The Doctrine of Response and Eternal Destiny: EFCA Ordination (Part 10 of 11)
In the fall, I began my longest blog series ever, a series sharing my ordination paper for the Evangelical Free Church of America (EFCA). If you’d like to read about what the process of ordination looks like in the EFCA, check out the first post in the series (here).
The ordination paper engages with our denomination’s 10-point statement of faith. I know these posts are dense. Please hang with me through just two more. This week’s post covers “Article 10: Response and Eternal Destiny.”
If you’ve found these posts helpful, please pick up the entire paper, which is now available on Amazon in both paperback and ebook formats under the title Once for all Delivered: A Reformed, Amillennial Ordination Paper for the Evangelical Free Church of America.
Thank you for the prayers and encouragement along the way,
Benjamin
{Previous posts in this series: God, The Bible, The Human Condition, Jesus, The Work of Christ, The Holy Spirit, The Church, Christian Living, The Return of Christ}
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Response and Eternal Destiny
10. We believe that God commands everyone everywhere to believe the gospel by turning to Him in repentance and receiving the Lord Jesus Christ. We believe that God will raise the dead bodily and judge the world, assigning the unbeliever to condemnation and eternal conscious punishment and the believer to eternal blessedness and joy with the Lord in the new heaven and the new earth, to the praise of His glorious grace. Amen.
This next sentence is a mouthful, so take a deep breath. The gospel is the good news that Jesus, the long-awaited Messiah and heir of the Davidic monarchy, has come (Rm 1:1–5; 2 Tim 2:8), died, resurrected, ascended to his exalted throne, sits in heaven from whence he will come again to judge the living and the dead (Ps 110:2; Mk 12:36; 14:62; Acts 2:33–34; Eph 1:20; Heb 1:3, 13; 1 Tim 4:1), and by virtue of his atoning death and victorious resurrection, he graciously extends forgiveness, mercy, and righteousness to any and all persons who would come to God the Father through him in repentance and faith (Is 55:6–7; Lk 24:47; Acts 2:37–38; Rm 2:4; 3:22; 2 Cor 5:21; 1 Tim 1:16). To “receive Jesus as Lord,” as this article mentions (cf. Jn 1:12), means turning from our sins and trusting in Christ as Savior.
The gospel is both inclusive and exclusive at the same time. The gospel invites all people, no matter how wicked or vile, to experience grace (1 Tim 1:15). Whosoever wills may drink from the fountain. But God only appropriates the saving benefits of the gospel to those who place faith in Christ (Acts 4:12; 2 Thes 1:8). Ultimately many will persist in unbelief and so reject the saving benefits of the gospel. For them, an eternity of punishment in conscious torment awaits; this ought to grieve and motivate believers to manifold action. It is a sobering reality, repeatedly declared throughout the Bible and especially by the Lord Jesus himself, that hell is a place of unending torment in the full presence of God’s wrath and away from his grace, love, and mercy (Mt 25:46; Lk 16:26; 2 Thes 1:8–9; Rev 14:11; 21:8; 22:14, 15).
The Bible does not often speak of the time between an individual’s death and the final resurrection and judgment, or the intermediate state as theologians have often referred to it. However, the Bible is clear that believers will be in God’s presence. After death, the souls of believers go at once into the presence of Christ (Lk 23:43) and await their reunification with their glorified bodies in the resurrection (2 Cor 5:6–9). Similarly, upon death the souls of unbelievers go at once into hell, awaiting the final resurrection where they too will be reunited with their bodies (Jn 5:28–29).
The Bible indicates differing levels of reward and punishment based on how a person lived with the knowledge of God that they had (Lk 12:42–48; 1 Cor 3:12–15; Jam 3:1). As has been discussed previously, the connection between receiving salvific grace through faith and the producing of good works is so strong that the Bible often describes the final judgment based upon works, as it does in the account of the great white throne judgment in Revelation 20:11–15 (cf. 2 Cor 5:10). In this passage, those who did not have their name in the book of life are judged for not having good works, while those who have their name in the book do have good works and are not thrown into the lake of fire. Related to hell and the lost, it is important to say two things that have not been stressed yet. First, unbelievers do not go to hell because they didn’t know about Jesus; people go to hell because humans are condemned sinners, and hell is what sinners deserve (Rm 6:23; Gal 3:10). Second, as for those who have never heard of the gospel, we should go and tell them before they die so they may hear the gospel and might be saved. Now, it’s common to hear stories of how God is pleased to reach unbelievers through visions, especially among highly unreached people groups, such as those within the 10/40 window, but these visions are only salvific if and when they connect a person to the content of the gospel, which must then be believed. In other words, there might be more people being reached than we are aware of, but clearly the ordinary plan of God is to send human missionaries (Rm 10:14–17).
Several passages in the Bible either imply or state explicitly that there will be a great renewal of the earth in its physical condition to make a suitable place for resurrected, glorified believers to worship God forever (Is 65:17; 66:22; Jn 14:2, 3; Rm 8:19–21; Heb 12:26–27; 2 Pet 3:13; Rev 21:1; 22:1–3). Since God is infinite, and glorified people will always remain finite, the new heavens and the new earth will be a place of unending and ever-increasing joy and happiness as God displays forever “the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus” (Eph 2:7). While we formerly identified with the man of dust, in the gospel we now identify with the man from heaven and all the glory therein (1 Cor 15:47–49).
“Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev 22:20).
Discussion Questions
God Commands All to Believe the Gospel, Repenting and Receiving the Lord Jesus Christ
1. What is the gospel? Is the gospel a universal message?
2. What does it mean to “believe the gospel,” viz. what is the importance of belief?
3. Define “repentance.” What is the role of repentance in conversion?
4. What does it mean to “receive the Lord Jesus Christ”?
5. What is the importance of the universal command to believe, the exclusivity of believing the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and the eternal consequences grounded in one’s response to Jesus?
Bodily Resurrection of the Dead and Judgment of All
6. What is the importance of the “bodily” resurrection of the dead (note Jesus’s bodily resurrection and bodily return), and what does this teach us about humanity?
7. What is your understanding of the Judgment Seat of Christ and the Great White Throne Judgment of Revelation 20?
8. Will believers face future judgment? Explain the meaning of 2 Corinthians 5:10, cf. 1 Corinthians 3:12–15.
Unbeliever Condemned to Eternal Conscious Punishment
9. What is the destiny of unbelievers? What is the destiny of the unevangelized? What does it mean that unbelievers are condemned?
10. What is the nature of Hell, and does “eternal conscious punishment” mean?
Believer to Eternal Blessedness and Joy with the Lord
11. What happens to a believer who dies before the return of Christ?
12. How do you describe “heaven” and “life after death”?
New Heaven and New Earth
13. What is the relationship of the “new heaven and new earth” to the millennial Kingdom of Christ?
To the Praise of His Glorious Grace (Doxology)
14. Why is it fitting to conclude a doctrinal Statement of Faith with a worshipful (doxological) note?
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