16 Feb 2014

Mankind

Posted by joncooper

Over the past few weeks I’ve talked about angels, demons, ghosts, and even extraterrestrials. There is one last group of beings that I’d like to discuss, and that is mankind. Now, it might seem strange to place mankind in the same category as supernatural creatures, but the truth is that there is more to us than we think. At times we take for granted the amazing things that God has done for us. The truth is that we are not ordinary at all. The Bible tells us that we were made in the image of God:

Genesis 1:26: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

Now, I heard one pastor claim that when God said “let us make man in our image”, what He meant was that He wanted to make creatures that physically resembled him. This pastor claimed that the reason we have two legs, two arms, and a head is because God had two legs, two arms, and a head. However, that is not what that passage means. The Bible tells us that God is a spirit (John 4:24). Since God is a spirit, He does not have a physical body (Luke 24:39). This means that God does not have legs, or arms, or a head. When Jesus Christ became the God-Man (fully God and yet fully Man as well) Jesus did get a physical body, but that miracle happened thousands of years after God created the world. When the events of Genesis 1 took place Jesus was still a spirit – just like the rest of the Trinity.

To understand what this verse really means, it’s helpful to look at it from a slightly different perspective. In the New Testament we are told that one of the things God is doing in our lives is conforming us to the image of Christ:

Romans 8:29: “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.”

When this verse says that God is conforming us to the image of His Son, it does not mean that God is trying to make us look like Jesus. It doesn’t mean that He is changing our hair color and our height, and it doesn’t mean that He wants all women to grow beards. What it does mean is that God is changing us to behave the way that Jesus behaved. God is working on our character. He wants us to have the same desires and priorities that Jesus has. He wants us to love others with the same love that Jesus demonstrated. In other words, God wants us to have the same moral characteristics as Jesus.

That is what Genesis 1 is driving at. When God said that we were made in His image, it means that we were created with the same sort of moral characteristics that God has. God gave us the ability to have a relationship with God, to think and reason, to love one another, and to show kindness and respect. Our character was a reflection of God’s character.

In fact, we could even tell the difference between right and wrong. There are some people who claim that mankind knew nothing about right and wrong until they ate of the Tree of Knowledge, but stop and think about it. Do you remember what Eve told the serpent when the serpent tempted her?

Genesis 3:2: “And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.”

Eve knew that eating from that tree was wrong. She may not have had a complete knowledge of good and evil, but she knew that eating from other trees was right and eating from that tree was wrong. She had a moral compass.

Now, we all know what happened when Eve listened to the devil and ate of that tree. Mankind fell into sin that day, and the wages of sin was death. The human race now had a very serious problem: we had sinned against God. That one sin brought into the world death, and suffering, and pain, and disease, and crime, and all the terrible things that goes on in the world today. All of the suffering that has ever happened can be traced back to that one sin.

When that happened God could have left us in our wretched state. After all, He warned mankind to avoid that tree and He told us what would happen if we didn’t. God did not owe us anything; in fact, God was the one who was wronged. He could have simply allowed us all to die in our sins and go to Hell, where we would be tormented forever. We would have deserved it.

But that is not what God did. Instead He did something amazing: He gave His life to save the lives of His enemies. The fact that God would die for us is truly unbelievable, but that is exactly what happened:

Romans 5:6: “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.
8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.”

Jesus Christ came to Earth, became a man, and lived a perfect life. Since He was perfect He had no sins of His own to die for. Therefore He was able to take upon Himself the punishment that we deserved. Since He paid for our sins with His own blood, God could forgive us. In fact, when we are saved God gives us the righteousness of Christ. In God’s eyes it is as if we had never sinned. We can stand before God utterly blameless.

The fact that God would do this for us is truly astonishing. Some people try to claim that Jesus died for us “because we were worth it”, but that is very far from the truth. The lives of all of mankind put together is worth less than the life of God Himself. It is folly to claim that men are more valuable than God. God is of infinite worth; when He died for us, He was giving His life for creatures that were utterly wretched and broken. The reason God died for us is not because we deserved it, but because He loved us:

John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Take that verse to heart! It does not say “God realized that the world was worth more than the life of His Son, so that’s why He acted.” Instead it says that God loved us and decided to save us – in spite of our condition, in spite of the fact that we were His enemies, and in spite of the fact we could never deserve what He was doing for us. The cross is not a picture of our worth; instead it is a staggering picture of God’s love.

But the cross is not the end of God’s love; there is more. God has given us great and precious promises about the future, and I’d like to spend some time talking about them. We have a great deal to look forward to – and there are some things in our future that you may not realize.
 

The Rapture

At some point in the future the Lord will return for His Church. There are some people who claim to know when this will happen, but the truth is that the day and hour are kept secret. What we do know is that it is going to happen. When that day finally comes we are going to undergo a radical transformation:

I Corinthians 15:51: “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.”

When the trumpet sounds, two things will happen: the departed saints of the Church will be raised back to life again, and the saints who are still alive will be transformed. We will be changed from a moral to an immortal and will go from being corruptible to being incorruptible. In that moment death will be defeated and will no longer have any hold over us.

Have you thought about what that means? When that day comes you will never get sick again. You will never face death. All of the pains, illnesses, and weaknesses that beset us will be gone. Our sin nature will also be gone: we will be utterly perfect, incapable of sin. We will be physically and spiritually perfect. There will be nothing lacking.

In fact, it even goes further than that. The apostle Paul said that in this age God has given people to be pastors and teachers, but those positions would not last forever. They are just temporary positions that are being filled until we become perfect:

Ephesians 4:11: “And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
13 Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:”

The day will come when we will no longer need pastors and teachers to teach us because we will all be perfect people, living in perfect unity, and armed with a perfect knowledge of God. Now, this doesn’t mean that we will know everything there is to know; the only person who will ever have infinite knowledge is God. What it does mean is that when it comes to spiritual matters, the day will come when we will no longer need anyone to teach us because we will actually know it all. Now that is something exciting to think about!

So here is a question for you: what is going to happen to us after the Rapture has happened? People have spent a lot of time excitedly talking about the day when the Lord will come and get us, but what is going to happen to us after Jesus has come and taken us to Heaven? Well, let’s take a look and see.
 

The Judgment Seat of Christ

The Bible says that one day we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ:

Romans 14:10: “But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ.
11 For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.
12 So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.”

As it turns out, there are actually two different judgments. Those who die without Christ will be judged at the Great White Throne judgment. That judgment takes place at the end of this Universe, after the Millennial Kingdom is over, and is discussed in Revelation 20:11-15. However, the only people who will be judged then are the dead (Revelation 20:12), and since we were raised to life at the Rapture we won’t be among the dead at that time. That is why we won’t be judged at that judgment.

Instead we will be judged in Heaven, after the Rapture but before the Tribulation begins. Paul talks about this judgment in the book of 1 Corinthians:

I Corinthians 3:12: “Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
13 Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.
14 If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
15 If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.”

At this judgment Jesus will review our lives and will reward us accordingly. Those who lived well will be given a reward; those who lived poorly will be given nothing. Since I have already talked about the subject of rewards elsewhere I will not repeat it all here. The point is this: the way that we live our lives and the things that we do with our time really matters to God. God is not indifferent to the way that we are living. There are certain things we can do that will earn us Heavenly rewards, and there are other things we can do that will cost us those rewards. But this is when those rewards are handed out.

So how do we know that this judgment happens after the Rapture but before the Tribulation? The reason we can pinpoint the time is because of this passage:

Revelation 4:4: “And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold.”

For reasons well beyond the scope of this paper, the 24 elders mentioned here represent the Church as a whole. (Here is the short version: in the Bible, the number 24 is symbolic of completion; 24 of something represents the entire body. Since elders are the leaders of the Church, 24 elders represents the Church as a whole.) Notice that these 24 elders all have crowns of gold. The reason that’s significant is because one of the rewards that Christ promised to those who are faithful are crowns. Here we can see that when the Tribulation is about to begin, the Church is present in Heaven and has been given her crowns. Since the crowns are only given out at the judgment, that must mean that the judgment has already happened when this passage takes place. Therefore, the judgment happens after the Rapture but before the Tribulation.

In other words, after Jesus raptures us and takes us to Heaven, we will stand before Him and He will judge our lives. That is when He will reward us for the ways we have served Him.
 

The Marriage of the Lamb

While the Tribulation is taking place, the Church will be in Heaven watching the events unfold. However, toward the end of the Tribulation a very important event will occur. This event is known as the Marriage of the Lamb:

Revelation 19:6: “And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth.
7 Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.
8 And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.”

The Marriage of the Lamb is a fascinating subject, and unfortunately I don’t have the time to cover it in detail (although I have discussed it elsewhere). The point I wish to make is that right now the Church is the Bride of Christ and is looking forward to the marriage. That marriage will take place in Heaven at the end of the Tribulation, just before Jesus returns to Earth to defeat the Antichrist and rescue the Jews from destruction.

What this means is that after the Rapture, our lives will be judged. After that judgment occurs we will watch from Heaven as God orchestrates the events of the Tribulation. When the Tribulation is about to end, the great Marriage will take place in Heaven. Jesus will then return to Earth with the armies of Heaven (which is us, by the way – see Jude 1:14-15 and Revelation 19:11-14) and He will kill the Antichrist and destroy his demonic kingdom. Although Jesus will bring us with Him when He returns to Earth to do battle, we will not do any fighting. Instead Jesus will defeat them all single-handedly (Revelation 19:21, 2 Thessalonians 2:8).

After the great battle is over, we – the resurrected, immortal saints of God – will be with Jesus on Earth. Christ will then establish His Millennial Kingdom, which will bring us into another exciting phase of life:
 

The Millennium

The Millennium is going to be an exciting time. After Jesus destroys the kingdom of the Antichrist, He will establish a kingdom of His own. We will then reign with Christ over the entire world:

Revelation 20:6: “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.”

The Old Testament has a great deal to say about life in the Millennium – far more than I have the time to discuss here. All I can really do is hit some of the highlights.

When Jesus returns to Earth He will gather everyone who is still alive at the time and will judge them. This is known as the Sheep and the Goat judgment:

Matthew 25:31: “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
32 And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:
33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.”

Now, you and I will not be at that judgment. Remember, the Church was already judged in Heaven; we will not be judged a second time. This judgment is for all those who survived the Tribulation. At this time God will separate the righteous from the wicked. The righteous will go on to live in the Millennial Kingdom (Matthew 25:34), but all of the wicked will be put to death (Matthew 25:41). This means that when the Millennium begins, every single person in the world will be a Christian. Those Christians will fall into two categories: the saints who survived the horrors of the Tribulation, and us – the resurrected, immortal, and perfect Wife of Christ. (We will no longer be the Bride of Christ because the Marriage will have already taken place.)

All throughout the Millennial Kingdom we will be on Earth reigning with Christ. The saints who survived the Tribulation will go on to have families and children, and they will repopulate the world. It will be a time of incredible peace. Even the animals will be at peace with one another:

Isaiah 65:22: “They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
23 They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them.
24 And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.
25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord.”

I want to emphasize the fact that if you are a Christian then this is in your future. During the Millennium your work will be richly blessed. In fact, you will be so blessed that God will answer your prayers before you even start praying! It will be a time of staggering peace.

Now, if you ask most people if we will be getting married during the Millennium they would say no. The Tribulation saints – those who survived the reign of the Antichrist – will be married and have children, but the Church isn’t going to be doing that. The reason people say that is because of what Christ once told the Sadducees:

Matthew 22:30: “For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.”

That seems pretty definitive. However, here’s something to think about: which resurrection was Jesus talking about? You see, the Bible actually means three different resurrections. There is the resurrection of the Church at the Rapture, the resurrection of the Tribulation martyrs when the Millennial Kingdom begins, and the resurrection of the wicked (along with those who died during the Millennium) at the Great White Throne judgment. Of those three judgments, the only one that God had revealed at the time the Sadducees asked that question was the last one.

You see, the doctrine of the Rapture was actually a great secret. Paul was the first person to mention it, and when he first talked about it in 1 Corinthians 15:51 he said that he was showing people “a mystery”. That means that he was revealing something that God had kept secret: he was unveiling an entirely new truth. The Sadducees were not asking about the Rapture because they didn’t know anything about it. The only Resurrection they had heard about was the one mentioned in Daniel 12:2:

Daniel 12:2: “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.”

There is only one resurrection that includes both the righteous and the wicked, and that is the very last one that occurs just before the Great White Throne judgment (Revelation 20:11-15). In that resurrection, people will not marry or be given in marriage.

But what about the other two? Well, the Bible does say this:

Matthew 19:28: “And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.
29 And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.”

Here Jesus is addressing what He will do when His Millennial Kingdom begins. At that time He will take those who suffered for Him and will repay them the things they had lost. Those who sacrificed houses for the sake of Christ will be repaid a hundred times over. In other words, they will not only get back what they lost, but they will be given more besides.

One of the things mentioned in that verse is a wife. Now, I do not believe that God is going to repay us with 100 wives. After all, although the word “houses” is plural, the word “wife” is singular – referring to just one. But I do find it very interesting that the passage which talks about Millennial rewards actually mentions wives.

Yes, I realize this is not definitive. But look at it this way: the only verse that prohibits marriage after the Resurrection is talking about the final resurrection before the final judgment. It is not talking about the Rapture. In fact, there are no verses anywhere in the Bible that prohibit us from getting married during the Millennial Kingdom. I realize that doesn’t mean we will, but it’s still something to think about.
 

The Eternal State

After the Millennial Kingdom is over and after the final judgment has occurred, we will enter into a time period that theologians refer to as the “eternal state”. At that time our current Universe will be gone, and in its place God will create a new Heaven and a new Earth. This will be a perfect place. There will be no sin, no suffering, no death, no pain, and no crying, for all the former things have passed away:

Revelation 21:1: “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.
2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
3 And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.
4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”

At this time we will not live in Heaven; instead Heaven will move to Earth – specifically, to the new Earth that God will create. God will live with men and men will live with God. There will no longer be a devil, for he will be tormented in the Lake of Fire and will never trouble us again. There will not be any wickedness anywhere and there will no longer be any sin. Instead a perfect mankind will live in a perfect world with a perfect God. There will no longer be any death, or sorrow, or crying, or pain, for all those things will have passed away.

That is what the future has in store for us, and that is what we will be doing after the Rapture. It’s really something to think about, isn’t it?

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