The Reconciliation of All - How it all ends
There is one God and there is one Lord, God's only begotten Son.
"...there is one God, the Father, out of Whom all is, and we for Him, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through Whom all is, and we through Him..." (1 Corinthians 8:6-7)
"The Father has dispatched His Son, the Savior of the world." (1 John 4:14-15)
"In this is love, not that we love God, but that He loves, and dispatches His Son, a propitiatory shelter for our sins." (1 John 4:10)
God sent His Son into the world to be a ransom for all, and to reconcile all created beings to God. When done, God will be All in all of creation.
"There is one God, and one mediator of God and mankind, a Man, Christ Jesus, Who is giving Himself a correspondent RANSOM for ALL..." (1 Timothy 2:5)
"...to RECONCILE ALL to Him (making peace through the blood of His cross), through Him, whether those on the earth or those in the heavens" (Colossians 1:20)
"Now, whenever all may be subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also shall be subjected to Him who subjects all to Him, that God may be All in all.” (1 Corinthians 15:28)
The name Jesus means salvation because that is what He will do for mankind.
"You shall be calling His name Jesus, for He shall be saving His people from their sins." (Matthew 1:21)
"I am bringing you a gospel of great joy which will be for the entire people, for today was brought forth to you a Savior, Who is Christ, the Lord." (Luke 2:11)
A few know Him as Savior today, but in time, every person who has ever lived will come to know, and will acknowledge that Jesus is the savior of the world.
"...we ourselves have heard Him, and we are aware that this truly is the Savior of the world, the Christ." (John 4:42)
"Wherefore, also, God highly exalts Him, and graces Him with the name that is above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee should be bowing, celestial and terrestrial, and every tongue should be acclaiming that Jesus Christ is Lord, for the glory of God, the Father." (Philippians 2:9-11)
"Faithful is the saying and worthy of all welcome (for for this are we toiling and being reproached), that we rely on the living God, Who is the Savior of all mankind, especially of believers." (1 Timothy 2:5-6)
Before the beginning of the world as we know it, God was all there was. At some point before the beginning of the world as we know it, God brought forth out of Himself His Son as the first creature ever created. Together, God and His Son planned and predestined all that happens. When the planning was done they created everything needed to accomplish their plan - the Big Bang as Science likes to call it. The bible records the beginning, decline and restoration of this Creation as it plays out over 5 long periods of time called Eons (Ages).
Following is a brief summary of these ages as the bible reveals them:
Age 1 - Genesis 1:1-2.
1) In this age, God and His Son created the original heavens and earth, which included a host of celestial spiritual beings residing among the heavens, some good called Angels and some bad.
2) The bad ones rebelled against the authority of God and the Lord. They were led by Satan. This age ended when the earth came to be without inhabitants, and darkness was over the whole planet.
Age 2 - Genesis 1:3-7:24:
1) God and His Son restore the earth to its original perfection, and created all life that dwells on our planet, including human beings. The first human, Adam, was created out of the soil, and the first woman, Eve, was created out of a part of Adam. God breathed life into them and they became living souls. Using the chronology set forth in the Scripture we can learn that the year 2028 AD will mark the 6,000th year since Adam was created.
2) Adam and Eve at first lived in a place named Eden, a paradise created on earth by God specially for them. In time, influenced by Satan, they disobeyed God by eating from a forbidden tree located in Eden called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
God banished them from Eden for that sin. The result was they would have to work hard to survive, and a decaying process started in their bodies which would eventually end in death. The decay apparently resulted from being denied the fruit from another tree in that garden called the tree of life. All of their children and grandchildren, right down to us, also die because of this one sin. They learned that evil separates people from God, but they children continue to do evil for the rest of age 2 until God was feed up with all of them.
3) Age 2 ended approximately 1756 years after the creation of in a worldwide flood that killed all humans and all land based animals except those on an ark built by Noah and his family.
AGe 3 - Genesis 8:1 through Revelation 19:21:
1) God started over with Noah and his family. They had found grace in the eyes of God. Grace just means unmerited favor. Noah had three sons named Ham, Shem and Japheth. They are the ancestors of all human beings living today. Most of the Bible is a record of events that take place during this age 3.
2) Three of the descendants of Shem were Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God made an undconditional promise to them that they would be a great nation someday. This nation came to be known as Israel and is still around today.
3) God promised them that one from their nation would be a blessing to ALL mankind. This was a reference to Jesus when the Son of God became a man.
4) All other descendants of Noah came to be the other Nations of the world and are referred to as Gentiles in the bible.
5) Around the year 5 BC, God sent His Son from heaven to earth to be born a human being. He was the exact image of God on earth. If you learn what He was like, you know what God is like. He was born of a young virgin girl from Israel. She named him Jesus which means the Savior. He lived on earth for a little over 33 years. Some recognized who He was and called Him the Messiah of Israel and the Savior of the world. He was both. However, He was rejected by the leaders of both Israel and the gentiles, and died as a criminal by crucifixion upon a cross.
He was raised to life after being dead for three days and three nights. He spent another 40 days on earth, then He went back into heaven as the first man to die and be raised to never ending immortal life. He is now back with God waiting to return the earth some day.
6) From the time Jesus ascended back into Heaven, God has been preparing a group of people out of all nations to be examples of how loving and gracious God is. The group is called the body of Christ is the Bible and Jesus is the head of the body.
This special group of believers is composed mostly of Gentiles, although Paul, an Israelite, was the first member and tells us about about the grace of God, the salvation of all people and the reconciliation of the whole creation back to God. Much of what he teaches in the Bible was a secret until Jesus revealed it to him.
Those who believe what he teaches are also members of this special group. They too are to tell people about Jesus. This body of Christ will one day be snatched away into the heavens where they will meet Jesus. This will occur just before Jesus returns to earth. In heaven the members of the body will reign with Jesus and be a testimony to the love and grace of God to those good and bad angels who live in the heavens.
I am one of those members and so are you if you believe Jesus died on the cross for your sin, was buried, and was raised to life again by God. Together, we will explore the Universe and tell those created beings who rebelled against God that they too are reconciled to God by blood that Jesus shed on the cross.
7) Age 3 will end in the huge world war which will bring incredible suffering to Israel and the other nations on this earth. We will already be gone into heaven when that happens. Jesus will physically return to this earth to end that war and set up a kingdom on earth where He and Israel will rule over the entire planet.
Age 4 - Revelation 20:1-10:
1) This age begins with the return of Jesus to the earth. He will set up the Kingdom promised Israel on this earth and they will rule for 1,000 years.
2) 75 days after Jesus returns to earth, all of the dead believers of Israel will be resurrected to rule and reign with him over the gentile nations left alive after the final war. Jesus will rule in perfect righteousness and Satan is not allowed to deceive people for most of the 1,000 years.
4) Toward the end of age 4, Satan is once again set loose to try and deceive the Gentile nations into rebelling against the reign of Jesus on the earth. He will succeed and another war will come. But God brings a swift and final judgment and this earth is completely destroyed by fire.
Age 5 - Revelation 20:11 through 22:21 and 1 Corinthians 15:20-28:
1) After the destruction by fire of this earth at the end of age 4, all human beings of all ages who are not reigning with Jesus on earth or in the heavens will be resurrected to appear before Him at what the book of Revelation calls the Great White Throne.
2) At that resurrection, all their good and bad works, beliefs and motives will be individually reviewed and judged by Jesus. They will for the first time realize that the blood of Jesus has atoned for their sin. The overwhelming evidence from the miracle of their resurrection and their following righteous judgment will convince all of them that God loves them in spite of their sin, and Jesus is the Lord who saved them. They will all, individually, just like you and me, realize that God is worthy to love and worship, and each will voluntarily bend their knees to Jesus and confess that He is Lord.
3) It will take a long time for each of them to be judged by Jesus. How long this age will last is not stated, but with billions of people envolved, it will most likely take a long time.
4) God will create a new heaven and earth for them to live on while the individual judgment takes place. Jesus and Israel will reign over them during this time. Jesus has prepared a city called New Jerusalem for Israel to live in during this time.
5) This city is huge, 1500 miles long, 1500 miles wide, and 1500 miles high. It has streets of gold. The people waiting to be judged will be divided up into nations and will live outside of the city on the new earth. I beautiful river will flow out of the city to them which will water them. Along its banks will grow the tree of life which will bear 12 different fruits, one for each month of the year. And the leaves will be eaten to heal them of any diseases they might get. They will prosper under the leadership of the Jews.
4) After each one is individually judged, they will die the second death because flesh and blood cannot inherit the everlasting kingdom of God. After all have been judged and die again, God will raise them all from that death to be added to the body of Christ.
5) When this age comes to a close all creation will have been reconciled to God and become immortal spiritual beings. Evil will be abolished and good will have triumphed over evil.
6) Jesus will then turn the reconciled creation back to God, their plan for the ages successfully completed. All will have joyfully and voluntarily subjected themselves to our gracious, loving and merciful Father God.
7) All human beings will then be like Jesus - the image of God - and God will be "ALL in ALL".
After the Five Ages - 1 Corinthians 2:9; 15:28.
Scripture says little about what happens in the time before or beyond these five ages, just that "eye hath not seen, neither has ear heard, neither has it entered the heart of man what God has planned for those that love him".
ALL will love Him when His plan is complete. I am sure nothing can separate us from the love of God.
Well, grandchildren, that is a summary of what I have learned from the Bible.
"...there is one God, the Father, out of Whom all is, and we for Him, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through Whom all is, and we through Him..." (1 Corinthians 8:6-7)
"The Father has dispatched His Son, the Savior of the world." (1 John 4:14-15)
"In this is love, not that we love God, but that He loves, and dispatches His Son, a propitiatory shelter for our sins." (1 John 4:10)
God sent His Son into the world to be a ransom for all, and to reconcile all created beings to God. When done, God will be All in all of creation.
"There is one God, and one mediator of God and mankind, a Man, Christ Jesus, Who is giving Himself a correspondent RANSOM for ALL..." (1 Timothy 2:5)
"...to RECONCILE ALL to Him (making peace through the blood of His cross), through Him, whether those on the earth or those in the heavens" (Colossians 1:20)
"Now, whenever all may be subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also shall be subjected to Him who subjects all to Him, that God may be All in all.” (1 Corinthians 15:28)
The name Jesus means salvation because that is what He will do for mankind.
"You shall be calling His name Jesus, for He shall be saving His people from their sins." (Matthew 1:21)
"I am bringing you a gospel of great joy which will be for the entire people, for today was brought forth to you a Savior, Who is Christ, the Lord." (Luke 2:11)
A few know Him as Savior today, but in time, every person who has ever lived will come to know, and will acknowledge that Jesus is the savior of the world.
"...we ourselves have heard Him, and we are aware that this truly is the Savior of the world, the Christ." (John 4:42)
"Wherefore, also, God highly exalts Him, and graces Him with the name that is above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee should be bowing, celestial and terrestrial, and every tongue should be acclaiming that Jesus Christ is Lord, for the glory of God, the Father." (Philippians 2:9-11)
"Faithful is the saying and worthy of all welcome (for for this are we toiling and being reproached), that we rely on the living God, Who is the Savior of all mankind, especially of believers." (1 Timothy 2:5-6)
Before the beginning of the world as we know it, God was all there was. At some point before the beginning of the world as we know it, God brought forth out of Himself His Son as the first creature ever created. Together, God and His Son planned and predestined all that happens. When the planning was done they created everything needed to accomplish their plan - the Big Bang as Science likes to call it. The bible records the beginning, decline and restoration of this Creation as it plays out over 5 long periods of time called Eons (Ages).
Age 1 - Genesis 1:1-2.
1) In this age, God and His Son created the original heavens and earth, which included a host of celestial spiritual beings residing among the heavens, some good called Angels and some bad.
2) The bad ones rebelled against the authority of God and the Lord. They were led by Satan. This age ended when the earth came to be without inhabitants, and darkness was over the whole planet.
Age 2 - Genesis 1:3-7:24:
1) God and His Son restore the earth to its original perfection, and created all life that dwells on our planet, including human beings. The first human, Adam, was created out of the soil, and the first woman, Eve, was created out of a part of Adam. God breathed life into them and they became living souls. Using the chronology set forth in the Scripture we can learn that the year 2028 AD will mark the 6,000th year since Adam was created.
2) Adam and Eve at first lived in a place named Eden, a paradise created on earth by God specially for them. In time, influenced by Satan, they disobeyed God by eating from a forbidden tree located in Eden called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
God banished them from Eden for that sin. The result was they would have to work hard to survive, and a decaying process started in their bodies which would eventually end in death. The decay apparently resulted from being denied the fruit from another tree in that garden called the tree of life. All of their children and grandchildren, right down to us, also die because of this one sin. They learned that evil separates people from God, but they children continue to do evil for the rest of age 2 until God was feed up with all of them.
3) Age 2 ended approximately 1756 years after the creation of in a worldwide flood that killed all humans and all land based animals except those on an ark built by Noah and his family.
AGe 3 - Genesis 8:1 through Revelation 19:21:
1) God started over with Noah and his family. They had found grace in the eyes of God. Grace just means unmerited favor. Noah had three sons named Ham, Shem and Japheth. They are the ancestors of all human beings living today. Most of the Bible is a record of events that take place during this age 3.
2) Three of the descendants of Shem were Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God made an undconditional promise to them that they would be a great nation someday. This nation came to be known as Israel and is still around today.
3) God promised them that one from their nation would be a blessing to ALL mankind. This was a reference to Jesus when the Son of God became a man.
4) All other descendants of Noah came to be the other Nations of the world and are referred to as Gentiles in the bible.
5) Around the year 5 BC, God sent His Son from heaven to earth to be born a human being. He was the exact image of God on earth. If you learn what He was like, you know what God is like. He was born of a young virgin girl from Israel. She named him Jesus which means the Savior. He lived on earth for a little over 33 years. Some recognized who He was and called Him the Messiah of Israel and the Savior of the world. He was both. However, He was rejected by the leaders of both Israel and the gentiles, and died as a criminal by crucifixion upon a cross.
He was raised to life after being dead for three days and three nights. He spent another 40 days on earth, then He went back into heaven as the first man to die and be raised to never ending immortal life. He is now back with God waiting to return the earth some day.
6) From the time Jesus ascended back into Heaven, God has been preparing a group of people out of all nations to be examples of how loving and gracious God is. The group is called the body of Christ is the Bible and Jesus is the head of the body.
This special group of believers is composed mostly of Gentiles, although Paul, an Israelite, was the first member and tells us about about the grace of God, the salvation of all people and the reconciliation of the whole creation back to God. Much of what he teaches in the Bible was a secret until Jesus revealed it to him.
Those who believe what he teaches are also members of this special group. They too are to tell people about Jesus. This body of Christ will one day be snatched away into the heavens where they will meet Jesus. This will occur just before Jesus returns to earth. In heaven the members of the body will reign with Jesus and be a testimony to the love and grace of God to those good and bad angels who live in the heavens.
I am one of those members and so are you if you believe Jesus died on the cross for your sin, was buried, and was raised to life again by God. Together, we will explore the Universe and tell those created beings who rebelled against God that they too are reconciled to God by blood that Jesus shed on the cross.
7) Age 3 will end in the huge world war which will bring incredible suffering to Israel and the other nations on this earth. We will already be gone into heaven when that happens. Jesus will physically return to this earth to end that war and set up a kingdom on earth where He and Israel will rule over the entire planet.
Age 4 - Revelation 20:1-10:
1) This age begins with the return of Jesus to the earth. He will set up the Kingdom promised Israel on this earth and they will rule for 1,000 years.
2) 75 days after Jesus returns to earth, all of the dead believers of Israel will be resurrected to rule and reign with him over the gentile nations left alive after the final war. Jesus will rule in perfect righteousness and Satan is not allowed to deceive people for most of the 1,000 years.
4) Toward the end of age 4, Satan is once again set loose to try and deceive the Gentile nations into rebelling against the reign of Jesus on the earth. He will succeed and another war will come. But God brings a swift and final judgment and this earth is completely destroyed by fire.
Age 5 - Revelation 20:11 through 22:21 and 1 Corinthians 15:20-28:
1) After the destruction by fire of this earth at the end of age 4, all human beings of all ages who are not reigning with Jesus on earth or in the heavens will be resurrected to appear before Him at what the book of Revelation calls the Great White Throne.
2) At that resurrection, all their good and bad works, beliefs and motives will be individually reviewed and judged by Jesus. They will for the first time realize that the blood of Jesus has atoned for their sin. The overwhelming evidence from the miracle of their resurrection and their following righteous judgment will convince all of them that God loves them in spite of their sin, and Jesus is the Lord who saved them. They will all, individually, just like you and me, realize that God is worthy to love and worship, and each will voluntarily bend their knees to Jesus and confess that He is Lord.
3) It will take a long time for each of them to be judged by Jesus. How long this age will last is not stated, but with billions of people envolved, it will most likely take a long time.
4) God will create a new heaven and earth for them to live on while the individual judgment takes place. Jesus and Israel will reign over them during this time. Jesus has prepared a city called New Jerusalem for Israel to live in during this time.
5) This city is huge, 1500 miles long, 1500 miles wide, and 1500 miles high. It has streets of gold. The people waiting to be judged will be divided up into nations and will live outside of the city on the new earth. I beautiful river will flow out of the city to them which will water them. Along its banks will grow the tree of life which will bear 12 different fruits, one for each month of the year. And the leaves will be eaten to heal them of any diseases they might get. They will prosper under the leadership of the Jews.
4) After each one is individually judged, they will die the second death because flesh and blood cannot inherit the everlasting kingdom of God. After all have been judged and die again, God will raise them all from that death to be added to the body of Christ.
5) When this age comes to a close all creation will have been reconciled to God and become immortal spiritual beings. Evil will be abolished and good will have triumphed over evil.
6) Jesus will then turn the reconciled creation back to God, their plan for the ages successfully completed. All will have joyfully and voluntarily subjected themselves to our gracious, loving and merciful Father God.
7) All human beings will then be like Jesus - the image of God - and God will be "ALL in ALL".
After the Five Ages - 1 Corinthians 2:9; 15:28.
Scripture says little about what happens in the time before or beyond these five ages, just that "eye hath not seen, neither has ear heard, neither has it entered the heart of man what God has planned for those that love him".
ALL will love Him when His plan is complete. I am sure nothing can separate us from the love of God.
Well, grandchildren, that is a summary of what I have learned from the Bible.