3228.—Death and Judgment
By Editor
The answer given to Heb. 9:27 in question No. 3171 is not clear to me. If all have to give up this present life then comes the judgment, how is it that some will be living, both righteous and wicked, when Christ comes? There are general statements in the Bible to which there are exceptions. It is a general truth to state that man is mortal and that all men die; and yet there have been exceptions to this, as in the case of Enoch and Elijah. So with the statement in Hebrews, "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." That is true, and nearly all do die; so many of the race that the few who will be alive when the Lord comes will form an exception; that is, as to physical death. But in a deeper sense than that all do die before they come to judgment. The righteous, those who are truly Christ's, have given up their life to Him; they have become dead to sin, and have passed through a spiritual change which is equivalent to death. Upon those the Lord will place immortality when He comes. The wicked, of course, who will perish in the glory of His presence, will come before God in the judgment during the thousand years, and will die the second death in the execution of that judgment after the thousand years are finished.