The Daily Word of Righteousness

The Vision of the New Covenant, #5

And the LORD said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest. And be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto mount Sinai, and present thyself there to me in the top of the mount. (Exodus 34:1,2)

An interesting symbol of losing and laboriously regaining the gifts of God is presented in the Book of Exodus. God gave to Moses two tables of stone on which were inscribed the Ten Commandments. Moses threw the tables down and broke them in a fit of anger. Moses was required to cut out new tables of stone, two granite slabs, and carry them back up the mountain—all the way to the top.

The things of God are given freely to us at first, and then we smash them. Now we must hew them out ourselves and carry them all the way to the top of the mountain, so to speak. Such is the record of human history.

Man is given an inheritance and then loses his inheritance through lack of experience. He obtains the necessary experience as he "hews out the tables of stone and carries them all the way to the top of the mountain of God."

Now we come to the third aspect of the pattern of human history—the revelation of God's intention to restore all that has been lost.

Let us emphasize we are not teaching that Satan or his angels ultimately will be saved. Neither are we implying that a person can live in sin or fail to obey God, and that he or she then will be given another chance, a second chance, in the next world. Those who adhere to such error will certainly end up in remorse and destruction. God cannot be mocked.

What we are teaching, however, is that God has provided for every human being an opportunity to regain, through the Lord Jesus Christ, that which Satan has stolen from mankind.

We stated at the beginning that the Scriptures, Old and New Testament, are the Divinely given vision of the restoration of all things. The Bible is a book of restoration.

And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you. (Joel 2:25)

"I will restore"!

The traditional vision of the Christian churches has been the departure of the righteous to Heaven to reside there forever.

The "holy prophets" never spoke of eternal residence in Heaven as the object of the Divine restoration of that which has been lost to mankind. Eternal residence in the spirit realm is not a vision portrayed by the Scriptures.

Every person longs in his heart for Paradise to be regained. The confusion arises because we think of Heaven and Paradise as the same thing, the same place. Paradise, the goal of our quest, is the place in which Heaven and earth are one. When Adam sinned, Heaven withdrew, leaving the earth dead. The goal of restoration is the bringing of the life and glory of Heaven back to the earth.

To be continued.