My only point was that if you are already dead, whether it is temporal or eternal, you don't have to choose it...it will inevitably come.
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We are dead in our trespasses and sins...Eph 2:1.
And it should be ok to make a general statement of truth without dealing with every exception.
We have not been talking about the first death (so much)? But the final
fate of man, whether he puts on the immortality of Christ, or perishes.
God puts the choice before us. He wants us to choose life.
Our God is a Consuming Fire
But anyone can choose their way out of eternal death by deciding to believe the gospel.
What men can understand with finite minds of a mind that is infinite is relatively small. And because of this restriction, all that God is and does remains far beyond our comprehension. I've shared with you as I understand what the Bible teaches. You are under no obligation to accept any of it. I'll like you all the same.
Agreed. A person must actually believe the gospel, not just say they believe it.
You are very kind and quite different from so many others who cannot disagree without being reprehensibly disagreeable.
Bart? Ugh. LOL. An atheist, who slams against Christianity. But, speaking of speaking of hell:
Consider that Paul told us to follow his example, assuring us he had given us the full council of God
straight from Jesus. Paul said we should do as he did, and how many times in all his books (28% of the NT)
did he preach eternal conscious torment via hellfire damnation? Did he ever even use the word hell? No,
he did not. Paul, who claimed he was caught up into heaven and given the Gospel directly by Jesus, that
all men would be judged according to his gospel, that he had declared to people the whole counsel of
God, that he kept back nothing profitable from the people he taught, and that he was the apostle to the
gentiles... never once used the word hell. Paul uses the Greek word "Hades" in 1 Corinthians 15:55, where
it is translated "grave." (KJV) O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? In Galatians 1:8,
he says: But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which
we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
I skipped ahead a bit (I don't need to listen to their small talk) and got to where they begin talking about
where the ideas of hell originated. I did find it interesting because they talk about the fear of death, and
how pervasive it is, which as some of you may know, others here have claimed that death is nothing to
fear, which is antithetical to Scripture truth: Scripture identifies fear of death as the reason for man's bondage
to sin. The hell many describe comes largely from fiction, more specifically, Dante's Inferno from The Divine
Comedy, and William Blake paintings. Nothing like that is described in the Bible. In 1824, British landscape
painter John Linell commissioned the poet and artist William Blake to illustrate the Divine Comedy, a
fourteenth-century epic poem by Dante Alighieri. Though they were painted five centuries after the poem
was written, Blake’s one hundred and two water color illustrations resonated well with Dante’s secular and
spiritual ideas of a subsiding society and a soul’s journey through hell. (<= not in the video as far as I know)
where the ideas of hell originated. I did find it interesting because they talk about the fear of death, and
how pervasive it is, which as some of you may know, others here have claimed that death is nothing to
fear, which is antithetical to Scripture truth: Scripture identifies fear of death as the reason for man's bondage
to sin. The hell many describe comes largely from fiction, more specifically, Dante's Inferno from The Divine
Comedy, and William Blake paintings. Nothing like that is described in the Bible. In 1824, British landscape
painter John Linell commissioned the poet and artist William Blake to illustrate the Divine Comedy, a
fourteenth-century epic poem by Dante Alighieri. Though they were painted five centuries after the poem
was written, Blake’s one hundred and two water color illustrations resonated well with Dante’s secular and
spiritual ideas of a subsiding society and a soul’s journey through hell. (<= not in the video as far as I know)
.
● Luke 16:19-23 . . the rich man died and was buried. And in hades he lifted
up his eyes, and saw Abraham far away
Hades is commonly understood to be equivalent to sheol in the Old
Testament, and both are widely accepted to be speaking of the grave; so
with that in mind, here's a reasonable paraphrase of that passage in Luke:
"the rich man died and was buried. And in the grave he lifted up his eyes,
and saw Abraham far away"
Now according to Solomon the dead know nothing (Ecc 9:10) yet here in
Luke we find a dead man's corpse no less sentient than he was in life.
Seeing as how Lazarus passed away in this story, then Abraham must've
been dead too for them to get together; but in order for that to happen,
wouldn't it be necessary for Abraham and Lazarus to be buried together in
the same grave? Is that what took place in verse 22-- the angels exhumed
Abraham and laid Lazarus down next to him?
And how did Abraham's remains communicate with the rich man's remains;
grave to grave. How'd they do that? Is there some sort underground
intercom system about which we are unaware?
But Abraham's remains and the rich man's remains were not only in audible
contact with each other, but also visual contact. Do the dead have some sort
X-ray vision that allows them to see thru the ground into other people's
graves? Or perhaps there's an app for the dead similar to Skype and/or
FaceTime.
Luke 16:19-31 is commonly alleged to be a parable. Well; every other
parable I've read is sensible, plausible, and very realistic; whereas this
one would be an utter fantasy if hades and sheol meant only the grave
and nothing more.
_
● Luke 16:19-23 . . the rich man died and was buried. And in hades he lifted
up his eyes, and saw Abraham far away
Hades is commonly understood to be equivalent to sheol in the Old
Testament, and both are widely accepted to be speaking of the grave; so
with that in mind, here's a reasonable paraphrase of that passage in Luke:
"the rich man died and was buried. And in the grave he lifted up his eyes,
and saw Abraham far away"
Now according to Solomon the dead know nothing (Ecc 9:10) yet here in
Luke we find a dead man's corpse no less sentient than he was in life.
Seeing as how Lazarus passed away in this story, then Abraham must've
been dead too for them to get together; but in order for that to happen,
wouldn't it be necessary for Abraham and Lazarus to be buried together in
the same grave? Is that what took place in verse 22-- the angels exhumed
Abraham and laid Lazarus down next to him?
And how did Abraham's remains communicate with the rich man's remains;
grave to grave. How'd they do that? Is there some sort underground
intercom system about which we are unaware?
But Abraham's remains and the rich man's remains were not only in audible
contact with each other, but also visual contact. Do the dead have some sort
X-ray vision that allows them to see thru the ground into other people's
graves? Or perhaps there's an app for the dead similar to Skype and/or
FaceTime.
Luke 16:19-31 is commonly alleged to be a parable. Well; every other
parable I've read is sensible, plausible, and very realistic; whereas this
one would be an utter fantasy if hades and sheol meant only the grave
and nothing more.
_
i think it's pretty clear that this is what's being misunderstood rather than dozens of other passages.
Solomon is telling us that the physically dead have no more part or influence in the physical world, not that they are annihilated.
Instead of trying to say Jesus is presenting a demonic false worldview in Luke 16 or that the plain words of scripture in 1 Samuel 28 mean exactly the opposite of what they plainly say, seems to me that several people in this thread should re-examine what they think the wisest man who ever lived is saying in one of the most complex books in the entire OT.
Parables are meant to convey a deeper truth. They don't need to be literal to do so any more than any
cartoon character has to be a reflection of some real-life creature to get a desired message across.
People claim that the parable of Lazarus and the rich man is not a parable when we are told that story in the midst of a slew of parables, and also told that Jesus only taught in parables. They say it is not a parable because parables do not name real people. This is a made up rule that has become a man-made tradition that nobody needs to hold to, since there is absolutely nothing in Scripture that says otherwise.
Is it identified as a parable in the script? No, but neither are all of the other parables. Some are, and some are not.
In the same chapter:
The Parable of the Shrewd Manager
16 Jesus told his disciples: “There was a rich man whose manager ...
The Rich Man and Lazarus
19 “There was a rich man who...
It is told in the same way other parables are.
Also, brother post, my apologies for asking you who said that the first death causes
people to no longer exist, as I had not been following that line of conversation at all.
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Looking forward to it for sure.Heaven and earth shall pass away. God says He is making all things new.
Isaiah 51:6
Yes. But it is NOT called a parable. And why would it be a parable since parables ILLUSTRATE spiritual truths and what is this narrative supposed to illustrate? So once again you are trying to promote your FALSE DOCTRINES by denying the reality of Sheol/Hades.
All souls and spirits went to Sheol/Hades "in the heart of the earth" or "in the lower parts of the earth" until the resurrection of Christ. This was the abode of both the righteous and the unrighteous dead. There was no "Soul Sleep" six feet under the surface of the earth. These souls and spirits were very much alive as we see in the narrative of the Rich Man and Lazarus. But when Christ rose from the dead those in "Abraham's Bosom" (the righteous dead) were taken to Heaven by Christ. But before His resurrection He Himself was in Sheol/Hades for three days and three nights, preaching or proclaiming to the spirits in prison.
i am not so sure that other parables do not illustrate real people and real events - kinda suspect they do, so whether we call this a parable or not ((with all the connotation that word brings)) doesn't seem to me to be quite so material to how we understand it.
the main issue i take with dismissing the worldview clearly presented in Luke 16 is that Christ does not use lies in order to teach truth.
No big deal that you didn't realize i was addressing the persistent existence of living souls beyond physical death - - and i don't really want to get into arguments about whether the second death is annihilation or not, at this time. hope you and @cv5 can get rid of all bitterness between you; post loves you both deeply
You must have conveniently skipped over the part where it was stated that not all parables are identified
as such; that certainly fits your false narrative. Even some of those that are, it is not part of the inspired
text but additions to the text. I am not surprised, either, that you see no spiritual truth in this parable.