Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. This is study #17 of Genesis, chapter 7 and we are looking at Genesis 7:16:

And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and JEHOVAH shut him in.

We have been looking at other Scriptures where we see God discussing entering into His kingdom, such as the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew, chapter 25. Let us turn there. It says in Matthew 25:10:

And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage and the door was shut.

We saw that God likens entering into the kingdom of heaven (salvation) to entering into the “marriage.” It is obvious it refers to the kingdom of heaven and once all the elect go in, the door is shut. We see that here in Matthew 25 and we also saw it in Luke 13:24-25:

Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are:

God’s people that were predestinated to salvation before the foundation of the world entered in and once the last one whose name is written in the Book of Life enters in, then God shuts the door. Not only do we see this in Matthew 25 and in Luke 13, but we see it worked out when all eight souls in Noah’s day went into the ark and God shut him in. That is the order of events. First, God saves His people. The Gospel must be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations and then shall the end come. The judgment of God begins with that “shut door” and once God shuts the door, it does not mean it is the end of the world because it is at that point that the disputing begins, as we are told in Luke, chapter 13 where it says that many will seek to enter in after the door has been shut. That is when the Lord tells these: “I know not whence ye are.” They are not His people because Christ has saved all His people and they have safely entered in. It is the same idea we see in Revelation 22:14-15:

Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.

The elect enter into the gates of that city and this happens at the moment of salvation. We should not think that this required leaving the earth. When a person became saved it was as though they had been transported into heavenly places to be seated with Christ Jesus and, yet, they had not physically gone anywhere. It is just how God views them when they become citizens of His kingdom. This is exactly what happened when the Gospel went into all the world during that final worldwide proclamation of the message of approaching Judgment Day of May 21, 2011. Through that message God saved the entire company of the elect, the great multitude, and when each one was saved, it was as if they were entering into the ark or entering into the kingdom of heaven. They were coming in by the droves from all over the earth as God saved people from every nation, but there finally came the time when the last one entered in through the gates of that spiritual city. They now had a place in heaven, seated in the Person of Christ Jesus, even though this last person might have been an old woman in China. All that were to enter in had entered in and then God shut the door. That old woman in that village in China did not go anywhere physically, but she stayed here on the earth just like all of God’s elect. The only ones that have changed residence are those that have died, but for the rest of the elect, they remain alive and left on the earth to go through the judgment, just like Noah and his family did not go anywhere. They entered into the ark, but they remained alive on the earth and they experienced the wrath of God, the flood, differently than the rest of the people of the earth in that day, but both the saved and the unsaved remained on the earth. The saved were protected and were delivered by God’s grace, but both the righteous and the wicked experienced the flood. Ultimately, the flood did destroy the wicked and did not destroy the righteous. The righteous endured to the end and that idea goes along with what we read in Ecclesiastes 3:16-17:

And moreover I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there. I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work.

We can see from these verses that in the place of judgment, there is wickedness and righteousness together. Then we are told that God judges the righteous and the wicked. The Bible says, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ,” in 2Thessalonians 5, verse 10. In that chapter the word “we” is referring to God’s elect that must make an appearance (manifestation) before the judgment seat of Christ. That is what has been going on – we are appearing before the judgment seat. The whole world has come before God’s throne of judgment and He is punishing the wicked. As the righteous make their appearance, the wicked are there in the place of judgment because we are all still living on the earth. The righteous have not been raptured, but we have been left on the earth to go through Judgment Day. This is why the Bible says in 2Timothy 4:1:

I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;

The Lord Jesus Christ will “judge the quick and the dead.” What does “quick” mean? The word “quick” is a word that means “alive” or “living.” He will judge the living and the dead at His appearing. We have read this in times past and we thought that it meant that God would judge the physically living sinners as well as those that had died in past generations at His appearing, but now we see that the elect will remain on the earth in the place of judgment and many verses can be offered to support this idea. Remember what it said in Isaiah 24:6:

Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left.

To “burn” means to be under the wrath of God, the spiritual fire and brimstone that comes down from heaven above, but immediately following that statement it says, “and few men left.” Who are these “few”? The Bible says, “For many are called, but few are chosen,” and the chosen are the “electos” or the elect of God; they are the ones that God has saved. Isaiah tells us that when God judges the earth and the inhabitants of the earth are “burned,” you will be able to find on the earth “few men left.” As 1Thessalonians 4, verses 15 through 17 tells us, when Christ comes “they which are alive and remain shall be caught up” from the earth to meet the Lord in the air. These are the “few men left.” They are alive because they have been saved and they are the “quick,” as the word “quick” means to “live.” Jesus comes at His appearing and His kingdom to “judge the quick and the dead,” or you could say that He comes to “judge the righteous and the wicked.” It is the same idea as the verse in Ecclesiastes 3:16: “I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness.” There are the “quick” and the “dead.” Those that are spiritually alive are the quick and the spiritually dead are the dead. Christ judges both.

We have to keep in mind that a judge reviews a case and he reviews all the evidence. The judge reserves judgment until all evidence has been presented and then the judgment may be “innocence” or “guilt.” So God’s elect appear (are made manifest) before the judgment seat of Christ and God as Judge has the perfect ability to know the thoughts and intents of the heart and He knows everything about each individual and every thought, word and deed in their lives. With the wicked or spiritually dead, Christ sees a mountain of sin and they are under His wrath the moment He finds even one sin because that sinner has no covering for his sin. If you offend in one point, you are guilty of all and the wages of sin is death. At the end of the process of judgment day, God will destroy the wicked and annihilate them and they will be dead forever.

As the righteous come before the judgment seat of Christ and they make their appearance to be “made manifest,” God finds no sin, but of the wicked we are told in in Revelation 20:11-12:

And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead… In this case, he saw the “dead,” which would be all the unsaved people of the earth.

It goes on to say in Revelation 20:12:

… small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

God looks at all the books. He searches the book of life. He can look at the book of “adam,” as man was originally created good, but all the unsaved are blotted out of that book. But then He opens the “book of life” and, of course, this is all symbolic, but it as though God opens the Lamb’s Book of Life and there are tens of millions of names but the names of the unsaved are not found there. It is as though He has searched every name in the entire book of life, but the unsaved are not found and God has done everything that the Law stipulates is required for His justice. He sees the sins of these people and He sees there has been no payment made for their sins by the atoning work of Christ and, therefore, the Lord passes judgment and the judgment is that they will be destroyed.

That is not the situation for God’s elect that also make an appearance before the judgment seat. When God performs the intimate, personal search of His elect, what does He find? He finds no sin. He finds no sin of any kind, no matter where He looks. He can look at their thoughts. He can look at their words. He can look at their deeds and all the things they have done in their lives, but He finds no sin. Someone might say, “Well, hold it! God’s people sin just like anyone else – there is no one perfect!” Yes, God’s people do sin and we sin in thought, word and deed, but when God does the search and He looks upon us, He is looking to see if our sins have been paid for by Christ. When Christ died at the foundation of the world for the sins of His people, there were mountains of iniquity laid upon Him and He bore the heavy weight of those filthy sins of the great multitude. God smote Christ and He was smitten and afflicted and Christ died to make payment for their sins and the Law was satisfied.

The Bible says that mankind is married to the Law and the Law is like a jealous husband. The Law wanted vengeance because mankind had committed spiritual adultery and the Law demanded that the adulterous wife be stoned to death. For a certain portion of mankind, the elect, Christ was “stoned” to death. That is why it says in the Gospel account that when Christ was in the Garden he was about a “stone cast,” because it was illustrating that He was under the wrath of God and He was being “stoned,” as it were, as He demonstrated how He had died for the sins of His people at the foundation of the world. His death was required by the Law of God and Christ died on behalf of the elect and He made payment for all the sins they would ever commit in their minds, in their words or in their actions. Jesus made perfect and complete payment for all those sins and after that payment was accepted and received by God, Christ rose victoriously, indicating that those sins had been purged by the fires of “hell” or death. When Christ rose to be declared the Son of God, it was justification for all of God’s elect that were “in Him,” figuratively, and we are clean and washed of all sin.

But now the time of the end of the world has come and all the elect that are alive and remain on the earth are making an appearance before the judgment seat of Christ. We are being baptized with the baptism Jesus was baptized with – He died once for payment of sin at the foundation of the world, but He entered into the world and He also “made an appearance” to show forth the things He had done. His people, the body of Christ, are following that pattern. We died “in Him” at the foundation of the world and our sins were paid for and washed away in that baptism, but we had to be baptized a second time, so we are making an appearance before the judgment throne in this Day of Judgment. And if there was just one sin found in one of God’s elect, he or she would perish with all the wicked. God’s people are going, day after day, through this prolonged period of judgment and although it is grievous and it is a “trial of faith” as the fire is put to us (the same fire that burns the unsaved inhabitants of the earth), we do not burn up like the wood, hay and stubble. Instead, we are purified and purged and we continue to “stand” in the judgment. We endure to the end and, finally, at the end of the entire judgment process we will remain as those that are left. That is what it says in Zechariah 13:8-9:

And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith JEHOVAH, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, JEHOVAH is my God.

We will come through the fire. It is the same teaching that is found in 1Corinthians 3:13-15:

Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

There is that same word “made manifest.” This is the situation as God’s people continue living in this time, waiting for the completion of the judgment, just as Noah and his family had to wait for the waters to rise to their highest point 15 cubits above the mountains and then wait for the waters to recede. As the waters receded, the earth began to be revealed and it was like a new earth was slowly taking shape until the point they could leave the ark. The leaving of the ark was the end of the testing and the end of the judgment and it was like entering into the new heaven and the new earth.