Bob Estey
Well-Known Member
I don't know if we'll ever see the Lord, but through prayer, we certainly are aware of his presence.
When a believer dies, will he be with God as a sentient being right away?
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Carl Emerson
Well-Known Member
So all of the 60 or so modern translations are wrong?
I suspect your theology comes through the lens of Mr. Russell - were you quoting the New World Translation - compiled to support his theology.
Mr. Russell believed that Christ had left heaven in 1874 to return to earth and expected that God's "harvest" of the "saints" would end in early 1878, when they would all be taken to heaven.
Folks need to know that JW's don't believe Jesus was God in the flesh.
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Carl Emerson
Well-Known Member
How does it feel to be on a forum among these weeds - given that you believe only the JW's are true believers?
Aunty Jane
Well-Known Member
You are assuming this….are you saying that it is impossible for God to recreate what he has already made?
Who said we would be clones? If our personality is restored, then we as a person will return to life….a new body would be a bonus, especially for those whose bodies were sick or disabled when they died…..I see it all as very positive as I leave the details that I cannot possibly know, to the one who told me that a resurrection was assured if I lost my life before the judgment. I trust him to know what he can and cannot do….
The spiritual part of us goes back to God who remembers everything about us…our life choices and what motivated us to do what we did in the lifetime we had……it is stored in his memory, ready to be reinstalled in a new body. You don’t think the Creator is capable of doing what he promises? Death is the end of life….for now. Those in the grave are like those in a state of suspended animation…..their absence is temporary whilst God deals with the original rebellion that took us in to sin and death in the first place.
The “soul” according to scripture, is the living, breathing creature…both man and animals are called “souls” in Genesis…..yet animals do not have any hope of a resurrection, since they are not created in God’s image. (Eccl 3:19-20) Man was not created to die, so the thought of it is abhorrent and we fight death with everything in us. If death took us to a better place right away, why would we grieve? Why are we not rejoicing for that person who has achieved life in paradise?
The word “soul” is often a reference to the person themselves, it is synonymous with their life, not something inside them that is separate. “Old King Cole was a merry old soul” is talking about the man himself, not a separate part of him.
So that verse in Matthew is saying that man can kill a person ending their life now, but God is the only one capable of ending their existence permanently……destroying the soul means never regaining their life in the resurrection. “Gehenna” to a Jew meant no resurrection….so yes, “the second death”.
The Bible says that death is an “enemy”….not a friend, unless we are suffering as a result of a terminal illness. Only then is it welcome, (especially for those who believe in the resurrection) but for many, death is very confronting because of what Christendom teaches about it….those who have never embraced a relationship with God often have great fear about where they will end up.
Aunty Jane
Well-Known Member
Would I be surprised if they were? Not really because translations of the Bible are numerous and all are the works of men…..the original was inspired by God, but not the translations, often published by those with clear bias towards Christendom’s false teachings. You can read into scripture whatever you wish, but unless you know what the entirety of scripture teaches through much study and with the right teachers, you will be lost in the hopelessly divided mire that Christendom has become.
At this juncture in history, Jesus promised that he would appoint a “faithful slave” who would be assigned to “feed” his fellow slaves, their “food at the proper time”. (Matt 24:45) Unless we are taught by that slave, who is no part of Christendom, we will not be receiving the true spiritual nourishment that Jesus is dispensing at this time. There are only two tables serving spiritual food at this time….only one is not serving death dealing poison. (1 Cor 10:21) Paul said that there is only the table of Jehovah and the table of demons…..the “angel of light” will make sure that the food he serves is appetizing, but it only makes people sick and leads to death.
We have gone way past the teachings of our Brother Russell…he was the start of something so much bigger and as truth is progressively revealed, (as it always is) things become clearer and clearer (Proverbs 4:18) …..we are indebted to him and his companions who undertook a careful study of the scriptures to eradicate all the false doctrines that Christendom still teaches to this day. Slowly they went through the scriptures and realized that 90% of what Christendom holds as Bible truth…..is not even close. The 10% isn’t enough to identify it as authentic.
If the church is to be identified by it’s fruits….that is seen in the kinds of people it produces….all I can say is that the majority are extremely lazy because they do no research of their own…they just accept these doctrines as though they can’t be wrong and trust that the devil could never mislead them…..but the truth is, those being saved are “few” not ”many”….(Matt 7:13-14) This will lead to grave disappointment when Jesus reveals to them his complete rejection of those he NEVER knew. (Matt 7:21-23)
Those” saved” are a hated and persecuted minority. (John 15: 18-21)
That is the most important truth of all…..since neither Jesus nor his Father ever even suggested that this was true, you have no actual statement from the principles involved in this issue to the effect that Jesus is, was, or ever could be God incarnate. If you had such a statement instead of inference and suggestion being read into ambiguous verses, to support something the Bible does not teach…..the issue would have been settled centuries ago….yet it still rages.
I am amused that this is issued like a warning…..as if this doctrine of all doctrines is the very foundation of Christendom’s entire belief system, and so cannot possibly be in error…..
Yet where will I find Jesus claiming to be anything but “the son of God”? Where will I find anything in scripture telling me to pray to three parts of God? Where will I find a single verse that says the holy spirit is God?
If Jesus is “the mediator between God and men”….then as the facilitator of communication between these two estranged parties, he can not be one of the parties….and if he was God, then we would need a mediator between us and him as well.
John 1:18…”No man has seen God at any time”…..so how can Jesus be God?
If God is immortal, how can he die? How can an immortal God die for the sin of a mortal man? Atonement means, ”one for one”….God could never be the equivalent of Adam.
If the Bible does not teach this doctrine…then it is not true…..but it is accepted by the majority, which should tell you something.
It should also tell you that if that one doctrine is false, then Christendom’s whole belief system crumbles….and it will, because it is the ultimate blasphemy, breaking the first and most important Commandment…..putting another god in place of the Father….two other “gods” in fact. (Exodus 20:3)
No one will fail the final judgment of this world unless they disqualify themselves by accepting what is not truth…..the devil will revel in his victory over the many, before he is imprisoned for the 1000 years of Kingdom rule. But God has simply used him to test out his human children….salvation will come only to the genuine truth seekers who have the courage to be different, despite opposition, as Jesus first disciples did.
Carl Emerson
Well-Known Member
Well this response amounts to a curse on many souls on this forum, and insists on submission to a theology of a known false prophet.
May the readers beware.
Thank you for the reasonably civil dialogue - May the Lord reveal who is deceived.
Aunty Jane
Well-Known Member
Since you have not replied to a single scriptural point made to you, I can assume that you have no responses, so please make sure that your own theology is soundly based on the Bible and not the blatant false teachings promoted by a dying church system.
The readers have reason to “beware” because the devil is a deceiver and he has done to Christendom exactly what he did to Judaism….there is no shortage of prideful men to carry on the lies, with threats of hell if they don’t believe what they are told.
Jesus is the appointed judge of all of us…..and there is just one truth….and “few” will find it for the same reasons that the Jews missed identifying their own Messiah…..their leaders had given them a false idea about what he should be, so they stumbled at the messengers and rejected the message…..the people in Noah’s day did the same thing……all is not as it seems in a world ruled by the greatest con artist in history.
Carl Emerson
Well-Known Member
I could respond to every scriptural point but you don't present as one who would be open to anything I might say.
I note your threats of hell, this is normal for a cult.
Have a great day.
Aunty Jane
Well-Known Member
I doubt that you have the scriptural knowledge, judging by what you have said so far......every scripture you quoted is right out of Christendom's party line....like you were reading a script. I am open to what the Bible says, not the "church" version of it....I ditched that decades ago.
I'm sorry you have a comprehension problem.....we don't believe in hell, nor did I threaten you in any way except to question the origin of your beliefs and your interpretation of scripture.....Hell is a creation of the church, not the Bible.....so where does that leave the hell believers? Haven't you just insulted a lot of your spiritual brethren here, suggesting that they are cult members? They just love to relish the thought of souls thrashing about in a hellish torture chamber forever.....what a loving God they worship.
shipeichong
New Member
No, I'm not saying God can't recreate something that He has already made. He created many animals and plants, not just one of each (it was only man, and woman, that God created just one of). I believe that if God wanted to He could destroy the whole universe and create a new one (or as many universes as He desires). I never assume that God is limited in any way.
I am not assuming that if we die and perish that when God recreates us He would be creating a clone; I am reasoning that that would be the case. If we perish in a fire, or if we simply perish in a grave (eaten by worms and insects, with perhaps only bones left remaining, though bones would eventually disappear too), then we could not be resuscitated, because there is nothing to resucitate and bring back to life. God can create an exact copy of our previous body, and he could program our brains with our memories and character, etc., but it would just be a copy and not the original us. It only makes sense to me if humans have an invisible spiritual part that is not destroyed at death (because it is not physical), that can be awakened to a conscious state by God and placed in a body, whether a new (different) body in the resurrection or in the restored original body that was dead and decaying in the case of the miracles performed by Jesus, prophets and apostles of raising people from death within days of them dying.
Hence when the Scriptures, including Jesus' own words, say that the dead are sleeping and will be awakened, it cannot be referring to the physical body, which returns to dust, but it is referring to the spritual part which remains in God's care. Ecclesiastes 12:7 (WEB):
(7) and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
The Jewish Targum paraphrases this verse as, “The Spirit will return to stand in judgment before God, who gave it thee”. Therefore the Jews seemed to understand the spirit to be the essence of who we are, and not just our breath (our breath can't stand in judgement).
An analogy would be a computer. The physical body is represented by the computer, and our personality, knowledge, memories, etc. is represented by the software, which is not physical. If the computer is destroyed, or perishes in a fire, etc., then the computer can be restored by replacement hardware and a backup of the sofware can be retrieved from the safe and copied onto the computer. It would then behave just like the original computer, but it isn't the original computer, it's just a copy. The software could be copied onto many computers, each of the same or different specification, but they would all be copies. If the computer was just the hardware, and that perished, then that computer could never be restored - a computer without the sofware is not a computer, it's just a heater. The sofware backup in the safe is not functioning, similarly after death our spirit is not functioning, it remains in God's safe. At the resurrection God takes the spirit from His safe and places it in a new body, but the difference from the analogy is that there is only one spirit, that was living but then in a dormant state (death), which God restores to a living state and give it a new body. Like you I don't know the science of how God can do that, but I believe that He can and will do it.
Now you are assuming that our personalites are just preserved in God's memory. That means there is no continuity between our current lives and our resurrected lives. The resurrected person would just be a copy, and not us.
That's not a good analogy for your understanding, because in suspended animation the animal still exists and is awakend from it - coming out of suspended animation doesn't involve creating a new animal, it's the same 'sleeping' animal that awakens, like our same spirit sleeping and being awakened from sleep. As Jesus said before he raised Lazarus from death, John 11:11 (WEB):
(11) ... he said to them, “Our friend, Lazarus, has fallen asleep, but I am going so that I may awake him out of sleep.”
Paul also talks of how "we" live in a "house", which is our human body, but when we die and that body is dissolved then "we" will be given a new house by God (some time in the future) - an immortal spirit body (if we are a Christian). Consider 2 Corinthians 5:1-10 (WEB):
(1) For we know that if the earthly house of our tent is dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens.
(2) For most certainly in this we groan, longing to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven;
(3) if so be that being clothed we will not be found naked.
(4) For indeed we who are in this tent do groan, being burdened; not that we desire to be unclothed, but that we desire to be clothed, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.
(5) Now he who made us for this very thing is God, who also gave to us the down payment of the Spirit.
(6) Therefore we are always confident and know that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord;
(7) for we walk by faith, not by sight.
(8) We are courageous, I say, and are willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be at home with the Lord.
(9) Therefore also we make it our aim, whether at home or absent, to be well pleasing to him.
(10) For we must all be revealed before the judgment seat of Christ; that each one may receive the things in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
Carl Emerson
Well-Known Member
Whatever the destination you think we have unless we believe 'your truth' It aint heaven.
As to detailing my decades of bible study, I wont bother, you have judged me and billions of others, because they don't buy into the teaching of your cult.
Have a great day.
Aunty Jane
Well-Known Member
That’s the crux of the whole issue......heaven was never intended to be a destination of man.....he was designed to enjoy mortal life on this earth forever, in paradise conditions.......the prospect of going to heaven was never in Jewish thought or teaching....returning to life on earth by resurrection was. Where does the Bible alter God’s first purpose? (Isa 55:11) What God starts, he always finishes because he ‘sees from the beginning, the end’.
As knowledge of the Kingdom and its function was revealed at the proper time, (with Messiah’s presence) certain ones were chosen by God for a role in heaven as part of the kingdom arrangement.....the roles they were to be given replaced the role of the priesthood here on earth under Israel’s system of worship, carefully managed and pictorial of the heavenly arrangement. (types and shadows) The Temple of God pictured by the earthly Temple, is in heaven and so are the priests who will serve there. But they have a dual role as “kings” as well. (Rev 20:6)
Those chosen for those important roles in heaven will rule redeemed mankind on earth, many of whom will be resurrected to begin the long journey back to sinless perfection under the guidance and direction of the heavenly King Jesus Christ, and his support crew, all personally chosen by God....and all appointed as priests with their High Priest, Jesus Christ. Only sinners need priests....there are no sinners in heaven.
This fixation with “going to heaven” permeates all of Christendom’s teachings, giving its adherents a false hope. We were never meant to live in heaven.....God carefully prepared this earth for all the creatures he created to live here. Man alone was created in God’s image because he was charged with looking after God’s creation as God himself would do if he were here. Mankind were to “fill the earth and subdue it”.....most have no idea what that meant, having never studied the scriptures for themselves.
You seem to have a warped idea about what a cult is......by definition Jesus himself was the leader of a cult. Are all who profess to be “Christians” then members of his cult?
What if all the Jews had rejected Jesus because the Pharisees had poisoned their minds against him? What if no one had ‘bought into the teachings’ of his “cult”? Where would that have led the human race?
This word leaves a nasty taste in people’s mouths because of past cult leaders who were charismatic and led their gullible charges into death.....this is why we must be discerning because not all that appears, is what you imagine it to be. The devil is good at portraying evil as good.....and vice versa.
What if the real “cult” is Christendom?....and you are all ‘sheep to the slaughter’......it’s not the majority who are saved....it’s the “few”. Why will Jesus reject the majority who claim him as their “Lord”? They are shocked at his rejection! Why? (Matt 7:21-23; Luke 13:24) You tell me......because your silence on so many things is somewhat deafening....if we are here to express our beliefs and discuss them in a civil manner, so far you have offered scripture which has a very different explanation when you do your research thoroughly.
You claim to have studied, but under whose tutelage? Your own? Anyone who thinks that they can pick up the Bible and interpret it on their own has a fool for a teacher. God has always provided teachers for his people....why do we imagine that Jesus chose 12 individuals with his Father’s recommendations to carry on the work he began. No one was at liberty to ignore those appointed teachers to interpret the scriptures for themselves, as though God had chosen to teach them directly, bypassing his own arrangement?
The “faithful slave” exists as the “wheat” and we have to find him and feed at his table. (Matt 24:45) He is the one appointed by Jesus to feed his entire household their “food at the proper time”......they get what they need, when they need it. They are no part of the counterfeit “weeds” sown by the devil.
There is only one truth, and we would never find it without guidance from this “slave”. (he is not an individual but an anointed body of men appointed to lead Jesus sheep into clean uncontaminated pastures.)
Christendom is a sham. No one will find the diamond in that pile of broken glass, without help....and no one gets that help unless their heart is fully in line with Christ’s teachings. (John 6:44; 65)
Bob Carabbio
Well-Known Member
SO in your Theology, Paul LIED when he taught "Absent from the Body is PRESENT with the lord"???
For one thing, one who is resurrected would not be “another” person….it would be the same person.
Maybe you meant another body? A “clone”, as you said?
Really though, medical science has discovered that about every seven years, our cells are replaced. We are, in essence, “another” body!
But still, the same person.
Have a good day, my cousin.
Carl Emerson
Well-Known Member
There are so many flaws in your use of Scripture, but that is the way you have been taught I guess.
As all but your folk are deceived there is little point in dialogue.
I would rather spend my time more fruitfully.
Have a great day.
Why not? The rich man in Luke 16 died and was VERY much alive crying and in torment in the fire!
Carl Emerson
Well-Known Member
...and the thief was to be in paradise with Jesus without delay.
The issue is that most folks don't appreciate the timeless space that exists in eternity which means in chronology there is a perceived delay but there is no delay in timeless eternity.
The issue is that most folks don't appreciate the timeless space that exists in eternity which means in chronology there is a perceived delay but there is no delay in timeless eternity.
Behold
Well-Known Member
Since 1936, Jehovah's Witnesses have rejected the idea that Jesus died on a cross, and instead teach that he died on a single wooden stake
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