Posted on 07/01/2011 6:19:36 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
HEAVEN
is "BEYOND TIME AND SPACE"
is UNBiblical in a very seductive but irrational
CHRISTO-PLATONISTIC WAY.
Sounds like you've been deceived and seduced by nonsense in the culture.
Scripture indicates something else in many dozens of places.
Alcorn (Randy Alcorn: HEAVEN) reasonably terms the current Heaven the TRANSITIONAL HEAVEN in that it is not the final NEW HEAVEN.
John saw the NEW JERUSALEM coming down OUT OF
the current HEAVEN.
OUT OF has to do with PLACE.
!DOH!
UNTIL the NEW JERUSALEM IS
*OUT OF*
THE CURRENT HEAVEN
IT IS *STILL* !THERE!
It also has to do with TIME.
!DOH!
Alcorn notes on p 45 that
Another Scriptural reference to time has to do with the HALF HOUR OF SILENCE in Heaven. Rev 8:1.
Other Biblical indications that Heaven is a "real" PLACE are . . .
We are told in such Scriptures as Rev 15:8; 7:9, 8:6, 19:14, 8:13; 2 Kings 2:11; . . . of:
1. smoke from the glory of God.
2. scrolls in Heaven.
3. elders who have faces.
4. Martyrs who wear clothes.
5. people with palm branches.
6. musical instruments.
7. horses riding into and out of Heaven.
8. an eagle flying overhead in Heaven.
I agree with Alcorn. It is inconceivable that ALL those are symbolic metaphors of intangible 'matrix-like' pseudo-pretend 'realities.'
As C.S. Lewis noted so wisely--THIS is the shadowlands. THE REAL REALITY MORE REAL THAN ANTYHING TANGIBLE HERE--IS HEAVEN.
Moses was instructed to build the Tabernacle after the pattern of THE LITERAL ONE HE LITERALLY SAW IN HEAVEN. HEB 8:5.
Christ said to the thief on the crossl--TODAY--time--he would be with Christ IN PARADISE. Traditionally the term meant a walled garden; a walled park; an enclosed garden. It was used to describe the Garden of Eden in the Septuagint.
Rev 2:7 "To him who overcomes, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God."
--again--A PLACE and A TIME.
". . . the martyrs in Heaven are described as wearing clothes (Revelation 6:9-11). Disembodied spirits don't wear clothes. "
. . .
"Because these martyrs are also called "souls" (Revelation 6:9), some insist that they must be disembodied spirits. But the Greek word psuche, here translated "soul," does not normally mean disembodied spirit.
On the contrary, it is typically used of a whole person, who has both body and spirit, or of animals, which are physical beings. It is used in Revelation 12:11 to describe the martyrs, who "did not love their lives [psuche] so much as to shrink from death." Because death relates to their physical bodies, not their spirits (which would not die), the emphasis is more on their bodies than on their spirits.
According to the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, "[Pusche] does not carry with it any clear distinction between a noncorporeal and a corporeal state . . . The reference is not to a part of man that has survived death, but to the total existence of man."^56
"It appears that the aposle John had a body when he visited Heaven, because he is said to have grasped,held, eaten, and teasted things there (e.g., Revelation 10:9-10). To assume this is all figurative language is not a restriction demanded by the text but only by our presupposition that Heaven isn't a physical place. "
There are many other Biblical examples.
To pretend that Heaven currently, much less the future Heaven has no tangible material substance is thoroughly UNBIBLICAL as well as nonsensical.
Whatever God declares and creates is more real than anything else.
However, for this discussion . . .
TANGIBLY EXISTING in detectable form in time and space is probably the definition I’m using most.
INDEED.
Actually, ALL that is real was declared and created by Him.
I believe that angels are the constructs of God. Beyond that - ascribing alien spaceman qualities or UFO greys eating human remains in slurries e.g. - I do not go.
I haven’t seen anything in the description of an ET which would preclude the soulish identification of some angels by unbelievers as an “ET”.
The possibility of something does not prove that that something exists.
Have you taken leave of your senses? God Created all. By extension, your statement opens the idea that there are other creators out there. You're not becoming Mormon are you?
So, we either die off or we plan on taking to the stars......
INDEED.
AGREED.
I think you are assuming that something which is not itself physical cannot have a physical effect. There are some decent arguments that the “first cause” can not be physical.
This being agreeable is getting to be a habit.
Shouldn’t we rant at each other occasionally just for old times sake?
[joke]
Naw. I was just emphasizing half of that truth.
I agree with Wagglebee.
Nope, not taking the bait. :-)
AGREED.
And, how wild can man's imagination be! Talking about intelligent space aliens that can never and will never visit us is ridiculous even if they existed.
I have no doubt both exist, though I am not prescribing more than what is presented inn either Scripture, or by experience in the physical or spiritual domain.
I have read some ‘secular’ reports regarding human remains in slurries, but I am no going there, nor have supported nor denied such in this discussion.
FWIW, the ability of man to prove or disprove the existence of angels will never influence their existence. any more than man being able to prove or disprove the existence of God. Their existence is not dependent upon our cognizance or ignorance of them.
To those with an honest heart, it is humbling to realize you know so little about the way God has constructed this Universe in which you dwell. But to those whose arrogance would as easily deny God exists as they would command you to not believe there is life beyond this planet, the truth is what they tell you it is, and you better not dispute them.
By the way, RP, if you believe in Angels, then you already believe there is extraterrestrial life, for you cannot define what is a spiritual being. Without time, events do not occur, and without space, things do not exist.
Fair enough. There are far too many people who try to merge UFOlogy with Christianity.
It depends on what you mean by “things”. I don’t think angels need space. Neither does truth”. I think angels need time, but truth doesn’t.
“And, how wild can man’s imagination be!”
And if a person stays within their own imagination they can always be right...even when they are wrong :)
Look at the very beginning of Genesis. God spoke the universe and its contents into being from nothing.
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