Page 167 - Eschatology - Masters revised

Choices with Eternal Consequences

Revelation 21:6-8 summarizes the choices to be made by all of mankind and the consequences of each
choice.

First, God offers to freely give (grace) eternal life to those who will drink of His offer, by believing in
what God provided for them, through the substitutionary death of His Son Jesus Christ.

Revelation 21:6 (NIV84)6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and
the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.

Second, believers will choose how they will live their Christian life.

Revelation 21:7 (NIV84)7 He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my
son.

Believers can choose to faithfully and sacrificially live for Christ. They will be evaluated at the Judgment
Seat of Jesus Christ as to whether or not they were “overcomers”. This is the same Greek word (from
the root “nikeo”) that Jesus used in each of the seven letters to the churches in Revelation 2-3. In these
letters He promised these “overcomers” various eternal rewards. Here, in Revelation 21:7, Jesus
promises that the overcomers will inherit the New Jerusalem and have a special relationship with Jesus
Christ. This matches what is revealed in Revelation 2-3.

Third, those who chose to reject God’s offer of eternal life will end up in the Lake of Fire (Revelation
21:8).

Revelation 21:8 (NIV84)8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually
immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of
burning sulfur. This is the second death.”

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