The Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31)

[Aunty Jane]

Precious friend. Correct, however, The Bible Does Teach This Truth, Solving the:

'Confusion' of What is Death...​

Amen.

The truth about death has been obscured by God’s adversary from the beginning.....in order to promote the lie that he told to Eve in the garden....”you surely will not die”....and he perpetuates it in almost every form of false worship....do you know of any that do not have some kind of spiritual existence after death?

God told Adam that he would ‘die and return to the dust’ from which he was created...no mention of heaven or hell, just life or death. A resurrection was a restoration of life...but not an immediate continuation of it.

So much is skewed by the notion that we do not really die when the heart stops beating and oxygen is no longer supplied to our cells. This is what death is.....the “soul” dies. (Ezekiel 18:4)

God did not give Adam a “soul” when he created him....Adam only became a “soul” when God started him breathing. The soul and spirit have become conflated as if they somehow mean the same thing.....they are not the same at all....and the Bible in its original languages shows us clearly what that difference is.

The “soul” is the whole creature, a word that in Hebrew means a living, breathing earth-bound creation....animals and well as humans are called “souls”. Solomon wrote that animals die the same death was we do...they stop breathing and return to the dust. (Eccl 3:19-20) We have no advantage over the animals in death....only in resurrection.

The “spirit” OTOH, is the animating force in all living creatures on this earth...it is sustained by breathing and when breathing stops, the last breath leaves the body and death is accomplished. There is no consciousness in death...it is rather like sleep from which only Jesus can awaken us. (Joh 5:28-29)
Where did Jesus say that Lazarus was before he raised him from the dead? (John 11:11-14)

When one has been raised to believe that our spirit departs from our body as an invisible conscious part of us, and goes to either heaven or hell, it’s hard to imagine anything else, since God did not program “death” into our psyche. It wasn’t supposed to happen because God put the means for everlasting life right there in the garden as a choice.....humans were supposed to live forever in paradise on earth....not in heaven at all.

We have no program for death, so when the devil offered a way to keep on living, the humans found it attractive.....but as was discussed on your other thread, death was never a gateway to another life.
Jews did not have a belief in an immortal soul because the idea was absent from their Scripture but was introduced later in their apostasy from Greek influence. It is a pagan Greek concept.

Even Jesus slept in death for three days in a tomb before God raised him from the dead....(Eccl 9:5, 10)
Paul also spoke of those who slept in death. (1 Thess 4:13-18) They were not to be raised until Christ’s return.

The devil has done such a good job of convincing people that they don’t really die, that he has no trouble convincing them of all sorts of other lies......confident in the knowledge that humans are easy to fool, if you use the right bait.

 

[ProDeo]

Did you only just identify Jack’s comprehension issues? He understands only one thing....that his theology cannot be wrong.....it’s a waste of time replying to him ....he hears nothing but his own voice....it seems as if he thinks it’s God.

Jack lives in fear.

 

[Aunty Jane]

Thus if you do not believe in the WORD of GOD except for those translations you decided He said, then you do not believe in the GOD I believe in.

I believe that this is the crux of the whole issue.....how many gods are there?....has a false god been created and substituted for the real one? If that took place early in the history of “the church”......would we know? Are any of us serving the true God?....the one Jesus served. (Acts 4:27, 30)
Can we trust the Bible as it is God’s only communication to us. Have men been permitted to alter its message?

It was over 300 years from the apostolic era, when Roman Catholicism took over the reigns as “THE Christian church”......and yet what did we learn about the teachings of the Roman Catholic church? Were it’s doctrines even biblical?

Was it an immediate departure from authentic Christian teachings, or was it a gradual slide into the foretold apostasy?.....ending with a tyrannical “church”....drunk with its own power that held its members captive in fear for 1500 years?......and to an extent, still does......the latter seems to be a winner here. It was “the frog in the pot”.....slowly inching away from Christ’s teachings....until the departure was complete....so what did the Reformation accomplish if it took many of the foundational doctrines of the “mother” church with them? is this what passes for Christianity today?

What did Catholicism get right?

Was Mary “the mother of God” and did she serve in the capacity that the church seems to think she does? Do we understand that ancient mother goddess worship was adopted by the church and that Mary was given all of her titles.
Was Mary ever virgin? The Catholic Church insisted that she was, but again the mother goddess was ever virgin as well....so the Bible doesn’t teach that, but Catholic people don’t seem to mind.
Like the first century Jews, “he church” was a law unto itself....teaching whatever invented man made doctrines they wanted to pass off to the people whom they kept in ignorance for centuries. (Matt 15: 7-9)

Did Jesus have siblings? The Bible says that Jesus had four brothers and at least two sister in a normal Jewish family where children were seen as a blessing from God. The Catholic Church vehemently denies that this is true, but there is no scriptural evidence that his brothers and sisters were not his half siblings apart from his spiritual brethren.

Do we have an immortal soul that departs from the body at death? Adam was never told about such a thing...and Jewish Scripture never mentions it. Jesus taught from Jewish Scripture. They were taught that the dead “sleep”...a place of “silence”. (Eccl 9:5, 10; Psalm 115:17)

Was the God of the Jews a triune being? There is no mention of that either. Jews were monotheistic in contrast to all false religion which had multiple gods. To serve a god other than Yahweh/Jehovah was to be in breach of the first Commandment. (Ex 20:3; 1 Cor 8:5-6)

Interestingly, out of the three main “Abrahamic” faiths, (Jewish, Muslim and Christian) only Christendom rejects a monotheistic god, instead squeezing into one entity into three different personalities, who could talk to one another, be in different places at the same time, and actually have independent wills.
The Jews never knew such a god....and neither did Jesus.

So where did he come from? Did the Catholic church again invent teachings that her Protestant daughters took with them when they ‘left home’? Why did Christendom base her beliefs on the doctrines of a renegade church? Did she get anything right? If so, how do we tell?

I don’t think people have any idea how corrupted “the church” became in fulfillment of prophesy.....”the wheat” are “few” in the world, growing along with many “weeds”.....but those who are genuine followers of Christ will not be sharing pews with those “weeds” planted by the devil....they will be completely separated in these last days, ready for Christ’s judgment....just as the Christians had to separate from the apostate Jewish system in the first century. The majority supported the wrong religion.....and had Christ put to death....they are doing it again.....only this time it will be Christ putting them to death. If only they would learn from the lessons of the past, so as not to repeat a familiar pattern.

 

[keithr]

Matthew 25:41-46
41 Then He will also say to those on the left hand, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels:

46 And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."

Interestingly the UASV+ comments that even though they translate the Greek work kolasis as punishment, that it actually means death:

Matthew 25:46 UASV+

(46) And these will go away into eternal punishment,N4 but the righteous into eternal life."​

N4 The Greek noun (κόλασις kolasis) refers to eternal cutting off, from life. Lit lopping off, pruning.​

Revelation 20:10
10 The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

Note the previous three verses - Revelation 20:7-9 (WEB):

(7) And after the thousand years, Satan will be released from his prison,​

(8) and he will come out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to the war; the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.​

(9) They went up over the width of the earth, and surrounded the camp of the saints, and the beloved city. Fire came down out of heaven from God and devoured them.​

These many people who Satan deceives and gathers them to war against the saints, "the number of whom is as the sand of the sea", are not thrown into the lake of fire as Satan is. For them fire comes down from heaven and devours/consumes them - they perish/die. This is just like the example of Sodom and Gomorrah - Luke 17:29 WEB:

(29) but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom, it rained fire and sulfur from the sky, and destroyed them all.​

It is only Satan, the beast and the false prophet that "will be tormented day and night forever and ever", not any humans living at the end of Christ's 1,000 year reign. All the humans that are deemed not worthy of eternal life will suffer death again (the "second death", verse 14) - eternal death.

This is in harmony with my favourite verse, Romans 6:23, which summarises the whole Bible message:

(23) For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.​

 

[Rich R]

Most of the Book of Revelation is symbolic. John declares so in the very first verse:

That is true. However, symbols point to a reality, something that is actually going to happen.

 

[Jack]

Interestingly the UASV+ comments that even though they translate the Greek work kolasis as punishment, that it actually means death:

Matthew 25:46 UASV+

(46) And these will go away into eternal punishment,N4 but the righteous into eternal life."​

N4 The Greek noun (κόλασις kolasis) refers to eternal cutting off, from life. Lit lopping off, pruning.​

Note the previous three verses - Revelation 20:7-9 (WEB):

(7) And after the thousand years, Satan will be released from his prison,​

(8) and he will come out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to the war; the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.​

(9) They went up over the width of the earth, and surrounded the camp of the saints, and the beloved city. Fire came down out of heaven from God and devoured them.​

These many people who Satan deceives and gathers them to war against the saints, "the number of whom is as the sand of the sea", are not thrown into the lake of fire as Satan is. For them fire comes down from heaven and devours/consumes them - they perish/die. This is just like the example of Sodom and Gomorrah - Luke 17:29 WEB:

(29) but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom, it rained fire and sulfur from the sky, and destroyed them all.​

It is only Satan, the beast and the false prophet that "will be tormented day and night forever and ever", not any humans living at the end of Christ's 1,000 year reign. All the humans that are deemed not worthy of eternal life will suffer death again (the "second death", verse 14) - eternal death.

This is in harmony with my favourite verse, Romans 6:23, which summarises the whole Bible message:

(23) For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.​

You're a Greek expert? You know more than the translators of our MANY English Bibles? Present your qualifications. Have any? Lots of Hellbound folks who don't like what God said claim to know more than God of the Bible!

 

[keithr]

You're a Greek expert? You know more than the translators of our MANY English Bibles? Present your qualifications. Have any? Lots of Hellbound folks who don't like what God said claim to know more than God of the Bible!

No I am not a expert on Greek. But then I didn't claim to be. Read what I wrote more carefully instead of jumping to wrong conclusions. I wrote, "Interestingly the UASV+ comments", i.e. I was pointing out what the translaters of the updated version of the American Standard Version added as a note on that Greek word. I also did not claim to know more than God. It seems that you misunderstand much of what you read in these posts, so I'm not surprised that you also misunderstand what you read in the Bible.

 

[Jack]

No I am not a expert on Greek. But then I didn't claim to be. Read what I wrote more carefully instead of jumping to wrong conclusions. I wrote, "Interestingly the UASV+ comments", i.e. I was pointing out what the translaters of the updated version of the American Standard Version added as a note on that Greek word. I also did not claim to know more than God. It seems that you misunderstand much of what you read in these posts, so I'm not surprised that you also misunderstand what you read in the Bible.

I understand when someone is attacking the Christian Bible.

 

[ProDeo]

No I am not a expert on Greek. But then I didn't claim to be. Read what I wrote more carefully instead of jumping to wrong conclusions. I wrote, "Interestingly the UASV+ comments", i.e. I was pointing out what the translaters of the updated version of the American Standard Version added as a note on that Greek word. I also did not claim to know more than God. It seems that you misunderstand much of what you read in these posts, so I'm not surprised that you also misunderstand what you read in the Bible.

I am not an expert on Greek either but the Greek on Biblehub proves you wrong.

Matt 25:46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

everlasting and eternal are the same Greek words.

αἰώνιον (aiōnion)
αἰώνιον (aiōnion)

Matthew 25:46 - The Sheep and the Goats

And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

biblehub.com

Check it out.

 

[Rich R]

You're a Greek expert? You know more than the translators of our MANY English Bibles? Present your qualifications. Have any? Lots of Hellbound folks who don't like what God said claim to know more than God of the Bible!

Like the 12 apostles. Fishermen have no qualifications to teach the Bible.

 

[Jack]

Like the 12 apostles. Fishermen have no qualifications to teach the Bible.

But they learned from Jesus in person. No better Teacher!

 

[keithr]

I am not an expert on Greek either but the Greek on Biblehub proves you wrong.

Matt 25:46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

everlasting and eternal are the same Greek words.

αἰώνιον (aiōnion)
αἰώνιον (aiōnion)

Matthew 25:46 - The Sheep and the Goats

And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

biblehub.com

Check it out.

Again, you too were not careful enough in reading what I wrote! My post was about the meaning of the Greek word that is translated as "punishment", not on the word translated as "everlasting" and "eternal". The UASV correctly translates the same Greek word into the same English word both times in the same sentence - Matthew 25:46 (UASV):

(46) And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."​

 

[Rich R]

But they learned from Jesus in person. No better Teacher!

That's true. But there is this:

John 16:13,

Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, [that] shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.​

​

I would think the spirit of truth is as good a teacher as Jesus.

 

[Jack]

That's true. But there is this:

John 16:13,

Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, [that] shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.​

​

I would think the spirit of truth is as good a teacher as Jesus.

The Spirit of Truth will always agree with the Christian Bible. The Bible is the Roadmap to God. Many are guided by demons who claim to be from God. We see it here almost constantly.

1 Timothy 4:1-2
1 Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, 2 speaking lies in hypocrisy,

 

[ProDeo]

Again, you too were not careful enough in reading what I wrote! My post was about the meaning of the Greek word that is translated as "punishment", not on the word translated as "everlasting" and "eternal".

Yes, you are right, my bad.

The UASV correctly translates the same Greek word into the same English word both times in the same sentence - Matthew 25:46 (UASV):

(46) And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."​

Back to the issue I had in mind

And these will depart into everlasting cutting-off,*+ but the righteous ones into everlasting life.

So why then this miss translation in the JW Bible, cutting-off interpreted by you as death (post 184) while the Greek states punishment.

 

[Bladerunner]

I believe that this is the crux of the whole issue.....how many gods are there?....has a false god been created and substituted for the real one? If that took place early in the history of “the church”......would we know? Are any of us serving the true God?....the one Jesus served. (Acts 4:27, 30)
Can we trust the Bible as it is God’s only communication to us. Have men been permitted to alter its message?

It was over 300 years from the apostolic era, when Roman Catholicism took over the reigns as “THE Christian church”......and yet what did we learn about the teachings of the Roman Catholic church? Were it’s doctrines even biblical?

Was it an immediate departure from authentic Christian teachings, or was it a gradual slide into the foretold apostasy?.....ending with a tyrannical “church”....drunk with its own power that held its members captive in fear for 1500 years?......and to an extent, still does......the latter seems to be a winner here. It was “the frog in the pot”.....slowly inching away from Christ’s teachings....until the departure was complete....so what did the Reformation accomplish if it took many of the foundational doctrines of the “mother” church with them? is this what passes for Christianity today?

What did Catholicism get right?

Was Mary “the mother of God” and did she serve in the capacity that the church seems to think she does? Do we understand that ancient mother goddess worship was adopted by the church and that Mary was given all of her titles.
Was Mary ever virgin? The Catholic Church insisted that she was, but again the mother goddess was ever virgin as well....so the Bible doesn’t teach that, but Catholic people don’t seem to mind.
Like the first century Jews, “he church” was a law unto itself....teaching whatever invented man made doctrines they wanted to pass off to the people whom they kept in ignorance for centuries. (Matt 15: 7-9)

Did Jesus have siblings? The Bible says that Jesus had four brothers and at least two sister in a normal Jewish family where children were seen as a blessing from God. The Catholic Church vehemently denies that this is true, but there is no scriptural evidence that his brothers and sisters were not his half siblings apart from his spiritual brethren.

Do we have an immortal soul that departs from the body at death? Adam was never told about such a thing...and Jewish Scripture never mentions it. Jesus taught from Jewish Scripture. They were taught that the dead “sleep”...a place of “silence”. (Eccl 9:5, 10; Psalm 115:17)

Was the God of the Jews a triune being? There is no mention of that either. Jews were monotheistic in contrast to all false religion which had multiple gods. To serve a god other than Yahweh/Jehovah was to be in breach of the first Commandment. (Ex 20:3; 1 Cor 8:5-6)

Interestingly, out of the three main “Abrahamic” faiths, (Jewish, Muslim and Christian) only Christendom rejects a monotheistic god, instead squeezing into one entity into three different personalities, who could talk to one another, be in different places at the same time, and actually have independent wills.
The Jews never knew such a god....and neither did Jesus.

So where did he come from? Did the Catholic church again invent teachings that her Protestant daughters took with them when they ‘left home’? Why did Christendom base her beliefs on the doctrines of a renegade church? Did she get anything right? If so, how do we tell?

I don’t think people have any idea how corrupted “the church” became in fulfillment of prophesy.....”the wheat” are “few” in the world, growing along with many “weeds”.....but those who are genuine followers of Christ will not be sharing pews with those “weeds” planted by the devil....they will be completely separated in these last days, ready for Christ’s judgment....just as the Christians had to separate from the apostate Jewish system in the first century. The majority supported the wrong religion.....and had Christ put to death....they are doing it again.....only this time it will be Christ putting them to death. If only they would learn from the lessons of the past, so as not to repeat a familiar pattern.

can we trust the Bible...God tells us that He will preserve HIS word for all generations...Is that not good enough... Do you really think He will let man destroy His Word.

 

[Aunty Jane]

can we trust the Bible...God tells us that He will preserve HIS word for all generations...Is that not good enough... Do you really think He will let man destroy His Word.

If our worship is superficial, without diligent study, it requires nothing but blind belief.....this is a “blindness” that Paul mentions in 2 Cor 4:3-3.
“And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (ESV)
This is a blindness that rejects the truth......which sounds so foreign to the indoctrinated, that it repels them.

Do we underestimate the power of this enemy so as to ‘blindly’ accept what is spoon fed to the masses? Isn’t that what happened to the Jews in Jesus’ day? They relied on the wrong information from the wrong people....and lost their place in God’s Kingdom.

Does the devil change his tactics? Why would he when the old ones work so well for him....added to that is how long these tactics have been employed and how well he understands flawed human nature.

We CAN trust the Bible...what we can’t trust is how men interpret it. This is what divides the Christian Faith to the point where the churches are so far removed from the truth, that they cannot identify it when it is right in front of them. The Jews had the same problem. What Jesus taught was a truth that they did not want to hear.
They had strayed so far from the teachings of Moses that when Jesus came to teach the truth, it was rejected as heresy (apostasy).

Matt 15:7-9....Jesus said....
“You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: “‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’” (ESV)
It was they who had taught “the commands of men as doctrines”....history is repeating because human nature does not change.

 

[Jack]

We CAN trust the Bible...what we can’t trust is how men interpret it.

Meaning JW puppets?

 

[keithr]

And these will depart into everlasting cutting-off,*+ but the righteous ones into everlasting life.

So why then this miss translation in the JW Bible, cutting-off interpreted by you as death (post 184) while the Greek states punishment.

Why are you asking me to explain why different Bible translations translate the way they do? I am not a Jehovah's Witness so I am not an expert on the New World Translation which you quoted above, but nevertheless it is in agreement with the UASV note:

UASV note:

The Greek noun (κόλασις kolasis) refers to eternal cutting off, from life. Lit lopping off, pruning.​

NWT note:

cutting-off: That is, from life. The Greek word kola·sis is used of “pruning” or “lopping off” needless branches from trees. This “cutting-off” would be “everlasting,” since the person would be cut off from life with no hope of a resurrection.​

(I added the underlining.)

So I think that the NWT is the most accurate translation of this word/verse.

Most translations translate it as "eternal punishment", but that does not mean the punishment continues for eternity, it means that the results of the quick punishment lasts for eternity. The punishment for sin is death (Romans 6:23), and that death will last for eternity (it's not the dying that lasts forever, because that would be eternal life and not death!). It is similar language as Paul used in Hebrews 6:1-2 (WEB):

(1) Therefore leaving the teaching of the first principles of Christ, let’s press on to perfection—not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works, of faith toward God,​

(2) of the teaching of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.​

God will not be constantly judging people for all eternity; He judges once, fairly quickly, and the result of that judgement lasts for eternity.

Similarly Hebrews 9:12 (WEB):

(12) nor yet through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood, entered in once for all into the Holy Place, having obtained eternal redemption.​

Jesus' act of redemption occurred once, he is not continually shedding blood forever, but the effects/results of that redemption lasts forever.

Similarly Hebrews 5:9 - "eternal salvation".

 

[Jack]

UASV note:

The Greek noun (κόλασις kolasis) refers to eternal cutting off, from life. Lit lopping off, pruning.​

Now you're a Greek expert again?