John 12:32 BBE And I, [when] I am lifted up
from the earth, will make all men come to me.
All men means all that have existed, exist or
will exist. The God of the prophets is above time. Time is a mere creature.
The usual "draw" in this verse gives
the will of man too much credit The begotten again come in providential
dissatisfaction with themselves. The rest come when they die.
The specific part of a man that is compelled to
come to the Cross is the fallen spirit of the man that is lost. All men either
have or have had a fallen spirit (Rom 3:23).
The fallen spirit is alienated from God by sin.
In a sense, it clings to the soul as a replacement. (Scripture reveals this by
generally treating the lost as having two parts: spirit-soul and body, and the
redeemed as having three parts: spirit, soul, and body.)
On the Cross, Jesus, God incarnate (John 1:14),
was made sin (2Cor 5:21) and made a curse (Gal 3:13), His crucified soul
compels the adherence of two types of fallen spirits: those separated from the
soul by physical death (Eccl 12:7), and those whose still attached souls are
willing to be saved (Isaiah 55:3, Rev 22:17).
All fallen spirits are then in the spiritual place where Jesus was when He was absolutely separated spiritually from God (Matt 27:46).
Jesus, being sinless, was released from that
place of spiritual agony after six hours (Psalms 22:1,2, Mark 15:25,33,34, John
19:28,30).
The fallen spirits, along with their sins, the
sins of the world (John 1:29), remain where God is not and where there is
nothing good (Acts 17:27,28). They remain throughout eternity in the place
called gehenna (Jer 7:31,32), the lake of fire (Rev 20:10), hell (Matt 10:28,
5:22).
The fallen spirits separated from soul and body
by physical death are joined by the dead soul and body (Rev 20:13) at the time
of the end of the current creation (Rev 20:11). The records of offenses and
results of offenses are complete and are opened (Rev 20:12). There is no
defense, for they also had ignored God's Good News of freely available salvation. (Heb
9:27, Rev 20:15).
The fallen spirits separated from a soul
willing to be saved are replaced by a new, eternally living and righteous (Rom
5:17), begotten again, (John 1:12,13, 3:3,5) spirit (Rom 8:2,9,10,16 [N.B.
Ignore inserted article and capitalization of "spirit" unless the
Holy Spirit operating as a Person is clearly indicated.]).
I2C 131109a John 12v32 All dragged to the Cross / I2C / 131108 2211 / John 12:32 All dragged to the Cross
