What's the Word?
by Pastor Ricky Kurth
“…if any man hear My words, and believe not, I judge him not; for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.
“He that rejecteth Me, and receiveth not My words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day” (John 12:47,48).
I’m sure that the
unbelievers among the Lord’s hearers were relieved to hear Him
say that He had not come to judge them. But some of them may
have remembered hearing Him say that “the Father judgeth no
man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son” (John
5:22). Well, if the Father committed all judgment to the Son,
how could the Son say that He had not come to judge people?
The answer to this
question is found in “rightly dividing the Word of truth”
(II Tim. 2:15). You see, the Lord was making a
dispensational statement. He had not come to judge the world in
His first coming, but in His second coming, He
will come to “judge and make war” (Rev. 19:11).
Then, after the fiery
judgment of the Second Coming (II Thes. 1:7,8), “God…hath
appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world
in righteousness by that man whom He hath ordained”
(Acts 17:30,31). We know that Paul speaks here of the Lord Jesus
Christ since he goes on to say of this man “that He hath
raised from the dead.” In that day, the day that the Lord
described as “the last day” (John 12:48), the unsaved of all
ages will stand before the Great White Throne (Rev. 20:11),
where they will be judged guilty and condemned to the lake of
fire (vv. 12-15). It is concerning this judgment that the Lord
said, “the word that I have spoken, the same shall
judge him in the last day” (John 12:48).
Did you ever wonder what
word will judge men in the last day? Believe it or not, this
question must also be answered dispensationally! The word by
which the Lord will judge unbelievers among the Jews to whom He
was sent under the kingdom program (Matt. 15:24) is different than
the word by which unbelievers who lived in the dispensation of
grace will be judged.
The word by which
unbelievers in the kingdom program will be judged was, as the
Lord said in our text, a word that He had “spoken” during
His sojourn here on earth. He gives us a hint as to what word that
might be when He went on to call this word “a commandment” that
the Father had given Him (v. 49), adding: “And I know that
His commandment is life everlasting” (v. 50). Thus we
know that whatever word the Lord spoke that will judge
unbelievers under the kingdom program, it is a word that gave
everlasting life to those that did believe this word.
He was speaking, of
course, of the word of the gospel. It is the gospel
that saves men’s souls in any dispensation, and it is
the gospel that will judge men guilty if they do not
believe it. In the kingdom program, the gospel word that
gave eternal life was Jesus is the Christ (John
6:67-69). This is the word that will someday judge
unbelievers who lived under the kingdom program when they stand
before the Great White Throne if they refused to believe the
word of that gospel.
Of course today, in the
dispensation of grace, it is not enough to have the kind of
“faith in His name” (Acts 3:16) that constitutes believing that
“Jesus is the Christ” (John 20:31; I John 5:1). Today you have
to have “faith in His blood” (Rom. 3:25) to be saved;
that is, you have to believe that “Christ died for our sins”
and rose again (I Cor. 15:1-4). When unbelievers who lived in
the dispensation of grace stand before the Lord’s Great White
Throne, this is the word of the Lord by which they will
be judged, the word He spoke through Paul.
How do we know that
unbelievers from the dispensation of grace will be judged by the
word of a different gospel? It is because our apostle Paul, the
apostle of the Gentiles (Rom. 11:13; 15:16), describes the last
day as “the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by
Jesus Christ according to my gospel” (Rom. 2:16), not
according to the word that the Lord spoke when He ministered to
the Jews. As you can see, even the very gospel of salvation
has to be rightly divided!
We sometimes hear it said
that rightly dividing the Word of truth is “an interesting
doctrine, but not a very practical doctrine.” We couldn’t
disagree more. What could possibly be more practical than knowing
which words of Scripture have the power to give eternal life in
the dispensation of grace, and which words will judge men guilty
of their sins when they believe them not?
Dispensationalism doesn’t
just help us when it comes to figuring out things like why the
Lord said He wasn’t sent to judge men after the Father
committed all judgment to Him. Rightly dividing the Word ensures
that we are able to make a clear presentation of the gospel that
saves men’s souls to those who will suffer the flames of
eternal torment without it.
![]()
Les Feldick Ministries
30706 W. Lona Valley Rd.
Kinta, OK 74552
Posted By Cecil and Connie Spivey
E-mail
this BIBLE STUDY to all your friends
No comments:
Post a Comment