So this makes me think of the verses about not keeping their first estate...
Jde 1:5 I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.
Jde 1:6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
I often say History repeats itself. Perhaps it's not just times and places but entities as well.
We can look at history and say this person was just like that person. We can see a similarity in their personage and their actions.
I'm not sure where I stand on the issue of reincarnation. I believe it's a possibilty.
Saying that, then, these "angels" or messengers as the word is defined, have held different positions of authority throughout the "courses"
of time.
What is the first estate?
God sends them as messengers and servants to help the next generation progress up the ladder.
As each course progresses, perhaps they become self-righteous in their own eyes. Believing that it is they themselves that control the way things operate. They give themselves more authority, wanting to be served rather than to serve.
Perhaps this trait, this character that enters the next course is more bullyish, more demanding, more lawless. Making their own rules as each cycle turns.
Courses would be the cycles of life - death - life - death... that we have been here before, and will be again.
Those that are ever climbing up and down the ladder of progression or regression.
There are times in history when we have sunk so low and so far from God that it necessitates a new beginning. Such as Sodom and Gomorrah, the flood, the end of the ages.
So it could be as some come into this world progressing upwards, others come into the world regressing downwards, according to how they managed the office they were given in the last course of life.
I see this in the parable of the talents.
Sometimes I think that we are the angels in the flesh that fell from heaven. And this is our "pergatory" I guess it's called.
We are prisoned in this world, on this planet, and our flesh is the sin which we carry as a chain, or burden.
Some people are born with the ability to thwart temptations while others are weak and fall victim to it.
And that is measured by the amount of faith we retained in our last course, or life and death cycle,
So while some are born to do good, others are born to do bad.
But not one is without hope of getting back on the right course.
There is always repentance which causes a turning on the ladder and heading upwards once again.
Yeah, new agey.. I know. However, we are in a new age now and new depths of understandings are born everyday.
I'm sure what Paul was preaching sounded new agey to the early church as well.
They probably thought he was a tinfoil hat right wing conspiracy theorist. lol. And many wanted to see him gone.
Have set us Apostles last...
1Co 4:9 For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men.
When Paul says, as it were appointed to death, that sounds like to me, the end of the old course and the beginning of the new.
What is the meaning of "the world" , "angels" , and "men" .
There are 3 catagories or stations, like elevations or steps... the world, angels, and men.
The world would be the low rung on the ladder. The basest of humanity. Angels would be the servants or helpers to the world to climb up to the next level, where those in the world would progress and become angels. And then there are men. Man having achieved the prize. Having run the race and overcome the flesh and all it's obstacles.
But the Bible says that men are as beasts. They are no better and no worse than the world in which they rose from. They forget from whence they came. They become prideful and selfrighteous and end up back in prison, in the flesh, only to be humbled once again.
World without end.
Again here is 3 catagories.
1Co 13:1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become
as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
The order is reversed. tongues of men, of angels, and confusion or nonsensicle.
Tongues of men... Those that have understanding, that have overcome or are overcoming.
Tongues of angels... as a servant, a messenger, one who serves and teaches, makes known to the
world in all its confusion and lack of knowledge and without a conductor to lead the symphony.
Paul,
The admonisher of men, the instructor to the angels, and a voice of hope to the lost.
Paul speaks on all 3 rungs of the ladder.
And meets everyone on their own level of understanding. Perhaps that is why there is so much division in the church.
Not everyone is on the same rung at the same time. And the messages Paul preaches have a place and time for everyone but not at the same time.
So we find ourselves acting as children declaring that they themselves have all the truth, when others may be still above or below or in the middle of the learning process.
Those that scoff are heading down the ladder. Those that are open and willing to listen are moving up the ladder.
And in the next course, they will be born into the world where they left off in the last.
1Pe 3:18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:
1Pe 3:19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;
1Pe 3:20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
These spirits in prison...
Luk 4:16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.
Luk 4:17 And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,
Luk 4:18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me
to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty them that are bruised,
Luk 4:19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
Luk 4:20 And he closed the book, and
he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.
Luk 4:21 And he began to say unto them,
This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
If we believe, and have faith, and take up our cross, our worldly desires, our old man, and crucify that way of living,
and if we overcome the world, then I think it's possible that is the next life we become as the angels in heaven, the servants, the helpers, the ministers. And yet still tempted by earthy desires. As was the case of the sons of God who saw the daughters of men, and took of them who they chose. They began descending down the ladder once again.
My thoughts are like a many layered onion.
Sometimes the onion is sweet and sometimes it makes me cry.
There is no core to this onion and there is no outer layer.
Or if there is, I havent found the beginning or the ending of all the layers of my thoughts.
Eph 3:14 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Eph 3:15 Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
Eph 3:16 That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;
Eph 3:17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
Eph 3:18 May be able to comprehend with all saints what
is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;
Eph 3:19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.
Hugs