Imagine a world wide electricity company serving all. It does not discriminate among who its costumers are. If the customers pay on time, their service continues. It is that simple. When they run out of money and do not pay, the service discontinues. It is the Play and Pay principle, not the pay and play principle. Yes, you play first and then you pay. If the payment is insufficient, the service discontinues.
Is this principle in the Bible? Indeed it is.
Rom 6:23, For the wages of sin is death; . . . (ASV)
What happens after a person pays his May electricity bill? He has paid in full, and no mistake has occurred.
Will the company come back and demand more money for May?
No, that shall not happen. Is God a proponent of this
'pay once in full for the product and don't worry about having to pay again principle' ? Indeed he is.
Rom 6:7, For he that is dead is freed from sin (KJV)
Does the fact that an individual has paid for May's electricity entitle him to free electricity in June? Not in this world.
When a person dies, he has paid for his sins he committed during his life. There is no more payment to be made, and that person is now dead. Is dying an insurance policy for receiving a 100% insured resurrection? Has God promised all people that they shall be resurrected? No, he hasn't. The word is:
Rom 6:23, . . . the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (KJV)
Also, it says,
John 3:16, For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life. 17For God sent not the Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through him. 18He that believeth on him is not judged: he that believeth not hath been judged already, because he hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God. (ASV)
So, then the gift is depending upon having a person having faith – more or less. The problem is, some people have never heard about Jehovah or Jesus Christ. They are ignorant about these matters. They are without the Jewish Law Covenant, and they are without the Christian Law of Faith.
What do these have? Shall they all be resurrected simply because they were ignorant about these specificities? What does the Bible say. It will be explained, but first another problem is more urgently in need of an explation.
Judgment !
What is the word about judgment? Very simple indeed.
Ezekiel 18:4, . . . the soul that sinneth, it shall die (KJV)
God's judgment is utterly simple. All sinners shall die (at least until Armageddon). After death, will there be torment of these dead ones? No, because they have paid in full for their error. Death is their reward, their payment, for their sin.
If these dead ones do not receive a resurrection has that caused them torment? has it caused an increase in their judgment? No, not at all. Their judgment was to die for their sin. This punishment death is for all time; it is not for a day, neither for a year, nor for ten years, or for a thousand years – it is death eternal.
Their judgment was served them when they died, and they have no more hope under the heavens ever, for all eternity – perhaps, hahaha.
Why do I laugh? Because these matters are where all have been confused and have it wrong.
Judgment Day !!
The Bible says that God has left judgment to Christ, and so he has. However, God already judged us all to die long time ago, which is why we do die guilty as sin.
Christ's judgment is something else entirely.
His is not the judgment of the guilty one since all who are dead are guilty ones.
His is the judgment of the innocent ones, innocent by reason of ignorance and by reason of faith in Christ's ransom.
No dead person will be judged by God again since they already are dead and judged, and God's judgment is a one-time final judgment, a just judgment:
he who sins dies. Christ's judgment therefore does not increase anyone's judgment, neither does it add to it, nor does it increase the dead one's torment – the judgment is already eternal, final and just.
Christ's judgment is that of a parole officer. Is there a reason why judgment should be rescinded, suspended, even temporarily as in the resurrection of judgment? Then it thall be rescinded however temporarily that may be.
That is Christ's duty. Thus as it says in two places, the conduct of the dead person during his lifetime is reconsidered by Christ so as to see if there are any ameliorating circumstances permitting the dead one to be given a suspended sentence pending his future acts.
Let us consider just two scriptures about this.
Rom 2:14-16, For when the Gentiles who have no law do by nature the things of the law, these men, not having law, are a law to themselves. 15Who show the work of the law written in their hearts, testifying of their conscience, and their thoughts amidst each other accusing or also defending them 16in a day when God judges the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my good-news. (ACV)
Rev 20:13, . . . death and Hades gave up the dead in them. And they were judged, each according to their works (ACV)
As we see, the dead are being judged by Christ on what they did during their past lives. This judgment adds no further punishment to the sentence already executed and in force upon them. Rather, the dead ones' actions are used to determine if parole should be granted so that they receive the resurrection of the righteous or the resurrection of judgment. If the latter is handed out, then their life from that point on shall be used to judge if they may or may not get eternal life.
If more scriptures and information are needed, this subject has already been treated extensively here:
Sheol and Judgment Rev 20:11-15 (Related Subjects)
This point has stymied all. So far, everybody has misunderstood this one point about judgment. It is perhaps one of the ways God hides things.
1. usually a judge has an individual in front of him. This one is to be judged guiltly or innocent by the judge based on the evidence.
2. Christ the judge does not do that. All are guilty already, that is why we die, and that is why the dead are dead.
3. Christ judges if you are worthy of the gift, the resurrection.
4. thus his judgment does not affect the already established judgment of eternal death when his judgment is unfavorable; such an unfavorable judgment changes nothing.
5. the favorable judgment gives the undeserved gift of resurrection, of life, to the guilty, based on faith in the ransom and works of repentance for the righteous, and for the unrighteous, based on their works of conscience so that only the unrighteous ignorant ones are resurrected, not the wicked.
6. the wicked receive no change in their judgment of their works they committed during their lives, for that reason they are affected by Rom 6;23a and Ez 18:4. The wicked dead receive benefit from Rom 6:7 in the sense that their payment is done and no torment or additional judgment shall be heaped upon them.
7. The ones that receive the resurrections are the ones that receive full benefit of Rom 6:7 since all their prior sins are at zero and they start off with no sins in their new life.
I Peter 4:6, For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit. (KJV)
Romans 6:2-4, God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? 3Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? 4Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. (KJV)
When a person becomes Christian, he must die with reference to his former life, in respect to sin. He starts living for Christ. In God's eyes, this person that was dead came to life through Christ. Such ones need not die during Armageddon.
