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The Daily Word of Righteousness
The Kingdom Age, #3
And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal. (Matthew 25:46)
All of the dead, with the exception of the remnant who had attained the first resurrection, and the possible exception of the remainder of the Church who were made ready during the thousand-year Kingdom Age, will stand before God and be judged concerning their works. Those who are not found written in the Book of Life will be cast into the Lake of Fire.
Revelation does not say what will happen to those whose names are written in the Book of Life. The assumption is they are brought forward to eternal life in the new earth.
It is clear from the last two chapters of the Book of Revelation, and also passages in the Prophets, that there will be nations of people living on the new earth who are not members of the Wife of the Lamb.
Since the Wife of the Lamb will descend from the new sky, and since there will be nations of saved people on the new earth, and since these are saved nations and not a new creation of people, it seems probable that they are those whose works God has accepted before the White Throne—particularly if they have nourished and protected the Lord's brothers (Matthew 25:34).
We simply cannot accept the formula that since we are not saved by our own works, and since the nations will be judged according to their works, they all, therefore, are doomed to the Lake of Fire. This is a narrow view indeed and does not nearly fit the general sense of the Scriptures.
No man can come to the Lord Jesus except God draw him, the Scripture declares. It is true also that most people born on the earth during its six-thousand year history never heard of Jesus during their lifetime.
If no person can escape the Lake of Fire if he has not, during his lifetime on earth, heard and received the Gospel of Jesus in the manner that we approve, then we are stating that God's intention from the creation of the world has been to cast the great majority of people born on the earth into the Lake of Fire, there to be tormented along with Satan and his angels for the countless ages of eternity. This is the accepted viewpoint apparently, and we consider such a viewpoint to be an abomination.
The doctrine that all persons except those who have followed the narrow Christian formula for salvation (which is not agreed on in detail even by the Christians themselves) truly is an assault on God's righteous Character. It is not the way of the Lord, neither is it Kingdom law, to punish someone according to law they never were given.
One fanatical "evangelist" was heard to say recently that aborted fetuses will be in the Lake of Fire because they never "accepted Christ." This is the kind of twisted reasoning that comes from those who are attempting to build the Kingdom of God by their own wisdom and strength.
If I had not come and spoken to them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin. (John 15:22)
"They had not had sin"!
For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed (ascribed) when there is no law. (Romans 5:13)
Until light comes we are not guilty, as was true in the beginning concerning the nakedness of Adam and Eve. God winks at the period of ignorance.
"Sin is not imputed."
Unlike the "civilized" nations of our day, God does not hold an individual responsible for obeying law he has not been given. It may be true that he has sinned, and painful consequences may follow. But he is not under the condemnation of God until he realizes he has sinned and then refuses to repent. (from Entering Through the Gates)