our personal relationship with Christ.
What we do, we are doing to Him and for Him alone. The real seekers of the Lord will be willing
to leave all simply for His sake.
For My Name’s Sake
This motivation concerns
the testimony of Christ to others. We leave all to follow Him so that His Name,
the Name of Jesus, might be declared to others.
Page 122
In His prayer to the
Father, the Lord Jesus stated, “I manifested Thy name to
the men whom Thou gavest Me out of the world” (Jn. 17: 6). We also should glorify and exalt that Name in
our living. Paul prayed for the
believers in Thessalonica that “the name of our Lord
Jesus may be glorified in you” (2 Thess. 1: 12). The thought here seems to be that the Name
has something to do with the expression of the character and virtue of Christ
being manifested through the life of the believer. How we live reflects upon the Name of our Lord Jesus with whom we are
identified.
The Name of Jesus is above
every name (Phil. 2:
9). Therefore, that Name should be magnified
(Acts 19: 17),
as a testimony to all men. We should
walk in the way of righteousness for His Name’s sake (Ps.
23: 3).
We should be willing to leave all, going out to labour for Him for the sake of
His Name being declared and known (3 Jn. 7). Finally, we should even be willing to die for that
Name (Matt. 10:
21-22, 32; Acts 21: 13).
If we are not willing to
forsake pleasing ourselves in this age in order to follow Him, then how will
His Name be known?
For the Gospel’s
Sake
We should “leave all” to follow Him so that the gospel may be
brought to others. The apostle Paul was
so burdened for men to be saved that he became “all
things to all men, that I may by all means save
some” (1 Cor.
9: 22).
Further, he then declared, “and I do all things for the
sake of the gospel” (1 Cor.
9: 23).
It is the gospel that “is the power of God unto
salvation” (Rom. 1: 16, KJV).
Therefore, men are saved through the declaration of the gospel.
“For
whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. How then shall they
call upon Him in whom they have not believed?
And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, ‘How
beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tidings of good things’”
(Rom. 10:
13-15).
Do not think that these
verses apply just to evangelists. All of
Christ’s disciples are to go forth with His gospel (Matt. 28: 18-20; Lk. 24: 46-49; Acts 1: 8; 8: 4).
For the Sake of the
Although this reason for
leaving all might mean that we do so in order to gain participation in the
coming Kingdom, I am inclined to take a different interpretation. All three of the other reasons for leaving
all to follow Jesus involve something done for His sake alone, not for our
sake. In this fourth case, a believer is
motivated to leave everything in order to benefit the Lord’s Kingdom on the
earth. Like the other three cases, the
life of the Lord has so infused the believer’s life that he or she is motivated
to sacrifice much, even all, in order to benefit Him and His plan for mankind.
Conclusion
We need to see the value of
the four things that are the essence of the motivations. These four things are
Christ Himself, His Name, His gospel, and His Kingdom. How precious these four
things are! The problem with the rich young ruler Page 123 was that he did not see the value of these things.
Thus, he preferred to keep his material possessions instead. The Lord also
promised to reward him with eternal life in the Kingdom if he would leave all,
but this too seemed less valuable to him than the enjoyment of the things of
this life.
Thank God that some dear
saints over the centuries have left all to follow Him. They did this for the
benefit of God. Some may have also seen something concerning reward for
faithfulness. Yet, I do believe that there will be saints in the Kingdom who
had very little, if any, knowledge of conditional participation in the coming
Kingdom. They will be there not because
of their knowledge of the Kingdom or lack of it. They will be there because of their devotion to Christ: they will have
followed Him for His sake, for His Name’s sake, for the gospel’s sake, or for
the sake of the Kingdom of God.
God has written much in His
Word concerning the coming Kingdom. He also wants the reward of the Kingdom to motivate
us. It is for this reason that this book has been written, dear brother or
sister--that you may see the Kingdom, pursue the Kingdom, and be counted “worthy of the
kingdom” (2 Thess. 1: 5)
Page 124
Page 125
ENDNOTES
CHAPTER
TWO
1
Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the
Messiah. 1883. (Reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 1971), Vol. II, Book IV, p. 379.
2
W. E. Vine, An Expository Dictionary of New
Testament Words. 1939. (Reprint ed., Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers,
1968), p. 367, quoting from Notes on Galatians, by Hogg and Vine, pp.
324-325. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson, Inc.
3
Colin Brown, ed., The New International Dictionary
of New Testament Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975), Vol. III,
p.832. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.
4 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 480. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing
House.
5
Joseph Bonsirven, Palestinian
Judaism in the Time of Jesus Christ, translated from the French by
William Wolf. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964), p. 169.
6 Ibid., pp. 229-230.
7
Encyclopedia Judaica
(Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House Ltd., 1971), Vol.VI, p. 874.
8
It should be noted that in ancient Judaism the term “the
world to come” (olam ha-ba)
did not always have a fixed meaning and underwent transition over time. One encyclopedia reference shows that period’s identity with
the millennium:
The Perso-Babylonian
world-year of twelve millenniums, however, was transformed in Jewish
eschatology into a world-week of seven millenniums corresponding with the week
of Creation, the verse “a thousand years in thy sight
are but as yesterday” (Ps. xc5[A.V.4])
having suggested the idea that the present world of toil (“olam ha-zeh”) is to be followed by a Sabbatical millennium,
“the world to come” (“olam ha-ba”): Tamid v11. 4 . . . [The Jewish Encyclopedia (New York and London:
Funk and Wagnalls Co., 1907), Vol. V, pp. 210-211.]
Other encyclopaedia
references show how the term evolved:
Owing to the gradual evolution
of eschatological conceptions, the Rabbis used the terms “olam
ha-ba” (the world to come), “le-atid
la-bo” (in the coming time). and “yemot
ha-Mashiah” (the Messianic days) promiscuously or
often without clear distinction (see Geiger . . . ) . . . R. Eleazar of Modi’im of the second century (Mek.,
Beshallah, Wayassa, ed.
Weiss, p.59, note) distinguishes between the Messianic time (“malkut bet Dawid”), the “olam ha-ba” (the future world),
which is that of the souls, Page 126 and the time of the Resurrection, which he calls “olam
hadash” (the new world, or world of regeneration).
[Ibid., p.216]
It was Jesus’ response to
the rich ruler, however, in which he
defined the future age of reward and blessing, from which we must derive our
theology concerning reward according to works.
9
W. E. Vine, p. 19. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson, Inc.
10 See Ray E. Baughman, The
11 The eternal
In commenting on First Corinthians 15: 27-28, Dwight
Pentecost says, “The means by which all things are
brought under subjection to God, so that He becomes all in all, is that Christ
unites the authority that is His as King with the Father’s after He has ‘put down all rule and all authority and power’ (1 Cor. 15: 24). God’s original
purpose was to manifest His absolute authority and this purpose is realized
when Christ unites the earthly theocracy with the eternal
CHAPTER
THREE
12 For illumination on this point, the reader should study Chapter Nine
in Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Life. 1957. (American edition, Wheaton: Tyndale House
Publishers, 1977), pp. 151-173.
13 Miles J. Stanford, Principles of Spiritual
Growth. (
14 Ibid., p. 69.
15 Ibid., p. 9, quoting James McConkey, no
reference cited.
16 Charles G.
Page 127
CHAPTER
FOUR
17 George Eldon Ladd, Crucial Questions About the
18 Ibid., pp. 80-81.
19 Ray E. Baughman, The Kingdom of God
Visualized, (Chicago: Moody Press, 1972), p. 191.
20 C.
21 One of the most thorough documentations of this view being held by the
ancient Jews and the early church is found in George N. H. Peters’ work, The Theocratic Kingdom, Proposition 143, Vol. II,
pp. 448-460. He cites the following church fathers as proponents of this
sabbatical plan: Papias, Barnabus,
Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Polycarp, Tertullian, Lactantius, Cyprian, Ambrose,
Origen, Jerome, and, surprisingly, even Augustine. Since the early church, some
of the teachers who have endorsed this view are Bishop Latimer (1552 A. D.),
Archbishop Usher (who compiled his famous Bible chronology in 1650 A. D.),
Martin Luther, Phillip Melancthon, Joseph A Seiss, Robert Govett, Clarence
Larkin, D. M. Panton, Arthur W. Pink, and R. E. Neighbour.
22 F. W. Grant, The Numerical Structure of
Scripture, (Neptune, N. J.: Loizeaux Brothers, 1887), p. 52.
23 See E. W. Bullinger, Number in Scripture, (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1894) pp. 167-168.
24 Scofield, pp. 3-4.
25 George Eldon Ladd, The Gospel of the
Kingdom, (Reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.,
1992), pp. 66-67,72-73.
CHAPTER FIVE
26 Spiros Zodhiates,
ed., The Complete Word Study Dictionary--New
Testament (Chattanooga: AMG Publishers, 1992), p. 1353.
27 For a deeper analysis of man’s three parts, see Chapters One and Two
of Volume I, Watchman Nee, The Spiritual Man
(New York: Christian Fellowship Publishers, 1968).
28 Watchman Nee, The Spiritual Man (New
York; Christian Fellowship Publishers, 1968), Vol. I, p. 39.
29 D. M. Panton, The Judgment Seat of Christ
(Hayesville, NC: Schoettle Publishing Co., Inc., 1984), pp. 54-55.
Page 128
30 W. E. Vine, An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words. 1939.
(Reprint ed., Nashville:
Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1968), p. 149, partially quoting from Notes on
Thessalonians by Hogg and Vine, p. 134. Used by permission of Thomas
Nelson, Inc.
31 John F. Hart, “Does Philippians 1:6 Guarantee Progressive
Sanctification?” Journal of the Grace Evangelical
Society (Spring, 1996): 37-58; (Autumn, 1996): 33-60.
32 See especially Chapters Ten, Fourteen, and Fifteen of Joseph C.
Dillow, The Reign of the Servant Kings (Miami
Springs: Schoettle Publishing Co., 1992).
33 G. H. Lang, Pictures and Parables (Miami
Springs: Conley & Schoettle Publishing Co., Inc., 1985), pp. 301-310.
34 W. E. Vine, p. 325. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson, Inc.
35 Zane C. Hodges, The Gospel Under Siege
(Dallas: Redencion Viva, 1981), p. 127.
36 Ibid.
CHAPTER
SIX
37 The Old Testament commandments take on a higher meaning and
requirement than the scribes and the Pharisees taught (Matt.
5: 20-48), but Jesus is not addressing that issue here
with the rich young ruler.
38 Philip Mauro, God’s Pilgrims (Reprinted
ed., Harrisburg: Christian Publishers, Inc., 1969), p. 176.
39 Spiros Zodhiates,
ed., The Complete Word Study Dictionary--New
Testament (Chattanooga: AMG Publishers, 1992), p. 1353.
40 Watchman Nee, The Salvation of the Soul
(New York: Christian Fellowship Publishers, Inc., 1978), p.5.
41 Mauro, pp. 177-178.
42 Nee, p. 7.
43 Nee, pp. 6-7.
44 Mauro, p. 175.
45 Witness Lee, The Experience of Life
(Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1973), p. 72.
46 Nee, p. 24.
Page 129
47 Lee, pp. 86-87.
48 Nee, p. 38.
49 Watchman Nee, Love Not the World,
1968. (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1978), pp. 99-100. Used by
permission of current publishers: Kingsway Publications, Lottbridge
Drove,
CHAPTER
SEVEN
50 See J. Dwight Pentecost, Things to Come
(Grand Rapids: Academic Books, 1964), pp. 220-226.
51 W. E. Vine, An Expository Dictionary of
New Testament Words, 1939. (Reprint ed., Nashville: Thomas Nelson
Publishers, 1968), p.131. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson, Inc.
52 Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology
(Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, ©1993 by
Dallas Theological Seminary), Vol. V, p. 97. Used by permission of the
publisher.
53 Ibid., Vol. IV, pp. 211-212. Used by permission of the publisher.
54 George Eldon Ladd, Crucial Questions About
the
55 William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A
Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Christian Literature
(Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1957), p.160.
56 Watchman Nee, The Gospel of God (Anaheim:
Living Stream Ministry, 1990), Vol. iii, p.408.
57 Watchman Nee, The Gospel of God (Anaheim:
Living Stream Ministry, 1990), Vol. III, p. 405.
58 Watchman Nee, Study on Matthew (from
The Collected Works of Watchman Nee)
(Anaheim: Living Stream Ministry, 1992), p. 63.
59 Spiros Zodhiates,
ed., The Complete Word Study Dictionary - New Testament (Chattanooga: AMG Publishers,
1992), p. 373.
60 Robert Govett, Reward According to Works
(Hayesville, N. C.: Schoettle Publishing Co., 1989), article entitled
“Entrance Into the Millennial Kingdom”, p. 35.
61 Spiros Zodhiates,
p. 107.
Page 130
62 G. H. Pember was one of the giants of prophetic teaching in the
nineteenth century. He translated Jude 7 as “... suffering
the punishment of an age-long fire.” He then commented on this
translation as follows:
Now, it may be asked, Why
change the usual translation, “eternal” or “everlasting”, into “age-long”?
And the answer is, We do so for three reasons:-- First, because the Greek word aionios admits the latter
rendering quite as readily as the former ... For the word aionios is an adjective formed from aion, which last, being derived from the Greek for “always”, signifies the whole time during which a
person, thing, or state, exists. Hence,
if it be used of a person, it expressed his whole life, or life-time; if of a
succession of generations, of history, or of the state of a people or the
world, an age; if of the universe, or of anything that lasts for ever,
eternity. The adjective, of course,
follows the meanings of its noun; and may, therefore, be rendered either by “age-long”, or by “everlasting”,
according to the indication of the context.
G. H. Pember, The Great Prophecies of the Centuries Concerning the Church, (Miami Springs: Conley and
Schoettle Publishing Co., 1984), pp. 122-123.
63 The parable of the ten virgins (Matt.
25: 1-13) has been interpreted in a variety of ways.
However, I believe the interpretation that is most in harmony with the rest of
Scripture is generally as follows. The parable concerns watchfulness (v. 13). Only
believers are told to “watch” in Scripture;
unbelievers do not have the spiritual awareness or capacity to do so. All ten were genuine virgins, which signifies
believers in respect to their relationship to Christ (2
Cor. 11: 2). All of
the virgins had their lamps lit (vs. 7-8), which means
they were regenerated and indwelt in their spirits by the Holy Spirit (Pr. 20: 27; Jn.
3: 6; Rom. 8: 16). In ancient times, vessels were separate
containers for oil, apart from the lamp itself (v.
4). The wise believers were pictured as
prepared because they had the extra measure of oil in their vessels (vs. 3-4). This pictures the gaining of the Holy Spirit
by the believer in his soul, his “vessel”. This
concept matches the saving of the soul at Christ’s return through the losing of
our soul now (Matt. 16:
24-27).
By paying the price of self-denial and taking up the cross now, our soul is
filled with the Holy Spirit (the oil in the vessel). Verse
9 indicates that this portion of the oil (the Holy Spirit) is not a
gift, but must be “bought” by the believer. The foolish virgins are those believers who do
not deny themselves now and take up the cross and follow Christ. These
unprepared ones will not enter the Kingdom. This parable may indicate God’s dealing with
dead believers, since these virgins slept (died) due to Christ’s delay in
returning (v. 5).
A thorough exposition of this parable can be found in the following work:
Witness Lee, The Kingdom (Anaheim:
Living Stream Ministry, 1980), pp. 162-174.
CHAPTER
EIGHT
64 Watchman Nee, The Gospel of God (Anaheim:
Living Stream Ministry, 1990), Vol. III, p. 401.
65 D. M. Panton, The Judgment Seat of Christ
(Hayesville, N. C.: Schoettle Publishing Co., 1993), p. 26.
66 G. H. Lang, Pictures and Parables (Miami
Springs: Conley and Schoettle Publishing Co., 1985), pp. 306-307.
Page 131
67 For one view of the literalness of such judgments, see:
Gary T. Whipple, Shock and Surprise Beyond the Rapture (Hayesville,
N. C.: Schoettle Publishing Co. Inc., 1992), pp. 176-177.
68 Noted below are seven Christian teachers who endorse this truth:
Robert Govett,
Reward According to Works (Hayesville,
NC: Schoettle Publishing Co., 1984), article entitled “Will All Believers Enter the Millennial
Kingdom?”, pp. 20-21.
G. H. Lang, The Epistle to the Hebrews (Miami Springs: Conley
& Schoettle Publishing Co., 1985), pp. 180-186.
Witness Lee,
Life-Study of Matthew (Anaheim: Living
Stream Ministry, 1985), pp. 230-232.
Watchman Nee,
The Gospel of God (Anaheim: Living
Stream Ministry, 1990), Vol. III, pp. 441-462.
D. M. Panton,
The Judgment Seat of Christ (Hayesville,
NC: Schoettle Publishing Co., 1993), pp. 76-77.
G. H. Pember,
The Great Prophecies of the Centuries Concerning
the Church (Miami Springs: Conley and Schoettle Publishing Co. Inc.,
1984), pp. 105-116.
Gary T. Whipple,
Shock and Surprise Beyond the Rapture (Hayesville,
NC: Schoettle Publishing Co. Inc., 1992), pp. 145-161, 171-175.
69 G. H. Pember, The Great Prophecies of the
Centuries Concerning the Church (Miami Springs: Conley and Schoettle
Publishing Co. Inc., 1984), p. 93.
70 Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of
Jesus the Messiah. 1883. (Reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans
Publishing Co., 1971), Vol. II, pp. 440; 792-793.
71 Pember, pp. 97-98.
72 Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament
(Chicago: Moody Press, 1980), Vol. 2, p.672. Used by permission.
73 Ibid., p.673. Used by permission.
74 W. E. Vine, An Expository Dictionary of
New Testament Words, 1939. (Reprint ed., Nashville: Thomas Nelson
Publishers, 1968), p. 250. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson, Inc.
75 Spiros Zodhiates,
ed., The Complete Word Study Dictionary--New
Testament (Chattanooga: AMG Publishers, 1992), p.1468.
76 Watchman Nee, Love One Another (New
York: Christian Fellowship Page 132 Publishers, Inc., 1975), pp. 1-23.
77 C. H. Mackintosh, The Mackintosh Treasury
– Miscellaneous Writings by C. H. Mackintosh (Neptune, N. J.:
Loizeaux Brothers, 1976), p. 650.
78 Wendell E. Miller, Forgiveness: The Power
and The Puzzles (Warsaw, In.: ClearBrook
Publishers, 1994), p.31.
79 W. E. Vine, p. 120. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson, Inc.
80 A most enlightening discussion of confession and cleansing can be
found in Watchman Nee’s work The Gospel of God, Volume III, pp. 463-485. His
discussion here of the Old Testament type of the water of purification made
from the ashes of the red heifer is very thought provoking and deep.
81 Watchman Nee, Love One Another (New
York: Christian Fellowship Publishers, Inc., 1975), pp. 7-8.
82 Ibid., p. 6.
83 Miller, pp. 53-54.
84 J. D.
85 For a short study on the meaning of “the fear
of the Lord” see: Bill Gothard, The Overlooked Requirements for Riches, Honour and Life
(Oak Brook, II: Institute in Basic Life Principles).
86 Robert Govett, Reward According to Works
(Miami Springs: Schoettle Publishing Co. Inc., 1989), article entitled
“Will all Believers Enter the
87 D. M. Panton, The Judgment Seat of Christ
(Hayesville, NC: Schoettle Publishing Co., 1984), p. 35.
CHAPTER
NINE
88 Hebrews is a book altogether dominated by the theme of the coming
Kingdom. The great warning passages of Hebrews (Heb. 2: 1-3; 4: 1, 9, 11; 6: 4-8; 10: 26-31, 35-39; 12: 16-17, 28-29) all have to do with the potential loss of
the Kingdom for the believer and attendant chastisement from God. For the sake of making this book as brief as
possible, I have not gone into the details of Hebrews, which is the foremost
book on the Kingdom in the Epistles. For
an introduction to the Kingdom theme in Hebrews, it is suggested that the
reader review: R. E. Neighbor, If By Any Means (Miami Springs: Conley &
Schoettle Publishing Co., 1985), pp. 84-127. Other works listed under the
recommended reading section on Kingdom matters would also address passages in
Hebrews (particularly works by Govett,
Lang and Chitwood).
Page 133
89 For reading on the “out-resurrection”,
please consult the following works: (1) R. E. Neighbor,
If By Any Means (Miami Springs: Conley
& Schoettle Publishing Co., 1985), pp. 40-62, and (2) D. M. Panton, The Judgment Seat of Christ (Hayesville, NC:
Schoettle Publishing Co., Inc.), pp. 48-53.
RECOMMENDED
Concerning the Christian
life:
Bill Freeman, The Cross and the
Self. (Scottsdale: Ministry Publications, 1994). A detailed look at
this subject. Order from Ministry Publications,
Watchman Nee, The Normal
Christian Life. 1957 (American Edition, Wheaton: Tyndale House
Publishers, 1977). An excellent overview, both doctrinally and experientially.
Watchman Nee, Love Not the World.
1968 (American Edition, Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, 1978). Helpful for
understanding the “world” and the believer’s
separation from it.
Watchman Nee, The Life That Wins.
(New York: Christian Fellowship Publishers, Inc., 1986) Beneficial insights
into the victorious Christian life.
Witness Lee, The Experience of
Life. (Anaheim, CA: Living Stream Ministry, 1973). A detailed and
deep analysis of the development of the believer’s spiritual life. Available
from Living Stream Ministry,
Miles J. Stanford, Principles of Spiritual
Growth. (Lincoln: Back to the Bible, 1991). An excellent work
drawing on the words of outstanding teachers. Order from Back to the Bible at
1-800-759-2425.
Charles Stanley, The Wonderful
Spirit-Filled Life. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1992). A
basic and introductory word on the Holy Spirit’s activity in the believer’s
life.
Charles G. Trumball, Victory in Christ. (Fort Washington, PA:
Christian Literature Crusade, 1992). Inspiring, enlightening and helpful.
Concerning the Salvation
of the Soul:
Watchman Nee, The Salvation of
the Soul. (New York: Christian Fellowship Publishers, Inc., 1978).
Concerning the Judgment
Seat of Christ:
D. M. Panton, The Judgment Seat
of Christ (Hayesville, NC: Schoettle Publishing Co., Inc., 1984). *
This work is a masterpiece. It is jam-packed with Scriptural truth.
Concerning Kingdom
Matters:
Page 134
Arlen L. Chitwood, From
Robert Govett, Reward According to
Works. (Hayesville, NC: Schoettle Publishing Co., Inc., 1989) *
Robert Govett, Kingdom Studies.
(Hayesville, NC: Schoettle Publishing Co., Inc., 1989)*
Robert Govett, The
G. H. Lang, Ideals and
Realities. (Hayesville, NC: Schoettle Publishing Co., Inc., 1988)*
G. H. Lang, Firstborn Sons,
Their Rights and Risks. (Hayesville, NC: Conley & Schoettle
Publishing Co., Inc., 1984) *
Watchman Nee, The Gospel of God,
Volume III. (Anaheim, CA: Living Stream Ministry, 1990). Available from Living
Stream Ministry,
R. E. Neighbor,
R. E. Neighbor,
D. M. Panton, The Judgment
Seat of Christ. (Hayesville, NC: Schoettle Publishing Co., Inc., 1984). *
Gary T. Whipple, Shock and Surpise Beyond the Rapture! (Hayesville, NC:
Schoettle Publishing Co., Inc., 1992) * Many details of the Christian’s future
life are explored here. Because of the
minuteness of the details, the reader
should be cautioned that some of the author’s conclusions should be viewed as
possibilities only and should be weighed in light of actual Scriptural
statements and principles of exegesis.
*Note:
All works by Conley & Schoettle Publishing Co. or by Schoettle Publishing
Co. may be ordered from Schoettle Publishing Co., P. O. Box 1246, Hayesville,
NC 28904 [Phone: 706-896-3333. Fax: 706-896-3311] Some books published by
Schoettle are out of print now. It is
possible, however, that some stock still exists at the retail level. Try Home
Life Ministries at http://gracenet.com/HLMin/HTML/OLCMenu.htm (Worldside Web address); or