Let us turn to Hebrews 5. We were looking at this a few weeks ago. I will start reading in verse 11 and go into a couple of verses of chapter 6. This is referring to Melchisedec. We read in Hebrews 5:11-6:3:
Of whom we have many things to say, and hard to be uttered, seeing ye are dull of hearing. For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. And this will we do, if God permit.
This is a very important verse, is it not? “If God permit,” we will go on to learn about these things that were mentioned here. This is because everything that a person can know about the Bible has to come from God.
It does not matter how smart someone is. It does not matter what kind of background they have, or whether or not they have been to seminary, or what kind of study habits they have—none of this really matters. As far as when it comes to understanding the Bible and right doctrine, this is only according to God’s will. If He permits; if He opens up our understanding and gives us wisdom, then we will learn. That means that even little children can learn. In many cases, anyone can learn the truths of the Bible much better than someone who has a doctorate in theology, because it is all in God’s control. He is the One who will reveal His Word to those whom He desires to reveal it to.
We have been looking at Hebrews 5 lately, and we are looking at this because we are living at a time when God is opening up the Scriptures. When God said in Daniel, “Shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end…and knowledge shall be increased,” we thought that this was mostly referring to the timeline of history, the judgment of God on the churches, and the judgment at the end of the world. We were not really thinking that this would have to do with other doctrines. We really were not thinking that when God opens up the Scriptures and He begins to reveal the truth of His Word, that this would affect faith, that it would affect baptism, that it would affect the resurrection or eternal judgment and the doctrine of Hell. We were not expecting this, yet this is what God is telling us here.
He says in Hebrews 5:12:
…for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again…
Is this not true! Anyone who thought that they knew something, they have come to realize that they did not know anything, so we are back to the Bible to study things out. It does not matter who you are or what kind of background you have, as we are looking at these truths, these ideas, these doctrines coming from the Bible, it really teaches us that we do not know much. We do not know much, and the church, historically, has not known much about the truth of the Bible. The Church has had many errors, and we are all products, we are all descendants of those who have gone before us, in a way. So we also have had errors in our understanding about many teachings of the Bible.
It continues in Hebrews 5:12:
…ye have need that one teach you again…
And who is this “one”? Who is this “one” who will teach us? The Holy Spirit, the Lord Jesus, Eternal God. How does He teach? “The Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” This is what 1 Corinthians 2 says. He is the teacher, so He moves in His people to understand certain things in the Bible and gives them the ability to teach others. But the “one” who is behind it all and the “one” who is causing it all is God. It is God. If God the Holy Spirit does not guide us into truth, “all truth,” as it says in the Gospel of John, then we are like the blind leading the blind, and we will not be able to come to any kind of right knowledge of the Bible.
So the “one” who must teach us is God Himself, the Holy Spirit. He accomplishes this when we just allow the Bible to be its own dictionary, the Bible to do its own explaining, “for what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?”
Who knows what is going on inside any one of us, except ourselves? And we do not even know ourselves perfectly, but we know ourselves better than anyone else. We know what we are thinking. We know our history, our past. Likewise, who knows “the things of God”? “The things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.”
This is like having someone come up to you and say that they know exactly what you are thinking and what you are feeling. “I know that you feel this way and that this is your idea of things,” yet this person is all wrong because they do not know anything about you. How can they? Only I can tell you about me.
This is the same way when we come to the Bible and we say, “Here is what God says in His Word, and this is what it means; this is what this verse means.” And God is telling us that we are taking His Words in our mouths, but these things are not coming forth from Him. No, it is God’s Spirit that has to reveal the mind of God in the Bible, what He has written in the Bible, and He does this through a methodology, through a way that He has developed. We must look at one verse in comparison to other verses, “here a little, and there a little.” Isaiah 28 explains that this is the way that we can come to right doctrine and how we can come to truth.
Also, whatever we then determine after doing this, we say, “Okay, this is the idea,” and we feel that we have Biblical justification because we compared Scripture with Scripture, but then it has to fit. The final test is that it has to fit; it has to harmonize with everything else in the Bible.
I am sure that you have heard Mr. Camping give the analogy of a jigsaw puzzle, except this is more like a million-piece jigsaw puzzle, the toughest thing that you can imagine. I do not try any puzzle above 500 pieces. When the kids have jigsaw puzzles and they want me to help them, all the pieces look alike to me. There are all of these little tiny pieces of the puzzle, and I do not know where to start.
This is how the Bible is, but, thankfully, we have God. We have God to guide us and to lead us into truth. We stumble upon it sometimes—however God does it—but He does reveal truth, and then we start putting the pieces together. By the way, we will talk about this a little later, but this is why the 153 days, the five months of Revelation 9, only fits where it does. It only fits from May 21 up to October 21. You can not move it; you can not budge it!
When you are doing a puzzle, you sometimes try to make something fit but it will not fit. When it does fit, you know that this is the spot where it belongs. Then that affects everything else following it, does it not? Because you still have more pieces, but you are not going to place them where you just put in a piece because that place is taken. You have to lay the pieces out along with all of the other pieces, and this helps you to finish the puzzle.
So this is like the Bible, and God has given us the Bible to keep us humble, to keep us low, as far as our understanding and who we think we are. We have to keep in mind that we are little, tiny, finite creatures who have peanut-sized brains. Does anyone think that I am exaggerating? Does anyone think I am making the case worse than it is?
We are a little creature whom God has created in time. Maybe we have been alive for 30, 40, 50, or 60 years, which is nothing in comparison to eternal God and His infinite mind. The God who inhabits eternity and who dwells in the whole spectrum of existence, He knows everything about everybody.
What about everybody here in this room? Would that not be a ton of information just to know every deep thought, everything that just those of us in this room have ever done? Just this is an enormous amount of information for all of the people here, yet God knows everything way beyond us, into the whole history of the human race and the whole future of the human race and beyond. He knows everything from eternity past into eternity future. Wow! That is the mind of God. No wonder He says that His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.
So it really is kind of arrogant and extremely proud, is it not, of a little man to come to the Bible, “Oh, I learned in seminary how to understand the Bible. Let me tell you all about it.” Or, “I have a high I.Q. and I have always done well in other subjects, so I can teach the Bible.”
No. We are going to be humbled. We are going to be put in our place, to the point that we have to go to God and we have to say, “Lord, I do not understand. I do not know how this fits. Please, help me and lead me.”
So here in Hebrews 5:12, we read:
…ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God…
This language of the “first principles” is picked up in Hebrews 6:1:
Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ…
This is the “first principles.” This is the beginning point. All knowledge that we come to in the Bible has to be built upon Jesus Christ. We read that He is the “foundation.” Do you remember that?
If we go to 1 Corinthians 3:10-11, this is the Apostle Paul speaking under the inspiration of God, and he says:
According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is the foundation.
This is kind of like when a construction company is going to build a building, so they lay the foundation first. Then everything else, all of the floors, will be built upon that foundation.
The “first principles” of the Bible, “the first principles of the oracles of God,” are Christ. If anyone has a misunderstanding as to who Jesus is, then their whole building project, with all of the knowledge that comes after it, is going to be off. It is going to collapse. It is going to end up in ruin.
If someone thinks that Jesus is not Eternal God, yet they go on to study the Bible and are going on to try to learn as much as they can of the Bible, but their “first principles” are all fouled up, then they are in big trouble and do not have salvation.
So God is telling us that Christ is the foundation stone. In coming to any further truth in the Bible, He is the first thing that we have to know. Jesus has to be rightly understood. He is Eternal God who entered into the human race to save His people.
To the child of God, this is obvious, but to many, many people, this is a “stone of stumbling.” He is a “stone of stumbling,” because they do not even have the “first principles.”
So God is saying here that we must have this “foundation” to begin with, and then He says in Hebrews 6:1:
Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection…
Concerning this idea of “perfection,” let us go back to Hebrews 5, where it says in Hebrews 5:13-14:
For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age (perfect)…
The King James says “full age,” but this is a word that is translated in other places as “perfect.” You are “perfect.” “Strong meat belongeth to them that are perfect.” “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” This is that word, and it is also the word that we find in 1 Corinthians 13.
We read in 1 Corinthians 13:9-10:
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
The “perfect is come.” Compare this idea with John 16:13:
Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear…
Notice that this verse says, “when He, the Spirit of truth, is come.” The Holy Spirit was poured out on the day of Pentecost. God began to evangelize the world in the churches and congregations, but was the church brought to a perfect knowledge of the Scriptures?
When the Bible says, “go on unto perfection,” God is not saying that we are going to understand every verse in all of the Bible. He is basically saying that He has poured out, in a sense and to a certain degree, everything that He wants His people to know, everything that He will reveal to His people. All of this knowledge will be revealed before the very end of the world. Before the believers leave this world, God will reveal everything that He intends for them to know.
At the time of the Cross, the Apostle Paul said that a “mystery” was revealed to him. It was not well known by the Old Testament Jews that God had a plan to bring in the Gentiles. In Ephesians 3, Paul said, “the mystery of Christ…was…now revealed.” Then if we go to Revelation 10:7, we will find this word “mystery” there.
We read in Revelation 10:7:
But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound…
The word “begin” makes us think that this angel had taken the trumpet to his lips and began playing, but this is not actually the word “begin.” It is the same identical Greek word that we find in Revelation 10:4, where it says:
And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write…
The word “about” is the same word for “begin.” So here is the Apostle John. He has his quill, his paper, and his parchment, and he is “about” to write, but Revelation 10:4 says:
…I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.
He never wrote what he was “about to write,” and this word “about” is the same word “begin.” So Revelation 10:7 is saying, “when he is about to sound.” This is when he is “about” to sound. He has not sounded yet because when he does sound, it is the end. It is right before he is about to sound—you can not get any closer than this. This is when God gives us the idea that John is almost ready to write, and yet he did not write.
So the trumpet is almost ready to blow, to sound, and then it will be the end of the world, but it has not sounded yet. And when this happens, Revelation 10:7 says:
…the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.
“The mystery” is just like when the Apostle Paul said that a “mystery” had been revealed to him, and he was talking about Scripture. He was referring to Old Testament Scripture concerning the Gentiles coming under the hearing of the Gospel and being just like anyone else because “God is no respecter of persons,” that God was going to send forth the Gospel and that it would save a Jew as well as a Gentile, that it could save anyone.
Yet the “mystery” was not fully revealed in the first century AD when the Holy Ghost was poured out. It was not fully revealed because there were many things “closed up and sealed till the time of the end.”
Now that we are at this time, “the mystery of God should be finished.” God is going to open it up completely. It is going to open up completely for everything that He wants us to know. This is the limitation of it, but we are going to know everything that he intends for His people to know.
What are these things? Well, we know that this has to do with understanding judgment on the church, with understanding the end of the world and when the world is going to end.
Let us turn back to Hebrews 6 where we will see this idea of going on unto “perfection.” When you go on unto perfection, then you have reached that fullness. You have come to the point where there is no more that you must learn.
This just means that there will be no more that God will have us to know, because He is going to continue teaching His people into eternity. The child of God is going to learn and learn and learn, forevermore, once he goes to Heaven and is right in the presence of God.
Have you ever thought about what we are going to be doing in Heaven, forever and ever and ever? What is our pastime? Our “occupation” is a “Hebrew,” like Jonah said, but what is our pastime?
Our pastime is the Bible: reading the Bible, studying the Bible, learning the Bible.
And what was the Lord Jesus Christ’s occupation? What did He do when He was upon earth?
He taught, everywhere. If you read up on this in the Gospel accounts, Jesus sat down to teach; He went on a boat to teach. Everywhere that He went, He taught; He taught; He taught—and God is not going to change. This is His nature. He loves to reveal Himself. We would have to say that He really delights in revealing Himself to His people.
So the people of God are going to be like Mary, sitting at the feet of Christ, listening, asking questions, and learning. We are going to be learning, and learning something is one of the greatest joys. If you have studied and you just do not understand something, you go to God and you pray for wisdom, and then, maybe even through someone else, the verse begins to come to light and you have a better understanding. We can almost jump for joy sometimes because God has taught us something.
Well, here in Hebrews 6:1, it says:
Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation…
The “foundation” is Jesus. He is the only “foundation.” He is the “first principles.”
Hebrews 6:1-2:
…not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.
This means that the “foundation,” the “first principles” for rightly understanding all of these things is the Lord Jesus Christ. All of these doctrines are of this “foundation.” So we must have this “foundation” set and secure, then we can “go on unto perfection,” learning more about what the Bible says.
Just think about it. Look at this doctrine of “repentance from dead works” and how confusing this has been. I am just going to say this because as I have read this before and as others have read this before, I thought, and I think that others have thought, that this list of doctrines was the “first principles.” But these are not the “first principles.” These are very complicated and difficult teachings of the Bible that people have stumbled upon for hundreds and hundreds of years.
Who rightly understood “repentance from dead works”? If you read some of the theologians or preachers or pastors of old, they taught, “Repent! The Bible says it. Repent or perish!” “Turn or Burn,” Spurgeon taught once. They taught that you must repent, that you must turn from your sins. Basically, even if they did not say it, the implication was that you could do this under your own power. What they taught was that you had to turn or you were going to die in Hell forever. Yet the Bible tells us that repentance is a gift from God. It is a gift.
If we have sin, yes, we do want to pray to God, “Strengthen me. Turn me and I shall turn,” like Jeremiah 31 says. We want to pray, “Lord, give me the courage to cut off this sin and not to go back to it.” But we have learned that “repentance from dead works” is a gift. It is part of the salvation package. It comes from God.
No man can repent in the way in which God requires, because where is the sin coming from? It is coming out of the heart. You can stop smoking and you can stop drinking and you can stop cursing, but you can not cut off the source of your sin because it comes from your heart.
You can not repent from your heart, because this takes a miracle. This takes God to create a new heart and to give a new Spirit. Once someone realizes this, they pray, “Father, I will turn. I will do all that I can within my own strength, but I ask you to strengthen me to turn from this sin; however, what I really need is a new heart. I need you to circumcise the foreskin of my heart.”
Then Hebrews 6:1 goes on to say:
…not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God,
How long have we properly understood this? How long has it been that the people of God have understood what God is saying in Galatians 2:16:
Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.
You can do a search on some of these past theologians like Jonathan Edwards or Charles Spurgeon or Matthew Henry. You can check out all of these men who we would acknowledge were the most faithful that the church produced. When it comes to “faith,” you are going to find that they had no idea that it was the “faith of Christ” that saved and not their own faith.
This is something that has basically come to light in the last 10-15 years. Why? Why is that? Why do we have a much clearer understanding?
I think that there is no question about this. We know that an individual can not muster up “faith” or stir up within himself “faith unto salvation.” “Faith” is a “fruit of the Spirit.” This is as plain as day. You have to first have the Spirit, and as a result, “faith” will be evident in your life.
The child of God knows this in a far greater way than any people of God from the past, even though they were saved people, too. Is this because we are smarter? Is this because we have e-Sword and The Online Bible? No! This is because God is revealing His Word, His Truth, to His people, at this time.
Let us go back to Hebrews 6. It says in Hebrews 6:2:
Of the doctrine of baptisms…
This is a simple Bible teaching. Is not baptism simple to understand? How many churches have had groups that just splintered out and broke up over the doctrine of baptism? There is the Baptist church. There are the Anabaptists. There are numerous ways in which people have read the same verses in the Bible regarding baptism, and they have come to wrong understandings. And God fostered this; He allowed this to happen.
Please turn to Mark 16:16. God allowed this through verses like this. This is how God allowed baptism to be misunderstood. We read in Mark 16:16:
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.
Simple? Easy to understand? We have churches and teachers today that just say, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and then be baptized, and then you are saved.” It is looked at basically as a guarantee. They are telling people that they are going to go to Heaven and that they are a child of God because they believed and because they were baptized in water. Yet this is not what the Bible teaches.
The Bible says that you can be baptized in water all day long and that this is not going to save anyone. You can be sprinkled. You can be immersed. You can be dunked. You can be baptized in many different ways, like believer’s baptism or baptized as an infant, and it does not matter. None of this saves anyone.
But Mark 16:16 says:
He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved…
And, you see, this is a true statement. How is a child of God baptized? We are baptized by the Holy Spirit, by the Holy Ghost. It is a spiritual baptism. When someone hears the Word of God, God blesses His Word to that person’s heart. They become “born again” and their sins are washed away. Their sins are gone. They are cleansed, spiritually. They are made “white as snow.” All of this language relates to what true Biblical baptism is, which is that we are baptized by the Holy Ghost.
During the Church Age, people were to be washed in water baptism. They were to take upon them that sign, just to be in obedience to God as He did give this ceremonial law to the church. But water baptism never saved anyone, ever.
Yet, today, if anyone has ever read Mr. Camping’s book, “Baptism: The Washing Away of Our Sins,” they will see that it just opened up. God revealed truth and now we know and understand that baptism will not save anyone, that it is only the Holy Spirit and salvation that can “wash away” sin.
So, you see, each one of these principles is not easy. They are not “the first principles of the oracles of God.” They are very difficult.
Let us go on in Hebrews 6. It says in Hebrews 6:2:
…and of laying on of hands…
You almost shake your head and wonder what this is doing here because these other things are of monumental importance: repentance, faith, baptism, and following this, resurrection, and eternal judgment. So included in this group of some of the most tremendous teachings of the Bible is “laying on of hands.” Why is this here?
Let us look at a couple of places where this idea is found. I will read a few verses in Acts 8, beginning in verse 9. We read in Acts 8:9-17:
But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one: to whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the great power of God. And to him they had regard, because that of long time he had bewitched them with sorceries. But when they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Then Simon himself believed also: and when he was baptized, he continued with Philip, and wondered, beholding the miracles and signs which were done. Now when the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John: who, when they were come down, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost: (for as yet he was fallen upon none of them: only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.) Then laid they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost.
Did you see that? In verse 17, it says, “Then laid they their hands on them.” It continues in Acts 8:18-20:
And when Simon saw that through laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, saying, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may receive the Holy Ghost. But Peter said unto him, Thy money perish with thee, because thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money.
You see, the apostles came; they laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost. All kinds of church’s ears have perked up at this language, throughout the whole history of the Church Age. They received the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the apostle’s hands.
Or let us go to 2 Timothy 1:5-6, where we read:
When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also. Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.
This is the same idea. The Apostle Paul laid his hands on Timothy, and the “gift of God” came upon him. Just like the apostles in Acts laid their hands on the people and they received the Holy Ghost; they received the “gift of God.”
If we turn over to 1 Timothy 4:14, it says:
Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.
This was done by the “presbytery” or the elders. You see, this gets into church authority. This is why down through the ages and even up until today, there are many churches that “lay hands” on people to confer the Holy Spirit. Or if someone is going to enter into the ministry, they “lay hands” on that person. This is known as the “apostolic succession.”
When we were trying to be a church in 2000-2001, we requested a pastor, someone whom we had heard on Family Radio many times who was out in California. We requested that he come out and help us to become a church, which meant ordaining me as elder and Robert as deacon. He was willing to do this, and he came out.
So we had a ceremony. I did not really know what to expect, but at one point in the ceremony, he said, “Kneel down.” I kneeled down and he laid his hands on me and read from some book. Following this, I was a pastor. I was a pastor. Everybody felt better then, I guess. I had hands laid on me, and I had hands laid on me from an official pastor. (I think that he was from the Christian Reformed Church.)
But what is the idea behind all of this? Why do this? Why do it? The idea is that the Holy Spirit comes, that it is a blessing, that it empowers someone, that it is the “gift of God” that they are bestowing. They would never admit to a lot of this. They would not admit this, but this is what the verses say in the places that you find this in the Bible. So this is as though, now, this person is qualified to bring the Gospel.
This goes hand-in-hand with the problem of the church today. They think that God is only working through the organization of the Christian church, yet they misunderstand. They misunderstand. When someone becomes a bishop, when someone becomes a priest, when someone becomes a minister, just about every denomination lays hands on them. This happens in the Catholic church and in the Protestant church, and it is from these verses that they have developed this kind of doctrine.
Really, just like baptism or just like the Lord’s Table, they think that there is special grace imparted through this kind of ceremony, and they are way off. So we see that the church has misunderstood this “laying on of hands,” as well as many other doctrines.
So what does God mean by this? Let us read 1 Timothy 4:14 again:
Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy…
So this is given “by prophecy.” This is just like what it says in 2 Peter 1:20-21:
Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
This is the “prophecy,” and this is overlooked. This is overlooked. “Which was given thee by prophecy,” this is how the Holy Ghost comes on a person. This is how the gift of salvation is given, how God bestows His grace. It is through the hearing of the “prophecy” of the Bible.
Why lay on hands? Well, God did it to throw people off, but also, spiritually, the hands points to the will and God is working in the lives of His people to bring the Gospel to others so that they might become a child of God.
So this “laying on of hands” fits with all of the other doctrines here, too, that were misunderstood. This, too, was Scripture that was misapplied by the churches and congregations.
The reason that we started here is because of what we find in Hebrews 6:2
Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.
We were wrong. We did not know, correctly. We misunderstood the “resurrection.” We did not know that God had a plan to raise up the believers first, that He was going to rapture the believers while the world still continued on.
But through this timeline of history and through the five-month period that we have come to learn about and how this is locked in place, we have begun to see that we have to look again and reanalyze our understanding of the resurrection. Once we do this, then all of these other teachings are affected, and then we have to look at them again because God says here, by including “eternal judgment” that this also was sealed up.
We did not know this as we thought. We were off-base on “eternal judgment.” In what way? Well, this is what we have been looking at lately. There are many verses that do point to annihilation. There are many Scriptures that teach that when God speaks of “perishing,” when He speaks of being “destroyed,” this kind of language is indicating that someone is destroyed completely by God. “In that very day his thoughts perish,” and he will never live again. He will never exist again. It is an “everlasting destruction” because he will never come into being again, “from the presence of the Lord.”
I wanted to get a little bit more into this, but we have come to the end of our time today—maybe next week, Lord willing. What we need to do is to start looking at certain words. There are certain words like “perish,” “cut off,” “destroy,” “destruction,” “damnation,” etc. We have to find the Biblical definition for these words. We have looked in the past. We thought that they referred to eternally suffering in Hell. But does the Bible define these terms? We will look at least at “perishing” next time, Lord willing, to see how God defines this word. How does God define this word? What does it mean to “perish”?