Posted on 03/17/2008 1:17:59 PM PDT by Truth Defender
The Scripture does have the answer...in the grave.
Absolutely correct! [Matthew 12:40] For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
In Acts 2:25 Peter begins his quote of David’s words from Psalms.
According to the AV Bible Psalms 16:10 says,”For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither will thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption”.
Peter repeated those words in vs. 27. Showing that David was speaking prophetically of the Christ Peter adds that David is dead and buried still in vs. 29. In vs. 30 David knew that Christ would be raised up to sit on his (David’s) throne. In vs. 31 Peter says,’He(David) seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ that his(Christ’s) soul was not left in hell...”.
In vs. 34 Peter says David did not go into heaven but that the LORD(God)said to David’s Lord(Christ) that Jesus would sit at God’s right hand, a reference to Psalm 110:1.
Jesus himself quoted part of Psalm 110 to show that David spoke prophetically of Christ sitting at God’s right hand.
No, there’s no mention of God in hell as Christ and God are not the same person. Vs.36 says God made Jesus Lord and Christ not that God made himself Lord and Christ.
The above certainly does address the question of where Jesus was during the three days. He was dead and God raised him up, resurrected him on the third day, not on the first. His soul was in what the Av. translates as “hell” as Psalm 16:10 was applied to Jesus by Peter and Paul too at Acts 13.
The use of the word “hell” by the AV. is unfortunate because of the various meanings attached later to it but I chose the AV. because it is widely used and consistent when quoting Psalm 16:10 in Acts 2.
The man beside Jesus asked ‘when you come into your kingdom’. Jesus didn’t come into his kingdom that day and couldn’t until after he was resurrected on the third day and hence couldn’t have gone into heaven or paradise either.
In fact at John 20:17 Jesus appears to Mary and says he has not yet ascended to his father and his God.
You're absolutely correct. The "diety" talk of Jesus can be very confusing to many people (a good number of them are here).
Another question.
Are you born again?
Again, please, just a yes or no.
Then, by your own definition, as you understand the term, are you born again?
Please, just yes or no.
> searching out and examining the Scriptures I pointed you
> to was not something you were willing to do.
I study the scriptures daily with my family and with my brothers and sisters in the faith, of several nationalities. However, the Bible is not an intellectual pursuit for me.
I have searched out those scriptures.
Many times. Prayerfully. Even praying them back to the Lord.
I suspect that you and I have very different Authorities interpreting these for us. That is why we have different perspectives and even the words themselves can have different meanings.
See 1st John 2:27
The King James is a bad translation. Sheol does not correspond to hell at all. It corresponds to the grave, or a place under the Earth where all the spirits, or souls of the dead live. Sheol is mentioned in Gen 37 by Jacob, who was in mourning, because he was told his son Joseph was killed. Gen 37:34-35, "Then Jacob tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and mourned for his son many days. All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. "No," he said, "in mourning will I go down to the grave [Sheol] to my son." So his father wept for him."
Here is Psalms 16:10 from the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible, which refers to the Jewish concept of Sheol, the nether world. Psalms 16:10, "For Thou wilt not abandon my soul to the nether-world; neither wilt Thou suffer Thy godly one to see the pit." Here is Young's literal, from the Greek: Psalms 16:10 "For Thou dost not leave my soul to Sheol, Nor givest thy saintly one to see corruption."
You had said, in post 28, that the concept of soul was from Hellenistic influences, this shows it clearly was not. Even the Native Americans that lived here, long before the Europeans hit here, believed in a spirit that lived on after death.
Nevertheless, God's own word is to be taken before anyone else's. As I posted above, God said that both He and the thief would be in Paradise/Heaven that day. You've given nothing that stands to logically contradict that statement from God Himself.
"No, there’s no mention of God in hell as Christ and God are not the same person. Vs.36 says God made Jesus Lord and Christ not that God made himself Lord and Christ.
Jesus is God's name. John 8:58 "I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!". od refers to Himself as us, as I pointed out, and there is only one God.
That God is the one spoken of in Ezekiel 37, who said, Ezekiel 37:5-6, "This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make spirit enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.' " John 2:19, "Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days." The God spoken of in Ezekiel 37 is the One that promised again to do the same thing in John 2:19. Note Jesus says, "I will raise it!"
"He was dead and God raised him up"
He was not dead. The physical machinery that is the body was dead. His Spirit was the Holy Spirit, which was in Heaven. Of course God performed the action of Ezekiel 37, on His own body, just as He said He would in John 2:19.
"Jesus didn’t come into his kingdom that day and couldn’t until after he was resurrected on the third day and hence couldn’t have gone into heaven or paradise either."
God disagrees with you, as I have pointed out.
" In fact at John 20:17 Jesus appears to Mary and says he has not yet ascended to his father and his God."
No it does not say that. John 20:17(NIV), "Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'" It says return and returning, which is a better translation.
The Greek word that appears is avabaivw. It also has the meaning "to enter". John 10:1, "I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. It appears also in John 7 when God says He isn't going up to the Feast of the Tabernacles, because His time had not yet come. That time was to be, EX 23:16 "the feast of ingathering, at the end of the year, when thou gatherest in thy labours out of the field." John 7:8 "You go to the Feast. I am not yet going up to this Feast, because for me the right time has not yet come." Yet Jesus went to the feast anyway, so the meaning was the same as that given in John 20:17. The meaning was that His Spirit was not yet to enter the Temple, the Tabernacle of His Father, not that He had not been in Heaven, or would not enter the Temple in Jerusalem. He had already raised His own Temple, that housed His Spirit in this world, but there were more labors of the field to be done here. Once one realizes the meanings of return and enter apply, the meaning of the word ascended is not a travel to someone, but a rising up of someone in stature. That someone is God Himself and the rising up is a result of what He has done.
I’m sorry but before I go on-you said post #28? I can’t find in any of my posts or replys #28. I can’t respond to something if I didn’t say it. Are you sure it’s 28?
Now you’ve accused me of saying something I didn’t say at all. I did not say the “concept of soul” anywhere. Would you care to explain?
"The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried. In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.'
"But Abraham replied, 'Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.'
Sorry, my friend, I don't see any part of these verses saying that mankind has an immortal soul. You are merely resorting to philosophical reasoning that is contradicted by the very plain statement in I Tim. 6:15-16.
Gen 1:26 is quite clear, man is made in God's image and likeness- no exceptions. God Himself reaffirmed that in John 10:33-37. The fact that man had a beginning, but God did not, has no effect on that.
1 Tim 6:15-16, "which God will bring about in his own time—God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen."
Obviously Paul hadn't thought this through before he spoke.
Simply Amazing!!! I see that you don't believe what the Scriptures plainly say. Apparently, to you, Paul lied when he said that "who alone is immortal..." Simply Amazing!!!
Maybe I shouldn't post the following to you, O'well, I'll do it anyway...
When we look at the NT teaching of Jesus we see that his purpose was to initiate a change of the Old Covenant to a New Covenant. This was to come about with the fall of the nation of Israel and the creation of a new nation made up of Christians. The parables of Jesus for the most part were his way of showing this prophesied intent of God. This is one of the reasons why the Pharisees were so opposed to him, and gave them ammunition to call for his death.
The story Jesus told of the rich man and Lazarus is such a parable (Luke 16:19–31). It is sad, and very wrong, that it is most of the time told with the intention of proving something else, and the point Jesus made of it is just simply ignored most of the time. Because there are so many people who base their understanding and beliefs of a life after death on this story, I feel it becomes pertinent to show that it is indeed a story and not a literal presentation of life between death and resurrection. A few comparisons are in order here.
1. Luke’s gospel is filled with the parables of Jesus, and most of them were directed against the leaders of the Jews, the hierarchy of Judea. For example we find in Luke 16:14 this statement: “And the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him.” Most of the parables are not designated as parables in the text. To identify a parable we must look at its context and application.
2. If Luke 16:19–31 was a case history of what happens at one’s death, it would contradict the many teachings that judgment is reserved until the last day. “God has appointed a day in which He will judge the world” (Acts 17:31). Many other scriptures (too many to list here) teach that judgment and its execution of the wicked takes place at the return of Jesus, and not before, especially not at one’s death.
3. If one were to take this parable literally, it would portray a view of Abraham that is not found anywhere else in the whole of the Bible, and would be very contradictory to the other teachings of the Bible. It would show Abraham as the one who comforts the deceased, leaving out Christ and God the Father. Nowhere else in scripture is “Abraham’s bosom” mentioned as man’s destiny at the time of his death. Also, Abraham accepts the term “father’ without objection, contrary to Christ’s command that we should call no one Father except God.
4. If this were a true case history, this would seem to qualify prayer to the dead. If the dead, in this case the rich man, could pray to Abraham, certainly the living could also do so. By making this story an actual case history men have opened wide the door to all kinds of queer doctrines, such a purgatory, prayers to the dead, spiritualism, and the concepts of death contradictory to all the rest of the Bible.
5. If this was a literal case history, the language is impossible to understand, for we have one man dead and buried, yet lifting up his dead eyes, and being able to ask for a drop of water to cool his dead and decaying tongue; and the other man, Lazarus, not being buried but carried by angels to Abraham's bosom. In the book of Hebrews, chapter eleven, we find that Abraham is still in his grave and has not yet received his reward (vs. 39).
Everyone, if he understand what he reads, should readily realize that this is just a story with a lesson attached to it, and in this case, it is plainly stated in verse 31. The Pharisees readily understood what the story was about, and because of it sought to kill Jesus.
Most versions of the Bible use the word “hell” when the proper translation from the Greek reads “hades”, which simply means “gravedom,” the abode of all deceased people until the resurrection spoken of in John 5:28–29. It is this mistranslation and a literal understanding of it that give many the idea of a present purgatory, where God is punishing all the people who ever lived, except Christian, with horrible suffering in fire. However, the rich man in the parable was not in the Lake of Fire, nor the symbolic figure of Ge-henna, but in Hades. Hades is simply the same term as the OT “Sheol,” which was the common grave of deceased people.
The story of the rich man and Lazarus, when taken as an actual case history, requires one to wrestle the scriptures from their general meaning and produces concepts foreign to the teachings of Jesus in the rest of the Gospels, and the letters of the NT. However, this story is not given as an illustration of the state of the dead, but as an illustration of the end of the Old Covenant given to the Jews by Moses from God.
As to the punishment of the unrepentant or unbelievers, there are a multitude of scriptures that teach that they will be destroyed by fire in the day of judgment, for our God is a consuming fire! There is no need to distort the meaning of this parable to get that point across.
It is sad that so many have not understood the thread post. They are so far out in left field that they have left the ball-park. They have wander from the topic into uncharted grounds. Much more could be said, but I have doubts that any would use their intelligence to understand what could be said.
What? Here's post #24 in it's entirety:
"There’s never been much question on the origin of the idea of man having a distinct immortal soul. Relgious leaders of every denomonation know it came from Hellenistic influence that was creeping into the Christian congregation even before the apostles were dead. And they know it is NOT what the New Testament teaches.
To which I replied:
"You had said, in post 28 24, that the concept of soul was from Hellenistic influences, this shows it clearly was not. Even the Native Americans that lived here, long before the Europeans hit here, believed in a spirit that lived on after death."
You addressed origin, and said the origin was Hellenistic. To which I pointed out the origin was Jewish + and not Hellenistic.
I didn’t ask you to define the term “born again”.
I asked if, according ro your understanding of the term, you were born again.
I’m going to guess that by your understanding of the term, you are not born again.
This goes a long way to explain why we can look at the very same Scriptures and see very different things.
You see, I can answer confidently, by what I read and understand in Scripture, “YES! I am born again”.
Rather than study the Scriptures like a text book, I prefer to let them wash me, and wash over me. They are Living Water to me. The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life!
God made salvation simple enough for a child to understand (Mark 10:15). There are those who would wrest this simplicity to aggrandize themselves in the eyes of men or to lord over them (Mat 20:25-29 et cf).
By God’s grace and calling, I am a father of many children, most of whom are adopted. God in His mercy has shown me why He uses adoption as a metaphor for His relationship to us as individuals.
While marriage is the metaphor for Christ’s relationship to the Church, which is the believers collectively, adoption is the metaphor for God the Father’s relationship to us individually.
You must be born again to effect this adoption.
There are places all over the web that explain what it means to be born again, in words more eloquent and more exact than mine, by people who have the kind of time necessary to do this. I do not have the time, since my calling is to my many children, whose needs are deep and wide.
Please avail yourself of these resources on the web if you truly are interested.
I know that with the Spirit’s leading, if you truly yield to Him, you will find the correct definitions and explanations so that you might be born again.
Try, “What does it mean to be born again” in your Google search bar.
If I came across as hostile in any of my replies, I am sorry. I don’t have a lot of time to spend arguing and disputing. It is not what I was called to do.
Peter tell us to be able to give a “reason concerning the hope that is in you” (I Peter 3:15). However, that reasoning is completely out of focus, if not neglected, or superceded by contrary and confusing concepts of life after death. The Scriptures constantly tell us that the hope of seeing Jesus and receiving the glory of immortal life is not to be realized until the time of Jesus’ return and his resurrecting believers from the dead.
When Jesus told the thief on the cross next to him that “I say unto you, this day you shall be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43), many take this to mean that they immediately go to heaven to be with Christ after their death. This phrase Jesus used is misunderstood and with disastrous results. It contradicts almost everything said about the state of the dead before the resurrection. To resolve this quandary, one has to consider the location of Paradise and then examine the meaning of Christ’s words to the thief.
Many hold a view that Paradise is a part of Hades, so that at one’s death the spirits or souls of the redeemed enter a blissful partition (Paradise) of Hades, while the unredeemed enter a partition where they are suffering and punished by fire. Many think of this partition as a purgatory, while others think of it as a literal “hell.” But is this so?
It is true that the Bible teaches that at death all enter Hades (OT Sheol), the state of the dead, and that Jesus was in Hades for three days and three nights. But the “Gates of Hades” could not hold Jesus, for as Rev. 1:18 says, Jesus tells John, “I am the living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive unto the ages of the ages, and I have the keys of death and Hades.” The Scriptures record that Jesus died in three hours, but doesn’t tell us how long it took for the two thieves to die. The Romans were cruel, but also efficient. They went to speed up the deaths of the victims by breaking their legs so that death would be faster. Jesus was already dead, so they didn’t break his legs, although they did break the legs of the two thieves.
In Acts 2:27–33 Peter reminds his audience that Jesus was not “Left in Hades’ but was resurrected by the Father. By making Paradise to be a part of Hades, it can be understood how, according to some, that Jesus went both to Paradise and Hades at his death. But this has no Biblical support, and it contradicts other Scriptures where Paradise is mentioned. The Jews held many varied views regarding “Paradise,” but none of them were based upon Divine revelation from God, so we should give no weight to their opinions. We will stick to what is said in the Bible.
Paradise is a Greek word, borrowed from the Persians, and literally means a fruit garden. The LXX renders Genesis 2:8 thusly: “God planted a paradise in Eden.” We only find three places in the New Testament where the term is used: Luke 23:43; 2 Cor. 12:4; and Rev. 2:7. In each case the term suggests the restoration of the original Paradise of Eden. Let’s look at these passages more closely.
2 Cor. 12:2-4 — “I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man…was caught up to Paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell.” While we are not all agreed as to what constitutes the “third heaven,” we see that Peter explains that the first heaven and earth were destroyed at the time of the flood, and that the present heavens and earth are also to be destroyed (2 Peter 3:5–7). But he also tells us that there is going to be a “new heavens and a new earth” (2 Peter 3:13). Paul’s vision and revelation of a “third heaven” is much more fitting than to apply them to some place in Hades.
When looking at the promise made to the repentant thief on the cross, we find that it is made again in Rev. 2:7 for all the faithful saints: “To him that overcomes, to him will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God.” The “Tree of Life” found in the original Garden of Eden is not mentioned again until the creation of the new heavens and earth as described in Rev. 21 and 22. “And on this side of the river and on that was the tree of life…” (rev. 22:2). Notice that there is more than one “tree of life.” It is said to be on both sides of the river. The original tree of life was taken from earth sometime after Adam and Eve were ejected from the Garden of Eden, to stop them from eating of the tree and live forever. That would make them immortal and not subject to death if they were to eat of it. In the new heavens and the new earth the tree of life is restored for the saints.
Ask yourself, did the thief go to heaven with Christ on the day he died? It is very apparent that he didn’t. Why? Jesus was three days in the tomb, and did not ascend into heaven until 43 days after he died. Jesus surely didn’t offer the thief the chance to go to heaven before he ascended, and in advance of all the saved before him, including King David, who according to Acts 2:31 had “not yet ascended into heaven.” Then, considering what is said in Hebrews, chapter eleven, we are told that no one gets to heaven without us — yes, US! We, and them, have to wait until Jesus returns and resurrects the dead on the last day.
Now, if Paradise, i.e., Heaven, is yet future for the deceased of all ages, how are we to take Jesus’ promise to the thief? This problem is resolved if we look at Jesus’ statement in the original language and compare it with other scriptures. That is the only way to gain any right understanding of the Bible. Punctuation was entirely absent from all the NT Greek manuscripts. In the earliest manuscripts the text does not have any divisions between letters or words except an occasional dot or point on a level with the top of the letters, and sometimes a space. All the punctuations one sees in the Bible is the result of human authority.
The Greek adverb rendered “today” or “this day” appears in the LXX and the NT 221 times. In 170 of these places the adverb follows the verb it modifies. For example, in Deut. 30:18 it says “I declare to you this day, that you shall surely perish.” The Apostle Paul in Acts 20:26 says, “I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all men.” Luke 23:43 should be understood as saying, “Truly I say to you this day you will be with me in Paradise.” “Today or this day” is an adverb modifying the verb “you.” Rotherham’s Emphasized Bible puts the text this way: “Verily, the thee I say, this day, with me shalt thou be in the paradise.” He notes that concerning “semeron,” rendered “this day,” that it is a demonstrative word and therefore “it will bear any reasonable stress which may be laid upon it, whether it be placed before or after the words which it qualifies.”
An honest translator will choose to translate a verse in harmony with the rest of God’s word. The promise to the thief is similar to Christ’s promise to all his followers “This is the will of Him who sent me, that everyone who sees the son and believes on him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up on the last day” (John 6:40). Eternal life requires immortality, and that will not be given until the resurrection at Jesus’ return. “Blessed are they that wash their robes, that they may have the right to come to the tree of life, and may enter in by the gates into the city.” (Rev. 22:14). So will you be with Jesus in that Paradise?
It is a crying shame that translators have translated Sheol, Hades and Gehenna with the English term “hell.” Hades is the Greek term for the Hebrew Sheol, and means the common abode of all deceased bodies of humans. Gehenna, on the other hand, is a place on the south-west side of Jerusalem. It was a place where idolators burned their children during the reigns of King Ahaz and King Manassah (2 Chron. 28:3). It was later used as the city dumb of Jerusalem where fires and maggots fed on the refuse of animals and criminal bodies thrown therein. Jesus described it as a place where the “worm dies not and the fire is not quenched.” Flies laid their eggs and in turn the maggots born fed on what the fires did not burn up. Nothing alive was thrown in.
The only one of the three terms used for “hell” that has anything to do with punishment of the wicked is Gehenna. Jesus’ warning about being thrown in alive is always used in a future sense. Jesus said that “the hour is coming in which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation (judgment in many versions)” (John 5:28–29). Read Matt. 13:40–42; 2 Thess. 1:8–9; Matt. 25:41; Rev. 20:11–15, and see what they say. The punishment is death, the second death.
I was taught that when a soul dies, it either goes to Heaven or Hell for all eternity and that the soul is “living” in that it does exist. So... if that’s not immortal, what is? I mean to me eternity sounds pretty infinite. Call me simple, I guess.
Also, why do so many people keep insisting that the Jews and Christians got their beliefs from all these people that lived a thousand years AFTER Abraham. Abraham was called out of Ur to be separated and this is the beginning of the Jews. That was around 2000 BC. The Jews were following their monotheistic beliefs well before Plato and so many others. I have a history book that says that Christian beliefs came from Zoroastroism which is also far after the Jewish nation was begun. Because Christianity is a direct offshoot of Judaism, we have our beliefs primarily from them, with the exception of the belief in Jesus as the Messiah.
And finally, aftger reading your lengthy post, what the heck is your point? There is no hell, there is no heaven, what?
OY.
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