Transcript
You, Arch. And I want everybody to know that this is by far the most comfortable position from which I've ever addressed a church audience. That may come. And I would like to further add that sitting up here watching you all enjoy your pizza while I have a mere glass of water will probably facilitate answers that are quick and to the point.
I tried to work out an agreement with Arch that if he sees me kind of slump in the chair and shut my eyes, he can give me a minute or two to make sure I'm not meditating on the answer to a question. And if I've really fallen asleep, Arch is supposed to come up and either take an offering or dismiss the meeting.
Many years ago, when I first began to teach on the seminary faculty, I readily discovered that the three most important words that a teacher can learn to say are, “I don't know.” The students have a tendency to think that the teacher in front of them knows the answer to all questions. And even as a green freshman, I knew better than that. And after twenty-seven years of teaching, I also know better than that.
So some of the questions I get tonight may be answered that way, but at least we'll do the best we can with the questions that we get. I've had some forewarning on the questions that I'll address first. So let's go through the questions that have already been given to me and then when we exhaust these we will receive questions from the floor.
The first question that I was given this weekend is based on Isaiah 40:1-2. “Comfort, comfort my people,” says your God. “Speak tenderly to Jerusalem” and so forth. The question is, who is the speaker asking to do the comforting? The nations of the world or is God comforting? What does “double for all her sins” mean? Why double?
I think the answer to the first question is that the speaker I am assuming is the prophet and that the command to comfort my people is a command that God is giving through the speaker. In the general context of prophecy that probably is a generalized command that would be fulfilled in the end times when the Lord Jesus Christ comes back.
And you remember that one of the things He does is to gather to Himself all of the Jewish people who are scattered all over the world and those who are left alive in the world and those who are the glorified saints should extend comfort to the children of Israel as they are being regathered into their land. I think that that would be the best explanation of it that I could come up with. So the speaker is asking anyone who will at that time and that period to do the comforting.
Next question is in what sense should believers view their adoption by God? I believe that in the New Testament primarily in Paul adoption has reference to a social custom in which when a young son who was in his minority came to a certain age, Paul suggests that that age was specified by his father that he was adopted. That is that there was a kind of a ceremony that inducted him into manhood.
He was from this point on treated as an adult son. I think the Pauline doctrine is that under the law in the Old Testament God treated people as children who were under tutors and governors. But now that the Holy Spirit has come, now that Christ has come, now that we are no longer under law but are under grace, our position is that of adult sons and daughters.
So that adoption, I think in Pauline theology refers to the fact that we're free from the law and that we are to live under the new covenant and we're to live as grown-up sons and daughters of God. Yes. Well, there were two words that could express sonship. One was a Greek word that meant child and then there was a word that meant kind of son.
So I think when Paul uses the word for child, we're talking about being the sons and daughters of God by regeneration, just as we can talk now about our minor children as either a son or a daughter. But that Paul reserves the term son for those who have received the adoption, who not only are born again but also have received the Spirit and therefore live no longer under the law but under grace or at least are free to live under grace. Something like that.
So in that view the word son would not refer to our regeneration per se but to our new standing by virtue of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Yes. Did you just say not all those who have been born again but also those who have received His spirit? Yes, good question. What I had in mind was that in the Old Testament of course everyone who looked forward to Messiah was regenerated.
“Except a man be born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” So under the Old Testament arrangement, everybody was born of God. But the Holy Spirit had not yet been given as is made clear in the Gospel of John among other places. The Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified. Of course, the Spirit was given on the day of Pentecost.
So the gift of the Spirit while it doesn't produce in itself regeneration in those who are already regenerated brings about adoption. It raises the one who receives the Spirit to the level of adulthood to live no longer under the governors and tutors of the law but under grace. And you remember that Paul makes quite a point out of this in Galatians in that he describes the period when the Jewish people were under the law as a period when the child is under tutors and teachers and pedagogues.
And that's the Old Testament experience. The New Testament experience is that we no longer have these tutors and teachers that we live as adult sons of God with the Holy Spirit personally present within us producing the spiritual life. So the difference here is what is frequently described as a dispensational difference.
The difference between Old Testament people who were born again but did not receive the permanent indwelling of the Spirit and New Testament people who are not only born again but also have received the permanent indwelling of the Spirit. Okay. Next question. How can we differentiate between the new creation of God, which I am, and the flesh and not be guilty of a dualistic view of man like the Gnostics?
Let me read that question again just so everybody gets the idea here. How can we differentiate between the new creation of God, which I am, and the flesh and not be guilty of a dualistic view of man like the Gnostics? There are two things I want to say about that. First, there's no resemblance between this and the Gnostic form of dualism.
Gnosticism was an ancient heresy which grew up apparently in the early days of the church. And the basic position of Gnosticism was that the physical world and the physical flesh were evil and that the aim of salvation such as they understood it was to escape the physical body entirely and to be united with God spiritually. They also had a very unbiblical view of God.
But the basic element of Gnosticism was a rejection of everything physical. The physical body is evil. Physical experience is evil. And what we are aiming for is to escape all things physical and enter into a totally spiritual union with God. That's a very generalized and perhaps overgeneralized statement of their view.
Now, we understand that that is not our view at all. We certainly do not believe that the physical part of life is evil. We believe that the world around us was created by God. We believe that every creature of God is good and nothing to be refused if it is received with prayer and thanksgiving. Paul tells us that in First Timothy.
We do not believe that the physical body is inherently evil. We believe it's contaminated by a sin principle. I like to refer to it as a disease which we carry, a hereditary disease that was passed down to us by our father Adam. But God has a future for the physical world and He has a future for the physical experience and we are going to have bodies of flesh and bone just as Jesus had a body of flesh and bone when He was raised from the dead.
“A spirit hath not flesh and bone,” said Jesus, “as you see me having.” So basically the Christian view of the world is the antithesis of the Gnostic view which definitely rejected all things physical. Having said that, however, all Christians who believe the Bible do believe in certain kinds of dualism. We believe in good and evil, do we not?
That's dualism. On one hand, there are things that are good. On the other hand, there are things that are evil. We believe in God and Satan. We believe in light and darkness, death and life. We should not fall into the trap of thinking that everything dualistic is Gnostic. It certainly is not.
Like most heresies, Gnosticism was an extreme form of dualism. And therefore, we can intelligently speak of being spiritually regenerated and living in a body that is contaminated by sin, but which is not inherently evil. And when we talk that way, we're not engaged in Gnostic thought at all.
In Second Corinthians chapter 5, Paul says, “Knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.” In what sense will Christians experience the terror of the Lord if they fail to persuade men? I was tempted to answer this question facetiously. But I take the question seriously. They will experience terror in the sense that they'll be scared.
But now let me explain something to you. There are many kinds of fear and some forms of fear have nothing to do with the fear of punishment. Let me illustrate from my own experience. I was twenty-seven years on the faculty of Dallas Theological Seminary and every once in a while I was called upon to preach in chapel.
Now all of us professors agreed that that was a very scary experience. You know why? Because Dr. Walvoord was up on the platform when we preached and all our former teachers were up on the platform when we preached and all of these theologians were in the audience picking us to pieces as we preached and it was scary. I wasn't afraid of punishment.
That was just an awesome situation in which to operate. And when we talk about the terror of the Lord, when Paul talks about it here, he's not talking about going into the presence of the Lord and somehow or other being afraid that God will reject us or put us in hell or will punish us in some way.
But we're going into the august and awesome presence of our Maker, our Redeemer, and our judge. Remember that when we step before the judgment seat of Christ, we will be perfect people. All of our sinful inhibitions will have gone away. Our failure to recognize the majesty of God will have disappeared and we will be more prepared than ever to realize what an awesome situation this is.
And we will be capable as all godly men are capable of a holy kind of fear. You remember that in the first chapter of Revelation when the apostle John receives a vision of Christ I think as judge I think that's the significance of the vision he falls down at the feet of Jesus here is his beloved apostle falling at the feet of Jesus and Jesus says “Fear not, fear not.”
So the presence of God is awesome, majestic and in that sense fearful. This is not going to be folks a Sunday school awards banquet. There's going to be a solemn moment when we are face to face with our Redeemer in His capacity as the judge of our lives. Nobody can look forward to that without a sense of the awesomeness and terror in a very holy sense that that can bring.
Next question. When it speaks about the hidden things of darkness and the counsels of men's hearts being brought to light in First Corinthians 4:5. In what sense will our failures and sins be recounted or brought up at the judgment seat of Christ? And how does this fit the teaching of forgiveness and cleansing of sin and of God remembering our sins no more? Hebrews 10:17.
A question that is very frequently asked. And to prepare us for the answer, let me suggest that we turn to Luke 12. Luke 12. Okay, let's read the opening verses of Luke 12.
In the meantime, when an innumerable multitude of people had gathered together so that they trampled one another, he began to say to his disciples, notice this, a big crowd is there. But he began to say to his disciples, first of all, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and which is hypocrisy, for there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known.
Therefore, whatever you have spoken in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have spoken in the ear in inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops.
Two things that we need to say about this question. First of all, we need to distinguish sharply between forgiveness and consequences. Between forgiveness and consequences.
God can and does forgive sin when we come to Him with repentance. I'm talking about Christians who are already born again. But that does not mean that He will eliminate all of the consequences of the sin that we have committed. The classic example of this in the Bible is King David.
So when he is faced down by Nathan the prophet and confronted with what he's done, Nathan's David says, “I have sinned.” And Nathan says, “The Lord also has put away your sin. You're forgiven. But the child that is born shall die. You will have trouble in your own household.” David, in a sense, lived the rest of his life coping with the consequences of that sin.
But he lived as a forgiven man. He lived as a man who was in fellowship with God. One of the psalms, I think it's Psalm 3, was written when David fled from Absalom. It's a beautiful psalm of trust in God and faith in God. But why was David fleeing from Absalom at all?
That was part of the penalty that was imposed on him because of his sin. We all understand this on a practical level. Let us suppose that I have been an alcoholic and I have severely damaged my liver. God will forgive me for my alcoholism.
God will even deliver me from it if I trust Him to do it. But He will not necessarily restore my liver to its proper functioning. If through sin I have destroyed my marriage, God can forgive that sin but He will not necessarily remake the marriage.
“Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap.” And we have to distinguish between the fact that God extends forgiveness in a gracious and unconditional way with the truth that the consequences grind on. Now the judgment seat of Christ is the final assessment of consequences in terms of our eternity.
You see how we live down here is something for which I'm accountable. And it not only affects my life down here, it affects my role in the future. It affects what responsibilities God can give me in His kingdom. It affects what rewards He may give or withhold.
We have to understand that decisions that we make as individuals have temporal consequences and eternal consequences. The one temporal consequence that our sin does not have is to send us to hell because that temporal consequence is erased by eternal salvation. But there are other kinds of eternal consequences.
I think I was saying temporal there should have said eternal. The eternal consequence of banishment from God's presence and eternity in hell is an eternal consequence we cannot reap because the grace of God has delivered us from it. But we can also experience eternal consequences of actions that we commit down here.
And those consequences are laid out for us when our life is reviewed at the judgment seat of Christ. Everybody who stands before the judgment seat of Christ will be in fellowship with God. We'll be perfect then. It will not be a question of hiding anything from God or refusing to confess anything to God.
We'll all be perfectly in harmony with our judge. But God is going to review everything. Not only the gold, silver, and precious stones, but the wood, hay, and stubble. All of these things are going to be involved in the judgment seat of Christ.
And according to the verse quoted in the question, this is the time when the hidden things of darkness and the counsels of men's hearts will be brought to light. And I reinforce that with Luke 12:2-3. Everything will be out in the open. Everything. There are no eternal secrets.
Jesus emphatically told his disciples, “There's nothing covered that shall not be revealed. There's nothing hidden that shall not be made known.” And it has nothing to do with our forgiveness. We are forgiven by the grace of God. We are restored to harmony with God.
I want to tell you folks that I don't like this doctrine, okay? Because I think of some of the things that are going to come out at the judgment seat of Christ about me and I don't like the thought. But I'm sorry I have to tell you this. That's what the scripture teaches.
So the review that we will undergo at the judgment seat of Christ will be a thoroughgoing review of our lives. I don't know how we imagined that God could review our lives and assess our lives without reviewing the negative things as well as the positive things. “We must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ that we may receive the things done in the body, whether they be good or bad,” says Paul.
Now, if we grasp this doctrine, it's going to motivate us. We have a tendency to say, “Okay, I did this horrible thing and God has forgiven it and nobody will ever find out. I'm sorry.” It is better not to do horrible things if you don't want them to come out. Okay, so this is pretty solemn and it scares me.
All right, here's a series of questions. All of which are somewhat related. Does belief require commitment? No. And double and triple? No. There are forms of theology abroad in the land that teach that belief and commitment are inseparable. But there's no basis for that either in the words of the original language that are used for faith nor in the teaching of the Bible.
So first of all, belief does not require commitment. Two, are there different types, degrees, kinds of faith? Weak versus strong, superficial versus deep. What sort of faith results in salvation? How much faith do you have to have to be saved? My answer to that question is that I would like to take all those distinctions and dump them out the window.
One of the tragedies of the modern church is that we have taken our eyes off of Christ and put them onto our own faith. There are an enormous number of people who are trying to believe that they have believed. I've met them in many places. The Bible teaches us to look to Christ, to look to what He's done for us on the cross, and to rest in Him.
That's faith for salvation. It does not teach us to look inside ourselves and to figure out whether we have the right kind, degree, measure of faith. Faith is not occupied with itself. We are not called upon to have faith in our faith. We're called upon to have faith in Christ.
Anyone who is trying to figure out whether or not they have believed doesn't understand what they should be doing. They should be looking to Christ to the sufficiency of his cross. And they should find that enough. That's faith. That's faith.
So all of these distinctions do nothing more than to catch people in a quicksand of introspection. And I have talked to some people who are caught in this so badly that they are practically mental cases because they keep dissecting whatever it was they think they did when they trusted Christ. And they're not looking at Christ at all.
They're looking at their own internal life. They're looking at their own feelings and what was in their head when I did this and all of this and they're trying to believe that they have believed so they can also believe that they are saved. That's the wrong way to go. And I always tell them that's a dead end in the street.
You'll do that forever. Until you get your eyes off yourself and onto Christ, till you rest in His sufficiency, you will never have peace. So this is a very disastrous doctrine that is spread abroad that somehow or other there are different kinds of faith and one is saving, one is not saving.
Let me qualify this by saying there are some things that we can and do believe that don't save us. For instance, we were talking this morning in James 2 about the belief that God is one. The objector says you believe that God is one. The devil, the demons also believe. But nobody is saved by believing that there's one God.
All of the Orthodox Jews of Jesus day believed it, but they didn't believe in Him. The demons really believe that there is one God. Even the objector is not raising that issue. His point is you and the demons believe the same thing. You behave differently.
So faith doesn't lead to this result or that result. So what we have to understand is I can believe the inspiration of the Bible. I can believe that there's a God up in heaven. I can believe that there's one God. I can believe in the Trinity.
I can really believe in all those things and not be saved because to be saved, I believe the truth that Christ is sufficient to meet my eternal need. I rest in that truth. Jesus Christ is made to me all I need. He alone is all my plea. He is all I need.
When you can say that you have believed. Remember when Jesus encountered the blind man that he had healed? And he said to the blind man, “Do you believe in the Son of God?” The blind man did not say, “Well, the first the blind man said, who is he that I may believe in him?” And Jesus replied, “You have both seen him and it is He that is speaking with you.”
And then the blind man said according to the Hodges reversed version, I think I believe, but I'm going to wait and see if I do good works, and then I will decide whether I have believed in you or not. That's not in the text, not in the original text. What does the blind man say? “Lord, I believe.” He knew he believed.
And when you believe that Christ is sufficient for your need, you'll know it. If someone comes to you and say, “Do you believe that your husband is honest or your wife is honest?” You will probably say one of three things. Yes, no, or I'm not sure.
Now, no means you don't believe in it. I'm not sure means you don't believe in it either. You're you think this might be true, but you're not sure about it. But when you say, “Yeah, I believe that my husband or my wife is honest.” You know that you believe that.
And then nobody says to you, “But do you behave in such a way that demonstrates that you believe that your husband or wife is honest?” Or does your conduct towards your wife show you don't really believe that even though you say you do? That's nonsense, folks. That's absolute nonsense.
Each of us knows when it comes to ordinary things in life whether we believe or not. And if you look to Christ, you can ask yourself the question, do I believe He's enough for me and therefore I'm saved by believing or don't I? You have only three answers. I do believe it. Secondly, I don't believe it.
Thirdly, I'm not sure. In which case, you don't believe it. Okay, long answer. All us seminary types give them occasionally. What are works? Which works are acceptable to God? Is fruit the same thing as works?
I would say that works are any deed or word that we speak or do in obedience to God. Are fruits the same thing as works? I think it depends on the context in which the word fruit is used. I think maybe for in a passage like Second Peter 1 that the fruitfulness that is described there is perhaps works in a very general sense in John 15.
I think the context suggests perhaps that the fruit is the result of answered prayer. But I'm not uncomfortable with the interpretation that the fruit is works. So I would say works are any word or deed which we do in obedience to God. And depending on the context, the word fruit may or may not be equal to that.
The fruit of the Spirit is the following things, but they are qualities rather than works. No doubt if the qualities are there, they will produce works. But basically, the fruit consists of the qualities. Fourth question on this one. Do works or fruit or both prove faith exists? If so, why is proof necessary?
Let me read that one again. Do works or fruit or both prove faith exists? If so, why is proof necessary? Well, that depends on who you're talking about proving it to. We don't need any works to prove that we have faith to God because God sees immediately into the heart and knows whether we believe or not.
You would agree with that, would you not? And really, we, as I was saying a moment ago, we don't need to prove to ourselves that we believe. We either know that we believe the truth set before us or we don't know whether we believe it. In which case, we don't believe it.
But in the light of our discussion this morning of James 2, if I am trying to prove my faith to other people, yeah, then good works do carry an evidential value to other people. So I think it would depend on who we were trying to prove faith to. I don't need to prove it to God.
I don't need to prove it to myself. Which means I don't need works for assurance. I need Christ and the promises of the Bible for assurance, but to convince other people that I'm a man of faith, I'm going to have to produce works.
Five. Is it our job to be fruit inspectors or work detectors? I love this one. Are we called to judge ourselves and others? No. No. And no. How's that? And that's the problem. By the way, folks, one of my objections to lordship salvation is that those who hold it are getting dangerously close to playing God with people.
And they can say to a person, they do say to people things like this, you don't have enough works in your life to prove that you're saved. I sincerely question your salvation. That's fruit inspection. That's a work detector and that's out of line of them. Go back to preaching the Bible.
Number six. Can we be assured of our salvation, our own salvation? It says here, obviously we've just talked about that. Yes. Yes. And yes. Can we have assurance of another's salvation? I think we can in this way that if the person that we're talking about is a person I can really trust, I feel that they are honest with me and they tell me that they are trusting Christ for eternal salvation, then I have no grounds for questioning their salvation unless I want to call them a liar.
If the only thing I can say to them in that case is you tell me you're trusting Christ for salvation but quite frankly I don't believe you and I don't believe you're saved. That would be ultra fruit detection or something of the sort. Now let's face it sometimes people have reasons for answering our questions the way we want them to answer our questions.
And they may say to us, “Yeah, I, you know, I'm a born again person. I've trusted Christ as my savior.” And inside they may be thinking, “I hope I can get by with this.” That kind of thing does happen. I had it happen to me once, I'm pretty sure, where the person, the first time I interviewed them, didn't have a clue to it.
And the next time I interviewed them, they had it all down to the nth degree. And I doubted very much whether the second time they were telling me what they really believed, but they were giving me the answer that they thought I wanted. But normally when we deal with people, particularly people that we know reasonably well, the only grounds we have for doubting their salvation, when they express that they have placed confidence in Christ for it, is to doubt their integrity.
Now granted, there remains an element of doubt. I mean, maybe Arch over here would lie to me. Maybe. I really doubt it. And you know, I'd have to say my trust in Arch is 99 like Ivory soap 99 44/100 percent pure. And for all practical purposes, if Arch says, “I believe that Christ has saved me by faith alone.” I'm going to believe that.
Nobody's going to convince me that Arch Rutherford is not a Christian until Arch does something to destroy my confidence in him. See what I'm saying? Now, I know absolutely in my own heart if I believe something. I have only a relative certainty about somebody else, but it may be a very high level of certainty.
And for all practical purposes, it may be certainty. So, I treat Arch as a Christian, assume he's a Christian, and will be shocked out of my socks if that isn't the case. So, practically speaking, I think we can know whether people are Christians or not.
But caution, be careful to be sure the person you're talking to understands the gospel. When I'm sitting down with a person and trying to come to some conclusion about their relationship to the Lord, I don't usually start out with a question like, “Are you saved?” That's such common parlance now that most people who have any kind of religious commitment are likely to say, “Yeah, I'm saved.”
Or I don't start out with are you born again? George Gallup found a huge number of people in this country who claim to be born again. I can't believe the percentage is what he says it is. I want to find out whether people understand the gospel.
So I usually start out this way. If you were to walk out the door and be hit by a car and killed in the next 15 minutes, where would you go? And if they say to me to heaven, then I say to them, why? Why would you go to heaven?
And if they say to me, because I've trusted Christ for eternal life, or something that is equivalent to that, and I have no reason to doubt their integrity, I may pursue it depending on how they articulate it to me. But if they say to me, I think I would go to heaven. I hope I would go to heaven.
I consider they flunked the quiz even before I ask the second question. But if they answered the first question, yeah, I'm going to heaven. Why are you going to heaven? Because I try to live right. I go to church regularly. I do this and that.
They've also flunked the quiz. And it's a rare person who gives the answer crisply and correctly to both of those questions who is not a believer though it can happen. I don't think it happens often. What you usually find in unsaved people is a misconception of the gospel.
And that's what you're looking for when you're trying to deal with people. I think last question which I've only had a few moments to this gentleman the in the red shirt here is responsible for this. If I land into trouble, my fault for accepting the question, I guess. This is on Second Corinthians 5:1-10.
If absence from this body means instant presence with the Lord, when will we be judged in verse 10. And when shall the dead in Christ rise in First Thessalonians 4:16? Doesn't the Greek word here for absence, a perfectly written Greek word, I might add, correctly accented and so on, suggest doesn't the Greek word for absence suggest waiting for something while dead?
Don't other passages suggest the waiting in the care of Christ until they arise first? First Corinthians 15:6 and 18. Fallen asleep in Jesus. First Thessalonians 4:13 and 15. Them which are asleep. Second Peter 3:4 since the fathers fell asleep.
Unless I am missing something in this question that I should be noticing I would say first yes when we die we're instantly present with the Lord but since the judgment seat of Christ is future there is a period of time in between our coming into the presence of the Lord and our appearing before the judgment seat of Christ when we go into the presence of Christ.
Obviously, we haven't been resurrected yet. So, it's our spirit or our soul that goes into the presence of Christ. According to First Thessalonians 4, those sleep in Jesus, God will bring with Him. And they are the first participants in the resurrection. The dead in Christ shall rise first.
So, we are consciously in the presence of Christ after we die. We will be reunited with our immortal physical bodies when He comes back and at some subsequent time to his taking the church out via the rapture and certainly before the kingdom begins.
It seems to me the judgment seat of Christ must occur since one of the features of the judgment seat of Christ is the appointment of rewards and the assignment of places in the kingdom. It seems obvious that the judgment seat of Christ must take some place sometime between the rapture and the formal inauguration of the kingdom.
It might conceivably take place more or less at the same time that the judgment of the sheep and goats takes place in Matthew 25. But that appears to be a judgment of living people who are on the earth when Christ comes back. So, I'm saying to you, I do not know exactly when the judgment seat of Christ does take place, but I'm sure it's before the kingdom is formally inaugurated.
Would you like a follow-up question to that? I don't know whether I got to the core of what you were thinking or not. Well, I think the reason I asked that there's a lot of talk about souls and maybe it doesn't matter. It probably doesn't matter, but two scriptures that are relevant here is I have a desire to depart and to be with the Lord which is far better and absent from the body is present with the Lord.
The sleep in Jesus refers to the physical the state of our bodies. So you know the the dead are viewed from the standpoint of earth asleep. But it certainly seems to me that the other two passages indicate that we are in they imply that we are consciously in the presence of the Lord.
So well because to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Meaning just asleep there where he is. But my daughter is present with me as she's sleeping. I'm rocking her in the chair. She's very safe.
Okay. It be something like this and something we are but we're not conscious until the resurrection. That would strike me as a very artificial construction of the passage. We wouldn't normally take it that way when we read it. Maybe we fall short of 100 percent lockout or proof here, but that's a strange way to take a passage like that.
I'd rather be asleep up there in heaven somewhere than down here laboring for Christ and fellowshipping with it. That doesn't ring very true to me. So, I would say the passages I would say they pretty clearly imply it, but if somebody wants to object to it, maybe I can't prevent them from doing so.
Even in clear text, clearer text than that, you can't prevent objections much as we might wish to. All right. Open season. Yeah. Okay. Right over here.
I had a follow up on you just gave a lot of doctrine. How can you reconcile the judgment seat of Christ verse 24 of John 5 where we read that he who has believed Him who has sent me eternal life cometh not into judgment. Well, that there is no judgment related to eternal destiny for the Christian.
And this is probably a reference anyway to the final assessment of the destiny of men at the great white throne. We do have to keep in mind that many biblical words are used with a variety of meanings. So what we have to do here is to ask the question of the text that you've quoted.
In what sense does a Christian not come into judgment? Since we are also told clearly that we must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, I think the answer has to be that though we stand before the judgment seat of Christ, we do not stand at the great white throne for an assessment of whether or not we're saved. Something like that.
And it occurs to me also, by the way, we're talking about soul sleep. Though this was not your question, but we think for example of Jesus on the mount of transfiguration with Moses and Elijah. One could argue that they got awakened for a brief period so they could communicate with him, but probably not.
Well, we were just talking about another point that I heard and it's interesting. It's again it's speculation. So maybe you can say something about this but it's been postulated that when you leave the physical experience you escape the time space continuum and you enter into a whole different plane of being such as the Lord has where a day is as a thousand years thousand years is as a day in other words time on a line means nothing to it because he's all so escape your lot, this corruptible flesh.
Do we enter into that same time absence of a time continuum? And in other words, when you fall asleep, when your eyes open, it's judgment day. My answer to that is I don't know. It seems to support your position too that there.
Yeah. My problem with the soul sleep with all these passages is that it's a very forced view of the passage. I'm always suspicious of passages that have to be forced into doctrinal conformity with whatever the proposition is. Yes questions first is justification used differently by Paul and James and second is is there any accountability if there is but let's start with the last one.
I assume that there is an age of accountability but do not know what it is but I have a guess a guess nobody go out of here and say Hodges taught that 20 years because the the Exodus generation was held responsible for their sin from 20 years old and upward. But that's not anywhere close to a lockdown proof.
I think we might be surprised that God perhaps regards the teenager as still rather mixed up and that the age of accountability may begin when teenage ends. Now your other question would you repeat that other question concerning justification? Right. The term justification that that we are used differently by James and by Paul.
No. Not in terms of the word itself. Justified really means to something like to be vindicated or to be recognized or declared to be righteous. So if we take the term vindicate as a plausible synonym here, justification by faith is our vindication before the judgment bar of God.
What happens when I'm vindicated before a judge? I'm declared innocent basically. And so that's what happens. We get judicial vindication before God. But when I live out my faith in productive works, I'm vindicated before men because now they will accept my claim to have faith in God.
So that although the two things are quite different and they've focused in different directions, the fundamental concept of justification remains the same in both. This young man right toward the back. Can I stop you a minute till I get Ezekiel here? It's chapter one did you say? Okay. And what verse? What verse did you say? 15. Okay. Go ahead.
Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings comes the toughest question of the night. I have to start by saying I don't really know. I've done some studying of the first chapter of Ezekiel and I take these creatures to be connected with the throne. They are the supporters. These creatures that we call cherubim, the living creatures support the throne of God.
They sort of carry it. And the wheels have to do with the motion and direction of the throne of God. And it seems to me that that probably is talking about something like this that God's purposes go this way. And he talks in this passage about when the wheels turn when the living creatures turn, the wheels turn.
Or when the wheels turn, the living creatures turn. So this is all a very big picture I think of the way God works. These living creatures represent what God is like and God moves this way and he moves this way. But he always moves consistently with what he is and what he's like.
And having said that, I still don't know. And maybe you don't either, but I appreciate the question. That's the best I can do on it. Thank you. You're welcome. Great. Elijah.
Good question. And the question is when Saul goes to the witch of Endor and brings up Samuel wouldn't we have assumed that Samuel was with God and how can he be descending out of the earth? That sort of thing. Very good question. I think there Craig that there are a number of Bible verses that indicate that before Christ came and before Christ died even saved people didn't go directly to be with the Lord they went to a place which the Bible calls Hades.
You remember the story of the rich man and Lazarus the beggar and they both went to a place in which they were divided by a great big old barrier of some kind but they were both in the same place and so I think before the cross saved people went down into the happy section of that place and unsaved people went down on the side which the rich man entered into.
But that when Christ died and arose from then on all believers went up to be with Him. So I think Samuel really was down in this place that we call Hades and he was comforted and at peace and he is saying to Saul, why did you disturb me for this?
I might say that the witch of Endor probably was as surprised as Samuel was on this. She expresses apparent shock at the fact that he comes up. So yes, good question Craig. Go ahead.
I feel a lot of questions have practical application in my ministry as children's choir director. We do musicals that usually have an evangelistic message and they're usually really mushy and I end up rewriting them because they're so fluffy and imprecise and just I agonize over time to make the gospel message clear and I usually talk to different believers about it as I rewrite it.
But how what what's the bare minimalistic message of something like that? Do you have to mention sin? Do you have to mention I mean what are the the components that just got to be. Well let me back up off of this a minute and say what we would call the bare minimum of information is probably not the same thing as the information we ought to give whenever we can.
I think that the bare minimum is something like this that I am a sinner who is in danger of God's eternal judgment but that if I trust Christ that danger is removed forever but now experience shows that if you present it in that barebones form it's hardly ever comprehensible to people. Why should it be that way?
And therefore it's important for us to preach the cross to preach the fact that Jesus died in our place. Even when I talk about the freeness of salvation, I find that the point comes through better if I say look Jesus paid for this. That's why you don't have to pay anything. That's why it's a gift.
And people begin to relate to the freeness of salvation through the recognition that the cross did something for my salvation maybe that they had not previously clearly understood. So I think it's desirable and if you were going the musical route to try to present the message to people I think it would be well usually to enlarge upon it and to make people understand that the basis of their salvation is what Christ did on the cross.
Because of that they can simply trust Him and be assured that they are saved forever. One of the songs that I think really does a superb job with this is “Oh what a wonderful wonderful day. Heaven came down and glory filled my soul.” If you read that song carefully, its statements about the salvation experience are good theology and a person who learns that song and learns all the verses will have the basic message in his mind.
Yes. Right over here. The lady up front. I have a question about. I wrote it in and it got lost in the. Yeah. Okay.
I have in mind that the list of the works of the flesh which includes and the selfish ambition. Not the optimist. Yeah. When do we inherit when do we inherit the kingdom of God? When the testator died like in early realm, say, realm when the testator thinks right we inherit. Does this have to do with inheriting it now so that we walk around with it or does this have to do with eternity?
I would say the latter. I would say that the doctrine of inheriting the kingdom is first of all a doctrine that is eschatological meaning it refers to the prophetic future. I would say something else too that inheriting the kingdom is not the same thing as entering it. To enter the kingdom is one thing. We do that by grace alone.
To inherit the kingdom is to possess the kingdom. In fact, the word inherit in its Old Testament usages was clearly a word that was functionally the same as to possess something. Now, when we study Psalm 2 carefully, what we discover is that the kingdom is inherited first by Jesus.
“Ask of me and I will give you the nations for your inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for your possession.” So I would say that to inherit the kingdom is to share in the royal power of Christ or in other words to co-reign with Him and for that holiness of life is required.
So for example we have Second Timothy 2:12 “If we endure we shall also reign with Him.” We have a couple of promises given to the overcomers. “He that overcomes and keeps my works to the end. To him I will give power over the nations and he shall rule them with a rod of iron as I have received from my father.”
And then he also says “To him that overcomes I will grant to sit with me in my throne even as I also overcame and sat down with the Father in his throne.” So to summarize that I would say to inherit the kingdom is to co-reign with Jesus Christ in his future kingdom and that it is a reward for living victoriously and keeping His works to the end.
Right back there. For this gentleman. Secondly, some of them relates to the trial of Israel and the problem that I see here is that there are numerous places in particular two contest with Jacob or Israel blessing his children goes down. Then Revelation 7 talks about tribes every revelation just mention the tri and it mentions Joseph and I understand the other which is Joseph but also I don't understand.
And I know that inheriting parts of Israel that Levi's part was inheritance and therefore got territory. Mhm. that once. Neither do I. I am aware of the discrepancies in the list and discrepancies is the wrong word because it is clear that the writers of these lists were not dumb individuals who just accidentally couldn't remember one tribe or the other.
So it is clear that there are specific purposes for the variations in the lists. But I have to say to you that while being aware of this for many years, I've never tried to study it through and I do not know what the reasons are. One suggestion that has been made in Revelation is but I don't see the basis of it.
Nevertheless the suggestion has been made that the antichrist or in the way I would describe it the false prophet comes from Dan. Now to me that's a shot in the dark. It could prove to be right. We need to remember that in Revelation 7 the sealing is of the 144,000.
So this is not the same thing as saying these are all of the people who are saved. I think the 144,000 are the missionaries of the tribulation period. So we for some reason or other there are no missionaries from Dan. I don't know what the reason is. I heard the number of killed 144,000.
Okay. Well, the chances are good that the every means all 12 tribes, however we name them. But I don't I really don't know the answer to this. There might be various reasons connected with whether Dan is present. Any descendants of Dan are present in the land of Israel.
The problem of tracing back the genealogies of everybody. It's conceivable that in the end times Dan which was not one of the larger tribes maybe the survivors of the tribe of Dan have not any of them migrated to Israel. One more yes problem I'm aware of all that and I'm assuming that the writers were as aware of it as we are and that the writers could have told you maybe why they did it this way, but I don't know why they did it that way.
It's possible that through concentrated study on this, somebody might come up with a workable answer, but I just have to confess to you that I haven't studied it through. The main thing is to keep in mind is that this is not just a stumble bum doing this when they're writing down these tribal names.
I'm sure that they do this consciously. I'm sure that most Jews of the first century who were passionate Jews could have recited the list of the 12 tribes in their sleep. So when they wrote a list like this, they did it consciously, not unconsciously. And it doesn't qualify as an error.
It qualifies only as an element in the scriptural presentation which we do not yet understand. And in regard to the Revelation passage, it may be that it's not possible to understand it until the end times come. And the you you had another question though. I've forgotten what it is.
It is suggested for instance in the sermon on the mount that if we give alms or pray or fast in order to be seen by men that that's our reward being seen by men. Dr. S. Lewis Johnson, whom I had as a teacher, used to illustrate this by the collection basket going down the the row and somebody takes out a crisp crinkly $100 bill and drops it ostentatiously into the basket and everybody he gave $100 and then Dr. Johnson would say that's his reward.
The people looking at him for doing that. So, but that suggests that motivations are important in assessing acts. We've already suggested that judge nothing before the time till the Lord comes who will bring to light the hidden things of darkness and make manifest the counsels of the heart. If I'm a preacher who's a preacher because that's the best way to draw attention to myself.
I don't think I have any significant reward. Yes. Matthew 25. Serious reason why they the goats are not cast into outer darkness. They go away into everlasting punishment. The outer darkness is in the next is in the preceding parable.
Okay, I'll try. In the judgment of the sheep and the goats, it seems to me we have something that is functionally equivalent to a preliminary hearing. And we have two groups that stand before Christ. I tell you these are the surviving Gentiles. And he addresses those who have done the things he mentions as heirs of the kingdom.
We were saying a moment ago that inheritance of the kingdom is based on obedience to God to the end. So here are the Gentiles who have persevered in good works to the end. They come into the kingdom. What is he going to do with the unsaved Gentiles?
Well, the prima facie evidence, the evidence upon which they are bonded over to final trial is the absence of any of these things. They are prima facie sinners. Of course, he knows that they are unsaved sinners. This doesn't determine their eternal destiny, however. This determines where they will be during the thousand years.
Now, at the end of the thousand years at the great white throne, all of the unsaved dead are raised. They are judged not on the basis of some limited issue like you didn't do this to my brethren. They are judged on the basis of all their works as written in the books.
I think we would want to say they are not condemned on the basis of their works but they are judged according to their works to show once and for all in a definitive way that they have no claim on God based on works. And then it says the other book that was opened was the book of life.
And whoever's name was not found written in the book of life was cast in the lake of fire. So first we should resist the temptation to regard the judgment of the sheep and the goats as the final assessment of these people. This is the preliminary disposition of these people.
The judge being perfect, he doesn't miss he doesn't throw any innocent people in jail only to find out later that they were saved. So that that's I think what's happening and I might just add to that that the tribulation will be enormously an enormously difficult time for even Christians to be faithful to the Lord and many will apparently be unfaithful and will be wiped out by the judgments and will not be standing there.
So because for various reasons it appears that that's what's going to happen to those whose love waxes cold and who betray one another and so on. So we really are going to have only two kinds of people. The triumphant Christian who is prepared to inherit the kingdom of God and the unsaved person has no claim whatsoever on the king.
Jack and one of the relative There was a theory that the tribe of Dan was that the tribe of Dan may have been one of her blood one of the first tribes Jews to practice and that for that reason it was theorized that that may have been one of 144,000. I'm having difficulty trying to find they were.
Yeah, now that you mentioned it, I have heard that explanation too. And of course, one of the earliest centers of idolatry in the northern kingdom was located in Dan. And yes. Correct. That the 144,000 who are sealed on their foreheads, children of Israel sealed, that they are going to survive the entire tribulation period and and they are not going to be among those who are part of the are going to have the protection of God throughout no matter what others may survive and go through.
That may be that may well be. Another option is that they are sealed so that they are protected from the divine judgments that are falling. Remember in that chapter he says to the angels who are about to strike the earth that they should not strike the earth until the servants of God are sealed in their foreheads.
So you know the situation that exists in the tribulation period will be so severe in terms of the catastrophes that are happening that according to Christ it will threaten the very existence of the human race except those days should be shortened. There should no flesh be saved.
So, how do these men manage to travel all over the world and preach the gospel in the midst of the horrible tragedies and calamities that are occurring? Not to mention the hostility of people. And it might be possible to take the view that that the sealing has to do with their protection from any of the divine judgments.
No matter what the dangerous situation is, they will be protected from it. But they may also be protected from martyrdom because we're not told as far as I can see clearly that any of them are murdered. That's what I. The other people. Yes. Yes.
Right. And I think that's quite a viable distinction. I might also say this. I think that by the 144,000, this is a multiple of 12 of course and that suggests to us the 12 disciples multiplied many times. I think the 144,000 are the missionaries of Israel but not the total sum of believing Israelites.
So it might be that martyrdom will also apply to some of the other Israelites who are not among the missionaries but nevertheless lay down their life in martyrdom for Christ as well as Gentiles who may experience this fate as well. Why don't we take these two questions and see how much what's.
Well, I'm glad you're preparing me for that. I'm going to take the ladies first right over here. Listen, excuse me. Let me interrupt you. Many of you I should know your names and don't call you by name. Maybe you could give me your name up front even if you think boy's dumb. He doesn't remember my name. But could you do that?
Sure. I'm Pat. Pat. Okay. I was going to ask you tonight tell us everything you know about the afterlife, but you probably so I'm not but I have. Thank you. Thank you. It would only have been a two-minute additional dissertation. However,
Okay, my question, my first question is this. Do you know what you are not helpful? Good question, Pat. I'm looking forward to the personal fellowship of Christ, being in His presence, getting to know Him. I'm looking forward to whatever assignment He may be pleased to give me in His kingdom.
I will be thrilled with the opportunity to serve Him in some capacity in the new government. I haven't the slightest interest in serving in either a Democratic or Republican administration and trying to clean up the mess that is everywhere. But I have a great interest in serving in the administration of the King of Kings.
I think it would be an enormous privilege even if He gives me Podunk Center. I'll do my best to clean up Podunk Center for it and govern it properly. I would say also that I'm really looking forward to talking to biblical persons and asking them more about their experience.
I have a lot of tantalizing questions in my mind that the Bible doesn't directly answer and so I have questions for all of them. It take me quite a few years to get around all of them, get the answers I suspect. And also my experience of traveling around the country has reinforced on me this anticipation.
Everywhere I go I meet delightful Christian people. And I'm only scratching the surface of the wonderful and challenging people that exist in the church today in our day and time. Just think of all the wonderful people we're going to bump into in heaven. They're not in the Bible, but they are in many cases co-heirs with Jesus Christ and their stories will be surely fascinating.
So, those are some of the things I'm looking forward to.