WHY ARE MANY OF US STILL HERE?

bbyrd009 said:

sorry you came up last today charity, I have basically wasted my morning I guess, so in reply here I would just ask you to address these vv in that context,
The kingdom of heaven is within you
No one has ever gone up to heaven
There is only One Immortal
And I guess maybe a brief explanation of your understanding of our baptism ritual, what happens when you go under, what did the pastor say, what happens when you come up out of the water, what did he say then, you get it I'm sure.

multiple posts bc iPad, sorry

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Hello again, @bbyrd009,

I did not realise that you had made three replies to me, I will address the points you have referred to, but want to ensure that we are on the same track, by confirming the following points you have raised:-

- The kingdom of heaven is within you - Luke 17:21
- No one has ever gone up to heaven - John 3:13
- There is only One Immortal - 1 Timothy 6:16
- Water baptism and it's significance - Romans 6:3-5

* Are these the verses and subjects you are referring to, bbyrd009? Do you still want me to address them?
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* Also in reference to 1 Thess. 4:13-14, you said (quote):-

There is no "return" in that passage charity, and we have gone over this one too I guess. So rather than the same retread reply that will not change until Scripture does, I would say read your passage up there, and then address why do you stand there looking up into the sky if you would, ty, remembering hidden from the wise once again. I would love it if Jesus proved me wrong and appeared in the literal clouds, by way of returning, and I believed that pretty much my whole life too ok

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* The word, 'return' may not be in this passage, @bbyrd009, but it is obviously His returning, for He had gone back into heaven. Those who rise to meet the Lord in the air will return with Him to the earth.

In Christ Jesus
Chris

Note the reversal of "whether absent or present," they were initially equal right, "absent is present," and then alla sudden they are opposites! How might "whether absent or present" even be interpreted in that context now? I guess no one cares, but imo this is the only redeemable post I have made today, and even it is a reiteration I guess. Maybe I should take a hint huh

bbyrd009 said:

Note the reversal of "whether absent or present," they were initially equal right, "absent is present," and then alla sudden they are opposites! How might "whether absent or present" even be interpreted in that context now? I guess no one cares, but imo this is the only redeemable post I have made today, and even it is a reiteration I guess. Maybe I should take a hint huh

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Hello @bbyrd009,

The Lord's bodily presence was no longer with them, for He had ascended up into Heaven, to God's right hand. He was absent from them in that sense, though present with them in 'spirit'.

Does that help?
In Christ Jesus
Chris

VictoryinJesus said:

2 Corinthians 3:6
[6] Who also hath made us able (born of God)ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.

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But some choose murder

Dave L said:

You are saying God failed to fulfill the 70 weeks as stated. And then you inject false prophecy into your imaginary gap adding to scripture. Also turning Jesus into Antichrist, and saying the Kingdom of God did not arrive with Jesus who proclaimed it along with the apostles.

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The spiritual kingdom yes, but the physical kingdom which has been prophesied about way more, No.

Dave L said:

The times of the gentiles are not fulfilled until the end of the world. We are to preach the gospel to all nations (gentiles) until then.
Plus, the Jesuits concocted the scheme as part of the counter reformation to throw people off on the Pope being Antichrist. Darby and Scofield popularized it.

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Sorry, but the pope ain't going to be the anti-christ but right there in your statement you acknowledged dispensationalism. One, the times of Israel, two, the times of the gentiles, the OT and the NT, two dispensations!!!

Phoneman777 said:

If the day got messed up in antiquity, it was re-established by Abraham who kept God's commandments. If it got messed up after Abraham, it was re-established by Jesus. And the U.S. Naval Observatory confirms there's been no change in the weekly cycle.

So, the problem is not which day is the Sabbath - it's who are we going to obey - the Creator and His seventh day memorial to His creation, or the enemy of souls and his false Sun worship day.

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So then you are not away of the differing opinions by the various Jewish scholars on what the actual calendar day is?

You can read more here.

(from the link) More important, there are a number of documents and tombstones that reference dates that would have not been possible if our current fixed calendar was in place. The most famous of these documents is the 835/836 letter of a Babylonian exilarch that was found in the Cairo Genizah. His letter discusses the day of the week for the start of Pesach in 836. 10 Pesach was due to start on Tuesday, so that the following Rosh Hashanah would be on Thursday, even though the molad of Tishrei was Thursday afternoon, and based on the “Molad Zaqen” rule (see Rambam K”H 7:2) would have been deferred to Shabbos.

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If there is uncertainty over which day of the week it should be, then how can you be sure you are actually keeping the Sabbath? Not to mention, the very same Law that requires the keeping of the Sabbath also requires sacrifices to be offered. Yet there is no temple, and no altar, and no priesthood, therefore, how can you sacrifice?

And how can you show your sores to the priest? Where is your Levitical priest? By what authority do you declare some of God's Law's to be valid, and some not?

Much love!
mark

Waiting on him said:

But some choose murder

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Waiting on him said:

As to why anyone would want to be under bondage or take some one with them

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Galatians 1:13-16
[13] For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it: [14] And profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers. [15] But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, [16] To reveal his Son (the Revelation of Jesus Christ) in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:

“I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it:”...Paul said. By the ministration of death.

1 John 3:14-15
[14] We know that we have passed from (the ministration of) death unto (the ministration of) life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. [15] Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life (Christ)abiding in him.

But Paul was given the ministration of Life in Jesus Christ and therefore became a minster of life and not death. The goodnews.

Isaiah 54:16-17
[16] Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy. [17] No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord , and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord .

Two ministrations here: condemnation(death) And of righteousness(Christ): 2 Corinthians 3:9 For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.

John 5:24
[24] Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from (the ministration of) death unto (the ministration of)life. (In the Son)

Romans 5:16-17
[16] And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. [17] For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.)

Romans 8:1-2
[1] There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. [2] For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and (the ministrations of)death.

Trekson said:

Sorry, but the pope ain't going to be the anti-christ but right there in your statement you acknowledged dispensationalism. One, the times of Israel, two, the times of the gentiles, the OT and the NT, two dispensations!!!

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What does Antichrist do the Pope hasn't already done, including the murder of millions of saints?

Trekson said:

The spiritual kingdom yes, but the physical kingdom which has been prophesied about way more, No.

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Jesus said the kingdom is spiritual only and comes without observation. And is not of this world. But you say "nay Lord, it is not as you would have it. It is as the pharisees and Dispensationalists would have it to be."

charity said:

Hello again, @bbyrd009,- The kingdom of heaven is within you - Luke 17:21
- No one has ever gone up to heaven - John 3:13
- There is only One Immortal - 1 Timothy 6:16
- Water baptism and it's significance - Romans 6:3-5

* Are these the verses and subjects you are referring to, bbyrd009? Do you still want me to address them?

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Um, has something changed? I'm in new territory here now, I don't think anyone has ever even acknowledged those before, so um why not go full ninja, ignore those specific ones and address every other instance of those phrases!

multiple replies, bc iPad?

charity said:

* The word, 'return' may not be in this passage, @bbyrd009,

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nor in any other passage of Scripture, @charity, you "literally" cannot Quote it one single time, except possibly in the Queen's English or something

but it is obviously His returning, for He had gone back into heaven. Those who rise to meet the Lord in the air will return with Him to the earth

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ah, so now you wanna get literal? With a little help there for Scripture @ "will return with Him to the earth?" Ok then, keep looking up @charity, I have no objections, and have a nice day
You will see Him come down they same way they saw him go up, almost surely probably

Dave L said:

Jesus said the kingdom is spiritual only and comes without observation

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zing, well except for "only" I guess but hey I'm in a generous mood I guess lol

hey Dave I wonder if a hypothetical Q might be um less emotionally charged for you--if that was the issue, not sure--if you had had any sons, would you have circumcised them? Or say if you were to have a son today, knowing what you know now, would you C him? ty

Ah, you need more than 20 minutes to think about this, Dave?
Never mind then ok, it was a Q from the um audience or whatever, and I doubt I could take another one of your politician answers today anyway

charity said:

Hello @bbyrd009,

The Lord's bodily presence was no longer with them, for He had ascended up into Heaven, to God's right hand. He was absent from them in that sense, though present with them in 'spirit'.

Does that help?
In Christ Jesus
Chris

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Hopefully you see that Christ is not in view there, and the subject is whether we are absent or present, which I guess you just answered huh

Trekson said:

Sorry, but the pope ain't going to be the anti-christ but right there in your statement you acknowledged dispensationalism. One, the times of Israel, two, the times of the gentiles, the OT and the NT, two dispensations!!!

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zing!

VictoryinJesus said:

2 Corinthians 3:6-8
[6] Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. [7] But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away: [8] How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?


“...for the letter killeth.” The children of God are not under the ministration of death engraved in stones. Instead the children of God are of the ministration of the Spirit which giveth life.

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Hi VictoryinJesus,

I love this part of Scripture! ch. 3 to 5, one of my faves!

That may not be an answer to what you were asking...It is the Spirit who establishes the law in us; written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God in fleshy tables of the heart. (2 Corinthians 3:3)

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Let's look at what is written on our hearts in this passage.

1 Corinthians 3
3 Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you?
2 Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men:
3 Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.

Is this saying the Law is written on their hearts? Or is this saying the people are Christ's letter, not written on stone, as in the Law, but written on the heart, that is, Christ.

The Laws are Spirit and can only be fulfilled by the Spirit. As far as tithing. What is the temple of God? Is it not the body? Then why do buildings adornments and buildings being raised up in His name ...gain more care than the people?

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Numbers 18:24 "But the tithes of the children of Israel, which they offer as an heave offering unto the Lord, I have given to the Levites to inherit: therefore I have said unto them, Among the children of Israel they shall have no inheritance."

If you are going to keep the law of the tithe, this is it. It belongs to the Levites, since they have no other inheritance.

Deuteronomy 14:23 "And thou shalt eat before the Lord thy God, in the place which he shall choose to place his name there, the tithe of thy corn, of thy wine, and of thine oil, and the firstlings of thy herds and of thy flocks; that thou mayest learn to fear the Lord thy God always."

This offering you have to enjoy in Jerusalem. And annual trip there. And remember to bring the Levite who is within thy gates.

If you are going to tithe according to the Law, this is what the Law commands.

Isn't it?

Much love!
mark

bbyrd009 said:

The kingdom of heaven is within you
No one has ever gone up to heaven
There is only One Immortal

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You are doing violence to the Scriptures when you take statements out of context. The first is Luke 17:21. Jesus is there speaking to the Pharisees and a group of His followers. The Pharisees ask Him when will the Kingdom of God come? The expression, "Kingdom of Heaven" is used exclusively in the gospel of Matthew, by the way. The other three gospels refer to the Kingdom of God. He replies that the Kingdom of God is already among them, (in their midst) meaning Himself as the King--but they do not recognize Him.

The next is John 3:13. Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus, who had come to Him, under cover of darkness, because he feared the Jewish authorities. Nicodemus was a Pharisee who almost certainly would have believed that the righteous dead went to be with Abraham in a beautiful Edenic paradise--one of two sections of sheol (Hebrew for "the place of the dead"--our New Testament translates the original Greek hades as "hell" but it instead, would have been equivalent to sheol--the "place of the dead"). The other section of hades/sheol was the "place of punishment"--the place for the unrighteous dead.

There are two main interpretations of the John 3:13 statement. One has a more Jewish theological cast to it. Jews of Jesus' day, believed that the souls of the righteous dead would have needed to wait for "Messiah ben Joseph" to take them into the presence of God Almighty in heaven (the place where He dwells) when He (the Messiah) was raised from the dead after three days. The writings of a few Talmudic scholars in the centuries preceding Jesus' birth indicate that there would be two Messiahs (instead of one who would come to them twice): Messiah ben Joseph--the "suffering servant" of Isaiah 53 and Messiah ben David--the Conquering King. Two Israeli archeologists recently (at the turn of the 21st century) discovered a stone (they called it the stone of "Gabriel's Revelation") which seems to validate that this was a common belief of Jews prior to Jesus' advent. This is, in my opinion, the main thrust of Jesus' tale of the Rich Man and "the other Lazarus" of Luke 16.

The second, more conventionally Christian, interpretation is that Jesus was saying that none of Nicodemus' teachers have been up to heaven and come back to teach him about it, but that He, had been there. It is preceded by Jesus' rebuke of Nicodemus for not knowing about the "born again" teaching and He says, "...if you don't believe me when I tell you about earthly things, how can you possibly believe if I tell you about heavenly things?" Either interpretation works in the context.

Your third cited statement is, I assume, your rendering of 1 Timothy 6:16. God Almighty (also known as God the Father) is an [immortal] Spirit (cited by Jesus in John 4:24) but humans, since the Fall, are spiritually dead. That is why they must be "born again" (spiritually) "from on high". Some atheist critics have pointed out that Satan was correct--that Adam and Eve did not die the day that they disobeyed God. But, the fact that, when they sinned, they were no longer innocent and realized that they were shamefully naked, means that something spiritual had transpired--their spiritual death--as their bodies and souls were still intact.

Phoneman777 said:

Simple: the law is made to show unrighteous men they are guilty of breaking it, are wholly incapable of fulfilling its requirements on their own, and are doomed to die the eternal death of the sinner.

Hi Phoneman,

Let's come back to your questions after you've answered the one of mine which you skipped.

Question, you are saying the Law is meant for you, is that correct? How do you understand the above?

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Is the Law meant for you?

the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane,

Much love!
Mark

Well, OK . . .

quote]Now, what did James mean by this:

1:22 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.
1:23 For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass:
1:24 For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
1:25 But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth [therein], he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

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This is not a return to the Law given in a covenant between God and the single nation of Isreal. The "law of liberty" cannot be the Mosiac Law, which is bondage, according to Galatians, not liberty. Like Hebrews says, it's only by putting into practice what we read in the Word that we can come to understand between good and evil. We need to do what we read (not building arks, mind you) so we can understand and remember who we are, those who are governed by the liberty that is in Jesus.

And this:

2:10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one [point], he is guilty of all.
2:11 For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.
2:12 So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.

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Again drawing from Galatians, if you want to be judged by the law, remember what you are asking for. So just because you may think you keep the Law because you do one part of it, remember, it's a single things, and breaking the Law is breaking the Law, it doesn't matter which Law.

You say you keep the Sabbath, good, but having begun in the spirit, are you trying to become complete by the flesh?

Galatians 3:10 "For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them."

You who keep the Sabbath, do you tithe to the Levite? And if not, then you are a law breaker. Wouldn't you rather be judged according the Law of Liberty found in Christ's finished work?

This is not James telling us that the 10 commandments are liberty. This is James saying don't kid yourself, you're not doing yourself any good by choosing this law to keep and that one to not.

Galatians 3:24-25 "Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster."

Now that's liberty!

Much love!
Mark

Lady Crosstalk said:

There is a reference to believers in Troas meeting to "break bread" (celebrate communion) on the "first day of the week" which would have been Sunday. (Acts 20:7) But I agree that the earliest believers, especially because they were Jewish, likely worshiped on the Sabbath, if they did not meet every day, which apparently many did as it is mentioned in Scripture. (Acts 2:42-47).

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The first day of the week is linked with the Resurrection, which is linked with the Feast of Firstfruits (1 Corinthians 15.20).

Lady Crosstalk said:

Not me. Talk to really old Christians. They will say that they love the thought of getting a glorified body that will never die and not be subject to pain and suffering as their mortal bodies now are.

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The order of heaven with Christ compared with the politics of this world causes many a pilgrim to cry : 'Even so, come, Lord Jesus'.