| Author |
Message |
Korinna
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 03, 2001 - 11:59 am: |     |
wow you guys write everything out so well!! in the beginning i 100 percent believed in soul sleep..they had "proved" it to me by reading the scripture. Then i started to wane on that topic and right now i am not sure what to believe. I thought when Jesus comes again, the dead in christ rise first and then everyone else who is still alive. Aren't they rising in a glorified and prefected body? when do we get that body? And why do we come back with Jesus on the 2nd coming if we are already in heaven? I am sorry if this doesnt make sense but am confused on this issue. Theres a lot of good reading here:) |
Max
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 03, 2001 - 6:39 pm: | |
Korinna,
Not to worry. That was the last SDA idol to
crumble and fall for me too. |
Colleentinker
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 03, 2001 - 9:46 pm: | |
Korinna, I've come to believe that our spirit is something separate from our physical bodies. I really don't know exactly what that means, because I can't separate myself! But our spirits are what know God and what go to him at our death. I believe the Bible makes it clear that our resurrection bodies become ours when Jesus comes again and raises the dead. I don't know exactly what happens to our spirits when we die, but I think the Bible makes it pretty clear that we're not complete until we are again both body and soul.
My understanding is that our spirits, the part of us that know God, rest in his love in some way after we die until God resurrects us and reunites our living spirits with our new, eternal bodies. I do not believe we are annihilated when we die. Our spirits go on knowing and resting in Jesus.
I clearly do not totally understand this miracle. But in 2 Corinthians 5:6-8 Paul say, "ÖAs long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord.ÖWe are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord."
I don't understand it, but I believe Jesus meant what he said when he declared that those who believe on him will never die!
Praising God for eternal life,
Colleen |
Valm
| | Posted on Thursday, January 04, 2001 - 7:39 am: | |
Colleen,
How beautiful. There are so many things we don't understand but will once we are with God.
I don't want to sound unintellectual but there are many things I won't understand but just believe any way.
Sometimes while I am working outside or even typing at this keyboard I am in awe of what my body can do and that it is a part of me. I feel the sensation that I am housed in it but it isn't actually me. I do believe that the true me lives within and when this body can not function anymore the true me will go to God. I think that the resurection of a NEW BODY is just another one of those wonderful perks that God gives us. To think of one day having a complete overhaul on this body and having one like new and PERFECT is more awesome than the miracles I experience living in the imperfect one I have on a day to day basis.
Valerie |
Max
| | Posted on Thursday, January 04, 2001 - 11:56 am: | |
Valerie,
^^I don't want to sound unintellectual but there
are many things I won't understand but just
believe any way.^^
Recognizing the mysteries of God is not a
sign of being unintellectual. To the contrary, at
least the way I see it, it is a sign of
intelligence. Throughout the history of
Christian theology the greatest minds are
those who recognize that divine and scriptural
mysteries abound. To the contrary, to think or
claim to understand everything is a sign of a
lack of intelligence. I would even go so far as
to say that the more one claims to understand,
the less intelligent one is. And the more one
learns, the more one realizes how truly little
one knows. Intelligent understanding of what
IS revealed seems to breed more humility
rather than hubris.
It is the fool who says, "I understand all," and
the wise person who says, "How little I
understand." |
Billtwisse
| | Posted on Friday, January 05, 2001 - 3:38 pm: | |
THE ëBETTERí STATE (Phil 1:23)
The resurrection life of the Christian between the first death and last resurrection has often been termed the ëintermediate state.í I prefer to use the Pauline expression ëbetterí--rather than íintermediateí--to describe the estate of glory entered by the Christian when the present body dies.
The Christian will never experience death (John 11:26). Never, never, never! Laying down the present body means being clothed with a dwelling that is infinitely better. 2 Cor. 5:1-10 describes the heavenly ëclothingí in a glorious fashion. At what men call ëdeathí we do not lose anything, we gain an infinite experience in glory!
Heaven is not immaterial. It is first and foremost a íplaceí (John 14:1-3). Paul was the only apostle to actually see it (2 Cor. 12:1-10). In contrast to the other apostles who had seen the risen Christ, Paul saw Christ in all of his heavenly glory and exaltation! He was actually transported to the place that we shall enter when we experience what mortal men term ídeathí--which is no real death for the Christian.
The heavenly dwelling is not a pure spirit existence--never was. The angels are spirits--but also experience the material. Otherwise, how could they turn into material beings when circumstances made this necessary? How could the wicked angels sin by going into the daughters of men?
Paul says that he didnít know whether he was in or out of the body in heaven. Think about that. Christ has an eternal glorified body up there. The departed saints do not yet have one. Yet they still behold Christís post-resurrection glory and person. The eternal house in heaven is created in such a way that spirits with or without bodies experience the same thing when entering it. So it will be with us in eternity. Even when we receive the final resurrection body, the experience in the special house where Godís throne is present will be the same. It is an eternal dwelling that we shall never be deprived of.
When the Bible speaks of heaven as a ëhouseí (John 14:2, 2 Cor. 5:1-4) or a ëcityí (Heb. 11:10), it is not selling us a figurative line of íbullí to condescend to our weak minds and understanding. There is a real dwelling place up there with plenty of room for all who enter. Paul actually saw the glorified Christ on his throne, directing the whole course of history to the ultimate glory of God. That revelation was so great and mighty that Paul was given a demon to torment him the rest of his life; just to keep him from being conceited as a result of what he was permitted to behold. Unlike the saints who had already entered there, Paul still retained the sinful nature.
The final resurrection will involve the restoration of ALL things to the glory of God. Including the renovation of the earth that was formerly under the curse. At that point we will be clothed even further. So there is a two-stage putting on of glory; not a putting off and later a putting on. The resurrection comes in stages, just like the kingdom of God!
In the final resurrection of the material body, all good gifts of God in the material creation of this earth will be redeemed from sin. There are different interpretations on what this means, but I interpret it 100% literally! What scriptural hermeneutic is there to cause us to believe otherwise?
--Twisse |
Max
| | Posted on Friday, January 05, 2001 - 4:06 pm: | |
Interesting, Bill,
How literally do you take these words of
Christ:
Matthew 24:35ÝHeaven and earth will pass
away, but my words will not pass away.
Mark 13:31Heaven and earth will pass away,
but my words will not pass away.
Luke 21:33ÝHeaven and earth will pass away,
but my words will not pass away. |
Billtwisse
| | Posted on Saturday, January 06, 2001 - 2:58 pm: | |
The issue of what ëpass awayí means in the Greek is the core issue here. Christ refers to a severe conflagration of the present heavens and earth. I agree with many expositors who view it as transformation (the complete elimination of the curse, sin, death, & wicked people and a metamorphosis of all good to a superior condition), not annihilation. Annihilation would go against the whole spirit of prophecy in the Old and New Testaments.
Since I donít have my Greek NT and helps with me right now, I canít present a full-fledged argument based on the text. I will quote the best that I have with me: A. A. Hoekema (author of ëThe Four Major Cultsë) in íThe Bible and the Futureë (Eerdmans, 1979). I will never forget how excited and inspired I was when I read Christianity Todayís publication of the final chapter of his book (article ëLife in the New Earthí, around 1982-83). It was a ëteaserí to get people to want the whole book. I immediately purchased it and have never found a better work on prophecy (from a comprehensive ìall issuesî standpoint).
In this passage, Hoekema is reaffirming the same truths that Irenaeus so eloquently defended 1800+ years ago against the Gnostics:
One question we should face at this point is whether the new earth will be totally other than this present earth or a renewal of the present earth. Both in Isaiah 65:17 and in Revelation 21:1 we hear about ìa new heaven and a new earth.î The expression ìheaven and earthî should be understood as a biblical way of designating the entire universe: ìHeaven and earth together constitute the cosmosì (H. Sasse, Kittelës Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, I, 678). But now the question is, Will the present universe be totally annihilated, so that the new universe will be completely other than the present cosmos, or will the new universe be essentially the same cosmos as the present, only renewed and purified?
Lutheran theologians have often favored the former of these two options. G. C. Berkouwer mentions a number of Lutheran writers who favor the concept of the annihilation of the present cosmos and of a complete discontinuity between the old earth and the new (ëThe Return of Christë, p. 220). Appeal is made by these theologians to passages such as Matthew 24:29 (ìThe sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shakenî) and II Peter 3:12 (ìThe heavens will be kindled and dissolved, and the elements will melt with fireî). It is clear that cataclysmic events will accompany the destruction of the present earth -- events which will constitute a divine judgment on this earth, with all of its sin and imperfection.
We must, however, reject the concept of total annihilation in favor of the concept of renewal, for the following four reasons:
First, both in II Peter 3:13 and in Revelation 21:1 the Greek word used to designate the newness of the new cosmos is not neos but kainos. The word neos means new in time or origin, whereas the word kainos means new in nature or quality (J. Behm, ìkainos,î TDNT, III, 447-49). The expression ouranon kainon kai gen kainen (ìa new heaven and a new earth,î Rev. 21:1) means, therefore, not the emergence of a cosmos totally other than the present one, but the creation of a universe which, though it has been gloriously renewed, stands in continuity with the present one.
A second reason for favoring the concept of renewal over that of annihilation is Paulís argumentation in Romans 8. When he tells us that the creation waits the eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God so that it may be set free from its bondage to decay (vv. 20-21), he is saying that it is the present creation that will be liberated from corruption in the eschaton, not some totally different creation.
A third reason is the analogy between the new earth and the resurrection bodies of believers. Previously we pointed out that there will be both continuity and discontinuity between the present body and the resurrection body (pp. 251-52). The differences between our present bodies and our resurrection bodies, wonderful thought they are, do not take away the continuity: it is we who shall be raised, and it is we who shall always be with the Lord. Those raised with Christ will not be a totally new set of human beings but the people of God who have lived on this earth. By way of analogy, we would expect that the new earth will not be totally different from the present earth but will be the present earth wondrously renewed.
A fourth reason for preferring the concept of renewal over that of annihilation is this: If God would have to annihilate the present cosmos, Satan would have won a great victory. For then Satan would have succeeded in so devastatingly corrupting the present cosmos and the present earth that God could do nothing with it but to blot it totally out of existence. But Satan did not win such a victory. On the contrary, Satan has been decisively defeated. God will reveal the full dimensions of that defeat when he shall renew this very earth on which Satan deceived mankind and finally banish from it all the results of Satanís evil machinations.
In this connection it is interesting to note the words with which Edward Thurneysen described his understanding of what the new earth would be like: ìThe world into which we shall enter at the Parousia of Jesus Christ is therefore not another world; it is this world, this heaven, this earth; both, however, passed away and renewed. It is these forests, these fields, these citiies, these streets, these people, that will be the scene of redemption. At present they are battlefields, full of the strife and sorrow of the not yet accomplished consummation; then they will be fields of victory, fields of harvest, where out of seed that was sown with tears the everlasting sheaves will be reaped and brought home.î (from ìChristus und seine Zukunft,î in Zwischen den Zeiten, 1931, p. 209. Trans. by J.A. Schep in ìThe Nature of the Resurrection Bodyî, pp. 218-19). Emil Brunner criticized this statement, thinking it to be far too crass and materialistic, and saying that we have no right to expect that that the future earth will be just like the present one (ìEternal Hopeî, trans. Harold Knight--London: Lutterworth, 1954, p. 204). G. C. Berkouwer, however, expresses appreciation for the concreteness of Thurneysenís hope, preferring this way of stating what the future will be like to ethereal or spiritualized concepts of the future which fail to do justice to the biblical promise of a new earth.
If you noticed Thurneysen's view of 'passed away', that is mine.
Just a very small sample of a truly great work!
--Twisse |
Max
| | Posted on Saturday, January 06, 2001 - 4:13 pm: | |
Excellent reply, Bill. I especially liked this:
^^Those raised with Christ will not be a totally
new set of human beings but the people of
God who have lived on this earth. By way of
analogy, we would expect that the new earth
will not be totally different from the present
earth but will be the present earth wondrously
renewed.^^
Enjoyed seeing you at FAF meeting in
Redlands and look foreward to your next visit.
Have fun back east in all the snow!
-MC |
Chyna
| | Posted on Sunday, January 07, 2001 - 1:32 am: | |
wow, bill, you were correct! that is the most convincing argument, and I wasn't even in the position of needing to be convinced.
that greek, so important.
Chyna |
Denisegilmore
| | Posted on Sunday, January 07, 2001 - 3:07 am: | |
Well, it's all greek to me (snicker)
God Bless all,
Denise |
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