Page:Studies in the Scriptures - Series I - The Plan of the Ages (1909).djvu/150

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when the great work of restoring them is complete* None will be permitted to have everlasting life who then in the slightest degree fall short of perfection. To fall short of perfedion, then, will be to sin wilfully against full light and perfect ability.

Any who sin wilfully, against full light and ability, will perish m the second death. And should any one, during that age of trial, under its full blaze of light, spurn the offered favors,and make no progress toward perfection for a hundred years, he will be reckoned unworthy of life and will be " cut off," though at a hundred years he would be in the period of comparative childhood. Thus it is written of that day: " As a lad shall one die a hundred years old ; and as a sinner shall be accursed he who dieth at a hundred years old." (Isa. 65 :so Leeser.} Thus all must have at least one hun- dred years of trial ; and, if not so obstinate as to refuse to make progress, their trial will continue throughout the en- tire day of Christ, reaching a culmination only at its close.

The conclusion of the world's coming judgment is clearly shown in the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matt. 25:31-46), in Rev. 20:15; 21:8 and in i Cor. 15:25. These and other scriptures show that at its close the two classes will have been completely separated the obedient and the disobedient ; those in harmony with the letter and the spirit of God's law, and those out of harmony with it. They enter into everlasting life, and the others are remanded to death, extinction ("second death"), the same sentence as in the first judgment, from which they had been reckonedly released by Christ who secured the right to release them by the pay- ment of their ransom by his death. This will be their second death. No ransom will be given for them, and there will be no release or resurrection for them, their sin being a wilful, individual sin against full light and op* jportunily, under a most favorable, individual trial

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