A puzzling verse about heaven and earth
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I’m a few minutes in. “Jesus supersedes all the prophets.” To me, that’s a no brainer, but I know it isn’t to others and that amazes me. The prophets were SPEAKING of Him, so of course (to me) He supersedes them!
As an aside, isn’t it odd that Genesis happened in an order and now seems to be happening in reverse?
Yes, seems everything is happening this way. Or, upside down! "On earth as it is in heaven"...like a mirror image that hasn't happened yet.
Never understood the second part of Matthew 11:11. John is greater than any person born yet, the least in the Kingdom of God is greater than he. Unless it's that ANYONE who was then in the Kingdom of God will always be greater than those still living on earth? Hmm.
I've always believed that Heaven and earth [which is part of God's creation and has a beginning and an end] will pass away. The same goes for mankind. There time here on this earth is limited. However, God's word, which is eternal, will stand forever. It will not pass away. It will also fulfill it's purpose. Isaiah 55:11
ScottA
Well-Known Member
"In the beginning God created..." He spoke, and by light and energy (the elements of matter) He created all things of the same elements of which He also made mankind, which is clearly stated as an "image." Moreover, He created an "aside"...that is, He cast mankind out of His original created image into an image "eastward" (spiritually meaning "evil") and all that was evil with them aside from the garden and the kingdom of God establishing a void between the two, literally dividing the light from this present darkness we know as the world or universe.
It is this "image" of this heaven and earth where darkness resides that is "passing" away. Jesus said "pass" away in that particular context, but elsewhere in the scriptures it is referred to as "passing" away, just as all mankind and their times pass away, which Paul came to understand comes "but each one in his own order." Which is to say, that each person becomes visible and exposed, each in their own time.
The question is, Why?
Why has God created this non-reality image aside from all that is real with Him. The answer is in His intentions for dividing out ("out" as in out of the kingdom, i.e., aside) the darkness to be dissolved, just as it is written. But also to fulfill His original creation without evil, which as the scriptures say will not come unless "the man of sin is revealed" first, which is to say that evil and darkness should be brought to light, that as darkness passes away before the light, so too evil "will pass away." In this way, the vanities of this world become "void", but His "words will not return void."
quietthinker
Well-Known Member
My mind kind of looks at it like…John was greater than any man born up to that time because hewas chosen to announce the soon coming of Jesus and he baptized Jesus, however, a much better thing was unfolding, the kingdom of God, and anyone in THAT kingdom had Gods Spirit in them and so were greater than John.
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Well, it seemed a little slow moving for me but I crept through it and then realized, at close to the halfway mark, that it was calming and peaceful to not be racing fast. It’s usually why I much prefer something written rather than a video - because the pace is usually too fast and frenzied with no time to really let anything settle and sink in, versus reading, in which it seeps in more slowly rather than racing by you and you can stop to think. I’m old and grew up reading and the younger ones grew up with the frenzied pace of video rather than much reading and their attention spans are now almost an obsolete thing, which I sometimes begin to think is normal and I somewhat try to adapt but it’s NOT a good or normal thing to never have time to think. Honestly, it begins to look to me like they’re PURPOSELY being constantly distracted away from thinking by someone’s nefarious plan, a bit like Israel being given the added busy work of having to go gather the supplies for the bricks so they wouldn’t have a free moment to think about God.
One thing he said stuck with me - it’s better to have law than anarchy but it’s far better to have love than law.
Then when they got towards the end and read the verse about the old covenant veil of misunderstanding that is only lifted by seeing Jesus, and the other verse that says, no human eye has ever seen Him nor ever will, it struck me that to not see that Jesus is God is to still have that veil over the mind and heart. And people who try strenuously to convince others that Jesus is not the Spirit of God, who we can’t see, in human form so we can see Him, are blinded by that veil while they simultaneously THINK they are seeing. And it brings you very close to almost daring to say, if I could be blinded so they could all see, I would do it! But you stop your mouth before you dare to say it.
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quietthinker
Well-Known Member
I've got to agree that peoples attention span today is painfully short and my guess is it's because they are used to having every thing dished up to them and spoon fed. Everything from the colour of their hair to the thickness of their lips......thinking becomes too much of a chore......it becomes evident in the topics on the menu. Immaturity has become the accepted normal.
Anyway, back to the podcast. The preeminence of Jesus requires the detail unpacking and repetition if it is not to become the sideshow of 'doctrines' the many of which I believe are 'fabrications'. I'm persuaded Ian's objective is to unpack the preeminence of Jesus from different angles......as I believe it was also Paul's and the other disciples. In the process they needed to deal with the various stumbling blocks cast at the feet of believers.
atpollard
Well-Known Member
Jesus said- "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away" (Matthew 24:35)
So "Heaven and Earth" change, but the "words of Jesus" do not ... they stand FOREVER and IMMUTABLE.
Well it’s quite confusing trying to fit the verses where they go so, yeah, almost all of it is conundrum. The only way I know to approach it is one little puzzle piece at a time (which is piece upon piece, one little piece/line here, one little piece/line there. But it’s like…there’s not really just one big puzzle but are a few smaller puzzles in one huge box all mixed up together and when they are all completed, they BECOME one big continuous puzzle. But you don’t have the picture that shows you what the whole puzzle looks like completed on the box as you do with a temporal jigsaw puzzle.
So you first have to separate out which piece goes in which pile when trying to understand future prophecy. Like…okay, this piece that says Jesus will settle all disputes and there will be no more war HAS to go in the pile for the smaller puzzle labeled “thousand year reign” because having no war sounds great, a huge improvement, but it can’t possibly be NEW heavens and earth because disputes won’t even OCCUR there at ALL.
But you absolutely have to be unrigid and what happens is the systematic constructs of men, if you get stuck in them, TURN you rigid because chances are 100% certain that you, and they, have got some pieces in wrong piles and will discover these as you go along and will have to move some.
It’s all so amazing and..VAST!
Behold
Well-Known Member
The born again, are already there, Dropship.
"born again"... .means, we are born again into the Spirit of God by the Holy Spirit of God.
This is to become "IN Christ". as... "ONE with God".
This is why the NT tells you that the born again are "seated in Heavenly places".. "IN Christ".
We are not waiting for that day.....as we are already Spiritually there, = born again.
It IS amazing and vast and...confusing
So, that does make sense to me. It cannot be the NHNE but, yes, the 1000 year reign! It's all in the study and the understanding...yeah, line by line, little by little. Oh I KNOW I have things in wrong piles so, it's my own lack of deep study habits that needs to change more and more...can get overwhelming for sure sometimes.
It IS amazing and vast and...confusing
So, that does make sense to me. It cannot be the NHNE but, yes, the 1000 year reign! It's all in the study and the understanding...yeah, line by line, little by little. Oh I KNOW I have things in wrong piles so, it's my own lack of deep study habits that needs to change more and more...can get overwhelming for sure sometimes.
I just posted somewhere something that has helped me many times. I’m going to find it and post it here. And also, I’m doing a similar searching in a thread right now, but I’ve just gathered all the verses and only begun.
God has helped me often when I do it. First gather the verses with the word or phrase you’re searching out, then read the verses before and after each of the verses, then arrange.
Here’s the post, I found it:
Aunty Jane
Well-Known Member
First we have to understand what these "new heavens and new earth" actually are, as the Bible writer Peter, understood them. Then we need to understand the reason why they need to "pass away" in order for "new" ones to replace them. (2 Peter 3:13)
So what are the "new heavens" from Peter's Jewish perspective? Jews had no belief in an afterlife (no immortal soul) so all life was to be lived on this earth where God created us to live in the first place. Who was to rule mankind at the outset? It was God himself....he was to be our Sovereign ruler, and the earth was to become a jewel in the crown of its eternal King.
This carefully and lovingly prepared planet was not designed to be a temporary home for us humans, but a permanent one. But we know that free will was abused and so a detour was implemented to demonstrate to humans by experience, what they could not be told....obedience to their Sovereign Ruler was the key to a successful life here in paradise. Death would come only as a result of sin (disobedience)....so conversely, no sin would have meant no death.
There was a "tree of life" in the garden to guarantee unending life in mortal flesh. Access to this tree was denied when they were evicted from the garden to eke out an existence on cursed ground. (Genesis 3:22-24) Death would eventually follow.
God's original instruction to Adam and his wife was to "fill the earth" with their children and "subdue" the land outside of their paradise home, so that eventually the whole world would look like the garden of Eden....a task that would probably have taken thousands of years....but it was interrupted at the outset by a rebel from the spirit realm who saw the worship that God would enjoy from his earthly children, and it tempted him to want that worship for himself. (James 1:13-15)
By lying to the woman, he took what rightfully belonged to Yahweh, and influenced the humans to follow him as their ruler.
The path God took was to allow the devil and the humans to exercise their free will in the way that they wanted to, knowing all along that it would end in disaster....but the object lesson would go down on record to show all of God's intelligent creation the folly of ignoring the commands of their Creator. He basically gave us all "enough rope" and we can clearly see that the "hanging" is about to take place.
Humans have been destroying the earth in ways unimaginable in Bible times.....weapons of war that could leave the earth itself a wasteland devoid of all life, not to mention the damage done through greed for profit by the big corporations spilling their poison onto the earth and into the oceans, damaging the health of all its inhabitants in the process.
So from the Bible's perspective, I believe that the "new heavens" will be the new ruling authority of Christ and his elect. Humans were originally designed to be ruled by God, so the new heavens will actually be a reinstatement of God's rulership over mankind with Jesus Christ as King and his elect as his support team. These will act as "kings and priests" for the thousand years it will take to restore humanity to their original sinless perfection. (Revelation 20:6)
The whole purpose of the Kingdom is to restore what God had put in place originally, with sinless humans serving his interests on a beautifully prepared planet under his direction, and with so much to enjoy in the life he purposed for us. The devil may have derailed that purpose temporarily, but he did not defeat it. What God starts, he finishes. (Isaiah 55:11)
The "new heavens" will rule over a "new earth" whose citizens will have already proven their love of God and their loyalty to him and his reigning King by sticking closely to his word. When Jesus comes with his angels to judge mankind...only those who have stuck to the teachings of Jesus without succumbing to the devil's deception, will become citizens of the "new earth", which will be cleansed of all that is evil, bringing everything back to the way it should have been in the beginning.
When you say "we", can you see that God's spirit operates on humans in different ways? He anoints those who will rule with Christ, giving them an inordinate desire to leave all earthly ties to take up their assignments in heaven, but for the "sheep".....these are the "meek" who "shall inherit the earth".
Aunty Jane
Well-Known Member
Just as an alternative point of view....
Matthew 11:11 speaks also from the Jewish perspective. John was not a "Christian" but like his cousin Jesus, he was a devout Jew who was considered a prophet by the Jewish people. He was the messenger sent ahead to prepare the way for the Messiah.
Since the scriptures plainly state that "no one went to heaven before Jesus" (John 3:13) he being the "firstborn from the dead" in a spiritual way, John was executed before Jesus died and opened the way to heaven for his elect to follow later. (Colossians 1:18)
That scripture simply means that a least one in the Kingdom would be greater because John's resurrection would not be to heaven. Those who died before Christ did not go anywhere but to their graves...the place from which Jesus calls all the dead. Those who have the "heavenly calling" (Hebrews 3:1) were to be be resurrected "first" (Revelation 20:6) but not until Christ's return......(1 Thessalonians 4:13-17)....and once the kingdom is established over the earth, then the general resurrection of the dead can begin. (John 5:28-29) They will come back to a restored earthly paradise and after the thousand year reign of the Kingdom, God's purpose for mankind on this planet will go ahead unimpeded.
I wonder what else he has planned for his vast Universe.....we can only imagine....
Yes, John blazed the trail for Jesus. And yes, he was the last OT prophet.
Locusts, honey and camel hair, poor guy! True yes, he did die while Jesus was still alive, pre-crucifixion. I do also believe that John was not in heaven or "with The Lord" after he died. Seems John would have ended up in Hades, Abrahams Bosom, Sheol?
Oh it is impossible to imagine what else He has planned! "Eye has not seen, mind has not imagined..."
quietthinker
Well-Known Member
There is an overwhelming tendency of man to think that God works in similar parameters as himself. For instance, men assume that God wants us to serve his interests when Jesus demonstrated that God wants to serve our interests.
Men take it for granted that ability and fitness is the way to survive whereas Jesus lays down his life willingly....to live
It is assumed God is a universal demagogue and man paint him with those characteristics. Is it any wonder his words are dragged through that lens?
Men take it for granted that ability and fitness is the way to survive whereas Jesus lays down his life willingly....to live
It is assumed God is a universal demagogue and man paint him with those characteristics. Is it any wonder his words are dragged through that lens?
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