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
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