SERIALIZED

(c) Homer Kizer

"And the Lord planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.…The tree of life was in the midst of the garden" (Gen 2:8–9). And so begins the description of what has become a metaphor for paradise. Although Eden’s location is today the subject of some speculation, the altered post-deluge geography of the region would have Eden stretching from at least the Nile to the Tigris rivers, thereby encompassing the lands from Egypt to Assyria. Thus, because of the geographic shape of the landmass encompassed by the description of Eden, the lands of Egypt and Assyria serve as its south/north, and west/east boundaries. These two ancient nations, then, become metonymic identifiers for the extremes of Eden, or the ends of the earth. Their kings are, respectively, the king of the South [Egypt] and the king of the North [Assyria]. And these two identifiers metaphorically represent sin [Egypt] and death [Assyria], which presently dwell in all sons of disobedience, and still dwells in the members of disciples (Rom 7:25), thereby placing the law of God that rules the minds of disciples at war against the law that rules their flesh. In typology, ancient Israel’s wars against the Philistines and the Assyrians form the shadow of the war the mind of a born-from-above disciple fights against the appetites of the flesh. For sin and death will continue to jointly reign in the flesh or bodily parts of disciples until these two enemies separate at the beginning of the seven years of tribulation. Then, because disciples will be fully liberated from sin or lawlessness just as ancient Israel was liberated from physical bondage to Pharaoh, disciples will be fully able to rule over the desires of their flesh. They will be as ancient Israel was in the Wilderness of Sin. And their hearts and minds (i.e., what their secret thoughts are) will be made visible for all to see through the actions of their flesh; i.e., through the activities of their hands. Their flesh will do whatever their minds determine. But throughout the first half of the Tribulation disciples will remain consigned to death, which is the last enemy to be thrown into the lake of fire (Rev 20:14). However, Jesus has already overcome death. This last enemy has been defeated. But Jesus remains only one witness to this enemy’s defeat. Disciples, by faith, today believe that this enemy has been defeated. The establishment, though, of death’s defeat comes when the two witnesses are publicly resurrected halfway through the seven years of tribulation. Death’s defeat will then be confirmed as a matter of fact even though some saints will still die (Rev 13:10) as a few ancient Israelite’s under Joshua’s command fell in battle when Israel defeated the Amorites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hittites, Girgashites, Hivites and Jebusites that dwelt in the promised land.

Sin or lawlessness will effectively cease when the Holy Spirit is poured out upon all flesh (Joel 2:28); even the nature of the great predators will change (Isa 11:6–9). The prophet Isaiah records:

In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and Assyria will come into Egypt, and Egypt into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians. [paragraph break] In that day Israel will be a third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the Lord of Hosts has blessed, saying, "Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance." (Isa 20:23–24 ESV)

The day referenced is the day of the Lord, or the Lord’s day, the seventh day of a spiritual creation week, that day to begin when the kingdom of the world becomes the kingdom of the Most High and of His Christ (Rev 11:15), that day representing Christ’s millennial reign with the Holy Spirit having been poured out upon every person Both sin and death will have been defeated.

Although I wrote in the previous chapter that Eden shrank from its original size (Gen 2:10–14) to become the promised hill country of Judea, Eden after Adam and Eve’s departure went from being a pre-Flood geographical region to being the mental topography into which the last Adam was placed. Spiritually, in the 1^st-Century BCE, the temple at Jerusalem corresponded to the garden that Elohim planted in Eden. The glorified Jesus became the "great high priest who has passed through the heavens" (Heb 4:14), and who now resides through His Spirit in the temple of God—disciples are this temple (1 Cor 3:16–17). So Eden had figuratively contracted in size to become the city of Jerusalem, with the temple mount corresponding to the garden and the holy of holies corresponding to the tree of life. Eden, however, as if pulled through a keyhole separating physical from spiritual, became the mental topography that encompasses the entirety of the domain [mindsets] of the spiritually circumcised sons of God when the last Adam conceived children through the last Eve.

The above is a concept that, because human beings have limited life spans and poor recollection of history, needs developed. The biblical structure of the visible revealing the invisible (Rom 1:20) and of the physical preceding the spiritual (1 Cor 15:46) repeats itself throughout Scripture. Thus, the Bible is not to be studied precept upon precept, line upon line, the way the drunk priests in the prophet Isaiah’s day taught the word of God (Isa 28:13), and the way most physically minded teachers have since taught Holy Writ. Rather, the biblical accounts recorded in Scripture that are of the creation of humankind, and of the rise and fall of physically circumcised peoples reveal the creation of spiritual sons of God and the development of the invisible, holy nation that forms the Body of Christ. Spiritual sons of God have no outward physically distinguishing feature: their circumcision is invisible even when they are physically naked. Therefore, the circumcision of Abraham and his descendants corresponds (as a shadow revealing an invisible reality) to the spiritual circumcision of the spiritual descendants of Abraham. The patriarch left Ur of the Chaldeans with his father Terah, who died in Haran. While some controversy exists as to where Ur of the Chaldeans is located, it is usually placed in the land identified as Assyria (some scholars place the Ur that Terah left in Babylon). Abraham then journeys into the promised land [Judea], but leaves to go down into Egypt before returning to the promised land. So Abraham’s journeying took him from one end of Eden to the other. And the mental journeying of Abraham’s spiritually circumcised descendants will be and has been from one end of Eden to the other, for death lies to the north and sin to the south. The laws of God written on the heart and placed in the mind of a disciple initiate a war between the mind and the law of sin and death that dwells in the flesh. Again, this war becomes of the reality foreshadowed by the circumcised nation of Israel’s warring against Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon. Israel was liberated from bondage in Egypt just as each disciple is mentally liberated from bondage to sin when born-from-above (Rom 8:2). But because that circumcised nation’s lawlessness and breaking of the Sabbath (Jer 7:25–26 & Ezek 20:23–24), Israel went into captivity, the house of Israel to Assyria and the house of Judah to Babylon. And because of the spiritually circumcised nation’s lawlessness and breaking of the Sabbath, the spiritual descendants of promise also went into mental captivity.

But not all of Israel belongs to Israel (Rom 9:6) and not all of Abraham’s offspring are his children (v. 7). Likewise, not everyone who is of the spiritually circumcised nation (a referring expression for all who have been born-from-above) is a beloved heir of promise. Abraham’s circumcised son Ishmael dwelt in the wilderness of Paran (on Sinai Peninsula), and to the descendants of Esau God gave Seir, both regions within the first boundaries of Eden. But neither Paran nor Seir is a type of God’s rest as are the Judean hills (Ps 95:10–11). Rather, Paran and Seir were areas through or around which liberated Israel had to pass without marrying the native women. And these dwelling places of the circumcised sons of Abraham have equivalent mental landscapes through which the beloved children of promise must pass before reaching the Jordan River and entering the promised land of glorification.

Ishmael was a circumcised son of Abraham, but a son of bondage, the son of an Egyptian handmaid. The Apostle Paul compares Hagar to the then (1^st Century CE) present Jerusalem (Gal 4:24–25), thereby establishing the basis for reading Hagar as a metonymic identifier representing bondage and sin, or bondage to sin, or bondage under the law through the law bringing to the person the knowledge of sin. A person is the bondservant of whomever or whatever the person serves. If a spiritually circumcised person though believing that he or she serves God actually serves lawlessness, the person is the bondservant of lawlessness or sin (1 John 3:4). If this spiritually circumcised person attempts to enter God’s rest on the following day as did the circumcised nation that left Egyptian bondage, this person transgresses the commandment of God (Num 14:41) and is the bondservant of lawlessness. The person has made Hagar his or her mother, not Sarah. This born-again son of God through his or her free will has chosen to enslave him or herself to sin, just as the circumcised nation did when it ignored the Sabbath commandment. This person has chosen his or her mother, for this person’s Father remains God, in the same way that Abraham was the father of Ishmael. Salvation, though, comes through the promise, not through spiritual circumcision, again a euphemistic expression for receiving the Holy Spirit. Salvation comes through Isaac (i.e., through the promise) and through Israel (i.e., though the one whom God loved).

Too much of Christianity believes that accepting Jesus as one’s personal savior, this experience identified as being born again, is all that is required for salvation—and so it is if, necessarily, this spiritual infant will live by the laws of God written on his or her heart and mind. Under the second covenant, God sets before spiritually circumcised disciples life and death, with instructions to choose life. If a disciple will hear the words of Jesus and believe the One who sent Him, the disciple will have everlasting life (John 5:24). This believing the One who sent Jesus manifests itself by putting into practice the words of Jesus that the person heard. And Jesus said not to think that He came to abolish the Law or the Prophets (Matt 5:17), that whoever relaxes the least of the commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven (v. 19). So it is not enough to be sired by God, then to continue living as a spiritual Gentile. A person’s righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees (v. 20), who were hypocrites (Matt chptr 23), who knew to keep the law but none kept it (John 7:19). Thus, if a person voluntarily makes him or herself a bondservant of sin by mentally remaining in the land of the person’s spiritual nativity—by choosing to love sin more than righteousness—the person will not enter the kingdom of heaven even though the person has been born from above. If a person doesn’t love the truth enough to mentally relocate him or herself to Judea where the person will live as a spiritual Judean, the person has not picked up his or her cross and followed Jesus. The person is not worthy of Christ Jesus. This person could well be a spiritually circumcised son of Abraham, but this person is no longer (through the exercise of the person’s free will) a child of promise.

The recorded prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah are about nations that occupied portions of the geographical region identified as Eden. These prophecies usually have endtime (i.e., that day, or the day of the Lord) fulfillment clauses contained within them, and the historic fulfillment of these prophecies forms the shadow of, or antetype fulfillment of an endtime spiritual fulfillment. Therefore, the latter fulfillment of a prophecy about the house of Israel, say, doesn’t pertain to the physical descendants of the northern tribes that went into Assyrian captivity in 721 BCE. Rather, the fulfillment pertains to the northern division of the spiritually circumcised nation [the school of Ephesus] that went into mental captivity when it accepted the error of Bishop Arius. Hence, the endtime prophecies about the house of Judah pertain to the southern division [the school of Alexandria] of the same spiritually circumcised nation born to the Jerusalem above (Gal 4:26). Spiritual Babylon took this southern division captive when Emperor Constantine decided questions about sound doctrine at the Council of Nicea (ca. 325 CE). And as with the physically circumcised nation, only a remnant of this spiritually circumcised nation has left Babylon to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem. The walls of this spiritual city remain to be rebuilt.

The evidence of the patriarch Abraham’s faithfulness is his migration from Ur of the Chaldeas to Haran, then on to the promised land of his inheritance when God told him to move (Heb 11:8). His invisible faith was made observable by his obedience to God (Gen 26:5), in the manner that James describes (Jas 2:17–23). However, again, prophecy pundits have poorly understood the context of Abraham’s migration from death to life within the geographical region of Eden, or how Ishmael, Esau and Jacob typify mindsets within the spiritually circumcised nation made holy by God through birth from above.

The Apostle Paul writes, "[I]f you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise" (Gal 3:29). And if heirs according to the promise, those who are Christ’s are not of Ishmael, circumcised but the son of the bondwoman, nor are they of Esau, whom although of promise God hated when still in the womb and before any sin was imputed to him (Rom 9:6–13). Those who are Christ’s are of the patriarch Israel; they are spiritual Israelites; and they will live as Judeans. Jesus lived according to all that was written in the Book of Deuteronomy, which exists as a witness against spiritually circumcised Israel (Deu 31::26). Disciples are today the ark of the covenant that have the two tablets of the law inside them [the law is written on hearts and minds], as well as the jar of manna [Jesus is the true manna, or bread of life] and Aaron’s budded staff [disciples have the promise of resurrection]. Disciples have everyday access to the throne of God, so they live under the Mercy Seat in a spiritual Holy of holies. The second covenant, its mediator now Christ Jesus, has been made with them. Thus, they are truly arks of the covenant. And the Book of Deuteronomy remains outside of them as a witness against them, not something the greater Christian Church teaches, but, nevertheless, the reality of salvation.

Salvation is not to the spiritually circumcised sons of Ishmael, or of Esau. It is only to those who will come to Jerusalem to worship, and a person comes to spiritual Jerusalem by living as a spiritual Judean, by keeping the commandments and the Sabbaths of God, by loving righteousness more than the person loves his or her own flesh.

The journey from death to life (that is from the north country of Assyria to Judea) and from sin to righteousness (from Egypt to Judea) becomes the focus of biblical prophecy. As the father of the faithful, the patriarch Abraham made both of these journeys. As an infant, Jesus was taken down to Egypt and came out without sin—Jesus didn’t take himself to Egypt. Nor should any disciple return to a mental Egypt once the disciple’s mind has been liberated from bondage to sin.

When the Messiah comes, the holy nation of Israel will be recovered from bondage in the north country. The prophet Jeremiah records the words of God:

Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when it shall no longer be said, "As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt," but "As the Lord lives who brought up the people of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them." For I will bring them back to their own land that I gave to their fathers. (Jer 16:14–15)

Sin and death were defeated by Jesus of Nazareth, but participation in their defeat has been available only to those individuals drawn by the Father and called by Christ Jesus. It has not been available to the person who has never heard the name of Jesus; for liberation from bondage to the law of sin comes through receipt of the Holy Spirit. Sin’s universal defeat will occur when the Holy Spirit baptizes the world (Joel 2:28) halfway through seven years of tribulation. Then, everyone who endures (without taking the mark of the beast, the mark of death) will be saved (Matt 24:13). And this is the good news that must be proclaimed to the world as a witness to all nations before the end of this age occurs (v. 14).

The task of proclaiming the good news that all who endure to the end shall be saved falls primarily upon the two witnesses (Rev 11:3–12), who like Joshua and Caleb, have spied out the promised land and have brought back the report that the holy nation of God should immediately go forth to claim it, that the giants of obedience to the laws of God are not too large to defeat. But the spiritually circumcised Church, like the physically circumcised nation that left Egypt, will not believe these two witnesses. Instead, the Church will believe the ten witnesses who teach lawlessness; who teach once saved, always saved; who teach that as a spiritually circumcised son of God a person has to do no mental journeying, but can remain in the land of the person’s spiritual nativity. These ten witnesses will succeed in returning the Church to mental bondage to sin. And a great delusion will come upon the Church (2 Thess 2:11–12) that costs these rebels their salvation, for the Church will try to enter God’s rest on the following day just as the nation that left Egypt turned their unbelief into disobedience (Heb 3:19 & 4:6) by trying to enter God’s rest on the following day (Num 14:41). The greater Christian Church will make itself the spiritual descendants of Hagar, the Egyptian handmaid that served in the household of the free woman and even bore the son that the free woman could not conceive early on.

Although the great falling away when the man of perdition is revealed pertains to a specific day in the Tribulation, a type of this rebellion against God occurred early in the history of the Christian Church. When the Church tried to enter God’s rest on the following day—Sunday rather than the Sabbath—the early Church made itself spiritual descendants of Ishmael, Abraham’s firstborn son. It placed itself in bondage to sin, this lawlessness being the breaking of the Sabbath commandment just as the physical nation had continually broken the Sabbath commandment. Unwittingly, the early Church, consisting of the firstborn spiritually circumcised sons of Abraham, chose Hagar for its mother. (But never has every disciple been of one mother.) And after thirteen hundred or so years, a son was promised to the free woman. Yet another two hundred or so years passed before this son was born to the Jerusalem above, that spiritual city in which the temple will be rebuilt upon the foundation of Christ Jesus and the laws of God. Disciples are the temple of God, but for generations, this temple, like the one built by Solomon, was profaned by priests offering sacrifice to idols. And for seventy years, all of Israel was in Babylon [the papacy was relocated to France]. There were no sacrifices offered in the Jerusalem temple, neither in the city of David nor in the city above (i.e., spiritual Jerusalem), which is not to say that the grave prevailed against the Church. For analogous to Cyrus, king of Persia/Babylon, charging Ezra with rebuilding a house for God at Jerusalem, the Council of Trent for the Universal Church and the Protestant Reform Movement attempted to reconstruct a diminutive temple for the Jerusalem above. Ezra rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem becomes a type, or shadow of the reform movement from which comes the return of Sabbath-keeping fellowships. These Sabbatarian fellowships, not those of the Reform Church, become the rebuilt temple: they are the younger son of promise—these fellowships constitute the beloved spiritually circumcised son of promise.

The journey from Babylon to Jerusalem had sapped the faith of the younger son of promise, who still has to wrestle with God (this journey can be seen in the history of the Sabbatarian Church from the 16^th-Century forward). As Jacob made overtures to his brother Esau, so too did the Sabbatarian Church make overtures to its older brother, the Reform Church. And as the rebuilding, under Ezra, of the temple at Jerusalem stalled, work on constructing a spiritual house for God was suspended so houses could be built for those Sabbatarian fellowships that had left Babylon. These houses have denominational names: Seventh Day Baptists, Church of God Seventh Day, Seventh Day Adventists, The Worldwide Church of God, The United Church of God. All of them are in or near the Jerusalem from above, but none of them are the completed house of God, the temple to which the Messiah will return; for their wrestling match with God has not yet begun. This match will take place during the first half of the seven years of tribulation. Sabbath observance will then mark those who are of God just as the mark of the beast [chi xi stigma] will identify who is of the antiChrist during the second half of the seven years that try all the world. And it is during Sabbatarians’ wrestling with God that the natural branches of Israel will be grafted back onto the root of righteousness.

Within every disciple is the same journey from Egypt to the Jordan that typifies the history of the spiritually circumcised sons of Abraham. In every generation of the Church, some disciples mentally relocated to Judea where they lived as Judeans. Many, though, would not leave the landscapes of their nativity.

Two sons of promise are born to Isaac, one hated, one loved (Rom 9:13). The prophet Malachi writes to Israel:

"I have loved you," says the Lord. But you say, "How have you loved us?" "Is not Esau Jacob’s brother?" declares the Lord. "Yet I have loved Jacob but Esau I have hated. I have laid waste his hill country and left his heritage to jackals of the desert." If Edom says, "We are shattered but we will rebuild the ruins," the Lord of hosts says, "They may build, but I will tear down, and they will be called ‘the wicked country,’ and ‘the people with whom the Lord is angry forever.’" (Mal 1:2–4)

Although Esau was rejected when still in the womb [i.e., before he had sinned], his rejection was made certain when he valued his birthright so slightly that he traded it for bread and a bowl of lentils. He married two Hittite women (Gen 26:34) who made life bitter for Isaac and Rebecca (v. 35). When he learned that his parents didn’t approve of marrying Canaanite women, he married a daughter of Ishmael (Gen 28:8–9), thereby joining himself to first Gentiles then to the son of bondage, thus wedding himself to sin and death. And this is what the spiritually circumcised son of promise that already has been rejected did, does, and will do again.

Born following the era when the southern/western division of the Universal Church spent seventy years in France, the Reform Church by continuing to attempt to enter God’s rest on the following day married itself to a principle point of Christian lawlessness just as Esau married a daughter of Ishmael. By continuing to keep Sunday as its Sabbath, the Reform Church in its many colors—consisting entirely of spiritually circumcised sons of Abraham, again a euphemistic identifying expression for disciples possessing the Holy Spirit—has married itself to a daughter born into the bondage of lawlessness. Its children are, thus, born into bondage. They need to again be liberated from sin just as the circumcised nation in Egypt needed liberated from bondage to Pharaoh. Plus, the Reform Church had, from its beginning, married the Gentile concepts of an immortal soul and entering heaven at death. So despite the strong denials of the Reform Church and its derivative Protestant daughters, born-again disciples who attempt to enter God’s rest on the following day are the spiritually circumcised descendants of the rejected heir of promise, Esau, whom God hated [didn’t respect].

Again, every disciple has free will. Every born-from-above disciple figuratively chooses his or her mother. And a disciple can change his or her lineage just as Caleb did. Every disciple can, by faith, relocate him or herself to Judea where he or she will live as a Judean and eat of the tree of life.

The younger son of promise wrestled with God, for he was a man of deceit. And though maimed after wrestling all night, he prevailed with God: his name was changed from Jacob to Israel. And it is through a long spiritual night that Sabbath-keeping fellowships as the beloved spiritually circumcised son of promise will wrestle with God, for these fellowships will be delivered into the hand of the man of sin. Their wrestling with God will be their beseeching God in prayers that God protect and save them during the night that ends with the beginning of the Lord’s day. The letters to the seven named churches convey to these fellowships how they, on the Lord’s day or day of the Lord, fair in their struggles for righteousness. (The last 1260 days of the Tribulation forms the night portion of the Lord’s day, with Christ’s return being the sunrise for a millennial long day. The first 1260 days completes the sixth day of the spiritual creation week with the birth of a spiritual Cain, Abel and Seth.)

Jesus used figures of speech throughout His ministry. These transcribed figures of speech are the words of God the Father, for Jesus did not speak His words but the Father’s. So it is the Father who has revealed through figurative language the things hidden from the foundation of the world (Matt 13:35). And a portion of what has been revealed is that those who are born of Spirit (i.e., those who have spiritually circumcised hearts and souls) are the children of Abraham, who loved his son Ishmael. But the promise was to Abraham through Sarah and through her son, Isaac, who in turned loved his son Esau. The promise of entering God’s spiritual rest is today to those who are spiritually of the patriarch Israel. It is not to the descendants of Ishmael or Esau.

When the children of the nation that left Egyptian bondage approached the land where their brother Esau dwelt, Moses sent messengers to the king of Edom and asked for safe passage through Edom along the King’s Highway. Edom refused. The children of Israel offered to pay for even the water they and their livestock would drink, but Edom came out against Israel with a strong force (Num 2014–21). And today, the spiritually circumcised descendants of Esau figuratively refuse Israel passage along the King’s Highway, so those disciples headed for Judea must go around the spiritual descendants of the Reform Church. In going around spiritual Edom, however, many Sabbath-keeping fellowships have grumbled against God (Num 21:5) and have been bitten by fiery serpents of impatient doubt and pettiness.

The journey from Egypt to the promised land is the informing metaphor governing all of Scripture. This journey manifests itself in a disciple’s walk from sin to life. Crucifixion of the disciple’s old self is analogous to the death of the nation that left Egypt and did not enter the promised land. The maturation of the born-from-above child of God within the same tabernacle of flesh as the crucified old self dwelt corresponds to the uncircumcised children born to the nation that left Egypt dwelling in the booths or tabernacles of their parents before crossing the Jordan. With the exception of Joshua and Caleb, the circumcised Israelites that left Egypt died in the wilderness. Their uncircumcised children crossed into the promised land. The nation that left Egypt, because of unbelief, was not allowed to enter into God’s rest. Likewise, the old natures of disciples—each consigned to disobedience by God (Rom 11:32)—will not be the nature of any glorified son of God. The nation that tries to enter God’s rest on the following day died in the wilderness; the Church that tries to enter God’s rest on the following day will die in the wilderness of sin. Therefore, the geography of Eden figuratively corresponds to the mental topography of humanity, with the lands and peoples about whom and against whom God has prophesied corresponding to individual and collective mindsets. The tree of life didn’t grow everywhere in Eden, but only in the center of the garden God planted in Eden. For spiritually circumcised sons of Abraham, salvation isn’t available in Egypt or Assyria, Edom or from Havilah to Shur, the area where the sons of Ishmael settled (Gen 25:18). It is only available in Judea, where beloved sons of promise will live as Judeans.

When the seven years of tribulation begin, the 1260 day ministry of the two witnesses will be to the half of humanity that doesn’t then identify itself as Christian. The two witnesses’ ministry will be delivery of the good news that all who endure to the end shall be saved. This other half of humanity will be born of Spirit when the Holy Spirit is poured out upon all flesh; this half of humanity will become the figurative descendants of a spiritual Seth, for whom God has appointed salvation. And this other half of humanity will see death defeated when the two witnesses are publicly resurrected halfway through seven years of tribulation.

Death, the fourth horseman of the Apocalypse, was actually defeated when Jesus was accepted as the Wave Sheaf offering (i.e., accepted as the first of the firstfruits of God), but only angels witnessed Jesus’ actual resurrection; He was gone from the tomb when Mary came. His disciples met with the already resurrected Jesus. However, when the two witnesses are resurrected, the world will be watching; the world will see life return to corpses and will see the two witnesses ascend into heaven (Rev 11:7–12).

Death will be the last enemy cast into the lake of fire, for until the great White Throne Judgment is complete, death will still have dominion over some human beings. Some individuals will refuse to journey to Judea. They will remain in the mindset of their spiritual nativity, and they will be cast into the lake of fire. Thus, when the last resurrected human being to judge himself unworthy to follow Christ Jesus has been cast into the lake of fire, and when the last angel is judged, there will be no more need for death. This beast that has devoured every living entity inside the creation will have been thrown into the lake of fire.

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"Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved."