VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, [2], 3, 4 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 02:48:03 07/28/06 Fri
Author: Ronald Hanko
Subject: Doctrine of the Intermediate State

In theology the doctrine of the intermediate state describes the state of the soul between death and the resurrection and answers the question, "What happens to me then?" What Scripture teaches is, therefore, of vital interest to believers - that after death the believer enters heavenly glory and is conscious of that glory and of his being with Christ. So, too, the unbelieving and unrepentant enter, even before the resurrection of the body, into conscious suffering for their sin in hell.

There are many who deny this. Some teach soul-sleep, that the souls of those who are in heaven or hell are sleeping and not aware of what is happening to them. Similarly, Stephen Perks, a so-called "Christian Reconstructionist," and others with him, teach that the soul passes out of existence at death, to be re-created, we suppose, at the time of the resurrection of the body. This kind of teaching, as Calvin pointed out long ago, is perverse, and "not to be borne" by God's people. It destroys their hope in Christ, renews the terrors of death, and leaves them comfortless in the face of the last of all enemies.

Our hope of glory with Christ is based on Jesus' words to the dying thief, "Today thou shalt be with me in Paradise." Does anyone really believe that Jesus meant, "You will be there but will not know it?" or, "Your Paradise will be that you pass out of existence until many thousands of years have passed and the end finally comes?"

Concerning Phil. 1:23, another passage, Calvin says, "Do they think he wishes to fall asleep so as no longer to feel any desire of Christ? Was this all he was longing for when he said he knew he had a building of God, an house not made with hands, as soon as the earthly house of his tabernacle should be dissolved? (II Cor. 5:1). Where were the benefits of being with Christ were he to cease to live the life of Christ? What! Are they not overawed by the words of the Lord when, calling himself the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he says, he is 'not the God of the dead but of the living?' (Matt. 22:32). Is He, then, neither to be to them a God, nor are they to be to him a people? (Mk. 12:27)."

But what about those passages that describe the death of believers as sleep (Matt. 27:52; Acts 13:36; I Cor. 11:30; 15:20, 51; Eph. 5:14; I Thess. 4:14)? In light of the passages already mentioned, they cannot mean that there is such a thing as soul sleep. They must refer to the death and dissolution of the body and to the fact that the death of believers, for whom death is conquered, is no more difficult than a "falling on sleep." Nor is it strange that the death of believers should be described as sleep, for it is through death they rest from their labors (Rev. 14:13; Is. 57:1).

Indeed, Scripture suggests that the interval between death and the resurrection, God makes some special provision, that the soul without the body may have the glory He has promised. "If our earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens (II Cor. 5:1). For this reason to be absent from the body is to be present (lit.: "at home") with the Lord (vs. 8), and we are willing to be absent from the body. Rev. Ronald Hanko


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Making Our Calling and Election Sure

Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall" (II Peter 2:10).

One of our readers asked how it is possible to make our calling and election sure. This is a good question, and worthy of our consideration.

It is a good question, first of all, because it has had some erroneous interpretations, which have resulted in a denial of certain cardinal doctrines of the Reformed faith.

One of these interpretations is that election must be conditional, because the verse implies that we can lose our election. God elects us, but we must make it sure by what we do. The decisiveness of our election rests upon our faith in Christ and our perseverance in the way of obedience. If we fail to do our part, we will lose our election and be consigned to the eternal judgment of hell.

This is bad exegesis of this verse, even from the point of view of the other parts of Scripture which speak of the certainty of our election. When a man has been chosen by God from all eternity as one of God's elect, there is nothing at all which the man needs to do to guarantee or seal that election. There is, therefore, no power on earth, in heaven, or in hell, which can possibly rob him of his election. Nor can anything he does be the cause of the loss of his election.

The verse does not say anything like that, and it is gross error to teach it. Indeed, a doctrine such as this really robs the believer of his comfort. If my election depended in any way on me, I would lose it every moment of my life, for I constantly sin in everything I do, and those sins are so great in God's sight that they would necessarily be a forfeit on my election.

Rather, the text means to say that we must diligently strive to live in the assurance of our calling and election. We make our calling and our election sure when we are assured of both.

Let us make this clear.

In God's work of salvation, election always precedes calling: the order is election, then calling. "For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate…. And whom he did predestinate, them he also called…(Rom. 8:29-30).

The reference in the text is to the efficacious call of the gospel which sovereignly and irresistibly calls out of the darkness of sin into the light of God's grace. Only the elect are called, and election precedes the call.

Here, in the text the order is reversed. We must not make our election and calling sure; but we must make our calling and election sure.

Why this reversal of the order?

The answer is that we can make our election sure only when first we make our calling sure. The calling is first.

The calling is first because when God sovereignly calls us through the preaching of the gospel, He works faith in our hearts so that we lay hold on Christ set forth in the gospel. And when we lay hold on Him, we know also that we are called, for Christ's sheep hear His voice, and they follow Him (John 10:2,3). After all, as the text expresses it, Christ calls His sheep "name by name" (vs. 3 - where the idea is that He calls His own name by name, i.e., each one by his name). If He calls our name, we are sure of our calling, for we hear Him call us.

Election follows upon calling in the assurance of the child of God. The child of God hears the voice of the good Shepherd, follows Him, and knows that he is called. But, once knowing that he is called by the good Shepherd, he comes to know that Christ calls His own ("He called his own sheep by name…, John 10:3). And so we come to be assured of our election, i.e., that we are elect in Christ and belong to Him. Election is the deepest reason for our call.

How do we make our calling and election sure?

The answer lies in the context of vss. 5-7: "Add to our faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity."

In short, we are to make our calling and election sure by laying hold on Christ through faith and finding in Him our full and complete salvation, and to trust in Him as our Savior.

And, as Peter makes so graphically clear, we are to walk in sanctification. Part of our calling is to walk in obedience to our Lord and Savior. Then we make our calling sure. And, making our calling sure, we make our election sure.

Let us then be very clear on this. If we walk in sin, we have no assurance of our calling and election. How could we? If we disobey God, trust in ourselves, walk as the world walks, deny our calling, we can have no assurance of that calling. And having no assurance of that calling, we have no assurance of our election.

But when we forsake sin, flee to the cross for forgiveness and strength to walk as God's people, strive to live in obedience to Christ our King, then we know and are assured of our calling; and then the blessed and joyful conviction that our names are written in the Book of Life is ours. Prof. Herman Hanko


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Will the Promises Be Fulfilled?

One of our readers has asked: "Jesus is to be the seed of Abraham, God promises to give the throne of David to Jesus, and promises, 'all the land you see, north, south, east, and west, will I give you.' At what point will these promises be fulfilled?" This question raises the difficult but important matter of the interpretation of prophecy, both OT and NT.

The tendency in interpreting prophecy is always, it seems, to interpret it as fulfilled in the past, or as yet to be fulfilled in the future. Some would tend to interpret it almost exclusively in one of these two ways. Others would, without much rhyme or reason, mix the two, interpreting some prophecies as past, some future and some present.

All these approaches to prophecy seem to us to be inadequate. Our chief objection is, that if a prophecy or prophecies are interpreted with reference to only one single time frame, past, present or future, they are (even though they are part of the Word of God) made unprofitable to those of God's people who live at other times in history, since they have no fulfillment and little relevance in those of other ages (cf. II Tim. 3:16).

For example, if Matt. 24:1-35 was, as some suggest, fulfilled completely at the destruction of Jerusalem, then it is difficult to see that it has any meaning or relevance for us today. Likewise, if Rev. 4-22 is exclusively concerned with the future (after a supposed secret rapture of the church), the same objection holds.

We believe, therefore, that most, if not all prophecy has an on-going fulfillment. Usually there was a fulfillment around the time the prophecy was given (in the OT, a typical and earthly fulfillment), another partial or incomplete fulfillment throughout history, and a final and complete fulfillment in the events of the last days and the glories of the heavenly kingdom of Christ.

It must be so, it seems to us, if all Scripture, including all prophecies, are profitable for us today and will continue to be profitable for succeeding generations. They cannot be just matters of curiosity that have no relevance to the world in which God has put us, to the history of our own times, and to our lives in the world and in history.

We believe, then, that Matt. 24:1-35, though it had an immediate fulfillment in the destruction of Jerusalem (cf. vs. 34), nevertheless was not completely fulfilled in those days and will not be completely fulfilled until the man of sin himself is revealed and Christ comes again to end history. There are verses that seem to refer primarily to the destruction of Jerusalem (vss. 15-19). There are also verses which seem as we read them to refer to events connected with the end of the world (vss. 14, 29-31). The chapter refers to both - to the destruction of Jerusalem as a foreshadowing of all that transpires until the end.

So too, we believe that the book of Revelation gives us not just a view of the end times, but of all of history and of the principles that govern and control all of history as God accomplishes his purpose, and good pleasure in history. It shows us that the great conflict between the church and world, between Christ and the dragon, that is the central motif in history and the reason for all things.

All this has to do with the very nature of prophecy. Prophecy is not the mere prediction of the future (only about 5% of prophecy explicitly concerns the future), but is the light of revelation shed upon all of history, past, present and future, a light which shows that there is nothing new under the sun except for God's sovereign grace.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

[ Contact Forum Admin ]

Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.