Neglected Kerygma of Christ -- Lecture 11

[Rebbe]

THE NEGLECTED KERYGMA OF CHRIST
a series of lecture essays on the biblical concept of a universal salvation in Christ

LECTURE ELEVEN

Copyright © BRI/IMCF 2020 All Rights Reserved Worldwide by Les Aron Gosling, Messianic Lecturer (BRI/IMCF)

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How important are you to God the Father? How important is humanity to God the Father? These are questions I would often pose to church congregations when I shared the Gospel (along with Jewish thoughtform) with them from their pulpits many years ago. They were the years when I would purposely avoid any reference to the central and passionate core of God's redeeming love – God's purpose and intention for the salvation of the human race, which I considered to be largely a SECRET in those days – nothing less than “an ultimate universal salvation in Christ.” I was well aware that such knowledge could be a potential stumbling block for the spiritually immature. It could cause carnal reasoning such as intending: “Well, if all humanity is to be saved at the end of all things, then in the meantime I'll live my life in profligate debauchery and thrill-seeking and come to Christ later in the Great White Throne Judgment period. Until then I will take my chances.”

Now, I agree, that's a frightening and unbelievably shocking attitude – but it's all too common among unthinking, self-satiating people who call themselves “Christians.” We've had contact with such folk over the entirety of this ministry. And, it's sad. But when it comes from someone who has been very close to the Rebbe and Rebbetzin – somebody we've known and worked with for a number of decades – then it's all the more tragic.

So for years I kept my mouth shut when it came to preaching and teaching about “universal salvation in Christ.” I even confessed to a popular fellow minister in the AOG (who happened to be a “closet” universalist) that while I personally believed in a universal salvation I added that I wouldn't share it with anyone else. But I DID emphasise at all times in my ministry the GRACE of our God. I never shrank from this teaching. I simply modified it going right against the biblical injunction found in 1 Tim 4.9-16. Yes! “These things” – including the doctrine of an ultimate universal salvation in Christ – “command AND TEACH.” When I finally isolated the BRI/IMCF from the Babylonian and apostate churches of this world (with their largely controlling “Boards” of prudish ignoramuses) I was then entirely at liberty to FREELY teach the entirety of the WORD of God to any and all who would lend an ear – a dedicated task to which I am utterly committed and will continue to be to the day of my death.

In this sanction of the Spirit I am always available to share TRUTH with individuals and with churches that seek “to grow in the Grace and knowledge of the Saviour Yeshua the Messiah” –  to quote from the Good Book.

THE MOST DANGEROUS DOCTRINE IN THE BIBLE
Many sincere believers over the years have questioned the very idea of Grace. There exists enormous confusion and misunderstanding over the biblical teaching of Grace. Certainly, there can be no argument against the proposition that the notion of GRACE IS THE MOST DANGEROUS DOCTRINE in the whole Bible. It can be misused and has been misused by millions of Christian adherents over many centuries.

I have talked over 40+ years with myriads of fellow travellers who have felt that Grace covers a multitude of erroneous intentions – most have sincerely stressed that God the Father lovingly “turns a blind eye” to sin, sinful activities, sinful motivations of the heart. The catch-all phrase is often repeated: “I believe God understands.”

I, too, believe that God understands. Perfectly. More perfectly than any of us understand.

Listen!

The biblical revelation sanctions no such view of Grace in relation to sin. Indeed, the sacred Scriptures contain grave warnings against “turning the Grace of our God into lasciviousness” (Jude 4).

What is “lasciviousness”?

It is pruriency, lubricity, concupiscence – to be lecherous certainly in the hyper-erotic sense of participating in ultra-salacious lewd behaviour that is more than hinted at in the very first chapter of Paul's Letter to the Roman Christians. It is a code of vile, smutty, lustful indecency. And in a word, notwithstanding the sincere notions of innumerable Christian believers, God's Grace does not reign at the expense of righteousness but “Grace reigns THROUGH righteousness” (Rom 5.21). So, as any true student of the Scriptures can readily enough testify, no matter what his or her denominational status may be, God does not EXCUSE SIN, God does not IGNORE SIN, OR OVERLOOK SIN. Quite the opposite in fact. God cannot tolerate sin! Rather, God SAVES US FROM SIN – AND ITS CONSEQUENTIAL NEGATIVE EFECTS. Every cause has its effect. Remember, King David murdered the husband of the voluptuous Bat'sheva and took her to be his wife and nine months later she brought forth a son as a consequence of this adulterous union. God did not save that child when it was born with defects! The little baby died and David was condemned by God's prophet – and it tore David apart.

Make no mistake! God's Grace saves us from sin – saves us out of sin – saves us so that we do not continue to indulge in sin. We are told by John the emissary that “Sin is lawlessness” (1 Jn 3.4). Or, as put in the AV, “Sin is the transgression of the law” – the Torah.

“By GRACE are you saved,” wrote Paul. God has no other motivation than salvation for – and in respect of – His creation! God's will is always, ever, invariably, a SALVIFIC WILL. The message about God's Salvific will has all but been lost! It is our desire to RESTORE Grace to its proper and appropriate place in the biblical revelation.

Having said this, how many of us realise that there is a decided DISCIPLINE involving GRACE? This may be news to some believers, but it's the truth.

To follow Christ, to be Yeshua's pupil or student, involves “walking as he walked” as the apostle Peter, one of his prime talmidim, candidly stated. God IS Grace, and God IS salvation. God's SAVING GRACE disciplines. Titus, a first century Christian believer and follower of Christ, penned the following inspirational passage:

“For the Grace of God has appeared, BRINGING SALVATION TO ALL MEN, disciplining [Gk.verb, paideuo] us, to the intent that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly and righteously and godly in this present age” (Titus 2.11,12).

The Greek verb mentioned in the above passage has been uniformly translated in other versions as “instructing” and “teaching.” Basically it speaks of the training or education of children. Let's look at Titus 2.11 and 12 from the perspective of the Amplified Version which makes things a little clearer.

“For the Grace of God – His unmerited favour and blessing – has come forward (appeared), for the deliverance from sin and the eternal salvation for all mankind. It has trained us” – there's paideuo – “to reject and renounce all ungodliness (irreligion) and worldly (passionate) desires, to live discreet (temperate, self-controlled), upright, devout (spiritually whole) lives in this present world.”

Note that the GRACE OF GOD is for “all humankind” – for “ALL the world.” But we today are only the “Firstfrtuits” of a coming greater general harvest of souls. Only a very small number of Earth's inhabitants have experienced a salvation in the last 2000 years. Very few indeed. The vast overwhelming majority remain as unsaved as ever. I will not repeat what has already been grasped in our past ten lectures in this series on the “Neglected Kerygma.” Suffice to say, the Lord Yeshua taught that the salvation of humankind would take place in THREE BROAD SALVATION-ORIENTED MOMENTS IN SPACE TIME.

At this juncture I ought to mention that there exist in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke certain difficult sections of the life and public addresses of Christ which are essentially ignored in scholarly biblical expositions and religious volumes due to the fact that the scholars and expositors are (for the most part) totally ignorant concerning their meaning. We will discuss these sections in a few moments.

They are really quite simple to grasp!

THE THREE PERIODS OF SALVATION
According to the Aramaic Bible, “Yeshua told them another parable: The Kingdom of the heavens is likened to leaven which a woman took AND HID IN THREE MEASURES OF MEAL until all of it had fermented” (Mt 13.33). Or, as Young's Literal Translation has put it: “Another simile spake he to them: The reign of the heavens is like to leaven [or, yeast], which a woman having taken, hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened.”

Note please that the THREE measures of yeast was in reality HIDDEN from the eyes of the world. Nobody knew anything about this process in which God was engaged. The destiny of humankind was the GREAT SECRET or MYSTERY of the ages.

Yet, Christians who have been faithfully observing the festivals of Israel's ancient agricultural celebrations will be very much aware that the FIRST HARVEST of souls is occurring NOW – and this has been the case for the last two millennia. They also know that the SECOND HARVEST will be during the millennium (Gk., meaning “a thousand years”) when Christ takes the reins of heavenly power and rules the planet with a shepherd's “rod of iron.” Our Earth will experience during this thousand-year aeon, the first taste of real, authentic world peace with an abundant prosperity. The THIRD HARVEST comes apparently right on the heels of the Millennial reign of Messiah. It's an aeon called the “Judgment (Period) of the Great White Throne.”

The chosen people of Israel have observed the agricultural festival system for millennia – and especially celebrated the “Last Great Day” in the Leviticus 23 schema with accompanied dancing and singing rejoicing in the UNITY OF GOD in relation to His blueprint (blueprint, think Torah) yet they have accomplished this celebration in total ignorance of its meaning. They have been without any comprehension as to what it all represented in God's scheme of things.

It takes the Ruach HaKodesh to OPEN THE MIND to receive things that are spiritual. This was Paul's teaching. Without the holy Spirit of God we are in total darkness – even if we have been the recipients of God's cosmic secrets.

We believe the actualisation (or materialisation) of the “Last Great Day” of the listings of festivals in Leviticus 23 will follow immediately on from the successful conclusion of the Millennial reign of Yeshua the Messiah due to the fact that it is not separated from the other festivals except in the sense that it is attached to (but is not a part of) the seven-day festival of Sukkot – the Feast of Tabernacles. Incidentally, the thousand-year reign of Christ takes place ON and OVER the Earth and is decidedly not an administration taking place in heaven for a thousand years as Seventh Day Adventist apostates teach.

Indeed, the festival known as “The Last Great Day” is a magnificent imaging of the final reconciliation and salvation of the entirety of the human race to God the Father – which is the REAL reason faithful Jews celebrate in that day (annual Sabbath) with much rejoicing, singing, dancing and eating. They may not realise the reason for their expressions of JOY but God does, and now so do we.

Again, let me repeat: it takes God's Spirit of revelation and understanding to reveal the hidden truth of God's intention for humankind created in God's “image and likeness” (1 Cor 2.13,14).

God's Salvific will has been working within authentic Christian believers for the last 2000 years, and it will work within the recipients of physical life who will live their normal lives out during the Millennial reign of Christ. These folk will be World War III survivors who will live over into the Millennium.

But what of the estimated 140 billion people who have lived on Earth from the dawn of time and have never been exposed to the “one name under heaven given among men that they may be saved”? They will live again during the Great White Throne aeon and be disciplined throughout that age resulting in a FULL salvation. How long will it last? We have no idea because the biblical revelation is entirely silent on the subject. Frankly, we have no need to know the precise length of that day of future salvation. What we DO possess is our understanding by God's GRACE of His intent, plan and purpose for humanity and we can all be encouraged that during that future time-period God's GRACE will be abundantly embraced by (eventually) ALL who have ever lived. It is written in Job that “God will have a desire to the work of His hands” (Job 14.15). We accept the Word of God's patently straightforward assessment and we believe it to be true.

WHAT CHRIST SHARED ABOUT FUTURE DISCIPLINE
Earlier I made mention of some difficult texts in Matthew and Luke. They pertain to the salvific aeons of God, and the disciplining that will occur within those strategic periods of time. All of us in this Christian “Age of Grace” have experienced, to one degree or another, the awful “heavy hand of God” when we have failed in certain areas of (let's call it) “Christian living.” Sometimes God's “correction” comes with fury and a heavenly determination to encourage positive change within us. At other times God's “correction” (the circular letter to the Hebrews speaks of it as “chastening”) comes on us with a great deal less heavenly anger than we may well have anticipated. I mean, when we fall far short of God the Father's expectations of us in relation to overcoming sin then God grants us His very concerned intervention as we would all do for our own children if we knew they were “going off the rails.” We “Firstfruits” are called to be “overcomers.” God wants no final failures. God wants us to gain the victory.

Christ said, “To him who overcomes” or gains the victory “and safeguards my works from violation by performing them to the end [when I come], I will give to him authority over the nations, and he shall shepherd them with an iron sceptre; as vessels made of clay they are shattered, as I also have received from from the presence of my Father” (Rev 2.26,27 Greek. See Wuest translation).

Again, “The one who overcomes” or who gains the victory “I will give to him [the privilege and honour] of sitting with me on my throne, as I gained the victory and sat down with my Father in His throne” (Rev 3.21 Gk cf Wuest translation).

The bottom line is that if we break the laws of God, they will in turn break us. Nothing could be clearer than this fundamental truth. Today, we have a church that has a universal message to all human beings – believers and unbelievers. “Accept Christ for today is the only day of salvation. If you do not do so  – if you do not choose to be saved – you will go straight to hell.”

Now I am putting it crudely, but maybe I am not. It is assuredly what the basic message is that churchianity has espoused (in so many words) but we now know that today is only a day of salvation for those God has called, elected and chosen at this time to be His “Firstfruits” – “elected IN Christ” from time immemorial. Indeed, from BEFORE the creation of the aeons.

As we live out our lives here below, and as we struggle daily against the Dark Lord's temptations, and the evil world system that surrounds us, and even from our bondage to our inner down-pulling yetzer hara – we are being JUDGED by God. Every thought and every motive and every action is being scrutinised by Christ (Rev 2.1-3). Peter knew this as a fact and he wrote about it. This is what he shared subsequent to the death and resurrection of Christ:

“For the time has come for judgment TO BEGIN at the house of God: and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the Gospel of God?” (1 Pet 4.17).

“Consider this,” said Yeshua, “I am coming soon. And my reward is with me, to render to each one according to his work... Spiritually prosperous are those who wash their clothes” (Rev 22.12).

We have been washed in the blood of the lamb –YES! But God the Father expects us all to daily continue washing our clothes. He wants us to be spotless – PERFECT, and working toward that perfection, that spiritual maturity (Mt.5.48). Professor Kenneth Wuest translates this verse accurately as “Therefore, as for you, you shall be those who are complete in your character, even as your Father in heaven is complete in his being.”

Have we finally caught the vision of God's expectation of us?

So, in this “Firstfruit” life we are being judged, and we go through specific trials sent from God for the outworking of our characters. It will be the same procedure during the reign of Christ over the planet during the Millennium. And it will be the same undeviating method God will use in the aeon of the Great White Throne! What most “unbelieving believers” fail to realise is that during that future time-period the world will know the heavy hand of God in basically the same way as we do today. “God is not a respecter of persons” when it certainly comes to His judgments, and does not show partiality especially with the blind laws of karma. And neither does Christ necessarily speak of hell-fire and endless misery when he speaks of particular future judgments. Oftentimes we read into a text what may be the furthest thing from Christ's mind and intention. Matthew 10.15; 11.21-24; 12.41,42 and Luke 12.47,48 are cases in point.

Notice each of these (usually ignored) texts now:

“In whatever city or village you enter,” said Christ, “enquire carefully who in it is suitable” – or, who is sympathetic to the message of Christ – “and there stay as a guest until whatever time you may depart. And while entering the house, pay it your due respects. And if the house is suitable, let your peace come upon it. But if it is not suitable, let your peace turn back to you. And whoever does not receive you, or heed your words, while going forth out of that house or city, shake out the dust of your feet, considering them as heathen whose dust would defile you...” (Mt 10.15).

Harsh words, these. And in today's PC milieu quite tailored to “Jewish or white privilege.” Certainly to most modern “unbelieving believers” Yeshua the Messiah was decidedly “unChrist-like.”

Whatever the case, Christ then added, “Assuredly, I am saying to you, it will be more endurable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city” (same verse). Other versions express “endurable” as “tolerant.”

“More endurable”? “More tolerant”? Square these thoughts with the doctrine of endless misery and immortal maggots and eternal fires that never go out.  But let's not stop here. Consider:

“Then Yeshua began to be reproaching the cities in which the most of his miracles, demonstrations of the power of God, were done, because they did not repent. Alas to you Chorazin, alas to you Bethsaida, because if in Tyre and Sidon there had been done the miracles of God's power which were done in you, they would in that case long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes. Nevertheless, I am saying to you, for Tyre and Sidon it shall be more endurable in the day of judgment than for you. And as for you, Capernaum, you will not be exalted as far as heaven, will you? You will be caused to descend even to the depths of misery and disgrace in the unseen world, because, if in Sodom there had been done the miracles demonstrating divine power which were done in you, it would in that case have remained until this day. Nevertheless, I am saying to you, For the land of Sodom it will be more endurable in the day of judgment than for you” (Mt 11.21-24).

The day of judgment is the aeon known to us as “The Last Great Day” or “The Great White Throne Judgment.” And Christ seems to be emphatic about a more lenient, tolerant, endurable judgment period for ancient cities destroyed long before his day and age than for those cities of his own time that rejected – in their free will – his rich healing presence among them. In the case of Capernaum it appears that those who rejected Christ would, in their own lifetimes, suffer disgrace when they “crossed over” into Sheol. As Yeshua warned, “You will be caused to descend even to the depths of misery and disgrace in the unseen world.”

Again....

“Men, Ninevites, shall arise in the judgment with this breed of men and shall condemn it, because they repented as a result of the proclamation of Jonah, and behold, something more than Jonah is here. A queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this breed of men and shall condemn it, because she came from the frontiers of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something more than Solomon is here” (Mt 12.41,42).

Here reference is made to the remarkable Egyptian Hatshepsut who became known as “the Queen of Sheba” in popular folklore. Her cute nickname was “Sheb” pronounced sheeb. She and her retinue visited Solomon and they were astonished at the architecture and the wealth of “God's Land” and the wisdom that poured forth from the king's lips. She returned to Egypt pregnant with his child. Today we know that she created her own astounding and impressive temple mortuary complex (based on Solomon's model) in the Valley of the Kings. Christ informs us that she will be resurrected in that Great White Throne aeon in the far distant future.

In Luke's account we read of Christ's prediction that in the future judgment there will be degrees of “correction,” “chastisement,” and “punishment” for failure to live up to the standards of the Creator. He is obviously speaking of the “Last Great Day” (see Luke 12.41-48 with particular reference to vss. 47,48). Here we locate mention of slaves of a Master receiving “many stripes” and some copping “fewer stripes.” But not a mention of the fires of an eternal hell. Indeed we discover that the final (or THIRD salvific aeon) will be pictured by an intensive period of re-education marked by severe, and not so severe, chastisement.

I was gratified to recently uncover evidence that universalist A.E. Knoch was in agreement with this assessment especially in relation to the aeon of the Great White Throne. He noted the following:

“In our Lord's description of other judgments we may gather some idea of what He deems the just procedure. To His disciples He said that a slave who knows his lord's will, yet ignores it, shall have many lashes. But one who does not know, even if he deserves blows, will have few. Then He laid down a rule which will probably apply at the great white throne also: As to everyone to whom much was given, from him much will be sought, and to whom they committed much, more excessively will they be requesting of him (Luke 12:47-48). This has a direct bearing on the case of infants, who know practically nothing, and the heathen who are ignorant of God's Word and will. I shudder, not at the fate of those two classes, but at the terrible fate which would overtake those who have delved deeply into His revelation, if they were not exempt from judgment through the sacrifice of Christ. Yes, we, who know His will, and are such great failures at carrying it our, we would probably receive the most lashes, and deserve the severest blow” (A.E. Knoch, The Problem of Evil and the Judgments of God, 1976, 256 Emphasis mine).

In Matthew 25 we read of certain nations – described as “goats” or better, kidlings – going into (descending into) a region of alienation for the purposes of “pruning” (Greek), not punishment. One author, in a little volume he penned in 1899, wondered aloud about the punishments of God. Among other issues he wrote, in respect to Our Lord's statement “It shall be more tolerable for them at the day of judgment than for you!”... Are there men with souls so dead and brain so narrow “that they can take these solemn words to mean nothing more than that the men of Tyre and Sidon will not be condemned to quite so hot a fire as the men of Chorazin and Bethsaida! Must [these words] not mean at least that in the future, as in the present, there will be diversities of moral condition, and a discipline nicely adapted to those diversities? May they not mean that those who have sinned against a little light will, after having been chastened for their sins with a “few stripes,” receive more light, and be free to walk in it if they will?”

He adds, thoughtfully... “We are often chastened in this world that we may not be condemned with the world, often judged and condemned and punished that we may be aroused to repentance and saved unto life everlasting. Why, then, should we always take the chastenings of the world to come to mean judgments, and the judgments to mean condemnations, and the condemnations to mean nothing short of a final and irreversible doom? On the contrary, we ought rather to hope that, while during the brief hours of time our lives describe but “broken arcs,” in eternity, and through whatever chastening and discipline may be requisite for us, they will reach “the perfect round.”... “Throughout the Bible we are taught that [these punishments and trials of nature and the world] are designed by God to be corrective and even redemptive; that their true purpose is to castigate and chasten men, to open their eyes to the exceeding sinfulness of sin, to teach them to loathe and renounce it. What is the whole book of Job but a subtle and manifold commentary on this thesis – that the sufferings of men are not simply penal and retributive, but corrective and remedial? That, by these, God is ever seeking to withdraw man from his evil deeds, to bring back his soul from the pit that it may grow light in the light of life?” (Samuel Cox, Salvator Mundi, 1899, 18,19,162,163).

Horrific as our fate would otherwise be, were it not for the enormous sacrificial redemptive love of our Creator in giving His Son for us, and to us, and for the world and to the world, the prophet Habakkuk (which means 'embrace') argues effectively, “We shall not die! For the purpose of judgment have You ordained it [our trials and failures], O Yehovah, and You, O Rock, have determined it for correction” (Hab 1.12).

The unknown author of the circular letter to the Hebrews writes, in support of the prophet Habakkuk, that “no chastening for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous, nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them who are exercised thereby” (Heb 12.11).

The character of God, the Nature of God, the loving Salvific will of God, is in no way given to partiality! What WE experience in this life as “Firstfruits” will be repeated in the lives of OTHERS who have not been called at this time to be the recipients of everlasting life. Their time of salvation is yet to be revealed in the future aeon of the Judgment of the Great White Throne.

May we all take heart in this fact! That we will be rejoicing TOGETHER with them and with God as the Creative Infinite Intelligence and Everlasting Love fulfils in and by His own special ways and means and methods, the successful accomplishment of the realised GOAL OF THE UNIVERSE which will be welcomed by all of us with intense exhilaration and satisfaction as GOD GLORIES in His “desire to the work of Her hands.”

Take heart. It will be so!

THIS CONCLUDES THE CURRENT LECTURE