More will be punished (by
perishing) than restored by salvation! “Because strait is the gate, and narrow
is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Mat 7:14).
Atheists don’t believe that. They are part of the many who will not be restored,
and hence perish.
Most think of restoration (aka
regeneration) as returning to a babe-like state. David, in Psalm 51, says that
he was “shapen in iniquity.” Paul said, that none are without sin (Rom 3:23), hence
everyone was born in iniquity since iniquity is “sinful behavior.” That
condition is attitudinal; that people are the gods to whom all others, including
God, must serve. The pre-condition for restoration is humility – that we must
serve God (Luke 1:74), and not ourselves. The original sin was Adam serving
himself rather than serving God. Before that time, God served Adam all his
needs.
Restoration is not returning to the
innocence of infancy, but to the original generated condition; that being “wholly
good” (Gen 1:31). Restoration is not re-consecrating oneself from spiritual
contamination, but God doing that for us. Ironically, by serving God, God
returns to serving His creatures!
Restoration is a process commencing
with repentant people changing their dependence from themselves to God. They
quit serving themselves and begin to serve God. That is humility and what meek
people do. The process lasts throughout life, and those who endure the wiles of
the Devil until the end, are restored, or finally regenerated. The wholly
restored person is glorified. They are perfected by God and are worthy to be in
His Presence; just as in the Garden Paradise.
Throughout the OT, the faithful loved
and feared the Lord. Fear of the Lord is knowing that only He decides our
future. Loving the Lord is appreciating Him by obedience to God’s Will. It is
submitting our own will to God for His Will be done. The first time that the
phrase “face of the Lord” is used in scripture was Lot in Sodom. “For we will
destroy this place, because the cry of them is waxen great before the face of
the Lord; and the Lord hath sent us to destroy it” (Gen 19:13). Sodom was the
epitome of evil, and represents Hell. God restored Lot and his family to life
again outside that evil Hell-hole. Lot’s wife looked back in remembrance of
sin, and perished. “The Face of God” restored Lot and caused his wife to
perish. The Face of God has always been both Restorer and Punisher. The Face of
God is Jesus!
Moses desired to see God’s Face. If
he did, he would have died because of the Glory of it (Exod 10:28). Finally,
Moses saw the Face of God and to demonstrate to him that Jesus is the Face of
God, Jesus’s countenance was transfigured by putting his face on God. The
evidence that “the Face of the Lord” is Jesus was at the transfiguration. It
was a completion of the Lord after revealing his backside to Moses:
And he said, Thou canst not see
my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.
And the Lord said, Behold, there
is a place by me, and thou shalt stand upon a rock:
And it shall come to pass, while
my glory passeth by, that I will put thee in a clift of the rock, and will
cover thee with my hand while I pass by. (Exod 33:20-22)
Compare that to the transfiguration
of Jesus:
And after six days Jesus taketh
Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain
apart,
And was transfigured before
them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the
light.
And, behold, there appeared unto
them Moses and Elias talking with him.
While he yet spake, behold, a
bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which
said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him. (Mat
17:1-3,5)
Then Jeremiah encouraged the Jews
to do as Moses did:
Go into the clefts of the rocks,
and into the tops of the ragged rocks, for fear of the Lord, and for the glory
of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth. (Jer 2:21)
Moses saw the Face of the Lord as Restorer/Savior.
Jeremiah saw the Face of the Lord as Punisher. Christians must see Christ as
both! With one Gate, and two choices, it is either reward or punishment. Positive
Christianity has half a gospel. The truth is that Jesus – the Face of God – shall
restore a few, but allow most to perish at the hand of Satan. That is a hard-teaching
but is truth. That realization is to be set free from deception.
Zachariah was the first person in the
New Testament to realize that the Face of the Lord who he worshiped as priest
was the person Jesus! “And thou, child (John the Baptist), shalt be
called the prophet of the Highest: for thou shalt go before the face of the
Lord to prepare his (Jesus’s) ways. (Luke 1:76).
Understanding that “the Face of the
Lord” in the OT is pre-incarnate Jesus is imperative to understanding the OT!
John said that Jesus was there in the beginning (John 1). If so, where was he?
His Face was on God throughout the entire OT; the patriarchs just were not allowed
to see Jesus. In a few cases, Jesus appeared to mankind (e.g.
Nebuchadnezzar, Jacob, and a few others.) Jacob wrestled with God and said this:
“And Jacob called the of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face,
and my life is preserved” (Gen 32:32). For Jacob (Israel) the Face of the Lord
was as Savior!
Note that, that event was before God
appeared to Moses. The Law changed things. It made the Hebrews of unworthy of
seeing the Face of the Lord. When God showed his Face with the birth of Jesus,
the Law was no longer there to shame. The Face of the Lord fulfilled the Law! No longer was the Law a curse, but a blessing
because Jesus would remiss the sins of the faithful (Luke 1:71).
The Law was for punishing, but the
Face of the Lord allowed for restoration, starting with the remission of sins,
and ending in salvation and ultimate full restoration in the end!
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| The Transfiguration of Jesus (credit: Franciscan Media) |
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