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In a nutshell what we have in Matthew 25:31-46 is those reactions of the nations on the earth during the great tribulation to the preaching of the eternal gospel, not by the Christian church, but supernaturally by am angel/s.
Some fear Antichrist, follow him as God, and consider the Jews and the Christians a public nuisance.
I fear when I hear people like Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris argue about ridding the world of the Christian faith. This tendency should grow, especially in Europe.
God the Creator will come in the glory of the God-man Jesus Christ to sit on the throne of His glory. Some will say that they never knew Him. How could they mistreat Him? Others will say they never knew Him, how could they well treat Him?
They knew of the Creator. But they did not know of the Son of Man - the Son of God Who is God incarnate.
They did, at that time know of the persecuted Jews and Christians as His brothers, down even to the least of them. And as others considered them a menace to society, wanting to rid the world of such theists, others listening to the eternal gospel and the God created human conscience, did the decent thing. Those persecuted, imprisoned, left to starve, left to be sick, not able to purchase the world's goods because of the ban of the Antichrist, the off scouring of that negative dysutopian nightmare that is coming, will be His suffering brothers.
Refugees, scattered, persecuted by the world coming wanting to throw off forever the influence of the Bible, they are the third group.
As you did it onto the least of these My brothers, you did it unto Me.
As you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to Me.
God-man will come to take possession of the planet. And some mercifully spared will be transferred from that age into the next age of the millennial kingdom.
"And these (goats) shall go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous (sheep) into eternal life." (Matthew 25:46)
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What is "the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world"? It is what God had prepared for man when He created Adam and Eve at the foundation of the world - to enjoy the blessings of God's presence and a bountiful earth.
Is it the kingdom of God ?
Answer: Yes.
Is it also Christ's kingdom?
Answer Yes.
The different titles given interchangeably to this kingdom reflect only a matter of emphasis. Or Witness Lee and called the varied aspects as sections.
Verse 31 says "But when the Son of Man comes in His glory ... He will sit on the throne of His glory" .
The "Son of Man" is the title of Christ in relation to His kingdom, the Messianic kingdom.
The same kingdom is mentioned in Matt.13:41 -
"The Son of Man will send His angels, and they will collect out of His kingdom all the stumbling blocks and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into a furnace of fire. In that place will be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.
Then the righteous will shine forth like the sun in the kingdom of their Father." (13:41-43a)
The kingdom, "His kingdom" - the Son of Man's kingdom (v.41) will to the regenerated sons of God be "the kingdom of their Father" (v.43)
It is two aspects of the same thing. On one hand it is the Messianic kingdom with the Son of Man on His kingly throne. On the other hand it is to the sons of God, regenerated with His life, "the kingdom of their Father" .
Luke 1:22-33 and Jer. 3:17 show that this time will be the time of the throne of David in Jerusalem, with David's kingly heir Christ, reigning as King.
Below is the footnote in the Recovery Version to verse 34 - which verse says -
"Then the King will will say to those on His right hand, Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." (v.34)
Cont. below
@fmf said"You like to argue like a retarded 10 yr old." Rajk
The most and worst visceral name-calling, personal denunciations, and clumsiest 'resort to ad homs' [and other informal fallacies] have been yours over the years. This makes you a hypocrite, sonship.
FMF, Rajk is by far the worst. That you give him a pass for making such statements that both insults the one he directs them at, but also assaults and offends all those reading his posts that have a handicapped loved one.
Once again you prove how disingenuous and insensitive you are not only here, but everywhere anyone cares for the infirm.
@sonship saidRajk is an imposter. He pretends to be a follower of Christ. His purpose here is to dismantle discourse by undermining the cross of Jesus Christ.
As a result of long term listening to Rajk999, does your love for Jesus Christ tend to become warmer and growing ?
Or as a result of Rajk999 words do you find your heart towards Jesus Christ grows colder, more distant, ignoring, even chilly aloofness ?
@fmf saidThen why don't you call Rajk out about it like you do the real Christians posting here?
Rajk999 teaches that followers of Jesus actually have to follow Jesus and not just think stuff about Him and think stuff about themselves.
Because he suits your purposes.
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"Then the King will will say to those on His right hand, Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." (v.34)
After the judgment of Christ's throne of glory, the "sheep" will be transferred into the millennium to be the people living under the kingly ruling of Christ and the overcoming believers (Rev. 2:26-27; 12:5; 20:4-6)
The REWARDED (overcoming) believers from both the OT and NT times will be co-kings with Christ. They will not reign over each other. God transfers some living earth dwellers from the tribulation time into the next age of the millennial kingdom.
... and under the priestly ministry of the saved Jews (Zech. 8:20-23). In this way the "sheep" will inherit the (coming) kingdom. In the millennium there will be three sections:
(1) the earth, where the blessing of God's creation will be, as mentioned in Genesis 1:28-30,
(2) the nation of Israel in Canaan, from the Nile to the Euphrates, from which the saved Jews will rule over the whole earth (Isa. 60:10-12; Zech. 14:16-18) and
(3) the heavenly and spiritual section (1 Cor. 15:50-52), the manifestation of the kingdom of the heavens, where the overcoming believers will enjoy the kingdom reward (5:30; 7:21) .
The kingdom that the "sheep" will inherit consists of the first section.
[My spacing, my bolding]
The sheep in Matthew 25:30-46 are not the Lord's disciples as sheep but the nations of the Gentiles who are called sheep in Psalm 100:1-3.
"Make a joyful noise to Jehovah, ALL THE EARTH ... Know that it is Jehovah who is God; It is He who has made us and not we ourselves.
We are His people and the SHEEP of His pasture."
In this sense the Bible refers to all the nations as the sheep of Jehovah God.
This is a different from Christ's disciples as His sheep (John 10:11; Heb. 13:20) and the Jews as sheep (Psa. 80:1; Jer. 31:10).
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I wrote above what I have learned and researched and been convinced of by others.
The REWARDED (overcoming) believers from both the OT and NT times will be co-kings with Christ. They will not reign over each other. God transfers some living earth dwellers from the tribulation time into the next age of the millennial kingdom.
There is a difficult part of this understanding which took me time to understand, perhaps even some years before I was confident to embrace it.
it is a difficult point for the typical Reformation influenced evangelical Christian to swallow. It is this BRIEFLY ...
Matthew 25:46 says that the sheep enter into eternal life. I believe and teach as my mentors have convinced me. These saved people of the nations are not born again. They are not Christian disciples from the church age.
How then can we possibly believe that they enter into eternal life ??
Adam and Eve, when created, were very good, very innocent (until they disobeyed) and actually entered into an everlasting life just in view of them being created very good by God.
The nations which are transferred from the time of the last three and one half year great tribulation will be RESTORED people "healed" in the sense of brought back to the condition of Adam before he fell and was excluded from eternal life.
God does not enter into these sheep as their inward divine life. But they are healed to be unregenerated peoples as Adam was entering into everlasting life by the shepherding of the Shepherd of created man as he originally was.
The sons of God who are the church and the New Jerusalem eat the fruit of the tree of life. The restored nations are healed by the leaves of the tree of life.
This means the sons of God inherit the eternal purpose prepared for sons of God "BEFORE the foundation of the world" (Eph. 1:4) according to God's eternal purpose.
The sheep that enter into eternal life in the millennium inherit the kingdom prepared for Adam "FROM the foundation of the world".
I sympathize with Christians who may hear this and say "This is too much to take. All my Christian life I have heard the we must be born again to have eternal life. How could there be people to enter into eternal life if they are mercifully saved yet not born again?"
It is a good question. However, such a understanding means that God's eternal purpose is not just that people live forever. He has angels that live forever. And He can bless some human beings (like Adam and Eve had they not rebelled) to live everlastingly.
His eternal purpose is more than just having forgiven men that live forever. It is having men mingled, united, and interwoven in life, "organically" with God Himself as His sons.
Otherwise to say the sons of God will reign forever and ever would mean that they reign over each other. There has to be some people in the millennium and in the new heaven and new earth OVER whom the sons of God reign.
"And there will no longer be a curse. And the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His slaves will serve Him;
And they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. ... and they [the sons of God] will reign forever and ever." (See Rev. 22:3-4)
Over whom will they reign forever and ever? Over each other ??
This difficult a-typical understanding opens the way, if only partially, to see how God would save some people who never heard of Christ.
"When did we see You ...?"
Some people know about a Supreme Creator but have not heard about the Son of God. And Romans says that people are without excuse to not understand God the Creator of the world. The eternal gospel preached by the angel in Revelation 14 seems to be in this principle of touching man's conscience about the Creator God whom men have no excuse not to believe in.
I have other evidence of the validity of the restored nations living everlastingly. For length's sake I stop this post here.
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@sonship saidYour analysis is full of gaping holes like the one in your head. Regardless of whether it is the first or second judgment [if there is such a thing] the requirements for entry into the Kingdom of God remain the same.
I wrote above what I have learned and researched and been convinced of by others.The REWARDED (overcoming) believers from both the OT and NT times will be co-kings with Christ. They will not reign over each other. God transfers some living earth dwellers from the tribulation time into the next age of the millennial kingdom.
There is a difficult part o ...[text shortened]... the validity of the restored nations living everlastingly. For length's sake I stop this post here.
Your claim that the Matt 25 judgment is for nations and not Christians, the requirement for entry is clearly good works, righteousness ie following the commandments of Christ.
The Great White Throne judgment of Rev 20 the requirement is exactly the same. Read it:
Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. (Revelation 22:14-15 KJV)
Nobody escapes the righteous judgment of God. Eternal life in the Kingdom of God is for those who DO HIS COMMANDMENTS. All who are unrighteous will be cast out and destroyed. Its all over the bible. It makes no difference whether first or last judgment. You are a stupid man with a stupid doctrine, who persist in preaching a Satanic doctrine to the gullible.
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Your analysis is full of gaping holes like the one in your head.
I'll do the readers the service of responding to Rajk999's criticism.
His insults are meaningless and ineffective arguments.
Regardless of whether it is the first or second judgment [if there is such a thing]
Notice, Rajk999 has not effectively refuted that the judgment in Matthew 25:30-46 is before and different from the judgment in Revelation 20:11-14.
This inability to do so prompts him to take another tract. That is to say "regardless" it would make no difference to his one and only concern of rejecting eternal life to the Christian as the gift of God.
the requirements for entry into the Kingdom of God remain the same.
Any judgement of God through which people come forward to God is the decision of Jesus Christ. In that they are the same -No one comes to the Father except through Me. (John 14:6)
Whether eternal life is the gift of God or where the overcomer is rewarded once in the kingdom of God or disciplined or whether he is great in the kingdom or less in the kingdom or is set outside the reward of the kingdom until his sanctification is more complete, the decision is because of Jesus Christ and through Jesus Christ.
In that all the judgments are the same. And Rajk999 said TWO judgments. I did not say there were only two. I said the judgment of the living nations before the millennium is before the judgment of the dead after the millennium.
Christ is the judge of the living and the dead. (Acts 10:42; 2 Tim. 4:1). The judgment of Matt,25:31-46 is of the living before the millennium.
Rajk does not understand at all that both of these judgments are not the judgment seat of Christ taking place in the AIR upon the resurrected and raptured saints to determine their place in the millenniual kingdom BEFORE He descends with the REWARDED ones to the earth.
When the prophet Joel says that Jehovah will cause His mighty ones to descend, it indicates that of all the Christians He has judged and selected the overcomers from the defeated. The overcomers as the mighty ones descend with Him to Armageddon.
Therefore the judgment seat [BEMA] of Christ (2 Cor. 5:10) which is also called the judgment seat of God (Rom. 14:10) is for the church. It is for those for whom the issue of eternal life has already been solved in the affirmative.
The judgment of the living of the nations as sheep and goats is NOT the judgment seat of Christ for the believers, for the church. Neither is it the judgment seat of God for the believers, for the church.
Neither is it the great white throne judgment after the millennium for the dead resurrected after the millennium to be at the last judgment.
Rajk999 muddles all these together. A little superficial knowledge can be a dangerous and troublesome thing in the hands of a short sighted wrong teaching.
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Your claim that the Matt 25 judgment is for nations and not Christians,
Matthew 25 says that "the least of these My brothers" are not being judged there at all. The ones being judged are being examined as to how they treated "the least of these My brothers."
The church, and the elect Jews preserved by God to be the Christ recognizing Israel in the end times are from the greatest to the least the brothers of Jesus.
They are not standing among the sheep or the goats.
It has already been judged that they are His.
"Truly I say to you, Inasmuch as you [sheep] have done it to one of the least of THESE My brothers, you have done it to Me." (v.40b)
...
"Inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of THESE, neither have you done it to Me." (v.45)
That "THESE" His brothers HAVE already a life relationship with Christ therefore has been previously determined. They are standing somewhere in relationship with the King, the Son of Man. But they are not either the sheep on His right hand or the goats on His left hand.
Rajk999 has not been able to counter this logic. He is not into details here.
the requirement for entry is clearly good works, righteousness ie following the commandments of Christ.
We may say that the righteous sheep are saved because of the good deeds they did to the Lord's brothers down to the least of them. And we may say that the goats perish because of their callous neglect of the Lord's brothers.
But underneath this is that the ones who responded to "the eternal gospel" to fear the Creator rather than worship Antichrist who is not the Creator must be the underlying motive of their listening to the conscience to help or not help the persecuted brothers of Christ during the great tribulation.
"For I was hungry and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty and you gave Me a drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in, Naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me. I was a stranger and you took Me in."
"For I was hungry and you did not give Me anything to eat; I was thirsty and you did not give Me a drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in; naked and you did not clothe Me; sick and in prison, and you did not visit Me."
Remember when Paul was persecuting the church in Acts Christ said to Him 'Saul, Saul, Why are you persecuting ME?"
Remember that Jesus said that if a cup of water was given to a prophet because he is a prophet that one would have a prophet's reward.
These words must apply to this time.
To murder, imprison, persecute, harass the church was to do so to Christ Himself. It still is.
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Now do not anyone misunderstand me.
To use these passages as inspiration to do charitable works to anyone is quite alright. That I think is the application of the wisdom in the passage. What I am dealing with is the interpretation of it.
Do not take me to mean to be charitable to the poor, the suffering, the refugee, the imprisoned is not a good work.
The Great White Throne judgment of Rev 20 the requirement is exactly the same. Read it:
Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. (Revelation 22:14-15 KJV)
Some manuscripts had "do His commandments" some had "wash their robes" I think. Many good Bibles tell you things like this in the margin. They give you heads up about differences in ancient manuscripts.
If a version says "Wash their robes" it should not mean to anyone "Oh, do not obey the Lord Jesus. Disobey His commands."
That is stupid thinking.
This verse in Revelation 22 does not show men are saved by works of the law rather than by faith in Christ.
What is shows is that by the time of the new heaven and the new earth EVERY SINGLE PERSON who was saved has by then been fully dispositionally transformed and sanctified. All have overcome, not just a remnant who did so early. But ALL by that time have become overcoming in living the highest level of morality.
By eternity all the saved have been conformed to the image of Christ the Firstborn among many brothers. For that is God's promise which He cannot fail to perform. Though some are on time and others are tardy, all will reach conformation to the image of the Son.
"Because THOSE whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brothers.
And THOSE whom He predestinated, THESE He also called;
And THOSE whom He called, THESE He also justified;
And THOSE whom He justified, THESE He also glorified." (Romans 8:29-30)
Revelation 21 and 22 are positive and proof God will accomplish all His eternal purpose in "building" New Jerusalem and setting her as His bride and wife and center of the new heaven and new earth for eternity.
The sheep who inherit who are transferred to the millennial kingdom are the nations that walk in the light of the New Jerusalem as her surrounding peoples that the sons of God, the New Jerusalem reign over. And they are the ones HEALED by the leaves of the tree of life. But the sons of God are those who take into them, eating, the fruit of the tree of life.
This meaning God comes INTO them to live in them. That is the highest and the best. Surrounding them are saved nations healed, restored to be like pre-fall Adam.
Outside of the New Jerusalem are the surrounding nations walking in her light. And outside of the New Jerusalem are the lost in the lake of fire as the unclean sinners that were never redeemed.
Within the New Jerusalem are the sons of God all conformed in eternity to the image of their Firstborn elder brother Christ.
@secondson saidI disagree. I think sonship has made the rawest insults I've seen during the time I have been here. I think he believes Jesus is "flowing through" him. And he always claims he was provoked although no one has ever said - to him - the kind of things he has said to people whose dissent or different beliefs he is unable to process.
FMF, Rajk is by far the worst.
@secondson saidCall him out for what?
Then why don't you call Rajk out about it like you do the real Christians posting here?