Quote:
Originally Posted by UntoHim
Did it cause those who imbibed it to love the Lord their God, love their families, love and serve their neighbors and to become a profitable servant for the sake of the gospel and God's Kingdom?
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The millennial exclusion doctrine changes the nature of many warning passages from being eternal in nature to temporary. Perhaps the warning most related to this question is the one Jesus gave in Mark 8:35-37:
"For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. For what does it profit a man to
gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul?"
Many evangelicals understand Mark 8:35 to be talking about the process of being born again as did many in the early church (for example:
https://www.gotquestions.org/dying-to-self.html). In order to take on a new life in Christ, you have to be willing to let the old one go. The consequences of not participating in this exchange is losing your soul for eternity.
The millennial exclusion doctrine would instead teach you are saved by reciting the sinner's prayer and believing the correct divine facts about Jesus at one point in time -- and then you can live your life however you want as the Nicolaitans did at the risk of up to 1000 years of discipline. It basically changes "For what does it profit a man to
gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? " into "For what does it profit a man to
gain the whole world but suffer 1000 years of discipline in outer darkness?"
In our earthly existence, if someone gets sentenced to several decades in prison for a heinous crime we might think it's fair because most of their life will have wasted away in prison. However in eternity, 1000 years is really no time at all because as eternal beings we will be able to experience the rest of eternity after any finite amount of time. I had actually made this exact calculation in my head as a lukewarm church kid growing up in the LCs and decided to live selfishly for myself while doing the bare minimum for God and living in sin. Instead of spreading the gospel, I was doing the opposite by living as a hypocrite and damaging the reputation of Christians fulfilling 2 Peter 2:2 "And many will follow their sensuality, and
because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed."
For some people they don't need the warning passages and end up loving Jesus regardless. However for people like myself, it wasn't enough. As an eternal being, I also needed the warnings to be eternal and once I understood them to be eternal is when I started to take my faith more seriously and do more research to see if the bible was really true because I didn't want to give my life to something that was false.
Satan offered Jesus the temptation to rule the whole world in Luke 4:6-7 which happens to be the same offer that Jesus describes in Mark 8:35 but it was a deceptive offer because the world is passing away along with its lusts (1 John 2:17). The offer that Jesus gave his followers was much better because it was something could never perish or fade into non-existence- he gave them the offer of eternal life if they would be willing to circumcise their hearts and exchange their old perishing earthly life or it.
Mark 8:35
For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it