The Two Anointed Ones = The Two Witnesses

[Earburner]

Ahem...

You just repeated yourself. I already broke down the article point by point above — Israel and the Gentiles, the Old Covenant riches, the "poor in spirit," the crumbs and the dogs tied to Matthew 15, Abraham's bosom as the covenant people. None of that got a response. You just came back with the same typical line about "how church-ianity teaches it," like the summary wasn't even there. (Also, still Luke 16:19-31, not Luke 26. There is no Luke 26.)

If your point is "most people in church have never heard this reading and were only taught eternal conscious torment," fine — that may be true. But that's a complaint about catechesis, not an argument against the article. It doesn't touch a single one of the specific claims: that the rich man's sin was pride in covenant privilege, not literal wealth; that the parable falls apart under a literal reading (bodiless souls with tongues, a finger of water meant to cool flame, people already in torment before the resurrection Revelation 20 describes); or that "Abraham's bosom" is the article's picture of the covenant people, not a physical location.

Pick one of those and actually deal with it. Otherwise all you're saying is "tradition says X," and tradition isn't the standard here — the Word of God is. Read it, weigh it against Moses and the prophets like the parable itself tells us to, and come back with something that answers what was actually written! Not what your pastor told you. Not what your traditions taught you. Not what your old Sunday School teacher told you. What did God actually talk about here in parable. It takes spiritual discernment and it means you must compare Scripture with Scripture!

Selah.

I was not arguing against the article.
Yes, it takes spiritual discernment. I don't have to know about the "nuts and bolts" of how the parable is built, I just have to know the truth that it is designed to deliver, which is Luke 16:31
Yeah, so I had a typo. OK moving forward.

 

[Earburner]

Church-ianity denies what the bible teaches:

Rev 20:11 And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
Rev 20:12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
Rev 20:13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
Rev 20:14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
Rev 20:15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

None of this is taking place on the Earth. No dirt graves being turned into lava for an Earthly LOF.

Hell is the grave, and as far as I know, all graves are on/in this earth. However, if they are "off planet" somewhere else, what would you call the place where they are?

 

[Earburner]

Church-ianity denies what the bible teaches:

Rev 20:11 And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
Rev 20:12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
Rev 20:13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
Rev 20:14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
Rev 20:15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

None of this is taking place on the Earth. No dirt graves being turned into lava for an Earthly LOF.

2 Peter 3:10
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements [rocks, dirt, stones, gems etc.] SHALL MELT with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations

2 Peter 3:12
Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God [our God is a consuming fire], wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall MELT with fervent heat?

 So, are you saying that the graves of the unsaved will be removed, before Jesus returns in FLAMING FIRE?? 2Thes. 1:7-10.

 

[ewq1938]

Hell is the grave, and as far as I know, all graves are on/in this earth. However, if they are "off planet" somewhere else, what would you call the place where they are?

A grave on Earth is for the body only. The "grave" for the soul is either heaven or hades but the LOF/hell is not in heaven or on Earth according to Rev 20.

So, literal graves on Earth are not nor will be the LOF.

 

[ewq1938]

2 Peter 3:10
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements [rocks, dirt, stones, gems etc.] SHALL MELT with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations

2 Peter 3:12
Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God [our God is a consuming fire], wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall MELT with fervent heat?

 So, are you saying that the graves of the unsaved will be removed, before Jesus returns in FLAMING FIRE?? 2Thes. 1:7-10.

A big problem above is the the elements are associated with heaven, Earth is introduced after that. The elements are heaven related.

2Pe 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.


About what happens to heaven: the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat

About what happens to Earth: the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.




G4747
στοιχεῖον
stoicheion
stoy-khi'-on
Neuter of a presumed derivative of the base of G4748; something orderly in arrangement, that is, (by implication) a serial (basal, fundamental, initial) constituent (literally), proposition (figuratively): - element, principle, rudiment.
Total KJV occurrences: 7

Gill:

and the elements shall melt with fervent heat: not what are commonly called the four elements, earth, air, tire, and water, the first principles of all things: the ancient philosophers distinguished between principles and elements; principles, they say (h), are neither generated, nor corrupted; τα τε στοιχεια κατα την εκπυρωσιν φθειρεσθαι, "but the elements will be corrupted, or destroyed by the conflagration"; which exactly agrees with what the apostle here says: by the elements seem to be meant the host of heaven, being distinguished from the heavens, as the works of the earth are distinguished from the earth

 

[David in NJ]

As a Born again Amillennial believer in Christ, I have always understood that God's prophetic words are mostly based upon His own Eternal Spiritual thoughts/language, and not so much that of our own human thoughts and how we understand the words of our own written languages.
Isa. 55:8-9
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

What if, instead of reading and interpreting those scriptures in Rev. 11:1-14 literally, according to our ways of thinking, we are to interpret them spiritually by the Mind of Christ within us, so that we might know that the biblical "Great City" is not about buildings like that of man, but rather it is God's description of the people of God in which He desires to dwell?

In 1 Cor. ch. 2:9-16, Paul explains quite clearly that the spiritual value of our understanding is to be revealed to us by "comparing spiritual things with spiritual", thus allowing the Mind of Christ's Holy Spirit within us to interpret God's spiritual truths to us, and not that which is preached to us by the ways of "the wisdom of men".

In Rev. 11:8 we are specifically shown that "the great city" is to be understood in the spiritual truth of what it is being "COMPARED WITH". In that example, we are to understand that the Great City is compared to that of Egypt (symbolized as slavery/captivity) and that of Sodom (symbolized as sin). Putting the two together, we can conclude that in the comparison by example, God has been working to deliver His people from their CAPTIVITY of SIN.

Since the first manifestation of Jesus, that is the "spiritual" message to all of us, through faith in Jesus' sacrificial death.
For the past 2,026 years, in each "Year of our Lord", God has been "patient" and "longsuffering" in His "Promise" and attempt to  DELIVER each of us from the "CAPTIVITY" of "SIN", "not willing that any should perish".
However, if by faith in Jesus, we do not receive the Free Gift of God's Deliverence by His Gift of Salvation, our names will not be found written in the book of Life and therefore there is NO escape from the second death.

Has anyone here dared to believe that those who God prophesied of in Zech. 4:14, as being "His two anointed ones", are in fact that of John the Baptist and Jesus?

Could it be that Rev. 11:1-14 is nothing more than an allegorical story of spiritual truth, telling us all that the literal manifestation of John the Baptist and Jesus, were indeed God's promised ones, being they who are described as the "two anointed ones", and therefore the prophecy of "the two witnesses", has already been fulfilled?

Enoch and Elijah coming soon.

 

[David in NJ]

I am still waiting. Where in scripture does it ever literally say that there will be a second resurrection?

JESUS is the First Resurrection

All whom the FATHER gives to JESUS will be part of His Resurrection at His Second Coming = The First Resurrection

 

[Earburner]

A grave on Earth is for the body only. The "grave" for the soul is either heaven or hades but the LOF/hell is not in heaven or on Earth according to Rev 20.

So, literal graves on Earth are not nor will be the LOF.

Ok now, errors of belief such as that, is how parables are misinterpreted and misunderstood.

In the parable, I don't know of anyone talking about anyone possessing an "eternal soul" in the parable of the Richman & Laz. How did you assume that!
In my understanding, a soul constitutes the combination of the body of flesh and blood, with the Oxygen in the atmosphere through the breath that we breathe. God called that function "the breath of life".

 

[Earburner]

Enoch and Elijah coming soon.

Jesus said he [Elijah] has already come:
Mat. 11
7 And as they departed, Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning John, What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken with the wind?
8 But what went ye out for to see? A man clothed in soft raiment? behold, they that wear soft clothing are in kings' houses.
9 But what went ye out for to see? A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet.

10 For this is he, of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.
11 Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

12 And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.

13 For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.
14 And if ye will receive it, this [John] is Elias [Elijah], which was for to come.

15 He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

 

[ewq1938]

Ok now, errors of belief such as that, is how parables are misinterpreted and misunderstood.

In the parable, I don't know of anyone talking about anyone possessing an "eternal soul" in the parable of the Richman & Laz. How did you assume that!

I never said "eternal soul". YOU are the assuming one. This is a strawman fallacy.

In my understanding, a soul constitutes the combination of the body of flesh and blood

Soul has a few definitions.


1: The word soul is an old English term that could be used in place of the word "person" or "human being". Basically if you had a soul you could be called a soul.


2: The word soul can be a reference to the human body.


3: The word soul is also the spiritual part of human beings (it's moral and emotional aspect), and survives death and will wait for a physical body to inhabit again at the resurrection.


1Th_5:23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Here we have all the parts that comprise a whole person:

body
soul
spirit


The soul above is definition 3.


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.

Here soul is speaking of all three, body soul and spirit together as a complete person. This would be a soul as in definition 1 and 2.


Human beings have a soul and a spirit and a body. Colloquially a person is a "soul" but a different type of soul than the soul within us.

 

[3 Resurrections]

If there is anything of value that is to be gathered by the story about king Melchizedek, it is the fact that no one knew from where he came from, and as a result it is used as a fictitious metaphore, being that of a type/anti-type story for the knowledge of the Promise of the Messiah who was to be brought forth from everlasting.

I am of the opinion that the man called Melchizedek (which was not a proper name, but the descriptive title "King of righteousness") was simply the righteous man Enoch, seventh from Adam, who was translated so that he should not see death. I believe Enoch was later re-introduced to the world as Melchizedek, the high priest and king of Jerusalem with no obvious father or mother. Archaeologists have actually excavated Melchizedek's small temple complex situated near the Gihon Spring at Jerusalem, the location where Solomon was later anointed king. "The King's vale" or "the King's gardens" as well as "the king's highway" I believe were all named for the high priest / King Melchizedek.

The deathless Melchizedek retained his high priesthood, which is why Christ's deathless, everlasting Great High Priesthood was called after the superior order of the deathless Melchizedek instead of the Levitical order. As you have said, it was a type / antitype thing going on.

I do not believe that you or anyone has a record of that account of their resurrection and ascension in AD. 67/68.

We don't have a record made by the enemies of the two witnesses besieged inside Jerusalem who saw that resurrection and rising up of those two former high priests because all those who would have personally seen that happen were either dead or taken prisoner by the Romans by the end of AD 70. Prisoners do not have much of an opportunity to make a preserved, documented record of what they have observed. What we DO know is that these two witnesses could not have been taken into God's presence in heaven at that time, because Revelation 15:8 tells us that this would not happen until the last 7th vial judgment had been poured out.

This would mean that those two witnesses, once resurrected, were taken up into the skies and transferred to another location on this planet, just as Elijah had once experienced. (Elijah never ascended to God's presence in heaven at his whirlwind transport into the skies. He was transported to another location on earth where he was able to write a letter to King Jehoram some 10 years later in 2 Chron. 21:12-15.) These two former high priests had to wait until AD 70 before they would be allowed to ascend to God's presence in heaven with the returning Christ.

I agree with your understanding about the brass serpent being symbolic to Christ etc., but I do not compare or connect it with the high priests Ananus and Joshua. In my understanding they are not worthy candidates for the fulfillment of "My 2A Ones" in Zech. 4, or "the 2W." in Rev. 11

God had to "take away the first, that He may establish the second". That whole "shaking" process that Hebrews 12 wrote about applied to the Old Covenant high priesthood role, as well as the physical temple itself. All of it had to be physically destroyed so that the unshaken, superior spiritual realities could be manifested.

Rev. 1:19
Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter;

The literal translations of this verse are more accurate. "...The things which are about to come after these things." (YLT). Any prophecies written down and revealed in John's Apocalypse that were related to the future were speaking out John's immediate first-century future - not 2,000 years down the road and counting.

As for who the "sea beast" is in Revelation 13, it is well described in Daniel 7 as the fourth beast, being the Roman Empire

The Sea Beast, (as of the time John was writing Revelation in AD 60), had a 666-YEAR biography as of that time. That Sea Beast had features of all of Daniel's ancient pagan empires, starting with the "lion" kingdom of the Babylonian empire, then the "bear" features of the Medes and Persians, then the "leopard" features of the Greek empire. The very last features the Sea Beast had were Roman, because the Sea Beast was given Satan's throne in the city of Pergamos, (Rev. 2:13 compared with Rev. 13:2). Pergamos and Satan's throne in that city were given to the Roman Republic in 133 BC by the dying King Attalus III. So, yes, in a sense the Roman Empire was connected with the Sea Beast as John was writing, but it also had a very, very ancient history of every one of those ancient pagan empires, starting with King Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian empire - 666 years before John wrote Revelation.

By the way, do you have any thoughts as to who the Lamb like land beast is, that has two horns?
I believe that it is the USA.

I know exactly who the Rev. 13 Land Beast was. It was the religious Jewish leadership with its two parties of Pharisees and Sadducees. The high priesthood and the chief priests had their own captains of the temple (such as those who came with Judas to arrest Christ). These provided the symbolism for the "two horns like a Lamb". Horns always represent some kind of military strength in Scripture. That Land Beast spoke like a Dragon - in other words, they spoke LIES all the time, just as Christ accused the Pharisees of being liars like their Father the Devil.

The Land Beast cannot possibly be the USA. Here's why. Rev. 13:12 & 14 says that the Land Beast exercised all the power of the Sea Beast, and did this "BEFORE" the Sea Beast, and "in the sight of the beast". The word used here is "enopion", which means under the direct view of that Sea Beast. The last Roman phase of the Sea Beast and the Land Beast were CONTEMPORARIES, with that Roman Sea Beast and its governor at Jerusalem granting power to the Land Beast to officiate in the temple. And the priests of the second temple were performing their sacrifical temple duties under the direct view of the Roman soldiers garrisoned just above and across the way from the temple. From their perspective, the soldiers could see what was being done at the temple altar just below the Fortress of Antonia.

The extinction of one third of men is referenced as being 200,000,000 man army (Rev. 9:15,16), and is to take place in the region of the Euphrates River, whereby four angels of satan are bound in the Euphrates river, and are prepared for an hour, a day, a month and a year [an undisclosed date] to slay the third part of men.

It's NOT a 200 million army of horsemen in Rev. 9:16. It's only 20 thousand. "Two myriads of myriads" in that verse is only 20 thousand horsemen total.

Look at it this way. If it was going to take 200 MILLION horsemen to conquer the 7,000 men slain in Jerusalem, that doesn't say much at all for the supposed battle strength of the 200 MILLION horsemen. That would mean those battle odds showing 28,571 horsemen would be needed to kill just ONE of the 7,000 men in Jerusalem. Instead, the battle odds of 20 thousand horsemen versus 7,000 Jerusalem combatants is 2.85 to one - which is much, much more realistic. Besides, there are only about 60 million horses total in the world at present. Yet you believe that 200 million horses, each with a warrior mounted on their backs, will be able to fit inside Jerusalem to do battle and kill 7,000 men? The numbers don't work.

And those weren't "four angels of Satan". In Rev. 9:14-15 the four "messengers" were bound "AT the Euphrates." These were not celestial angels in charge of those two myriads of horsemen. It was four HUMAN "messengers" in charge of 20 thousand horsemen coming out of Idumea to attack Jerusalem. Jerusalem was called "Mystery Babylon", and ancient Babylon was bisected by the Euphrates which flowed through the middle of the city and with submerged water gates preventing entry into the city.

The four Idumean commanders leading the 20 thousand horsemen to Jerusalem were "bound AT the great river Euphrates" by the former high priests on the wall denying them entrance at Jerusalem / Mystery Babylon's eastern water gate. There is symbolism at play here. Just as Cyrus took out the ancien Babylonian empire in a single night by walking under the main water gates of the lowered Euphrates river, so the Idumean army of 20,000 broke through the sawed-open bars of Mystery Babylon / Jerusalem's eastern water gate that night of the earthquake and the storm in AD 67 / 68.