|
The Golden Future Part 7 The Choice So will the centuries pass, whilst the earth grows ever fairer and more beautiful and mankind attains to a better and more complete understanding of the message of Jesus Christ and the goodness of God. The days of evil will slip away into the background—never forgotten, always remaining an imperishable recollection of the terrible consequences of sin but no longer with the power to hurt or destroy. The song of the angels, "Peace on earth—goodwill among men," will be an accomplished fact at last. Human beings will be fair of form and virile in body; magnificent examples of the creative power of God; and with the consciousness of that eternity of supremely happy life which is before them will rise at every dawn to pursue with unflurried minds the occupations and pursuits to which they have set themselves. The world’s work will go on—men will till the soil and reap the fruits of their labour; they will gather together for the study and practice of arts and sciences which will always have something new to reveal; they will travel and rejoice in the varied glories of nature and live their lives in absolute peace and harmony with each other and with God. One thing remains yet unfinished. The glories of this restored earthly creation will be so stupendous and so completely satisfying to the natural man that it is well‑nigh impossible to imagine a discordant note—and yet the Divine standard of righteousness must ever remain established with its uncompromising law. "The wages of sin is death." To those who have accepted Christ Jesus and in the light and power of that acceptance have progressed to full perfection—morally as well as mentally and physically—the prospect of everlasting life under Edenic conditions stretches out enchantingly into the illimitable future. But what of those—if such there be—who, despite all the opportunities and blessings which will have been so abundantly conferred upon them, despite all the illumination and instruction in the essential laws and principles of Divine creation and government which they have received, despite the fact that the power of Almighty God has been exerted to its uttermost to bring about in them a change of heart, still inwardly reject the Divine standards? Whilst outwardly conforming to the laws of the Kingdom, they are at heart allied with sin, and remain unrepentant. That there is a possibility of some such characters being met within that Kingdom is plainly indicated in the Scriptures. To the normal man or woman, conscious of ordinarily decent instincts and principles, the condition of an utterly degraded and brutalised human being is hard to comprehend. History does record cases of monsters in human guise, men and women whose cruelty or callousness have made them notorious through the ages, yet even in these there were sometimes revealed quite unexpected streaks of better principles which indicate that they were not hopelessly degraded, and not beyond the hope of redemption or outside the reach of Divine power. There is therefore a reasonable basis for belief that the processes of the Kingdom will reclaim many such and bring them into full reconciliation with God and His righteousness. But as to those whose entire moral and intellectual nature is willingly and wilfully given over to the reception and practice of evil, and who after the abundant and all‑sufficient administration of the future Age remain incorrigibly set in their allegiance to evil for evil’s sake, knowing full well the Divine alternatives; for them the Divine law will operate with the clear‑cut precision of all God’s ways. Rom.6:23 says "The wages of sin is—death!" Therefore, before the time comes that Christ’s reign closes, the final blow will fall upon the dominion of sin and all who have not accepted the way of salvation which is offered by God through Christ. The choice will come to them as it did to Israel in the days of Joshua, "Choose you this day whom ye will serve," (Josh.24:15) and as the shades of eternal night close round those who are determined to continue in the practice of evil in full face of the goodness of God, the last enemy will flee from the earth to return no more. Words spoken three‑and‑a‑half millenniums previously will at last have their fulfilment, "It shall come to pass, [in that day] that at evening time it shall be light." (Zech.14:7) None will be coerced into everlasting life. None who despise the Divine gift of life will be compelled to accept it and live on into all eternity tortured by an existence which they resent and an environment into which they will not fit. The Lord who gave is also the Lord who will take away if the gift of life, joy and happiness is not esteemed or desired. No shadow of injustice or even hardship is inflicted upon one who, called into being by the will and power of the Universal Creator, and finding this creation, its laws and its principles, its obligations and its responsibilities, so distasteful that he will not voluntarily assume his rightful position as a citizen of creation, loses the life of which he cannot make rightful use. The Divine power that gave him life and existence withdraws that life, and existence ceases as though he had never been. To those who realise, on the other hand, that true religion after reconciliation through acceptance of Christ, consists in whole‑hearted acceptance of all God’s gifts and the voluntary sharing, with every fellow‑creature of the resources, products, labours and responsibilities of the everlasting earth, and who willingly play their part in this final realisation of the Divine Plan of the ages, there stretches out an eternity of supreme happiness. Every human being will be fully mature, and old age will never come. The Divine intention to fill the earth having been achieved, the increase of the race will naturally cease, and all humanity rejoicing in full maturity and the zenith of health and strength will in the knowledge of undying vigour occupy their places in this new eternal world. The ideal companionship ordained to all eternity by One Who first said, "It is not good for man to be alone" (Gen.2:18 DRA), will come into its heritage as a greater and in every respect more glorious fulfilment of the first eloquent picture in the Bible—that of the human pair together in the garden, all in all to each other and with no shadow of sin to mar their happiness. This is our hope! This is the prospect seen in vision by seers of Old Testament days, depicted in miniature by the miracles of Jesus Christ, deepened and clarified by the theology and the teaching of the twelve apostles. For two thousand years have Christian people prayed "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." (Matt.6:10 RSV) Here is the fulfilment. Here is that for which holy men of old endured fire and water, imprisonment and persecution, holding on in certainty "as seeing Him Who is invisible." (Heb.11:27) In that glorious day when humanity at last understands why God has permitted this dark day of evil, one rapturous strain will ascend to the heaven of heavens and roll in resounding crescendo through the everlasting years, "Even so, Lord God Almighty, |
