The good news: forgiveness of sins and a resurrection for all good people

Jesus Himself told the good news only to the Jews and He sent His disciples only to Jewish people. Only after His death and resurrection did Jesus command His followers: go and make disciples among the people of all nations and baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy spirit. On that occasion He also ordered His followers to spread the good news as far as the most distant regions of the earth.

Jesus’ disciples did not start carrying out this part of Jesus’ orders right away. During the first three and a half years after the Pentecost of the year 33 A.D. God’s spirit only led the disciples to Jews. Only after these three and a half years did God send Peter to the non-Jewish Roman army-captain Cornelius to baptize him as the first non-Jewish Christian and to give him an opportunity to profit by the good news regarding the new covenant. From that moment on Jesus’ disciples no longer distinguished between Jews and non-Jews and preached the good news to everybody who was willing to listen to them.

It is important for people to realize that according to the Greek Scriptures the good news about the new covenant was received with happiness by some people, but that it was also rejected and disbelieved by many other people. The Greek Scriptures leave no doubt about it that from the very beginning Satan and his demons have done their utmost to make the minds of people blind and inaccessible for God’s glad tidings. In this context people should think of the religious leaders of the Jews who adopted a very hostile attitude both towards Jesus as a person and towards Jesus’ message. Also think of the often immense enmity and aggression with which the spreaders of the goods news were confronted.

The followers of Christ know that they have been freed from their sins and from death by means of a high price that Jesus has paid for them: Jesus has allowed Himself to be slaughtered like a lamb and He has ransomed people with His blood. And the followers of Christ are thankful for what He has done for them and appreciate His work of liberation.

But, like we said before: not everybody who hears the good news, believes the good news, is happy about it and wants to profit from it. The Bible is very clear as regards the destination of these people: persons who do not believe in Jesus’ ransom sacrifice and consequently do not want to make use of it keep their sins, keep the death penalty which sinning brings with it and will never enter God’s Kingdom.

The Law of Moses strongly emphasized the duty of the Israelites to make animal sacrifices. There can be no doubt about it that this aspect of the law covenant prepared the Israelites for the great sacrifice that Jesus has made. For centuries God’s people had the time to get deeply convinced of the tremendous importance of making sacrifices to God, while at the same time they developed an increasingly deep awareness of the fact that animal sacrifices were not capable of really bridging the gap between God and them.

It stands to reason that there are no sentences to be found in the Hebrew Scriptures which connect the making of animal sacrifices with the prospect of eternal life. On the contrary: the Hebrew Scriptures strongly emphasize the notion that the human soul is mortal and is destroyed when a person dies.

Only in the Greek Scriptures a connection is made between a sacrifice and immortality. The Greek Scriptures assert that the peace sacrifice of Jesus opens up the way that leads to immortality in God’s Kingdom. A small group of people will be resurrected to receive immortality in heaven: the 144,000 assistant priests and assistant rulers with Christ. The large masses will be resurrected to immortality on a paradise like earth which will be ruled by God’s heavenly government.

An extremely important matter within this context is of course the question what demands people must meet to be able to profit fully by Jesus’ ransom sacrifice and to be given access to God’s Kingdom. The Bible is very clear on this point: God’s demands are extremely reasonable: people do not have to be perfect or without sin. What is really important is a right condition of the heart, a correct attitude to life.

Think within this context of the great errors that King David committed. But still the Bible says that during his entire life King David was a friend of God and maintained a right attitude towards Him. And during his entire life God appreciated King David as a good and even great man.

To be allowed to enter the Kingdom of God people need an absolute faith in JHWH, a perfect appreciation for His creation and a complete trust in the fact that all God’s regulations, commandments and prohibitions are necessary to make a perfect world function in a perfect way. People must have an attitude to life which is characterized by two things: faithfulness to God and willingness to obey Him in everything.

Think within this context of what Jesus Himself once called the greatest commandment: you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with your whole mind, your whole soul and all your strength.

Another important question concerns the point of time in the future when God’s Kingdom will be established and every human will be judged with regard to the question whether he can be admitted into this Kingdom or not. It is particularly the last book of the bible, Revelation, which gives us information about this subject.

The book Revelation demonstrates that for a long time God will allow mankind to choose its own forms of social organization and its own forms of government and to experiment as much as they like with laws, rules, commandments and prohibitions. This includes forms of social organization, forms of government, laws, rules, commandments and prohibitions which people invent themselves and which do not take into account God’s ideas and wishes in this field, as they are to be found in the Bible.

All the ways of dealing with each other which people have invented and which go against God’s instructions in this field will prove catastrophic and will make life on earth more and more unbearable for people.

Then there will come a day when God will interfere, will put an end to all experiments and will proceed to the establishment of God’s Kingdom under the leadership of the King of kings and the Prince of princes: Jesus Christ. The Bible book Revelation demonstrated that the establishing of God’s Kingdom will not be a sudden event which one day will alter the earth with one blow. The establishing of God’s Kingdom is presented as a historical development which may take years or even decades. In this transitional stage between human self government and the establishing of God’s Kingdom the struggle between God’s followers and God’s opponents will reach a climax. The total warfare between the two hostile camps will take on cosmic proportions: there will not only be war on earth, but there will also be war in heaven. In those same days the good news about the Kingdom of God that is about to be established will be preached on an unprecedented scale and with unprecedented success. In those days the earth will also be struck by all imaginable kinds of catastrophe; earthquakes, famines, contagious diseases, wars and utter chaos. In the end JHWH will prove that He is also the god of armies and He will deploy His heavenly armed forces to destroy his opponents. After that Jesus Christ will come back to the earth in His heavenly glory as King of kings and Lord of Lords. Then God’s Kingdom will be established and Jesus will sit down on His throne. In those same days the 144,000 people who have been selected by God in the course of the centuries to rule with Christ as lower priests and lower kings will be resurrected from the dead. They will not be given a physical body, but a spiritual body. They will go to heaven, where they will establish a lasting government over the earth, together with God and the Lamb.

The 144,000 people who will go to heaven at the establishment of God’s Kingdom are presented as the bride of Christ in the book of Revelation. The being joined together in heaven of Jesus Christ and this group of 144,000 perfectly loyal followers of His, is presented as the wedding of the Lamb in this last Bible book.