Reviving Biblical Christianity (The Way) Part 2

[Episkopos]

Annihilation Lake of fire
Inherit the earth
Rule and reign with christ over the nations
Outer darkness

I didn't give verses because I'm pretty sure you will remember the verses.
That shows four.

I think you are mostly NOT confused. You should be changing screen names with others here! ;)

 

[Episkopos]

You are once again inventing classes of believers that the Bible never creates. Revelation 22:11 does not teach that some true believers are “filthy” and “wicked,” while others reach a higher level called “righteous” or “holy.” It contrasts those who remain in sin with those who belong to God. Scripture says plainly, “the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God,” and then tells believers, “such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified” (1 Corinthians 6:9–11). Paul does not say they remained wicked believers. He says that is what they were before Christ saved them.

A Christian can stumble and must still confess and forsake sin, but Scripture does not describe the regenerate as people who love unrighteousness. “Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God” (1 John 3:10). Those who continually practice wickedness while claiming to believe are giving evidence that their profession is false.

Your appeal to the talents does not prove your doctrine either. Jesus did not teach two acceptable classes, ordinary righteous believers and a superior holy group. The unprofitable servant was cast into outer darkness (Matthew 25:30). That is judgment, not a lower level of Christian reward.

All true believers are called saints, are sanctified in Christ, and are commanded to pursue holiness. There is no biblical caste system of filthy believers, wicked believers, righteous believers, and elite holy believers. That system comes from your teaching, not from the text. Get a Bible and read it.

I could try taking you by the hand and help you with your reading skills but something tells me that you would only throw a tantrum.

Seek the Lord for yourself...and live.

 

[MostlyConfused]

I think you are mostly NOT confused. You should be changing screen names with others here! ;)

I go in and out of the confusion. And when I’m in it, it’s just best to shut up and wait. Anything else agitates me right out of the peace I find myself in. I’d rather be peacefully confused than agitatedly confused.

 

[bdavidc]

I could try taking you by the hand and help you with your reading skills but something tells me that you would only throw a tantrum.

Seek the Lord for yourself...and live.

You offer to take me by the hand and teach me to read, yet you cannot take your own eyes through three plain passages without running away from them.

By all means, keep mocking. Perhaps if you mock loudly enough, 1 Corinthians 6:11 will rewrite itself and say, “such are some of you,” instead of “such were some of you.” Perhaps 1 John 3:10 will suddenly say that those who do not practice righteousness are a lower class of Christians instead of “not of God.” Perhaps Matthew 25:30 will turn “outer darkness” into reduced rewards.

Your doctrine needs that kind of miracle, because it certainly is not in the text.

You tell me to “seek the Lord and live,” but when the Lord’s written words are placed before you, you refuse to answer them. Jesus asked, “Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46). Invoking the Lord’s name while evading His Word is not spirituality. It is hypocrisy.

You have invented classes of regenerate people that Scripture never creates. You have filthy believers, wicked believers, righteous believers, and an elite holy class. Yet Paul says believers were washed, sanctified, and justified. John says the one who does not practice righteousness is not of God. Christ casts the unprofitable servant into outer darkness.

Those texts are not difficult to read. They are difficult for you to accept because they tear down your system.

So spare me the performance about my reading skills. You have not answered the Scriptures because you cannot answer them without abandoning your false teaching. Your sarcasm is loud, but your biblical case is silent.

Take your own advice. Seek the Lord, submit to what He actually said, and stop teaching what is not written.

This is for you:

 

[Episkopos]

Your doctrine needs that kind of miracle, because it certainly is not in the text.

Exactly. Whatever is of Christ is miraculous in nature. You are confusing Jesus with a morality preacher. The law was given through Moses but Jesus Christ quickens us into His miraculous grace over sin. That is the gospel. If it doesn't overcome sin, the flesh and the devil, it is NOT the gospel....but "another" gospel...for the flesh.

 

[Episkopos]

Again, most modern believers have been indoctrinated so badly that they can't tell the difference between the Bride and guests. My guess is that these have never attended a wedding...or if they had, they maybe thought that every guest was getting married as the bride.

The bible is very clear on the distinction between the righteous and the holy. The righteous are scarcely saved. The saints are abundantly saved.

 

[bdavidc]

Annihilation Lake of fire
Inherit the earth
Rule and reign with christ over the nations
Outer darkness

I didn't give verses because I'm pretty sure you will remember the verses.
That shows four.

You did not give verses because your list falls apart the moment the verses are actually read.

Perhaps the missing passages are busy, or on a journey, or sleeping and must be awakened. But until they arrive, your four-destination doctrine remains nothing more than four phrases thrown into a pile.

“Annihilation” is not a destination. It is your interpretation of the lake of fire, and it contradicts Revelation 20:10, where its inhabitants are “tormented day and night for ever and ever.”

“Inherit the earth” and “rule and reign with Christ” are not two destinies. They are promises made to the same redeemed people. The saints inherit and reign. Counting two blessings does not create two classes of salvation.

“Outer darkness” is judgment, not a second-rate heaven for unsuccessful Christians. Christ described it with exclusion, weeping, and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 22:13; 25:30). Nothing in those passages calls it an eternal home for saved people.

So your supposed four are actually one false interpretation, two blessings belonging to the same saints, and one picture of judgment.

Revelation itself gives the final division: those written in the book of life enter, and those not written in it are cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:15; 21:27). Christ gives the same division: “These shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal” (Matthew 25:46).

Two outcomes. Life or punishment. Inside or outside. Christ or no Christ.

You said you were “pretty sure” I remembered the verses. I do. That is why your list does not work. The verses do not support what you are claiming. You are counting expressions while ignoring who they describe and what their contexts actually say.

If there are four eternal destinies, stop waving at unnamed passages and prove it. Name each group, give each destination, and show where Scripture distinguishes them. Until then, this is not Bible teaching. It is theological finger-painting presented as revelation.

 

[bdavidc]

Exactly. Whatever is of Christ is miraculous in nature. You are confusing Jesus with a morality preacher. The law was given through Moses but Jesus Christ quickens us into His miraculous grace over sin. That is the gospel. If it doesn't overcome sin, the flesh and the devil, it is NOT the gospel....but "another" gospel...for the flesh.

There it is again. When the text is missing from your doctrine, you call the absence “miraculous.”

Perhaps your exegesis has gone on a journey. Perhaps it is sleeping and must be awakened. But no amount of spiritual-sounding language can make your teaching appear in Revelation 22:11.

I did not say Christ is a morality preacher. I said your invented classes of filthy believers, wicked believers, righteous believers, and elite holy believers are not in the text. Instead of proving them, you changed the subject to overcoming sin, the flesh, and the devil.

Yes, Christ saves His people from sin. Yes, grace teaches us to deny ungodliness and live soberly, righteously, and godly (Titus 2:11–12). Yes, those born of God are not characterized by the practice of sin (1 John 3:9–10). None of that proves your caste system.

You are also confusing the gospel itself with all the results that follow from it. Paul defined the gospel as Christ dying for our sins, being buried, and rising again (1 Corinthians 15:1–4). He said God “justifieth the ungodly” who believes (Romans 4:5), and that being justified by faith, “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1).

The gospel is not, “Christ did His part, and now prove you have reached the superior spiritual class.” The gospel is the good news of what Christ accomplished for helpless sinners. The same grace that justifies also sanctifies, but sanctification is the fruit of salvation, not the ground of justification.

And do not wave Galatians 1 around while preaching another standard of acceptance. Paul’s “another gospel” was a message that added human performance to faith in Christ. He said, “if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain” (Galatians 2:21).

So spare me the theatrical language about miracles. The miracle of regeneration does not give you permission to invent doctrines. The Holy Spirit who gives life is the same Spirit who inspired understandable words, and He does not contradict Himself.

You still have not answered the passages. You still have not shown four eternal destinies. You still have not proved that Revelation 22:11 creates four classes of humanity. You have only shouted “miracle” over an empty argument.

That may impress people who confuse religious intensity with truth. It does not answer Scripture.

 

[MostlyConfused]

Annihilation” is not a destination. It is your interpretation of the lake of fire, and it contradicts Revelation 20:10, where its inhabitants are “tormented day and night for ever and ever.”

Well then you will have to explain to me how they live forever when eternal life is only in Jesus.

 

[MostlyConfused]

“Inherit the earth” and “rule and reign with Christ” are not two destinies. They are promises made to the same redeemed people. The saints inherit and reign. Counting two blessings does not create two classes of salvation.

The one who overcomes, and the one who keeps My deeds until the end, I will give him authority over the [q]nations; 27 and he shall [r]rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of the potter are shattered, as I also have received authority from My Father;

Well give us your thought on who it is that those who overcome will be ruling over.

 

[bdavidc]

Again, most modern believers have been indoctrinated so badly that they can't tell the difference between the Bride and guests. My guess is that these have never attended a wedding...or if they had, they maybe thought that every guest was getting married as the bride.

The bible is very clear on the distinction between the righteous and the holy. The righteous are scarcely saved. The saints are abundantly saved.

Again, you have given us a wedding illustration and expected everyone to bow before a doctrine the text never states.

Yes, a bride and wedding guests are distinct figures in a wedding scene. A five-year-old can see that. What you have not shown is that those figures represent two permanent classes of redeemed people with different levels of salvation. That conclusion is yours, not Scripture’s.

Revelation 19:7–9 mentions the Lamb’s wife and those called to the marriage supper, but it never says the guests are lesser Christians, “righteous” but not “holy,” or people with a different eternal destiny. You are counting characters in an illustration and pretending each one creates a new class in eternity.

By that method, John the Baptist must belong to another eternal caste because he called himself “the friend of the bridegroom” (John 3:29). Perhaps you will soon discover separate heavens for the bride, the guests, the friend of the bridegroom, the virgins, and whoever served the food. Your system can multiply classes faster than Scripture can name them.

Your use of “the righteous scarcely be saved” is just as careless. First Peter 4:18 does not say righteous people barely scrape into salvation while an elite group called “saints” receives a superior salvation. Peter is speaking about suffering and God’s judgment beginning at His own house:

“For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God” (1 Peter 4:17).

“Scarcely” speaks of the severe trials through which the righteous are saved, not uncertainty about whether Christ’s righteousness is sufficient. Peter had already told these same believers they were “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation” (1 Peter 1:5).

And where did you get “the saints are abundantly saved”? If you are referring to 2 Peter 1:11, read the passage instead of turning one word into a caste system. Peter wrote to people who had already “obtained like precious faith” (2 Peter 1:1). He called them “brethren” and urged them to make their calling and election sure. The abundant entrance is promised in connection with faithful Christian growth. It does not create a second species of redeemed person.

All believers are saints. Paul wrote “to all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints” (Romans 1:7). The Corinthians, with all their failures, were “sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints” (1 Corinthians 1:2). Peter called believers “an holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9). Scripture does not reserve “holy” for your spiritual upper class.

So your doctrine still rests on the same trick. You find different descriptions, metaphors, or degrees of reward and turn them into different classes of salvation. Then you mock everyone who refuses to follow you beyond what is written.

The Bible distinguishes the saved from the lost, the faithful from the unfaithful, maturity from immaturity, and reward from loss. It does not teach your hierarchy of righteous guests who are scarcely saved and holy saints who are abundantly saved.

You keep saying the Bible is “very clear.” Then show the verse that plainly states your doctrine. Not a wedding picture you have stretched beyond recognition. Not two unrelated phrases stitched together. A verse that actually says there are two classes of redeemed people, one righteous and scarcely saved, the other holy and abundantly saved.

You cannot show it because it is not there.

You need to stop and consider where this road ends. Peter warned that those who twist the Scriptures do so “unto their own destruction” (2 Peter 3:16). James warned that teachers “shall receive the greater condemnation” (James 3:1).

I am not claiming to know your final destiny. I am warning you from the Word of God. If you continue twisting Scripture, rejecting correction, and teaching others to follow your inventions, you are walking the very path God says ends in destruction.

Repent while there is still time. God is true, and His warnings are not empty.

 

[bdavidc]

Well then you will have to explain to me how they live forever when eternal life is only in Jesus.

You are confusing eternal life with eternal existence. The Bible does not define “life” as mere consciousness or “death” as nonexistence.

A person can be physically alive and still be spiritually dead. Paul spoke of one who “is dead while she liveth” (1 Timothy 5:6), and told believers they had once been “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). They obviously existed. Biblical death is separation and ruin, not necessarily cessation of existence.

Jesus made the final contrast unmistakable: “And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal” (Matthew 25:46).

The condemned do not possess eternal life in Christ. They undergo everlasting punishment. The same verse uses the same duration for both. You cannot make the life eternal while quietly shortening the punishment.

Jesus also said that all who are in the graves will be raised, some “unto the resurrection of life” and others “unto the resurrection of damnation” (John 5:28–29). The wicked are raised for judgment. They are not raised merely to disappear.

Revelation is even plainer. The worshippers of the beast “shall be tormented with fire and brimstone,” and “the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night” (Revelation 14:10–11). Revelation 20:10 says the devil, beast, and false prophet “shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”

So they do not “live forever” in the biblical sense of possessing eternal life. Eternal life is found only in Christ. They exist forever under the judgment Scripture calls the second death.

Your argument only works by redefining death as nonexistence, but the Bible never gives you that definition. It explicitly describes everlasting punishment, conscious torment, and no rest day or night. The problem is not that Scripture failed to explain it. The problem is that annihilation cannot survive what Scripture actually says.

 

[MostlyConfused]

By that method, John the Baptist must belong to another eternal caste because he called himself “the friend of the bridegroom”

Jesus said among all men born no one was greater than John the Baptist and yet the least in the kingdom is greater than him.

 

[MostlyConfused]

The condemned do not possess eternal life in Christ. They undergo everlasting punishment.

How can you undergo a punishment that never ends if you don’t live eternally?

 

[MostlyConfused]

You are confusing eternal life with eternal existence. The Bible does not define “life” as mere consciousness or “death” as nonexistence.

A person can be physically alive and still be spiritually dead. Paul spoke of one who “is dead while she liveth” (1 Timothy 5:6), and told believers they had once been “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). They obviously existed. Biblical death is separation and ruin, not necessarily cessation of existence.

Jesus made the final contrast unmistakable: “And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal” (Matthew 25:46).

The condemned do not possess eternal life in Christ. They undergo everlasting punishment. The same verse uses the same duration for both. You cannot make the life eternal while quietly shortening the punishment.

Jesus also said that all who are in the graves will be raised, some “unto the resurrection of life” and others “unto the resurrection of damnation” (John 5:28–29). The wicked are raised for judgment. They are not raised merely to disappear.

Revelation is even plainer. The worshippers of the beast “shall be tormented with fire and brimstone,” and “the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night” (Revelation 14:10–11). Revelation 20:10 says the devil, beast, and false prophet “shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”

So they do not “live forever” in the biblical sense of possessing eternal life. Eternal life is found only in Christ. They exist forever under the judgment Scripture calls the second death.

Your argument only works by redefining death as nonexistence, but the Bible never gives you that definition. It explicitly describes everlasting punishment, conscious torment, and no rest day or night. The problem is not that Scripture failed to explain it. The problem is that annihilation cannot survive what Scripture actually says.

So some men will exist forever but won’t live forever? And yet it’s OTHERS who make things up…?

 

[MostlyConfused]

Revelation is even plainer. The worshippers of the beast “shall be tormented with fire and brimstone,” and “the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night” (Revelation 14:10–11). Revelation 20:10 says the devil, beast, and false prophet “shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”

I have wondered a lot at that. Those who take the mark do seem to not die and another verse does say men will seek to die and won’t be able to!

 

[Laurina]

Again, you have given us a wedding illustration and expected everyone to bow before a doctrine the text never states.

Yes, a bride and wedding guests are distinct figures in a wedding scene. A five-year-old can see that. What you have not shown is that those figures represent two permanent classes of redeemed people with different levels of salvation. That conclusion is yours, not Scripture’s.

Revelation 19:7–9 mentions the Lamb’s wife and those called to the marriage supper, but it never says the guests are lesser Christians, “righteous” but not “holy,” or people with a different eternal destiny. You are counting characters in an illustration and pretending each one creates a new class in eternity.

By that method, John the Baptist must belong to another eternal caste because he called himself “the friend of the bridegroom” (John 3:29). Perhaps you will soon discover separate heavens for the bride, the guests, the friend of the bridegroom, the virgins, and whoever served the food. Your system can multiply classes faster than Scripture can name them.

Your use of “the righteous scarcely be saved” is just as careless. First Peter 4:18 does not say righteous people barely scrape into salvation while an elite group called “saints” receives a superior salvation. Peter is speaking about suffering and God’s judgment beginning at His own house:

“For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God” (1 Peter 4:17).

“Scarcely” speaks of the severe trials through which the righteous are saved, not uncertainty about whether Christ’s righteousness is sufficient. Peter had already told these same believers they were “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation” (1 Peter 1:5).

And where did you get “the saints are abundantly saved”? If you are referring to 2 Peter 1:11, read the passage instead of turning one word into a caste system. Peter wrote to people who had already “obtained like precious faith” (2 Peter 1:1). He called them “brethren” and urged them to make their calling and election sure. The abundant entrance is promised in connection with faithful Christian growth. It does not create a second species of redeemed person.

All believers are saints. Paul wrote “to all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints” (Romans 1:7). The Corinthians, with all their failures, were “sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints” (1 Corinthians 1:2). Peter called believers “an holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9). Scripture does not reserve “holy” for your spiritual upper class.

So your doctrine still rests on the same trick. You find different descriptions, metaphors, or degrees of reward and turn them into different classes of salvation. Then you mock everyone who refuses to follow you beyond what is written.

The Bible distinguishes the saved from the lost, the faithful from the unfaithful, maturity from immaturity, and reward from loss. It does not teach your hierarchy of righteous guests who are scarcely saved and holy saints who are abundantly saved.

You keep saying the Bible is “very clear.” Then show the verse that plainly states your doctrine. Not a wedding picture you have stretched beyond recognition. Not two unrelated phrases stitched together. A verse that actually says there are two classes of redeemed people, one righteous and scarcely saved, the other holy and abundantly saved.

You cannot show it because it is not there.

You need to stop and consider where this road ends. Peter warned that those who twist the Scriptures do so “unto their own destruction” (2 Peter 3:16). James warned that teachers “shall receive the greater condemnation” (James 3:1).

I am not claiming to know your final destiny. I am warning you from the Word of God. If you continue twisting Scripture, rejecting correction, and teaching others to follow your inventions, you are walking the very path God says ends in destruction.

Repent while there is still time. God is true, and His warnings are not empty.

Here's one (there are more, this is a huge study, but I'm in bed right now so you'll have to wait.):

2 Thess 1:10
When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe (because our testimony among you was believed) in that day.

Also, there are 2 judgments coming...the Bema Seat and the Great White Throne.

The Bema Seat is for the house of God in the first resurrection, (judgement begins in the house of God). There are 2 outcomes...honour or dishonour.

The Great White Throne judgement is for the nations. Again, 2 outcomes....life or death.

Now, 2 judgements with 2 outcomes each equals 4 possible destinies. Simple math with profound consequences.

Goodnight all! :)

 

[bdavidc]

The one who overcomes, and the one who keeps My deeds until the end, I will give him authority over the [q]nations; 27 and he shall [r]rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of the potter are shattered, as I also have received authority from My Father;

Well give us your thought on who it is that those who overcome will be ruling over.

The passage tells us exactly who they rule over: “the nations.” What it does not say is that these nations are a second class of saved people who are merely “righteous,” while the rulers are an elite class called “holy.” You are trying to smuggle your doctrine into the question.

Look at the language you quoted. They are ruled “with a rod of iron,” and broken “as the vessels of a potter.” That language comes from Psalm 2:8–9, where the Messiah subdues rebellious nations:

“Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

Revelation 19:15 uses the same language of Christ when He comes to “smite the nations.” This is language of authority, subjugation, and judgment. It is not a description of Christ and His saints governing a lower class of saved wedding guests.

So the honest answer is this: the overcomers share Christ’s authority over the nations. The text does not identify those nations as “righteous unbelievers,” “scarcely saved Christians,” or guests with a separate eternal destiny. You added all of that.

And Scripture does not make “overcomers” an elite caste above ordinary believers. John says: “For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world” (1 John 5:4).

“Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 John 5:5).

The overcomer is the one who belongs to Christ and perseveres in faith. The promise of ruling does not prove two kinds of salvation any more than different rewards prove different gospels.

You were asked to prove four eternal destinies. Instead, you pointed to a passage about believers sharing Christ’s rule over nations. That does not establish your claim. It does not say the ruled nations inherit eternal life apart from Christ. It does not call them righteous guests. It does not say they are scarcely saved.

You have found rulers and those ruled at a particular time. You have not found two classes of redeemed people with two eternal destinies. Those are not the same thing.

So now answer the actual issue: where does Scripture say these nations are saved people without the life of Christ, or that they form a lower righteous class beneath the holy saints? Until you show that, your doctrine is still being supplied by your imagination rather than the text.

 

[MostlyConfused]

So you have no answer for WHO the people are that they rule over. You could have just said so!

 

[MostlyConfused]

That’s a good one! It’s everywhere you look isn’t it…?

edit: was a response to laurina