FUTURE DESTINY (cont.) Much of the future blessing of the righteous is developed in the Kingdom of God. This has its present aspects, but our interest is in its future phase. This kingdom is described in many glowing details by many writers of both Old and New Testaments. It is an inheritance. Holiness prevails. Joy pre dominates. Peace is enjoyed. Salvation abounds. Its chief characteristic is glo ry. All this is guaranteed because Je sus Christ the Messiah is in His right ful place on the throne. To this He was bom. All evil is restrained by a rod of iron, and all believers give “praise and hon our and glory at the appearing of Je sus Christ” (I Peter 1:7). He is the Lamb that was slain. Rewards will be given, various crowns, and everlasting life is the possession of every citizen of the kingdom. This kingdom is from heaven, it comes down, it is centered in a new city, the New Jerusalem. The saints rule and reign with Christ a thousand years. The nations of the earth will be brought into subjection to Christ, and then He turns the kingdom back to
His Father from whom He received it. This is the ultimate and final tri umph and victory. After that bursts upon the scene a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth reghteous- nss only. This is the day when God will be “ all in all” (I Cor. 15:28), and only He knows all that that day holds for His redeemed creation. These two aspects of future destiny are formally summarized by the Biola doctrinal statement as follows: “All those who persistently reject Jesus Christ in the present life shall be raised from the dead and throughout eternity exist in a state of conscious, unutterable, endless torment and ang uish.” “All those who receive Jesus Christ as their Saviour and their Lord, and who confess Him as such before their fellow men, become children of God and receive eternal life. They be come heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ. At death their spirits de part to be with Christ in conscious blessedness, and at the second coming of Christ their bodies shall be raised and transformed into the likeness of the body of His glory.” Which of these, my friend, will be your destiny?
This We Believe
The Return the Lord
by Glenn O'Neal, Professor of Practical
Ph.D. Theology
O n e of t h e most neglected truths in the Bible is the second coming of Jesus Christ. If the references to His coming were few and obscure, this
might be understandable, but it is stressed in almost every New Testa ment book with Christ Himself re peatedly warning His disciples to be 32
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