Christ will discipline His defeated believers with the punishment in the millennial kingdom that they may be put away from His glory and enjoyable presence to a place of darkness for their discipline (Matt. 25:30) that they may mature in His life for them to participate in the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth after the kingdom age.
Who will you be? Will you be the overcoming saints or the defeated believers? I am doing my best to be an overcomer, but whether or not I will make it depends upon His discernment, His judgment. Paul said that although he was conscious of nothing against himself, he was not justified in this, because we have to wait until the Lord comes to judge (1 Cor. 4:4-5). That judgment will be at the judgment seat of Christ in the air. Thus, before us today there is a warning and a reward.
Today’s Christianity never touches such a point. They only help you to be saved and to do good and to try to be right with God and with man. They never open up the Word to show that there will be a time for Christ’s kingdom ministry. Only the overcoming ones will join the Lord in a positive participation in His kingdom ministry. Who will be an overcomer? No one can say definitely that he is or is not an overcomer. But day after day we should do our best to live a God-man’s life, which will make us the real overcomers of Christ. If we do not live a God-man’s life, we surely are defeated believers.
A God-man’s life is a life that is conformed to the death of Christ by the enjoyment of His power of resurrection (Phil. 3:10), and a life that lives Christ and magnifies Christ by the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ (1:19-21a). Such a life qualifies us to be the overcomers. Day by day I check with myself concerning whether I am conformed to the death of Christ in certain things. Sometimes I have to say, “Lord, forgive me; in this matter I didn’t bear the cross. In this matter I didn’t allow the cross of Christ to break my self-center. Lord, I am too self-centered.” With us nearly everything is self-centered; nearly everything is “me.” Even in the church life, everything is “me.” In the work, everything is “me.” In the leadership, everything is “me.” “Me” is always first. This is not a life that is conformed to the death of Christ. If we do not live such a life, we cannot participate in His power of resurrection, nor do we know the bountiful supply of the Spirit of the suffering Jesus and the glorified Christ.
The above points from the book of Philippians are crucial. Paul said that whether he lived or died meant nothing to him as long as he could magnify Christ. Then he told us that to magnify Christ needs us to live Christ, and to live Christ needs us to participate in the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Are we living such a life today, a life of a God-man, so that we can be qualified as His overcomers?
Christ will marry His overcoming believers as His bride (Rev. 19:7-9). He will recognize only His overcoming believers in the coming age. He will erase your name out of the book of life if you are a defeated believer, not for eternity, but for one thousand years of discipline (see Rev. 3:5 and note 3-Recovery Version). To do this is not to reject your eternal security. You are eternally secured. But for a period of time, for one thousand years, your name will be erased from the book of life. As Christians we are saved ones whose names are written in the book of life today and for eternity. But if we do not live an overcoming life today, our names will be erased from the book of life for one thousand years.
The Lord said, “Everyone who confesses in Me before men, the Son of Man will also confess in him before the angels of God; but he who denies Me before men will be denied before the angels of God” (Luke 12:8-9). To be secured, saved eternally, is of God’s grace. But to be disciplined for one thousand years is according to God’s righteousness. Look at your living today. Could the righteous God justify you?
Today thousands of believers do not know anything concerning the thousand-year kingdom of Christ with the possibility of reward or discipline. But this light has been shining among us for about seventy years. This light was brought to us through Brother Watchman Nee. I learned of him and have also put out some books on the kingdom (see A Brief Definition of the Kingdom of the Heavens and The Kingdom).
D. M. Panton said that many promise you a ticket into the thousand-year kingdom. But when you go to the gate of the kingdom, the gatekeepers will tell you that your ticket means nothing and that you cannot enter. Even to enter into the New Jerusalem, you have to pass through the eyes of the angels through whom the law was ordained (Rev. 21:12; Gal. 3:19). You must be a person in Christ with His two layers of secretion, the secretion of His redeeming and life-releasing death and the secretion of His life-dispensing resurrection, to make you a real pearl. Then the angels who ordained the law will justify you and let you in.
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