Traditional Christianity pressures us to think in such a way as we always are waiting for a big physical change. ‘In a twinkling of an eye’ type of thing. I think what happened in 70 AD was a big spiritual / covenantal (?) change / fulfillment , and the start of a fleshly change of creation.
It was Paul not traditional Christianity that said we shall all be changed in the twinkling of an eye, that corruptible shall put on incorruptible and that certainly has not happened. There is no evidence of any resurrection in 70AD and once you spiritualize a physical resurrection you can claim anything since there is no evidence for or against. Additionally does it seem Satan is destroyed as Full Preterism claims? If Satan is destroyed then clearly there was never any need for him in the first place.
Actually, traditional Christianity taught what it did based on it’s belief about what Paul said. I would submit that there is nobody alive today (in the flesh) that was there at 70 ad. I also submit that all of them have a new body (of some sort) and what ever body they have it may well be imperishable. There are many different takes on what Paul was talking about there. I tend to think that much of what Christ (and Paul) talked about was the fulfillment of God’s relationship with Israel.
Evidence of a physical resurrection is only necessary if you think there has to be one. It’s a matter of perspective.
I’m not sure what full preterism says about Satan, but the fact remains that Satan’s power will be destroyed at some point. If that is the case, are we to say that there was never a need for him in the first place? I’m not sure that the scriptures anywhere say Satan will be destroyed, the closest it comes is in saying He will be thrown in the lake of fire and tormented day and night forever and ever.
Some one may straighten me out on that one if I got it wrong.
I think the inference is Christ will destroy Satan’s power or authority/ability.
1Jn 3:8 the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.
It seems that if we can’t find any verses where Satan is actually destroyed, and we have the perspective that the lake of fire could possibly be a place of correction, and forever and ever might have something to do with ages as opposed to eternity, then UR could possibly be possible.
Davo- thanks mate. i really like your utter honesty in saying to some degree we just do not know. Like you say, I hope the supremacy of God BEING love will humble us beyond our wildest dreamd i na good way.
Mantenanceman- I think you make a great point over the progress over time which reflects Gods command for us to tend the earth he gave us to live on. The deep pressing issue, imho, is the moral one of our actions. I can grasp the change of the Old Covenant world to New Covenant world as davo describes. The language used by Jesus, Peter, James John and Paul all muddy the understanding to me though. Jesus said He came to give life & life abundantly. Paul said if we are in Christ we are a new creation. There is a separation talked about between believers and nonbelievers on how they lived, because believers recieved the Holy Spirit. What is the bar to be for the differences??? We all are sinners and we struggle with it our entire life no matter if we believe or not. Jesus takes away our experiencing Gods wrath & judgment, yet so many say we will still be judged on our works/actions. Is grace limited or not?? I know this is a lil convoltued but i hope the gist of my point makes sense.
As I have looked back at the archives on this forum, i have seen bad blood erupt as a result of theological differences and attitudes of judgment. When if ever will such as this cease??? Each of us, as we live each day, know we have part devil and angel in us and they take over at various times. How will the angle part of us be at the forefront???
Davo- thanks mate. i really like your utter honesty in saying to some degree we just do not know. Like you say, I hope the supremacy of God BEING love will humble us beyond our wildest dreamd i na good way.
Mantenanceman- I think you make a great point over the progress over time which reflects Gods command for us to tend the earth he gave us to live on. The deep pressing issue, imho, is the moral one of our actions. I can grasp the change of the Old Covenant world to New Covenant world as davo describes. The language used by Jesus, Peter, James John and Paul all muddy the understanding to me though. Jesus said He came to give life & life abundantly. Paul said if we are in Christ we are a new creation. There is a separation talked about between believers and nonbelievers on how they lived, because believers recieved the Holy Spirit. What is the bar to be for the differences??? We all are sinners and we struggle with it our entire life no matter if we believe or not. Jesus takes away our experiencing Gods wrath & judgment, yet so many say we will still be judged on our works/actions. Is grace limited or not?? I know this is a lil convoltued but i hope the gist of my point makes sense.
As I have looked back at the archives on this forum, i have seen bad blood erupt as a result of theological differences and attitudes of judgment. When if ever will such as this cease??? Each of us, as we live each day, know we have part devil and angel in us and they take over at various times. How will the angle part of us be at the forefront???
I tend to believe grace is totally sufficient, but we will have to account for our sins or less than perfect actions. Paul says that in romans. And John tells us if we think we’re not going to sin we’re crazy.
I tend to side with davo when he talked about passing from this life to the next, that something will happen that will be awesome and huge and glorious.
I agree with your sentiments about the opinions about judgment. All I can say is we need to be like Christ and be part of the solution instead of part of the problem
I hope this is not straying from the thread too far but…
Elizabeth Kubler Ross wrote a book called ‘On Life After Death.’
Now, no matter what you think of her, (my jury is still out) she did say something in that book that really caught me. She said when we die, we go through a change. Like a butterfly coming out of a cocoon. And our new body will be marvelous.
But the thing that really rattled me is she said that we will each be required to view our own life, and we will be in the presence of God which she calls absolute unconditional love. In this environment, we can not help but see the flaws of our life and by contrast to the beauty of Gods ultimate love. She said we would have to view something like a cosmic TV set, and experience every action, thought, emotion we had in our life. Ouch…
My wife is a hospice nurse, and they use Mrs. Ross’s material. She was a scientist who studied death and near death experience’s for many years. Take it for what it’s worth. Her reputation was not without blemish, but I was pretty amazed at the correlation between Biblical UR and her observations of what people went through when they die… and come back.
What I am getting at is if people could realize that there are biblical and scientific consequences for their behavior, the world may be a better place, and peace and harmony may begin to spread. I believe that is the message of the church. Our love for others overcomes. Through Christ we minister. We help. Do what we can. The beatitudes are for the kingdom at hand.
Maintenanceman, I’m glad you brought this up. I’ve never heard of Elizabeth Kubler Ross, but I agree with her ideas here. I too have read and seen shows on near death experiences where people claim that their lives are reflected back on them. I think that this may be what happens. As for the caterpillar/butterfly analogy, I believe that it happens in this life as well; where the caterpillar represents man in the flesh, and the butterfly represents the man who walks in the spirit of God. One interesting thing I have learned about the caterpillar is that it eats of the leaf of the tree it was born on. If placed on the leaf of another tree, it will not eat, and it dies. Scientists have done some experimentation, where they take out a certain chemical in the caterpillar’s jaw which then enables it to eat the leaf of another tree. But it fails to turn into a butterfly.
Sorry if I went off the topic. I just wanted to add a little to what maintenanceman said.
Evidence of a physical resurrection is only necessary if you think there has to be one. It’s a matter of perspective.
I’m not sure what full preterism says about Satan, but the fact remains that Satan’s power will be destroyed at some point
‘’
A physical resurrection is what Jews always have believed in and Paul was a learned Jew so when he described the resurrection he would have meant a physical resurrection. There is no scripture or any evidence of any resurrection in 70AD. Additionally the destruction of the temple did not stop Judaism / Old Covenant in 586 BC since they continued using tabernacles when they didn’t have a temple. It was Jesus sacrifice that ended the Old Covenant and initiated the New Covenant. Lastly the destruction of Satan in 70AD is something Full Preterism claims.
Hi maintenanceman- thanks for your response. i agree with you and davo. I just wanted to touch on the ways that differ in interpretation about why life seems so much like it always was in so many ways, before AD 70 and after. I believe satan is actually our own adversarial inclination we all possess which seeks self-rule as opposed to accepting Gods rule. Jesus defeated satan by living completely for His Father and others so He defeated satan/self. I really like the caterpillar/butterfly analogy. What you and LLC speak of is very much akin to the movie Defending Your Life with albert brooks and meryl streep. I think maybe God leaves a lot of ambiguity about reward/loss in eternity for a reason. 1 Corinthians 13 says love keeps no record of wrongs. 1 Johm 1:9- God forgives our sin cleanses ud from all unrighteousness. My point at the end of my previous comment was to show we ALl still sin, be it deliberately or unknowingly because it is part of our dna. If we claim otherwise, as you said MM we are fooling ourselves. I think this topic is pretty open so no worries about veering far off LLC
I don’t think people before Christ thought about things like we do. As Christians, we are told we have certain ways about us. The Holy Spirit is a gift and a promise. Plus we have the Gospels to read and argue about.
Why are we so dog gone bent on listening to the past when Christ wants us to look forward to the future? Love is a progressive thing, not stagnate. It has no end. God sent a redeemer, someone who has made things right. The simple but honest truth. If we accept and obey, our life here will be fulfilling and we will be peace makers and not looking for strife. This is what I see as the mission of the church.
The Idea of surrender (is the word for surrender even in the scriptures?) is the Idea of Christ’s life being duplicated by a bunch of us who are doing what we do because the Holy Spirit has some how taken hold of us… Thus all the folks on this forum. We all Love Him. We just see things a little differently.
Hey MM- I agree about looking forward as you say, seeing the promises we have in Christ to press on towards. Could you explain a lil more in detail what you mean that people before Christ didn’t think in the same ways we do?? Everything you said i think is solidly shown in reality. However, we all DO see things a lil differently. Unity is NOT uniformity and we enjoy freedom in Christ. I still want to hear more about when you think sin will cease??? Davo makes a great point about how we are to be the change here and now. We should not just saylet the world go to hell i am waiting for heaven All the verses can be cited yet we STILl sin in many kinds of ways, even WITh the Holy Spirit in us and His love leading us more and more. I am not trying to beat a dead horse or be redundant but I just see differing opinions on how to know you are really in Christ or have the truth of scripture in you or somehow have a greater more genuine filling of the Spirit and yet all who claim these things show they fail to hold up the very standars they call others too. I am trying to think through why we often have so much shooting of our wounded and calls to being a certain standard which none but Jesus have ever reached?? I guess this is just something we will deal with until after death because even Calvin & Luther who are held in such high esteem committed atrocities which went against the doctrine they taught and expected all to uphold. Like someone on here said- we are complex
I believe satan is actually our own adversarial inclination we all possess which seeks self-rule as opposed to accepting Gods rule. Jesus defeated satan by living completely for His Father and others so He
OK but then who was God talking to when he allowed Satan to test Job? Who was Jesus talking to when he said “it is written you shall worship only God” and who did Eve talk to at the tree?
Hi steve7150-I take satan in Job to be either one of Jobs friends or an angel,since it is located in a heavenl court. I think also Job is likely an allegorical book. Satan in Jesus temptation in the wilderness is Jesus own internal struggle with temptation. Satan becomes personified in the story to more fully reveal His struggle to remain obedient and show how He overcomes the sinful flesh which only He could do. Satan in Genesis is never called satan only a serpent. I know you can find other threads on here which deal with who satan is. Remember satan= adversary, and God was called satan to david in OT as well as Jesus calling Peter satan. Hope this helps
Hi steve7150-I take satan in Job to be either one of Jobs friends or an angel,since it is located in a heavenl court. I think also Job is likely an allegorical book. Satan in Jesus temptation in the wilderness is Jesus own internal struggle with temptation. Satan becomes personified in the story to more fully reveal His struggle to remain obedient and show how He overcomes the sinful flesh which only He could do. Satan in Genesis is never called satan only a serpent. I know you can find other threads on here which deal with who satan is. Remember satan= adversary, and God was called satan to david in OT as well as Jesus calling Peter satan. Hope this helps
Robert Posts: 42Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2015 11:51 amLocation: Happy Valley Oregon
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Hi Robert,
I agree Job may be an allegorical book but it can still reference real entities like God. I believe Satan had access to heaven and he was specifically referenced apart from the sons of God at the beginning of the book. As far as Satan being one of Job’s friends there is nothing to imply any of them had the powers of destruction Satan had and Satan probably is a fallen angel since demons are referenced many times in the New Testament as occupying people. It seems to be more then an inner struggle with folks who Jesus cured of various maladies as he spoke directly to the demons and sometimes they spoke directly back to Jesus.
Jesus did call Peter “Satan” but sometimes I call my tennis buddy “Roger Federer” simply a figure of speech to make a point as I think Jesus did with Peter.
Steve, I think the physical resurrection was the church. When a spiritual change takes place within the heart, it manifests itself in our actions. This is bringing God’s way of life back into practice, things such as doing unto others, teaching, healing, giving, caring for others, etc.
Hi Robert,
There are many smarter folks on this forum that could talk about this but I’ll give it a go.
Try to imagine, not knowing Christ. Even with all of our disagreements and questions, He still beckons to us to learn about him. Every one of us who are Christians, are changed from what we once were. Something happened in us.
Now those before Christ had nothing but a hope of something to come (Jews) and the gentile (heathen) had… well they had their gods and ways.
Before Christ all were in darkness. Christ is light. It allows us to start to see. See things we never could before. The gospel of John talks in length about the light. I think it was Calvin who said that all humanity is shown very small snippets of Gods wonder and glory. He used the analogy of being in total darkness and a lightning bolt flashes. For a split second, you can see, then all is dark again. The excuse of not knowing has been taken away.
Christ allows us to start to see. Many of the Jews hardened their hearts and did not see the light. Meanwhile, some gentiles that heard about the Christ were changed. They were allowed to see.
And you are correct that even with the Holy Spirit we still fall short and sin. But I think this is where the idea of sanctification has merit. I’m a different Christian than I was twenty years ago. Yes I still fall short, but I have more peace and security in Christ in my life than I’ve ever had. I look at certain Christian men who are older than me and they flat out astound me in how humble and focused and peaceful they are. I hope to be there some day.
In many of Paul’s letters he continually is going on about the deeds of the flesh vs. the fruit of the spirit. Now I may be a little slow, but If those folks in those churches had it together, I don’t think He would have gone into such detail. Galatians is a prime example. He starts out talking about those who would bring a gospel different from the one he told them and ends up talking about holding one another up. In the 6th chapter it says Gal 6:1 Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted.
Gal 6:2 Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.
I think this is spiritual vs. being fleshly. See Romans the 7th chapter
Now there is an argument that Paul is not talking about those in Christ but outsiders coming into the church. But in the 4th chapter (of Galatians)he calls them brethren and says they are sons with the Spirit of Christ, but then goes as far as to say he fears that his labors might have been in vain. That is heavy. Hard to read that and not imagine this is Spiritual mortal combat.
As far as when sin will cease, and the hypocrisy that seems to be prevalent, all I can say is that sin will not cease while we are in this fleshly body, (at least that is how it seems to me) but the occurrence of sin and the destructiveness of our sin should be lessening as we mature in Christ. As we learn and get strengthened in the spirit, that light of Christ shows more and more of our flaws (to our self) but the Holy Spirit is making us stronger and sharper and more useful every day.
Most hypocrisy in the church comes from some kind of fear that we are somehow going to allow the adversary to get a foothold. We somehow think Christ and/ or the Spirit in us is not capable of combating the enemy. Somehow pointing out each others sin and their less that pleasant consequences is better than trying to trying to restore them in kindness. Hypocrisy is combated by love. Love is patient, love is kind,* does not consider a wrong suffered*. When we individually or as an organized church body choose to deal with any situation with love, we can do no wrong. When we choose to put others ahead of our self, we will start to help in the healing of our wounded as opposed to shooting them.
Steve, I think the physical resurrection was the church. When a spiritual change takes place within the heart, it manifests itself in our actions. This is bringing God’s way of life back into practice, things such as doing unto others, teaching, healing, giving, caring for others, etc.
I like this
I like this too but I think Jesus spoke about both a spiritual and physical resurrection in John 5. “Truly truly I say to you , an hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.” 5.25
Since Jesus says “now an hour is coming and is now here” , it means now you can live by believing therefore this must be a spiritual resurrection and he contrasts this with the physical resurrection in 5.28 when he says “all who are in the tombs will come forth.”
Hi steve- thanks for getting back. i think if you look at Job you will see God is actually the One who sends the afflictions upon Job after the challenge presented to Him by satan. Various places in OT God used angels to carry out actions for Him. Satan means adversary so in this sense God was being Jobs adversary ultimately to reveal Jobs faithfulness in affliction. If you look throughout the Bible you will not find any passage identifying satan as a fallen angel kicked out of heaven. As far as demons i think this was Jesus accomodation to beliefs of evil spirits held in that time and era. I fully agree Jesus calling peter satan was a figure of speech which fits with my point. The hebrew for satan is actually ha-satan or the satan as opposed to a proper name. Hopefully some others can leadyou to other threads that go into more detail on satan and what it means.
jepne and mm- thanks for all your sharing!!! I agree with you both and what you said fits with what is said throughout the NT basically. MY main idea was to deal with Davos focus on how pantelism functions and yet we see so much sin still at work always in the world. Love definitely does make life more Christlike and improves everything as we operate on it as our mo. In reflection on what you shared, i think maturity is a goal we all must seek. We will all struggle with sin and failing to love but we have that transformation within us that every moment is seeking to lead us to keep changing to be more like Jesus. Like t he phrase- * i am not who i want to be yet but thank God i am not who I was*
When we individually or as an organized church body choose to deal with any situation with love, we can do no wrong. When we choose to put others ahead of our self, we will start to help in the healing of our wounded as opposed to shooting them.