LBCF Chapter 31-32 explained

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LBCF Chapter 32: Of Final Judgment

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Okay, so we come now to the next to the last chapter, chapter 31, the state of man after death and of the resurrection of the dead.

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First paragraph, the bodies of men after death returned to dust and see corruption, but their souls which neither dine or sleep, having an immortal subsistence immediately returned to God who gave them.

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The souls of the righteous being then made perfect in holiness are received into paradise where they are with Christ and behold the face of God in light and glory, waiting for the full redemption of their bodies.

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And the souls of the wicked are cast into hell where they remain in torment, not a darkness reserved to the judgment of the great day.

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Besides these two places for souls separated from the bodies, the scripture acknowledges none.

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Okay. Would you just close that, that door just so that sometimes people, uh, come in and you don't want to disturb that.

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All right. Very simple. Um, everybody's going to die.

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That's what it says. Everybody's going to die. Uh, and if you're a believer in Christ, uh, your body goes into the ground, it becomes dust again, and, but your soul is immediately received into the paradise of God.

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And of course we know that because remember when the thief was on the cross and he says, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

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And Jesus said, today you'll be with me in paradise. So the, and with the wicked, the souls go into hell and where they remain waiting for the final judgment.

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So this is what we often call the temporary state, you know, the intermediate state.

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It's not the final state because God hasn't, they haven't, everybody hasn't been finally judged, but this is what happens immediately.

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Any questions on that? Yes. Why would they ask those questions if they've already been damned?

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It's a parable. It's not relating what it was actually going to, it's a parable. And the principle behind the parable is, is that we need to understand when did we see

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Christ naked? And that's what he explains is that we have to be doing these things. Okay. Yeah.

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It's, it's, you have to be careful where, where Jesus talks in parables, not to take it literally taking things literally in that sense will more than likely lead you into error.

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Okay. Uh, just like the parable of the vineyard owner when he pays everybody the same amount, but the point is they're working for their wage or they're working for their salvation.

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It's beyond the scope of the parable. All right. So, and that is a parable designed to show us, um, how do we obey the commands of Christ?

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All right. And again, the, one of the big points of that parable is the union we have in Christ, whatever is done to us is done to Christ and whatever should have been done to us and isn't, uh, that is also, uh, the extent of the parable.

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You didn't do this. You should have been doing this. Okay. Okay. Then we moved to paragraph two, uh, at the last day, such of the saints are found alive shall not sleep, but be changed and all the dead shall be raised up with the selfsame bodies and none other, although along with different qualities, uh, which shall be united again to the souls forever.

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That's in the last day. Obviously that's the dispensational churches attribute these, these verses to what they would call a rapture that happened sometime prior to the last day.

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But the scripture is clear. And what our confession says is that this is the last day. This is when Christ returns.

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All right. And, uh, we'll get into a little bit more of the eschatological significance, but notice we are raised with the selfsame bodies.

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The bodies that go into the grave are the ones that come out of the grave. A lot of people ask, well, what about, you know, those saints who died, you know, thousands of years ago?

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Yes. God has the ability to just recreate their bodies, you know, and raise them even though they were rotted and decayed.

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All right. But that's what the scripture teaches. Just like Christ came out of the tomb with the selfsame body. Uh, so we will come out with the same, same bodies, although different.

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And we don't know exactly what the difference is. All right. Because remember, when Christ was, was raised, he actually ate and drank, you know.

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So is there food in heaven? I don't know. I hope so.

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So just think you never get a bad meal. The cook is always perfect.

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You know. All right. Uh, notice also that it's the, uh, well, this one doesn't say it, but the wicked will also have the resurrected bodies, but not in the same way that we will.

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Paragraph three, the bodies of the unjust shall by the power of Christ be raised to dishonor.

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The bodies of the just by his spirit unto honor and made comfortable, conformable to his own glorious body.

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We've seen, we will see Christ. And as we see him, that's how we will be. No more aches, no more pains, you know, just absolutely glorious bodies.

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Okay. Questions. That's the, what we would call the intermediate state, the state of man after death and of the resurrection from the dead.

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Now we haven't talked about judgment yet. That's in the last chapter. Any questions here?

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No. Okay. Let me just pause this for a second. Okay. So we come now to the last chapter of the confession.

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Sometime. There we go. Of the last judgment.

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Okay. Paragraph one of chapter 32. God has appointed a day wherein he will judge the world in righteousness by Jesus Christ to whom all power judgment is given by the father in which day, not only the apostate angel shall be judged, but likewise, all persons that have lived upon the earth shall appear before the tribunal of Christ to give an account of their thoughts, words, and deeds and to receive according to what they have done in the body, whether good or evil.

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Okay. It's judgment day. Obviously the scripture teaches this throughout the scriptures.

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There's a lot of sections up here of references, but it's actually taught throughout all of the scripture.

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There will be a day of reckoning. Perfect righteousness, perfect justice.

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This is one of those chapters that should give the Christian cause for joy. Understanding that in this life, quite often

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Christians suffer injustices. All right. And often because of our faith.

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Okay. But in the end, there will be perfect justice. The good news for us is that any penalty that we owe has already been paid by Christ.

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So there's still perfect justice and I hope everybody realized that the fact that our sins have not been excused.

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All right. They were paid for. And they were paid for by Christ. Paragraph two.

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The end of God's appointing this day is for the manifestation of the glory of his mercy and the eternal salvation of the elect and of his justice in the eternal damnation of the reprobate who are wicked and disobedient.

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But then shall the righteous go to everlasting life and receive the fullness of joy and glory with everlasting rewards in the presence of the

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Lord. But the wicked who know not God and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ shall be cast aside into everlasting torments and punishment with everlasting destruction for the presence of the

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Lord and from the glory of his power. Okay. Any questions on that?

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Notice the difference between this and the intermediate state. Right now, all those wicked who have died are in hell in spirit only.

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They don't have bodies. On the last day, their bodies will be raised and they will spend eternity body and soul, body and spirit for everlasting torment.

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So their punishment will be that much more horrifying. I guess is one word to use.

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Okay. And notice the elect is just the opposite. Then we will have our bodies resurrected and we will go into everlasting joy into a state of righteousness with rewards.

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And we really have no idea what heaven is going to be like. Okay. Questions.

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This is a doctrine that is coming under great attack, even in the conservative aspects of the church.

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A lot of people are moving away from this doctrine, but it's clearly taught in scripture. As Christ would have us to be certainly persuaded that there shall be a day of judgment, both to deter all men from sin and for the greater consolation of the godly in their adversity.

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So will he have the day unknown to men that they may shake off all carnal security and always be watchful because they know not what hour the

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Lord will come and may ever be prepared to say, come Lord Jesus, come quickly. Amen.

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All right. Now what? I mean, we have dropped the history of the church.

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There's always been date setters. Somebody's always trying to predict when Christ is going to return again.

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And I mean, and I'm on virtually every spectrum too. And this is not just the dispensations that do this.

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Remember just a few years ago, we had somebody who was very reformed, Harold Camping. And he started predicting the end of the world.

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It's folly. It's foolishness. We can maybe at some point see the season or think that maybe we're coming because there are certain signs in scripture that we know we're going to happen.

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For example, according to Romans 11, there'll be a great gathering of ethnic

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Jews into the church, you know, before Christ returns. So there's some things that you might be able to see, but to try to set dates is just absolute foolishness.

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And again, the attitude we should all take is we should work in the kingdom for the advancement of the kingdom as though Christ's not coming back for thousands of years, but live your life in holiness as though he was coming back tonight.

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If you can get that kind of a blend, that kind of a mix, because we need to make long -term plans.

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Okay. One of the dispensational pastors, he made a statement of they didn't do any, they didn't even plan long -term in his church.

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And his attitude was why polish brass on a sinking ship? You know? No, we have no idea.

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Well, that was the other thing. He thought the ship was sinking. All right. Whereas we know, according to scripture, that the kingdom of God is going to be successful.

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The gates of hell cannot stand against the church of Jesus Christ. And so, we should be working and doing, be in all due diligence to advance the kingdom and living in holiness as though Christ was going to come back tonight.