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What the Bible says about Hearing Christ's Words
(From Forerunner Commentary)

Matthew 21:33-46

Jesus is God's primary communicator of salvation. Despite their human limitations as compared to Jesus, the prophets were also sent in their time as communicators on God's behalf. Humanity claims that our Creator does not communicate with His creation, but this is a bald-faced lie. Right from the beginning, He personally communicated with Adam and Eve, showing His intention, and He patiently followed through with it, most especially to those of Israelite descent after God's work with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Of particular note is what is directly commanded in Matthew 17:5 during the Transfiguration: We and all mankind are to “Hear Him [the Son]!” This charge is no mere random command from the Father but a direct commission to the apostles—and of course, to all who followed what they learned from the Son, the highest and greatest of all of God's spokesmen.

The reality is that most of humanity is not listening—at least not thoughtfully and carefully, with a willingness to accept His teaching—as His elect do. Instead, mankind has reacted as the Jewish religious leaders did upon hearing His parables. Even so, God has made the knowledge of Jesus and His work available to the world, especially among the Israelite peoples, and this awareness has made it possible, primarily through the printed word, to communicate for almost two millennia what Jesus taught.

God does not lie. This parable provides evidence that He has continuously tried to communicate faithfully and honestly with mankind. However, humans just as frequently and sometimes violently reject God's every effort and then blame Him for it! Eventually, God must communicate differently, as He did with Israel, stripping their advantages from them to shake them into a more profound awareness of Him. Not since the original apostles walked the earth has as true and strong a witness been made to Israel as they scattered to the north and west of Jerusalem to where God desires they reside at this time in His purpose.

In the early chapters of Acts, we witness the Jews' continuing rejection of the Son through persecuting His church and God's turning to the Gentiles by preaching the gospel to them, most notably through the apostle Paul. Thus, we find the Jews having a difficult time accepting Christ. The epistle to the Hebrews, probably written before AD 70, contains theological argument after theological argument about why people must recognize their resistance to the very Son of God, overcome and repent, and move forward in godly living.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Why Hebrews Was Written (Part Nine)

John 5:24-29

Hearing Christ's word and believing in God are not as simple as they appear; a single action or decision is not all it takes for these verses to apply. Even so, Jesus shows that the way is open now for some to avoid that eternal judgment of death and to pass from the state of spiritual death into spiritual life.

Passing from death into eternal life is a result of the relationship that God draws us into. A person who has been called by God, who responds by hearing Christ's word (in the sense of obedience), and begins to live a life of trust in God, is one who is now spiritually alive. If he remains in that state of spiritual life until the end, he will be in the first resurrection and given immortality.

“The hour is coming, and now is” means that from the time of His preaching forward, some of the spiritually dead would hear His voice, respond to Him, and begin living spiritually. In that case, the dead He is talking about are the spiritually dead of mankind.

But then the focus changes in verse 28 to the future: “The hour is coming.” A time will come when all who are in their graves will hear His voice and rise in a resurrection. “All who are in the graves” refers to those who have physically died. God, in His mercy, will resurrect each person at some point, “each one in his own order” (I Corinthians 15:23).

The fact that death is not the end is a major change from where things stood after Adam's sin. Each person will have the opportunity to live life spiritually, in union with God, because He “is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (II Peter 3:9). He will, then, give everyone a chance to repent, to come out of his or her spiritual death, and to experience a life of reconciliation with Him. That opportunity could happen in this age, or it could happen in the resurrection to physical life that takes place after the Millennium (see Revelation 20:5).

David C. Grabbe
What Is the Second Death?


 




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