- Dec 13, 2015
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God's promise of the Elect started with Abraham when in Genesis 26:4 God tells Abraham:
"I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed."
This promise to Abraham wasn't just that God will save the Jewish people but that God will save ALL of his Elect throughout history. John sees this promise being fulfilled in Revelation 7:9 when he sees a great multitude that no man can number in white robes with palm branches in their hands (which Jesus describes as the Elect a few chalters before this and the Elder that talked to John in verses 13-14).
This promise is what made one of the greatest preachers in history Charles Spurgeon believe that there's a possibility that there will be more people in Heaven than in Hell. True, Jesus said that few enter through the narrow gate and that many people will be deceived into thinking that they're in the fold of God but NOWHERE in scripture does it say that there is an even greater multitude than what John saw in Hell. Jesus said that FEW enter the narrow gate and that many enter destruction but nowhere in scripture does it explicitly say that there will be more people In Hell than heaven.
But, there are verses in the Bible that do seem to contradict what Sprugeon believedn when taken out of context. Like Isaiah 5:14 for example. This is probably the only verse in the Bible where the Bible says that a multitude of people will end up in sheol (hell). But nowhere in scripture does God declare the size of the multitude of people who will be cast into hell. Whereas the interesting part is that the number of the Elect ARE named. John called it a number no man could count and God declared it to be a number vaster than the stars in the sky. Now whether or not he meant every single star that exists is probably not what God meant because there are approximately 200 sextillion stars in the sky and I don't think over the course of the last 8,000 years of history 200 sextillion people have even LIVED let alone have been saved (see this). Plus 200 sextillion people was an amount that John could have probably counted had he taken enough time to count all of the people he saw. Afterall his vision was timeless and outside of time.
No, likely what God and John meant was that the number of people was vastly greater than the stars in the visible sky which, Abraham could have eventually counted had he spent enough time doing it. The point God probably meant was "look at the sky the Elect are a number far greater than that". So maybe hundreds of billions (if not a couple trillion) people. Which John could have counted but that wasn't John's point. John's point was that the number of saved people are so vast that no man could probably count them because if you quickly glanced at a couple hundred billion if not a couple trillion people that would be a very hard number to count in your head. Quite indeed.
So how can this be true? How can there possibly be more people in Heaven and in Hell? After all Calvin in his commentaries said that there were many people who didn't believe in Christ even in his day (the early-mid 16th century). You look at today and there seems to be a vast multitude of false conversions and people who just don't believe in Christ at all. Yes, this is true. This probably has been true for the past thousand years or so as Christ's return draws closer and closer. But here's the thing, we also have been seeing a large number of conversions later in life. Just because somebody is not saved today doesn't mean that they will never be saved. There are many mid-late life true conversions to Christ. There are many early life too but probably more people truly convert in their mid-late life. Also, scripture does say like I stated previously that there are a multitude of people that end up going to Hell. But nowhere in scripture does it say just how large Hell is going to be or that a vast majority of people will end up in hell. Instead scripture talks of a vast multitude of Elect people so there probably was biblical proof for Spurgeon to believe whst he believed.
"I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give them all these lands, and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed."
This promise to Abraham wasn't just that God will save the Jewish people but that God will save ALL of his Elect throughout history. John sees this promise being fulfilled in Revelation 7:9 when he sees a great multitude that no man can number in white robes with palm branches in their hands (which Jesus describes as the Elect a few chalters before this and the Elder that talked to John in verses 13-14).
This promise is what made one of the greatest preachers in history Charles Spurgeon believe that there's a possibility that there will be more people in Heaven than in Hell. True, Jesus said that few enter through the narrow gate and that many people will be deceived into thinking that they're in the fold of God but NOWHERE in scripture does it say that there is an even greater multitude than what John saw in Hell. Jesus said that FEW enter the narrow gate and that many enter destruction but nowhere in scripture does it explicitly say that there will be more people In Hell than heaven.
But, there are verses in the Bible that do seem to contradict what Sprugeon believedn when taken out of context. Like Isaiah 5:14 for example. This is probably the only verse in the Bible where the Bible says that a multitude of people will end up in sheol (hell). But nowhere in scripture does God declare the size of the multitude of people who will be cast into hell. Whereas the interesting part is that the number of the Elect ARE named. John called it a number no man could count and God declared it to be a number vaster than the stars in the sky. Now whether or not he meant every single star that exists is probably not what God meant because there are approximately 200 sextillion stars in the sky and I don't think over the course of the last 8,000 years of history 200 sextillion people have even LIVED let alone have been saved (see this). Plus 200 sextillion people was an amount that John could have probably counted had he taken enough time to count all of the people he saw. Afterall his vision was timeless and outside of time.
No, likely what God and John meant was that the number of people was vastly greater than the stars in the visible sky which, Abraham could have eventually counted had he spent enough time doing it. The point God probably meant was "look at the sky the Elect are a number far greater than that". So maybe hundreds of billions (if not a couple trillion) people. Which John could have counted but that wasn't John's point. John's point was that the number of saved people are so vast that no man could probably count them because if you quickly glanced at a couple hundred billion if not a couple trillion people that would be a very hard number to count in your head. Quite indeed.
So how can this be true? How can there possibly be more people in Heaven and in Hell? After all Calvin in his commentaries said that there were many people who didn't believe in Christ even in his day (the early-mid 16th century). You look at today and there seems to be a vast multitude of false conversions and people who just don't believe in Christ at all. Yes, this is true. This probably has been true for the past thousand years or so as Christ's return draws closer and closer. But here's the thing, we also have been seeing a large number of conversions later in life. Just because somebody is not saved today doesn't mean that they will never be saved. There are many mid-late life true conversions to Christ. There are many early life too but probably more people truly convert in their mid-late life. Also, scripture does say like I stated previously that there are a multitude of people that end up going to Hell. But nowhere in scripture does it say just how large Hell is going to be or that a vast majority of people will end up in hell. Instead scripture talks of a vast multitude of Elect people so there probably was biblical proof for Spurgeon to believe whst he believed.
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