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The Daily Word of Righteousness
Once To Die, continued
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. (II Peter 3:10-14—NIV)
It must be remembered that the thousand-year period dividing the two resurrections was not mentioned by the Apostles prior to the writing of the Book of Revelation, except for the implication contained in the Apostle Paul's mention of the out-resurrection from the dead.
Notice carefully the above passage from Second Peter.
Now if you will think about what Peter wrote here you will see he was exhorting the saints to live holy, godly lives because of the coming of the day of God. But the day of God Peter describes comes at the end of the thousand-year Kingdom Age. It is possible Peter had no idea there would be a resurrection of the royal priesthood a thousand years before the day of God he is pointing toward.
It is obvious from the Scriptures that the first resurrection is that of the royal priesthood, and unless we are ready to send everyone except the members of the royal priesthood to the Lake of Fire, we must accept the fact that most of the people who have lived on the earth will be raised in the second resurrection. We are confident God will judge each person fairly. The righteous will enter the Kingdom (as in the case of the sheep nations) and the wicked will go into the Lake of Fire.
He will reply, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me." Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life. (Matthew 25:45,46—NIV)
In fact, the wording of the text that describes the White Throne judgment implies it is the minority whose names are not found in the Book of Life, and this is what we would expect, unless we imagine that God created billions of people for the purpose of having them suffer endless torment in the Lake of Fire.
If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:15—NIV)
"If anyone's name was not found written." This to our way of thinking implies it will be the exception whose name is not found written. What do you think about this?
As described in the third chapter of the Book of Philippians we discover the Apostle Paul, toward the end of his life, was laying aside all else that he might attain the out-resurrection (Greek noun), the resurrection from the dead as compared with the resurrection of the dead.
To be continued.