John 12.33 Part III
September 7th 2014
Milk
WELCOME
Last week I suggested that SINCE we know God is love, and SINCE we know He is all knowing FROM before He created us, and SINCE He always has His will and desires accomplished (by and through His foreknowledge NOT by force) the ONLY way to merge all of these facts (and these are biblical facts, folks) was to suggest that He will reconcile all people to Him.
This is a very different approach to this beautiful faith called Christianity than what has come before us and is centralized in Calivinism and Arminianism and even Universalism, which teaches that God saves everyone.
We mentioned in the weeks prior that the world could be divided into two camps – those who are saved (from hell and the second death) and those who are not.
This automatically eliminates the charge that this teaching is universalist and all men are saved.
We’ll refer to the idea as total reconciliationism remembering that God has His firstfruits, His bride, His children and church, and yet acknowledging that there is more of the human harvest to come, to be reconciled, that God will, in the end, become “all in all.”
This approach suggests then that God, allowing for the free will choice of Man, will use different MEANS to bring about His ultimate victory.
Some of those means include total free will choice of Man (which we witnessed in His relationship with Adam and Eve).
Then we saw Him reaching to a chosen Nation with the law.
Then we see He sent His Son, who makes all things possible, and in conjunction with His Spirit calls to all – and those who choose to hear, in this life, become His Sons and Daughters.
And then what about the rest of the harvest? That is what we are going to talk about today.
We noted last week that the biblical concept of first-fruits automatically suggests that more fruit is going to come forth after His children.
Remember? I said the Nation of Israel was a firstfruit Nation “of many to come,” that His Only Begotten Son was the firstfruit of many that would rise from the grave,” and that the Bride of Christ – us – are the firstfruit’s of the redeemed of many to come).
We quoted James 1:18, an amazing passage that says:
“Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.”
But all of this material I’ve presented is simply preface material used to build an argument IF the Bible says otherwise, right? I get that.
And again, I want nothing to do with anything that is not true and validated by the Word of God.
So, if we are to consider ourselves biblical Christians, we have to openly and readily admit that hell and the Lake of Fire is a reality.
There are teachers who suggest that there is no hell or lake of first and have taken the idea that God is love to the extreme of saying that Jesus closed their doors and all will be redeemed by His shed blood.
For them, the benefit of hearing about Jesus in this life is beneficial to believers in this life – a relationship non-believers in this life miss out on all together.
The problem with such a view is it ignores all sorts of biblical teachings and pictures and statements relative to faith, redemption, justice, mercy, hell and afterlife rewards and punishment.
If man has been blessed with an ability to choose God freely by faith, Man has the responsibility to do it.
To refuse is to refuse Christ and to reap what Man has sown not what Christ has given the world.
Consequences must follow for God to be considered good.
Finally, before venturing into the specifics of the study that hell and afterlife punishment we have to also admit that neither place is a place to trifle with.
I have had believers ask me in the face of this teaching:
“Well, what’s the point of anything then? I’ll just live like I want and then go to hell for a while, maybe make a visit to the lake of fire, and then “God” will reconcile me to Him and we’ll all be fat dumb and happy.
I admit that they may, in the end of such a journey remain fat and dumb but they will certainly not be happy.
Christ came that we might have life and that we might have life MORE abundantly.
He came to save us FROM hell (it is such a horrid place) and to keep us FROM dying the second death – from what I believe is losing our soul.
When believers down plays hell and the lake of fire in these ways it says (at least to me) that they do not comprehend the value of being Christ’s in this life (and in the eternities to come) NOR do they comprehend the loss and trauma experienced by those who have not been saved from hell and the second death.
Hell (and/or again, the Lake of Fire) are places of utter misery. And the misery quite possibly does not come from the fact that God is punishing us but from the fact that God is entirely absent from the one local, and entirely present in the other.
We know from scripture that in this life ALL men are called to and contacted by God through an assortment of different ways, namely, He appeals to us
Through nature
In conscience
On the tables of stone
Through scripture
By Christ
By the Spirit on hearts of believers
And to others in the outward lives of Christians around them.
I would imagine none of these appeals are present or available to those living in the dark absence of the influences of the God.
What it will take, and or the amount of time and suffering it will take, to bring people to their knees and to open their mouths is unknown and terrifying to me.
Additionally, since God is outside of time we have absolutely no idea of how the passing of “time” works in the utter darkness of His absence.
Could it be that a moment in hell feels eternal for those who are there?
Could it be that, lacking His light and love that a hundred billion years will not be enough to bring some to bow and confess His name?
Total reconciliation in no way ought to diminish the horrific nature of hell. All it suggests is that God will use hell and the lake of fire to reach the rest of the harvest that refused to be part of His overall ubiquitous harvest.
Now, let’s get into some specific scriptural details about hell and the Lake of Fire – they are completely different places which are constantly confused.
Not to beat a dead horse (so to speak) but whether hell or lake of fire, the Bible describes the reactions people have to both places as “painful.”
Because Augustine, who had a profound influence on Christian thought dating way, way back to the early church, because He really hated His flesh (he had some real affinities toward sex before being saved) he is the one who postulated the notion that the flesh was going to be burned away literally, and over and over again, in hell.
This idea is easy to believe when we read in scripture that hell is described as:
“Weeping, gnashing of teeth, torments, and tormented in flames.”
Other physical descriptions include:
“Darkness, outer darkness, chains of darknesss, and blackness of darkness” and then ever paradoxically, “hell fire, a furnace of fire, everlasting fire, fire that shall not be quenched, damnation, (a place where) “the wrath of God abides on them,” “everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, from the glory of His power, “the perdition of ungodly men,” “torments ascending up forever and ever, “no rest day and night,” “everlasting contempt, and “a lake of fire.”
Those who are said to go to these afterlife destinations of pain are described as:
“them that work iniquity,” (listen) “the children of the Kingdom (Matthew 8:12), people who say, “thou fool” are in danger of it, “all things that offend,” “those on the left hand,” “the goats,” those “whose feet or hands offend.”
In one of His parables Jesus described one inhabitants life by only saying he was a “rich man who lived sumptuously everyday.” That was it.
We also read that “those who have done evil,” are occupants and they are additionally described as “raging waves,” “wandering stars,” “those who worship the beast and his image and whosoever receives the mark of the beast.”
Regarding the Lake of Fire, Revelation 21:8 says these are they who will have their part in it . . . ready? . . . are . . .
“The fearful, the unbelieving, the abominable, murderers, whoremongers, sorcerers, idolators and all liars.”
NOT a place anyone anytime would want to step foot in.
Because of all of these biblical descriptions Christianity has long believed and taught that hell is synonymous with the lake of fire, that it is forever and ever, and, because of Augustine primarily, it is a place where people are literally burning in flames over and over and over for eternity.
Any deviation from these historical interpretations are considered heretical.
And while I do NOT want to ever downplay the torments of hell or misery of the lake of Fire I am personally unconvinced that these historical interpretations hold water.
Let me give you a couple of reasons why before we go to original languages.
The first is that when Jesus had a chance to tell a story about hell, in the story of the Rich man and Lazarus, He has the Rich Man (while described as awfully thirsty) carrying on a rather intelligent conversation with those on the Paradise side of hell.
I would think if his flesh was literally on fire (with literal flames) no such conversation would be possible, right?
I mean how come Jesus didn’t say, and Lazarus looked down from Abrahams bosom and saw the Rich man on fire, and screaming in unconscionable pain?
We have to be careful not to maniacally apply literalism to places where God is speaking through men conceptually.
Admittedly, sometimes it’s hard to tell which is which but there is something to consider.
Now, one thing almost all of us do – myself included because it is convenient – is to refer to hell as the catch phrase for where everyone has gone (or will go) that does not go to heaven.
In light of scripture this practice not only adds to the confusion of the topic but is wrong.
Going back to the Old Testament we have the Hebrew word “sheol.”
And really this place ought to be referred to as “the realm of the unknown.”
The Hebrews translated sheol as the grave, as a pit, and a place (listen) for both the evil AND the good.
In essence, sheol is “the covered holding tank, a realm of the unknown, for all souls (prior to finished work of Christ taking effect).
Sheol was comprised of prison and paradise prior to Christ ascending to the Father.
The Old Testament translators frequently called it “hell” but remember, it was the holding for all disembodied spirits.
In the New Testament, the word finds its equivalent in the Greek word Hades.
Again, and unfortunately, we often refer to Hades in English as hell (as in the burning place). But hades both paradise and prison – not a burning place only for the bad.
Another term used for hell is the Greek word Tartarus, and it is only used once (in II Peter 2:4).
It is best translated “pit of gloom,” pit of darkness and is considered by some to be lower parts of hades (again, with the upper part being paradise, or a good place.
Now, prior to Christ’s victory, those in Paradise and those in Prison (or sheol or hades) waited.
Christ took paradise with Him to heaven but the prison part remains as the holding tank (so to speak) for the faithless who die without Christ.
To complicate matters, there is another word in the New Testament that is translated as hell – Gehenna.
Gehenna was actually a real physical place – a trash heap really in the southeast of Jerusalem – where fires burned bodies of criminals and refuse and animals.
In ancient Jewish history it was formerly a place where human sacrifices took place, offered to the pagan god Molech so it had a VERY bad association and Jesus used it to describe a place of torment.
MANY people make the association that Jesus was using the literal burning of Gehenna to describe the ultimate end of people who reject Him but I would strongly suggest Jesus referred to gehenna literally and for a very literal reason.
In Matthew 21-23 Jesus is berating the Pharisees in the temple mount and He says, in Matthew 23:33:
“Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell?”
The problem with this King James translation is that the word for hell here (in the greek) is not tartarus or hades, it’s gehennna, that literal valley on the northeast side of Jerusalem.
When Jerusalem was invaded by Rome and totally sacked in 70 AD, killing over 1 million Jews, many of their bodies were tossed into the valley of Hinnom where Gehenna burned, literally fulfilling Jesus question to these literal Jews when he wondered how they would escape the “judgment (not the damnation) of Gehenna (and not hell).
Even James uses the Greek term for hell to describe the human tongue – an allusion to fire but not a literal application.
So in summary of hell, I think we can best suggest that it is the prison part of the Old Testament sheol, that it is dark, it is absent of light, it is down, it is a place or utter woe, and it is NOT a place of burning (in the sense of heat or flame) but possible of conscience.
We also know from scripture that hell in located below – what most believe is actually in the earth, where physically it would be extremely hot – but how spirits feel heat is unknown.
In Matthew 12:38 we read the following:
38 Then certain of the scribes and of the Pharisees answered, saying, Master, we would see a sign from thee.
39 But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas:
40 For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
We know from Peter that Jesus, while His body lay in the grave, visited the Spirits in prison (part of Sheol).
Here in Matthew we read that Jesus says:
40 For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
We know in the story (found in the book of Jonah) that it says:
1:17 “Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.”
So from all of this we are actually given an idea of what hell is like, there in the heart of the earth.
It would be like being in the belly of a whale.
Now, unlike Gepetto and Pinocchio, where old Pinoch was sitting on a wooden raft with a campfire burning upon it while in the whale, it is supposed that Jonah’s experience was nothing of the sort.
We are talking perhaps one of the worst experiences imaginable . . . and let me tell you why.
First of all, we are talking about it being dark. Pitch black dark. No LIGHT whatsoever.
That is a biblical description of hell.
Additionally, it was cramped – not a big vacuous hall but tight, squishy, and dreadfully smelly.
The belly of a great fish is also thought to have been hot – relentlessly hot. Dark (biblical) hot (biblical) and smelly (sulphuric smelly – biblical).
One of the more interesting parallels of hell to Jonah in the belly of the fish and Jesus in the belly of the earth, relates to falling.
Throughout revelation hell is described as a bottomless pit.
If it is in the earth, and there is now bottom to it, the idea seems to be this:
“If we could bore a hole through the earth (which is impossible) but if we could – straight through to – proverbial Japan.
We would drill down through and out, right.
And if we jumped in the hole (feet first) we would travel down through the earth, through the core, and then pop out the other side (in Japan) feet first, right?
We could if in a vacuum and without gravity. But this is not how it would work.
Instead we would travel one direction, and then pause to a stop, and they travel the other direction, never touching down, and then back ad nauseum and ad infinitum, falling falling in the center of the earth, never touching bottom because there would be no bottom to touch.
It would be a bottomless pit.
Which brings us to the inner fish experience of Jonah. Can you imagine being inside a great fish for three days and what it would feel like with the fish diving and swerving and rising and diving – suspended in his pitch black smelly hot belly – never touching ground, always moving?
That’s hell.
We don’t want to go there.
He saved us from it.
But it is a VERY different place from the Lake of Fire – LISTEN – which comes later . . . for some.
Huh? For some? What?
In Revelation 20:14 we read that the keys to Hell and Hell itself will be cast into the Lake of Fire – so we can see that it is different from the Lake of Fire . . . that hell is NOT the lake of fire. Got that?
In fact, if we turn to Revelation chapter 20:13 we read that at the time of the Great White Throne judgment, it says:
“And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.”
The best definition of eternal punishment in found in the next few verses of Revelation 20 where it reads:
“And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”
So if we really want to argue where unbelievers go afterward, we would say first, to hell, which is a dark and very unwelcoming place and then to the lake of Fire.
They are NOT one in the same. Before we talk about the Lake of Fire I want to point something out you may have never considered before. Ready?
If hell gives up its dead, and all who are in it come out of it – just as Jonah come out of the belly of the fish, right.
So Revelation says
“And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This (the lake of Fire) is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life (that came out of hell) was cast into the lake of fire.”
Got that?
So a question?
Hell is emptied. And the inhabitants stand before the Great White Throne judgment.
And it says,
And the books were opened (which is the Lambs Book of Life) and whoevers name is not found written in the Lambs book of life would be cast into the lake of Fire (which, scripture says, is the second death).
The question I have for you is why would someone who has been in hell (the dark, smelly, hot, bottomless pit place) names be found in the Lamb’s book of Life?
Some say, “They wouldn’t!” And I would ask, “then why check?”
(beat)
Stay with me. In John 8:51 Jesus says:
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.”
We know this means, He will never see the second death – which occurs in the lake of fire.
But does it mean all believers will escape hell?
I’m not sure . . . because who on earth is coming out of hell, and stands before the great white throne, and the books are opened to see if their names are written in the Lamb’s book of life . . . other than someone who has been saved?
Why would believers ever go to the dark smelly hot bottomless holding tank in the first place?
We really have played up the idea that all we need to do is confess Jesus by faith and we shall be saved.
I think this is absolutely true – saved from the Lake of Fire which is the second death.
But what about those who believe on Jesus, who have trusted in Him and His shed blood, but for one reason or another let their flesh reign?
Could it be they, at death, enter the smelly bottomless pit as a means to purge or teach or help them reflect upon their lives? To wonder of their fate?
Could you imagine the joy they would experience coming out of the pit and standing before the great white throne and then hearing that their name HAS, in fact, been included in the Lamb’s book of life?
I cannot figure out any other reason for a person to have been in hell but to have their names written in the Lamb’s book of life once hell gives up her dead (than this) . . . unless unbelievers names who call out to Jesus while in hell are added to the Lambs book of life – that could be another possibility.
But in either case we are witnessing God reconciling people after this life by having some who have experienced hell being saved from the Lake of Fire.
Now the Lake of Fire was prepared for Satan and His angels.
Jesus tells us so in Matthew 25:41, at the judgment of the sheep and the goats, saying:
“Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.”
Take note, it was NOT prepared for Man. For me, if something that was not prepared for human beings but was prepared for heavenly creations like Satan and His angels means FIRST and FOREMOST it could not have eternal application to Man.
(long beat)
Additionally, there are some believers who think that the Lake of Fire is where Satan and his angels live presently but scripture suggests otherwise.
Ephesians 2:2 describes Satan as the prince of the power of the “AIR” and 1st Peter 5:8 describes him as a “roaring lion walking about.”
Then Revelation 20:7 and 10 tells us that Satan WILL be thrown into the Lake of Fire so I think we are mistaken to believe he is there now.
What Christians are really talking about when we are speaking or debating on the “eternality of suffering” is the Lake of Fire.
Accordingly . . .
Hell is not the Lake of Fire.
The Lake of Fire was prepared for Satan and his angels.
The Lake of Fire is a future experience for some.
And the Lake of Fire is only described in Revelation chapter 19-21 (but is mentioned by Jesus in other places).
What is this Lake of Fire? Revelation describes it with one sentence:
“And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.”
Every one of us will experience the first death. 1st Corinthians 15:22 says it –
“For as in Adam all die,” but not everyone will experience “this second death.”
Who experiences this second death? What is it? And is it eternal?
Revelation tells us plainly who will experience the second death.
Revelation 20:15 “And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”
Now, let me pause here and gather up our thoughts in summary. Since hell will give up its death, we cannot say (and be correct) that hell is eternal.
No matter how tormenting and dark the holding tank may be, it will end, and all those in it will be brought forth the great white throne and will be judged.
If their names are NOT found written in the Lambs Book of Life, they will be cast into the Lake of Fire created for . . . “them?” No. “Created for Satan and his angels.”
Got all of that?
Now, the question remains, Is the Lake of Fire experience for humans who enter therein eternal, forever, ever-lasting?
Reading the King James (and probably your NIV’s and ESV’s) we are presented with English words that tend to say in absolute terms, yes, the Lake of Fire suffering is eternal, everlasting, endless, etc., etc.
For example, in the King James of Matthew 25:41 Jesus describes “the smoke of their torment going up forever and ever,” and Revelation 20:10 says, “they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. Such passages lead us to believe that the suffering is unending.
And if how the King James Translators were correct in this the idea would be sound.
Here’s the deal.
Where we have the word Eternal or everlasting or phrases like “forever and ever” in passages like these in the King James (and admittedly in other translations) BUT there are “other” Bible Translations, like
“Young’s LITERAL translation” or “Weymouths New Testament” or “Rotherham’s Emphasized Bible” or the “Concordant New Testament” where the verses suggest another length of time:
“Age-abiding.”
Where the King James says in Matthew 25:46 –
“And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.”
These other translations read:
“And these last will go away ‘into aeonian punishment,’ but the righteous ‘into aeonian life.'”
OR
“And these shall go away into the Punishment of the Ages, but the righteous into the Life of the Ages.”
OR
“And these shall go away to punishment age-during, but the righteous to life age-during.”
Why the difference? Does it even matter?
It all comes down to the noun Aion and the adjective, Aionious.
In the King James, the translators took this Greek word and translated it, “forever and ever,” where other MORE
literal translations of the Greek to the English would translate it, “unto the ages of ages.”
What is an age? A period of time.
The noun aheeohn (Aion) means “age.” Period. A specific period of time. It begins and it ends. When it comes to humans abiding in a place created for Satan and His angels it makes sense that time in such a place would be for an age – with a beginning and an end.
Now here’s the problem – stay with me. There is no consistency within the translation on how aion and its adjective are used to describe things in various passages.
This is why literal translations of the Greek are helpful because if the aion is used in the Greek a literal translation will always translate this to age.
In the King James we discover that there are all sorts of worlds used to describe the Greek word Aion.
Why? Because King James was emphatic to the body of translators that what they translated would support the doctrines of the day (which, of course, had come through men like Augustine and the like) so instead of just translating Aion to age based EVERY time the King James translators had to translated it into a number of different words to be consistent with the doctrine of the day.
For example (and you can take note of these passages) Romans 16:25 ; 2 Timothy 1:9; Titus 1:2; and Philemon 15 all define aheeohnois as “the world,” not as age.
Let me explain this to you in another way.
When we take the Greek Word Aionon and it’s adjective, we know they have a given meaning – from the root word age or eon.
Everytime the Greek terms are used they ought to translate into age related phraseology.
Instead of remaining true to the definitional root of the Greek Word, the King James translators took aionon and aionous and subjectively translated the terms using non-related words depending on the context of what the passage was talking about.
Why would they do this? Because they were intent on maintaining what they considered doctrinal purity as they translated.
In most cases this proved beneficial and congruent but in the case of eternal punishment it failed.
So along comes these other scholars (like Rotherham and Young or Weymouth) and instead of translating Greek words into English words they think fit best, they produced LITERAL translations of each Greek word every time it showed up in the text.
Therefore Rotherham and friends translations read consistently regarding the Greek.
Everytime we come across the Greek word Aionos or Aionious we find an age-related definition.
But with the King James (and others) that took up its cause, we are presented with prejudicial confusion.
Why do I say this?
Because the King James translators, instead of ever translating aionos and aionious in terms of the English word age (a period of time with a beginning and an end) they translate the terms 197 times using all of the following English words.
For the noun Aion they used the English words
Ever (72 times)
World (40)
NEVER (7)
Evermore (2)
Course (1)
And for the adjective, they translated the Greek word Aionious
Eternal (42)
Everlasting (25)
World (3)
And Ever (1)
Only twice out of 197 times were the Greek words translate correctly.
I mean the exact same Greek word in one place is translated “eternal”and in another place it is translated “never,” and then in another place it is translated, “world.”
There are forty places in the King James where the Greek Word Aion is translated world. The Greek word for world is Kosmos, or even Ge, but not Aion.
Aion means age.
So if you read these literal translations we discover that the Bible, from the Greek, literally does not teach eternality of the lake of fire but an age abiding lake of fire.
“The smoke ascends up unto the ages of ages, but not forever and ever.”
Reading the Greek properly, we would read the following passages like this:
God has a “purpose of the ages” Ephesians 3:11
He is the King of the ages 1st Timothy 1:17
He prepared the ages by His word Hebrews 11:3.
A final thought and then we’ll pick this back up next week before moving into chapter 2.
There are two very simple Greek words that would have cleared all of this up had they been used.
Akatalous and aperantos. They both mean “endless” in the Greek.
1st Timothy 1:4 speaks of endless genealogies” (akatalous) and Hebrews 7:16 speaks of the power of an endless life (aperantos).
The word immortal (athanatos) and immortality (aptharsia) also indicate “never-endingness” but listen – NONE of these clearly defined terms which denote eternal and endless are EVER assigned to hell, damnation, Lake of Fire or punishment for sin.
Additionally, there are two simple prevelant adverbs in the New Testament which would have made the argument decisive regarding punishment being eternal – aei (which means always) and pantote (which means evermore)
But AGAIN neither of them are ever used to describe damnation, hell, Lake of Fire or punishment for sin.
It is of interest that the super strong phrase “to the uttermost” is used only once and what does it describe?
Hell? Nope.
The lake of fire? Nope – it is used to describe God’s ability to save us . . . to the uttermost.
Jude 25 says the glory of Christ shall last “to ALL the ages” had this been applied only once to punishment the argument would be over.
But it’s not.
The Greek phrase “for perpetuity” could have also been used to describe the Lake of Fire punishment – but it is only used to describe God and ultimate sanctification of all men.
No Greek word that truly is used to describe “forever, forevermore, evermore, always, endless, to the uttermost,” is EVER connected to punishment . . .
Let me conclude with a statement from the book THE VOCABULARY OF THE GREEK TESTAMENT (edited by James Hope Moulton and George Milligan).
It might be helpful as it says, talking about the Greek word aionios:
“In general, the word depicts that of which the horizon is not in view . . .” (p.16). If the horizon of the extermination spoken of by Paul in 2 Thessalonians 1:9 is “simply not in view,” then we can see that what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:22 can truly occur. The same “all” who are dying in Adam, which includes some who incur eonian extermination, can indeed eventually be vivified in Christ. The Bible, in fact, does not speak of judgment and condemnation, death and destruction, hades and Gehenna, or any of these serious consequences of sin, as unending. It may refer to them as not having the end in view, but none of these fearful works of God can keep Him from achieving His will (1Tim.2:4); reconciling all through the blood of Christ’s cross (Col.1:20, and becoming All in all (1 Cor.15:28).
Last part next week.
Q and A
