NOTES OUT OF THE CATECHISM CLASSES Of Rev. J. Fraanje Using the Catechism Book

Of the Last Judgment and Everlasting Life.

Lesson 41 Part II

What marks the opening of the judgment? John tells us plainly, “And the books were opened.”

What kind of books would they have been?

Just common books of paper or parchment?

No, the term book is used here in a figurative sense.

1. The book of God’s own Word will be opened; the one He Himself had given to His people; the Bible. Many people have mocked with it, and others never give it any consideration, but the Lord will one time give it consideration, you can count on that. Even if we have never asked for it here or taken the time to read it, God will make demands regarding His word and it will not return unto Him void.

2. The book of God’s Providence will be opened showing how He has cared for everyone throughout their entire life and always has done nothing but good for them.

3. The book of God’s omniscience, (infinite knowledge) will be opened and, oh, what will then make its appearence! All hidden things will then be brought to light. Will not then thousands of persons cry out, “Mountains, fall on us, and hills, cover us, from the face of Him, Him who sits upon the throne!” You can be sure that cry will be made when the book of God’s omniscience, pertaining to everyone, shall be opened.

4. The book of each one’s conscience will also be opened! There shall not even one conscience remain closed that day, even if it had till death been seared shut with a hot iron.

All consciences will them open to an extent never experienced here, and the conscience will have to acquiesce to all that is disclosed from the book of God’s omniscience, assent to each and every accusation, and acknowledge all guilt!

The book of the conscience will be a dreadful witness in that day against the wicked; a testifier that every sentence is just.

O, boys and girls, consider all your conscience will have to witness against you in the last judgment.

And even as John said, “And the books were opened” in the plural number, he follows up with, “And another book was opened, which is the book of life”, in the singular number. So:

5. The book of eternal election is opened; the book of life of the Lamb! Then the chaff shall be separated from the grain, and the weeds pulled out from among the wheat. On earth everything is grown up together, but at the harvest, that means, at the end of the world, He shall send out the reapers, the angels. They will bind up the weeds into bundles to be burned, but will bring the wheat into God’s eternal barn. In nature it is inevitable even with the best farming practices, that there will be a kernal of wheat among the chaff and vice versa.

But that is impossible in the spiritual harvest. Not one elect will stand on the left hand but neither will a condemned person stand on the right hand. Those, whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of life; those, for whom the Lamb made perfect satisfaction, will be placed on the right hand of the Son of God by angels. But those, whose names are not found written in the Lamb’s Book of Life will be cast into the lake of fire. Rev. 20.

Furthermore, there shall not be one elect missing, because they all together make up the body of which Christ is the head. There shall not one finger be left behind. Even as a natural body cannot miss a member without disfiguring it and rendering it imperfect, so the body of Christ will not miss even one member. Moreover, there will be nothing defective or missing in its members. Everything will be perfect. He shall present them as a chaste virgin to His Father.

We had mentioned previously that no one knows when the day of judgment shall be. It shall be as related in I Thess. 5:2, “ - the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.” It tells us in Matt. 24:14, “And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” It says also, that then the falling away shall be at its greatest and there will be all sorts of judgments on the earth.

Would there then be elect still living on earth? The world will not really perish until the very last one is gathered in, certainly?

That is true, but there will be people, and God’s people among them, living on the earth that last day.

It makes a difference whether the elect have been gathered in or have already entered into heaven.

When anyone is converted unto God, the soul is indeed gathered in; grace has been revealed in him, but he still might be required to live 60 or 70 years upon earth before he may enter into heaven.

It does not mention anywhere in God’s Word that all the elect must first have entered heaven, and only the reprobates left on the earth, when the world perishes.

No, it does not say that. Only that all the elect shall first be gathered in, and therefore some of them shall be living on the earth.

There will not be anyone, however, living under the seal of election who still needs to be converted.

It is clear that there will still be a portion of the Church Militant upon earth as shown in I Thess 4:16, 17, where Paul speaking about the last judgment, says, “For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with a voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

Some think, that Paul here thought the coming of Christ on the clouds was so imminent, that he himself would still be living. But it is also possible that he with “we”, meant a part of the church of which he also was a member, and so spoke only in the name of the Church Militant.

In either case, it is clear that there shall be children of God living upon earth who will not die but shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye. Symbols of this are given in the great flood when there was a Noah left on earth, and when the Lord oveturned Sodom and Gomorrah, he first led the righteous Lot out of it.

The Apostle also gives here in Thessalonians a sequence of the events. He says, “We which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.” The resurrection shall take place first, and after that the judgment and the receiving up into eternal life.

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