Chapter 15
Making the Seventh Creative “Day” Sacred
1, 2. (a) With the bruising of the Great Serpent, will God’s “eternal purpose” have reached its full accomplishment? (b) To whom was it God’s purpose for the benefit from bruising the Serpent to come?
FOR mankind’s everlasting good, the long-awaited triumph of God’s “eternal purpose that he formed in connection with the Christ, Jesus our Lord,” is near at hand. Is this not something worth living for, something to see and benefit from with joy unspeakable? The surviving remnant of spiritual Israel and the “great crowd” of fellow witnesses of Jehovah will see such triumph and benefit from it to time eternal. But God’s “eternal purpose” in connection with the “seed” of His heavenly “woman” will not then have come to its full accomplishment. It must carry on to further triumphs during and down to the end of the thousand years assigned for the reign of the Messiah Jesus and the 144,000 fellow members of “Abraham’s seed.” (Revelation 20:4-6; Galatians 3:8, 16, 29) How so?
2 Well, it was God’s “eternal purpose” that mankind, who had been born into sin and death, should benefit by the bruising of the head of the Great Serpent. According to God’s promise to Abraham, all families of the ground and all nations should bless themselves, procure an everlasting blessing, by means of the spiritual “seed” of Abraham. (Genesis 12:3; 22:18) The thousand years of Christ’s reign will allow time for such work of blessing.
3. For the realization of what original purpose of God must there be a thousand-year reign over earth, and by whom?
3 The Messiah Jesus and his glorified 144,000 associate kings and underpriests will have in mind the original purpose of God the Creator in putting man on earth in the Garden of Eden. That was to have all the earth to bloom as a global Garden of Eden. It was God’s original unalterable purpose to have all this Paradise earth filled with perfect righteous men and women, these to live here forever and ever in peaceful loving relationship with the heavenly Father as members of his universal family of heaven and earth, members of His universal organization. All the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and all living moving creatures on the earth, domestic and wild, would be in safe, harmless subjection to this godly human race. (Genesis 1:26-31; Isaiah 45:18; Psalm 115:16; 104:5) For the realization of this, God’s original purpose, the “seed” of God’s heavenly “woman” must reign for the thousand years. The work of accomplishing this was assigned to the Messiah Jesus, who, when on earth, was called “the Son of man.”—Psalm 8:4-8; Hebrews 2:5-9.
4. Why, after glorification of the remnant of spiritual Israel, will the surviving “great crowd” not be left to be the only human occupants of the earth?
4 Consequently, after the surviving remnant of spiritual Israel finish their course on earth and are glorified with the reigning Messiah Jesus and all his other joint heirs, the “great crowd” of other “tribulation” survivors will not be left alone on the cleansed earth. They are too few to “fill the earth.” Furthermore, they were not the only ones ransomed by the perfect human sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ; he was bruised “in the heel” in order to “taste death for every man”; he “gave himself a corresponding ransom for all.” (Hebrews 2:9; 1 Timothy 2:5, 6) The vast majority of those ransomed ones are now dead in the common grave of mankind. How will they be enabled to benefit from Messiah’s ransom? By the promised resurrection of the dead. (Job 14:13, 14; Isaiah 26:19; Matthew 22:31, 32; John 5:28, 29; Acts 24:15; Revelation 20:12-14) Thus the surviving “great crowd” will be joined by those billions of resurrected ones, all of them being the descendants of that original human pair, Adam and Eve. What a global family reunion!
5. (a) What other purpose of God was there for Christ and his 144,000 to carry out? (b) How did God proceed to rest on his seventh creative “day”?
5 There is now a special purpose that the reigning Jesus Christ and his 144,000 joint heirs must carry out. What is this? The making of God’s seventh creative “day” a blessed day, a sacred day. After God created Adam and Eve and gave them their commission of work, setting before them their purpose in life in Paradise, the sixth creative “day” of God ended and the seventh creative “day” began, about six thousand years ago. He ordained this creative “day” as a Sabbath “day” for Himself. On it he would desist from earthly creative work, resting from such work, not because of weariness, but to let the first human pair and their descendants worship Him as their only living and true God by serving him, carrying out the service that he had assigned to them. He knew that his stated purpose for them could be carried out during the next seven-thousand-year period, His Sabbath “day.”
“God proceeded to bless the seventh day and make it sacred, because on it he has been resting from all his work that God has created for the purpose of making.”—Genesis 2:3.
6. (a) How has God’s seventh creative “day” been desecrated as His Sabbath day? (b) Nevertheless, how will God make it a blessed, sacred “day”?
6 Very soon thereafter the spirit son of God that made himself Satan the Devil proceeded to desecrate that holy seventh creative “day” of Jehovah God. For six thousand years he and his “seed” have been allowed to continue their effort to make it seem to be a cursed “day,” unsacred, disturbing to God’s “rest,” to try to make him violate his own ordained Sabbath “day.” But in vain! During the thousand years that the Great Serpent and his demon “seed” are abyssed, Jehovah God will reverse all the wickedness that such desecraters of Jehovah’s Sabbath have done in the earth. By means of the thousand-year reign of his Son Jesus Christ, Jehovah God will uplift the human race, which descended from the original human pair, back to human perfection and sinlessness, only the rebellious, disobedient ones of the race being destroyed as having no respect for the great Sabbath “day” of Jehovah God. (Revelation 20:14, 15) Paradise will be restored to earth and made earth wide. The whole earth will be filled with humankind from the first human pair, all the earth being then subdued.—Genesis 1:28.
7. What prayer taught by Jesus will thus be fulfilled, and how will he then show recognition of Jehovah’s universal sovereignty?
7 By the fulfillment of God’s “eternal purpose that he formed in connection with the Christ, Jesus our Lord,” God’s seventh creative “day” will end up blessed, sacred, sanctified. Jehovah’s having blessed that “day” six thousand years ago and his then making it sacred will not have been counteracted to His eternal reproach. The Messianic prayer, “Let your kingdom come. Let your will take place, as in heaven, also upon earth,” will stand gloriously fulfilled. (Matthew 6:10) Having served Jehovah’s “eternal purpose” to a God-honoring triumph of what purpose, Jesus Christ then “hands over the kingdom to his God and Father,” thus subjecting himself to the Universal Sovereign, Jehovah Most High. (1 Corinthians 15:24-28) Loyally he vindicates Jehovah’s universal sovereignty.
JUSTIFICATION OF OBEDIENT MANKIND TO ETERNAL LIFE
8. Restored mankind will then be on what standing before God, and before justifying any to eternal life, what will He do?
8 Restored mankind are now on their own, just as the innocent perfect Adam and Eve were in the paradisaic Garden of Eden when God gave them their assignment of sacred service to Him. Who among restored mankind in the Paradise earth will remain loyal to the universal sovereignty and Godship of the loving Creator, Jehovah the Source of all life? Whom will he himself justify or declare righteous to everlasting life on the Paradise earth? To test all restored mankind on this vital score, Jehovah accepts the kingdom handed over by Jesus Christ and has the Great Serpent and his demons released from their abyss. He lets these unreformed spirit rebels try to tempt and mislead mankind again.
9. (a) What befalls the restored humans who yield to deception by the Serpent and his demons? (b) How is the final stage of God’s “eternal purpose” carried out?
9 Jehovah does not deny that some of restored mankind will let themselves be misled by Satan and his demons, just as the perfect Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden did. He allows for an unnumbered crowd to do so. When the test has been permitted to the full extent and has unalterably divided mankind as to how individuals stand as regards universal sovereignty and Godship, destruction comes from heaven upon the human rebels. Finally, the turn comes for the great desecrater of Jehovah’s Sabbath, Satan the Devil, and his demon “seed” to be destroyed. Doubtless this will be done by means of the “seed” of God’s heavenly “woman,” for that “seed” was assigned to bruise the Serpent “in the head,” according to God’s “eternal purpose” as stated in the Garden of Eden. (Genesis 3:15) No return to the abyss for Satan the Devil and his demons, but utter destruction as by fire mingled with sulphur will be their portion. There will be no temporary recovery from this final stage of the crushing of the Great Serpent’s head. No further opportunities for him to act as a Tempter are allowed for.—Revelation 20:7-10.
10. How will those proving loyal to Jehovah’s sovereignty and Godship be rewarded?
10 What a crowning triumph that will be for God’s “eternal purpose that he formed in connection with the Christ, Jesus our Lord”! Those of restored mankind who demonstrate their unchangeable determination to serve and obey Jehovah as the Universal Sovereign and the one living and true God, He will declare righteous. Upon these justified ones he will bestow the gift reward of everlasting life in the everblooming earthly Paradise, God’s footstool. (Isaiah 66:1) He will fill their endless lives with ever-satisfying, ever-stimulating purpose, to His glory by His Christ, Jesus our Lord. (Revelation 21:1-5) Hallelujah!—Psalm 150:6.
11. What fine thing is there for us to do with regard to that incomparable purpose of God?
11 Here is a prospect for mankind without compare! It is for those who now harmonize their lives with God’s “eternal purpose.” Nothing finer could there be than to make God’s purpose our purpose.