Immediately after the seven-day Feast of Tabernacles comes the Last Great Day, sometimes referred to in the Bible as the eighth day of the Feast (John 7:37-39, Leviticus 23:34-36). This is a one day festival, a holy day. We rest on that day and assemble for services.
This day represents the general resurrection, also called the white throne judgment, when the vast majority of people who have ever lived will come up in a resurrection to physical life once again (Ezekiel 37:1-14, Revelation 20:11-15). This will include everyone who has never had a change to be converted in their first life.
No one can be saved apart from Christ, and faith in Christ and His gospel message is a requirement for conversion (John 11:25-26, Acts 8:36-37, John 8:23-24, Acts 4:9-12). There have been billions who have lived and died without ever hearing the true gospel and the name of Christ. Those people will have a chance for salvation. Even those who have heard the truth but not accepted or understood it because Satan has blinded them will be included. They will be brought back to physical life (Ezekiel 37:1-14). They will be judged for what they have done in this life (Revelation 20:11-15). They will be pronounced guilty (Romans 3:23). But they will also hear the true gospel and have a chance to believe the gospel and repent and be forgiven and converted and receive God's Holy Spirit. They will learn that Christ suffered and died to pay the penalty for their sins.
If they repent and are converted, they will have a period of time to prove their repentance and practice God's way of life. They can then receive eternal life and be saved and live forever in God's kingdom in happiness and joy. This period of time may be one hundred years (Isaiah 65:20).
This will show God's love and fairness that no human being will be excluded from God's salvation due to circumstances of time and place of birth over which we have no control.
Those who are in the general resurrection will be able to compare the happiness of that time when Satan is not around with the suffering of this present time in which they first lived. They will be able to see that God's way is better than Satan's way. They will make their choice, one way or another.
I have no doubt that many today who do not believe in God doubt His existence because they see the suffering and injustice in this world and cannot imagine how a just and loving God could permit it. Probably they notice that traditional Christianity does not provide any way those who never heard of Christ can be fully saved in God's plan since they have not become converted Christians.
But God has made a perfect plan that the atheists and those in traditional religion know nothing about. God is teaching mankind the lesson, through experience, that God's way is best.
Those in the white throne judgment will also learn a lesson of love, of outgoing concern for the good of others, of the give way of life. They will learn it from the example of those who lived in the millennium and worked to provide the food, clothing, and shelter that the billions will need to be given when they first come up out of their graves. They will learn that they have been provided for by the labor and sacrifice, motivated by love, of the people who lived during the millennium. That should be a lesson for them, that they should love others as others have loved them.
How great is God's wisdom and how great is His love to have made such a perfect plan as this for the salvation of all people!
No comments:
Post a Comment