The beast, which you saw, once was, now is not, and will come up out of the Abyss and go to his destruction. The inhabitants of the earth whose names have not been written in the book of life from the creation of the world will be astonished when they see the beast, because he once was, now is not, and yet will come.
There is a lot of information in that verse and most of it concerns eschatology, the study of the end-times. But there is a phrase in this verse that almost goes by without notice and I believe is the only time in the entire Bible where this fact is stated - although the principle is covered elsewhere.
The phrase “The inhabitants of the earth whose names have NOT been written in the book of life from the creation of the world...” The Lamb’s Book of Life was written from the creation of the world!
Some believe that when someone “accepts” Christ as their Savior their name is written in the Book of Life. Sorry, the Lamb’s Book of Life was written long before anyone was born and had done anything good or bad. There are NO names being added as people are saved. God chose people before the creation of the world and put them in Christ (Ephesians 1:4) and wrote their names in the Lamb's Book of Life. When Christ died on the cross, He paid the ransom for all... for all THE ELECT. Since we were IN Christ, that is how we died with Him. When He was resurrected, we (the Elect) were also raised with Him, hence we will live with Him (Romans 6:8, 2 Timothy 2:11). The only reason these things took place is because we were ALREADY IN HIM.
This is why if a man was not chosen, he will NEVER be saved because he wasn’t placed in Christ before the foundation of the world - he has no hope (Ephesians 2:12, 1 Thessalonians 4:13). He has no hope of believing, he has no hope of repenting, he has no hope of accepting Christ, he has no hope of being saved!! All this happened in eternity but the problem for a man not chosen is that Christ came into HISTORY to shed His Blood, die on the cross, be buried and subsequently resurrected. It is NOT going to happen again and THAT is why a man not chosen IN Christ before the foundation of the world won’t be saved. God will NEVER quicken his dead spirit and he will NEVER understand because he is unable to hear the Truth because he is of his father the devil (John 8:43-44).
We were chosen before we ever existed and if we didn’t exist, we certainly could not make a decision to “accept Jesus.” We become children of God NOT by human decision (John 1:13). It was God’s decision and He made it a long time ago.
We were chosen before we ever existed and if we didn’t exist, we certainly could not make a decision to “accept Jesus.” We become children of God NOT by human decision (John 1:13). It was God’s decision and He made it a long time ago.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.