Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
We must understand why there must be a special heavenly Day of Atonement. Involved in it is a special experience for God's people on earth, but this does not imply that God has arbitrarily withheld that unique blessing from previous generations. It would not be fair for Him to grant the last generation something He deliberately kept away from others in past ages.
Previous generations simply did not availthemselves of the full grace that Heaven has always wanted to bestow. The long delay of thousands of years has not been necessary because of God's unwillingness to give, but because of man's unreadiness to receive. The prophetic word, "Unto two thousand three hundred days, then shall the sanctuary be cleansed" (Dan. 8:14), is a prediction that during the last era of human history, God's people will grow into a mature faith that will make possible their full reception of Heaven's grace. The prophecy of Daniel comprehends theirspiritual development "unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph. 4:14), not growth on the part of God.
God withheld nothing from Adam that arbitrarily kept him out of the company of the 144,000. His own spiritual immaturity was what kept him from appropriating all the grace that an infinite God would have granted even then. The sanctuary could have been cleansed in ancient times if the historical development of humanity had made it possible. God's infinite resources cannot be limited; the deficiency has been on our side. A final generation will receive the gift of repentance, a metanoia,* an after-perception that views past history in the light of contrition. Then it can be said, "The marriage of the Lamb has come, and His wife hath made herself ready."
--Robert J. Wieland
* The original word "repentance" means a looking back from the perspective of the end: metanoia, from meta ("after") and nous ("mind").
From:"As Many As I Love": Christ's Call to Laodicea, 1986.
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