Due time. Ah, now we see what we were missing. God has a due time for everything. He could have testified it to this hundred and fifty plus billions in their life time. Then that would have been their due time; as it was not so, their due time must be future. We know that now is our due time, because it is testified to us now. Christ was a ransom for you before you were born, but it was not due time for you to hear it until years after. So, with so-and so; Christ was his ransom at the same time that he was yours; he has not heard it yet, and may not in this life time; but in God’s due time he will.

But does not death end probation? one enquires.

There is no scripture which says so, we answer, and all the above and many more scriptures would be meaningless or worse, if Death ends all to the ignorant masses of the world. The only scripture ever quoted to prove this generally entertained view, is, “As the tree falls, so it lies.” If this has any relation to man and his future, it indicates that in whatever condition of knowledge or ignorance he enters death, he remains the same until he is raised up again.

But can knowledge ever reach these billions in their graves while dead?

No; God has provided for the resurrection of them all. For “as in Adam ALL die, even so in Christ shall ALL be made alive.” As death came by the first Adam, so life comes by the second Adam. Everything that mankind lost in the first, is to be restored in the second. Hence, the age following Christ’s second coming is spoken of as “the times of restitution.”

Life is one of the things lost, and is to be one of the things restored. Mark me! I do not say eternal life is given them. No; Adam never had eternal life to lose; if he had it, he could not have died. He had natural life, lost natural life, and it is to be natural life that the second Adam restores. This is a certain sort of salvation that Christ accomplishes for all; but the eternal salvation, which believers receive, is entirely different.

This enables us to use another text, which is little used except by Universalists, and although not Universalists, yet we claim the right to use all scripture. It reads: “We trust in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of them which believe.” All men are saved or rescued from the loss entailed on them through Adam, by having all those lost things, including natural life, restored to them.  But note it states that: He is also the “especial Savior of them which believe.”

For believers who now constitute the body of Christ are the happy recipients of “The gift of God, eternal life. While those of the world are raised natural (or earthly) bodies, those of the Church are raised spiritual bodies, “neither can they die any more, but are like the angels of God.”

Mankind will be given the opportunity in the next age, to believe and to receive eternal life as well, but on the earthly plane of existence as was originally intended.

Now we see that “the testimony in due time” explains all of those troublous texts. In due time it shall be “glad tidings of great joy to all people.” In due time that “True Light shall lighten every man that cometh into the world,” and in no other way can these scriptures be used without wresting. We take them to mean just what they say. Paul carries out the line of argument with emphasis in Rom 5:18,19.

He reasons that as ALL men were condemned to death and suffered it because of Adam’s transgression, so also Christ’s righteousness justifies ALL men to life again.

As All lost life, not of our own will or choice, in first Adam; so too ALL receive life at the hands of the second Adam, equally without their will or choice.

When thus brought to life, and the love of God testified to them, their probation, their First Chance, begins, for we do not preach a second chance for any.

But Peter tells us, that “the restitution is spoken of by the mouth of all the holy prophets.” They do all teach it. Ezekiel tells us of the valley of dry bones, “This is the whole house of Israel;” and God says to them, “I will bring you up out of your graves, and bring you into your own land.” This agrees with St. Paul, Rom 6:25, 26. Blindness in part is happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles (the Gospel Church, the elect company “taken out of the Gentiles“) be come in, and so ALL Israel shall be saved,” or brought back from their cast-off condition. For “God hath not cast off His people whom He foreknew.”

They were cut off from His favor while the bride of Christ was being selected, but will return to favor when that work is accomplished. – Rom 11: 28-33. The prophets are full of statements of how God will “plant them again, and they shall be no more plucked up.” This does not refer to restorations from former captivities in Babylon, Syria, and etc., for the Lord says, “In that day it shall no more be a proverb among you ‘the fathers ate a sour grape and the children’s teeth are set on edge;’ but every man shall die for his own sin.”

This is not the case now. You do not die for your own sin, but for Adam’s – “As in Adam all die.” He ate the sour grape, and our forefathers continued to eat them, entailing further sickness and misery upon us. The day in which “every man shall die for his own sin,” is this Millennial or Restitution Day.

But when restored to the same conditions as Adam, will they not be as liable to sin and fall again as he was?

No; they will be liable, but not as liable; they have learned in their time the lesson which God designed to teach to all, viz., “The exceeding sinfulness of sin.” They will be prepared to appreciate the good and shun the evil, and the Gospel Church then glorified will be, “the kings (rulers) and priests” (teachers) of that new age, for “Unto the angels hath He not put in subjection the world (age) to come, whereof we speak,” and etc. Then through “the second Adam” and His helpmate they may be begotten into their spiritual likeness. (Not in the same physical likeness as spiritual beings, but made in the same  holy or spiritual  likeness; disposition as their Creator, but as natural beings even as Adam was originally created.)

But are we sure that God intends these blessings for any but the “people whom He foreknew” (the Jews)?

Yes. He mentions other nations also by name, and speaks of their restitution.

We will give an illustration of this in our next post.