Mike,

After re- reading your response, it occurred to me, nothing is opposed to anything, there is no positive or negative, or black or white, but in this temporal world things are cast in the light (or darkness) of being separate, but really if it’s ALL of GOD and there is but one outcome, then nothing is really in opposition to anything. It really is all producing ONE OUTCOME, and THAT is DIVINE!!!

M____

Hi M____,

What you say is exactly right in the end, but it takes the process to get to the end. During the process there is light and darkness, good and evil, the righteous and the wicked, all for the purpose of producing the end product of sons ‘conformed to the image of His Son.’ Here are the scriptures.

Isa 45:5  I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:
Isa 45:6  That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.
Isa 45:7  I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

So “light and darkness” are God’s creations, and from His perspective, which is an overall perspective, you are exactly right; they are both the same, and He tells us this is so.

Psa 139:12  Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

But let us not forget that this is “to thee.” This is from God’s overall, end run perspective. The perspective of Him who knows what the morrow will bring forth, be it good or evil. From our perspective there is a night and a day, light and darkness, good and evil, and we are even warned:

Isa 5:20  Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!

Let’s never make the mistake of overlooking the need for the process of judgment in which we are at this very moment engaged.

1Pe 4:17 For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?

I remember so well a couple of Concordant brothers asking me “Why do you make such a big deal out of the first resurrection? Aren’t we all being saved anyway?”
Yes, we are all being saved, but it is a process, and it is only those who are in that “blessed and holy first resurrection” who “will not be hurt by the second death”. So my question to any such person is, “Why do you not concern yourself with being hurt of the second death? Why do you treat being a king and a priest so lightly?”

Rev 20:6  Blessed and holy [ is] he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

I hope this helps you to see that during the process of salvation we judge between good and evil, light and darkness, all the while acknowledging that “the light and the darkness are both alike to thee,” and while they are “both alike to God,” even God Himself, at this time for our benefit, uses the words ‘good and evil, righteous and wicked’ to describe what “He is working… for good… after the counsel of His own will.”

1Co 5:3  For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed,
1Co 5:4  In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ,
1Co 5:5  To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
Ecc 9:2  All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as [ is] the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.
Ecc 9:3  This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all: yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.
Rom 8:28  And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to [ his] purpose.
Eph 1:11  In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:

So we do judge between good and evil, even as we acknowledge that “both are alike to thee.”

Your brother in Christ,
Mike