Class of People

We mark plants and animals as belonging to specific classes or groups.  In school, we say we graduated from a certain class identified by the year.

Much of the world today assigns salvation to class, that is to say, you are saved if you belong to, or can become a member of a particular group of people.  Jews, by default believe they are a chosen class.  There is still a chosen people theology promoted among many Christian religions that grants Jews are a chosen people, whose eternal destination is based solely on their heritage and birthright.  The thinking is that by being born a Jew, they are automatically bound for heaven.

Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord will save all Jews.

Other religions are class specific – you must belong to or be born into their particular group in order to gain eternal acceptance.

Another class – and this gets a much wider audience – is that of infants or children.  While we all wish to be kind and considerate and show our compassion when it comes to talking about the death of a child or a young one, we bend over emotionally to declare their eternal state secured because of their class – that is, their age.  In the world, this is taught as either infantile purity or, if older, the age of accountability.  We know the scriptures teach clearly that none born in this lifetime of a natural father will be pure; on the contrary, he’s born dead in trespasses and sins, thanks to his federal head, Adam.

When does a child become responsible for their decisions regarding eternal life?  The world chooses 13 from the Jewish bar mitzvah age – that time when a boy becomes subject to the law and his parents are no longer responsible to teach him about spiritual things – he now bears that responsibility on his own.

Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord will save all that die under age 13.

Christian sects are more liberal with the age:  A child has passed the age of accountability once he or she is deemed capable of making a faith decision for or against Christ.  Making the determination that a child is old and wise enough to decide such a matter in reality puts the process in the hand of the influential adult…

Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord will save them that come to accept, confess, repent and be baptized.

When is one capable of making a faith decision for Christ?  And really, what do those words even mean?  It’s really nothing more than a way of adding someone to a special class.  Society is working feverously on special rights for special individuals who define themselves in special classes based upon their personal preferences. (That’s as close as I can go without making it hate speech – will it soon be a crime to proclaim the truth of the gospel?)

There are some who hold that only the elect will be saved.  We fall into that category.  But then they further define the class of the elect as “those that hear.” They suggest that only those among the elect who hear (and obey) the gospel are sealed by God.  But hearing and obeying are works and works are excluded.

Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, the Lord will save all the elect that hear and believe the gospel.

Is the special class one which anyone can join by confessing, repenting, believing or accepting?  It is not.  The bible clearly teaches we cannot do those things to obtain eternal life, but that if we show we can do those things, it’s evidence that we have eternal life. 

Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. II Timothy 2:19

The Lord knoweth them that are his.  It doesn’t say He will know, as they become his.  He knows them.  He knows you.  And he knows you by the name he called you in eternity past, when you were elected in his Son.  You’ll hear that name when he calls you out of the grave on the morning of the resurrection.

That’s the foundation.  Christ.  He stood as God’s perfect sacrifice.  He stood in our place bearing the wrathful judgment and punishment that was due us. 

1Cr 3:11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

Our verse in study tells us first that this foundation is sure.  Sure means “of a certainty” complete, without question, confident, positive, and without a doubt. 

And what is the seal?  That God, who cannot lie, promised before the world began, to know them that are his.  He promised to know them in a covenant way; to know them in an eternal way and to know them in a sacrificial way.  And to know them and secure them that they might live with him in eternity.

Jhn 10:14 I am the good shepherd, and know my [sheep], and am known of mine.

Jhn 10:15 As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep.

Mat 7:20   Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

Mat 7:21  Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

Mat 7:22  Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

Mat 7:23  And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

I never knew you.  Not in a covenant way, not in an elected way, not in a saving way.    The only true class that is eternally saved is the class called the elect, and we can do nothing to gain access to that group of people.  We are a either a member of that class, or we are not. 

We oftentimes get accused of being unjust or unfair for believing that God made choice of His creation and that he is just in doing as he will with his own, those he foreknew.  What if someone wanted to be included in that class – that group we call the elect?  By that sincere desire, it’s proof they already members.  And those that have no desire to be included?  They aren’t – and probably never will be.  How much fairer and just of a system could you design?  Everyone that wants in is, and those that don’t aren’t, so they all get their wish and desire fulfilled.  The eternal desire of all mankind is granted them.

Rev 14:1  And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Sion, and with him an hundred forty [and] four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads.

Psa 138:2   I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.

2Cr 1:20  For all the promises of God in him [are] yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.

2Cr 1:21  Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, [is] God;

2Cr 1:22 Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.

Eph 1:13 In whom ye also [trusted], after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,

Eph 4:30 And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.

Brother Royce Ellis