“Trained in the first false quote”… lol, you’re unbelievable Paidion! I quoted the NKJV all bar one word where I used “is” as opposed to “and” — that HARDLY counts as a FALSE QUOTE as you’ve just caricaturised it. My use of “is” simply reflects ἐνδημῆσαι endēmēsai being in the aorist tense indicating… an action as occurring at any given point. 
I’m going to stir things up a bit, by saying something radical.
Radical Candor ™ is the ability to Challenge Directly and show you Care Personally at the same time. … Radical Candor really just means saying what you think while also giving a damn about the person you’re saying it to.
Now let me try my hand, at radical candor!
And it’s something one can find, by studying with - and about - Holy people and Medicine people, of different traditions. Particularly the saints, of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. As well as the Native American, Medicine, and Holy People. And the shamans, Tibetan Lamas, Indian Yogis, and Islamic Sufis.
There’s another part of us, that normally can’t be tapped into. I like to call it a Light Body. It can also be called, the subtle body. It’s NOT the Soul. It’s NOT our minds or hearts. It’s NOT our body. And you WON’T find Biblical texts - to confirm nor deny (a typical CIA answer) - what I am saying.
But it’s the closest we can get to, the resurrected or glorified body - in this life. And folks that follow a contemplative and ethical path - to its logical conclusion - can tap into it.
It’s what allows God, to work through the Saints and Holy People. And it’s what allows them to be, in two or more places at once - fully Cognizant.
And this - and all this other “mystical” stuff…can be explained scientifically, by controlling quantum fluctuations. Whether it’s being, in two places at once…or walking through walls…or bending light, to become invisible…healing an “incurable” decease…etc.
If an Electron Can Be in Two Places at Once, Why Can’t You?
Much like how the Avengers save the world, in Avengers Endgame…with some discoveries in the Quantum world, from Ant-man.
So we can tap into, that glorified or resurrected body now. But we can’t escape death. And it will be a permanent fixture - of us in Christ (whether we are aware, of Christ or not) - who follow his great commands, to the best of our ability. We are all hoping, for that great awakening.
So I stirred things up a bit!
I’m not sure why you raise that Pilgrim… IF you’ve been reading along through this thread then surely you’d be aware of my position on Jesus being the first?
My point is… Jesus’ ascension secured imperishability. Suppose Jesus had been killed again… in all probability he would have been raised again (pure speculation for sure), BUT the point is — Jesus was granted the power of an endless life, and via the ascension that could not be undone.
[Revelation 21:2](https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/Revelation/21/2
And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband.
2 Peter 3:12-13
looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.
[Isaiah 65:17](https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/Isaiah/65/17
"For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; And the former things will not be remembered or come to mind.
I like to think that it will be fitting for God to establish the kingdom of God on a renewed Earth; an Earth loosed from the burden of man’s bondage, and put back to its Edenic splendor and more.
The Earth was created for man; this is the place God wanted and wants us to be…imo.
In fact I can think of nothing more glorious than heaven ON Earth.
Let’s have a song, to commemorate this idea!
Flo needs a bit of singing lessons, in order to be more harmonious. But she is the perfect example - in commercials - of the Holy Fool
Let me share this reflection, in its entirety…it’s from RC Fr. Richard Rohr’s, newsletter today.
Heaven Now
Divinization
Monday, April 29, 2019If we could glimpse the panoramic view of the biblical revelation and the Big Picture of which we’re a part, we’d see how God is forever evolving human consciousness, making us collectively ever more ready for God. The Hebrew prophets and many Catholic and Sufi mystics used words like espousal or marriage to describe this divine-human love affair. That’s what the prophet Isaiah (61:10; 62:5), many of the Psalms, the school of Paul (Ephesians 5:25-32), and the Book of Revelation (19:7-8; 21:2) mean by “preparing a bride to be ready for her husband.”
The human soul is being gradually readied so that actual intimacy and partnership with the Divine are the result. It’s all moving toward a final marriage between God and creation. Note that such salvation is a social and cosmic concept, not just about isolated individuals “going to heaven.” The Church was meant to bring this corporate salvation to conscious and visible possibility.
But how could divine espousal really be God’s plan? Isn’t this just poetic exaggeration? If this is the agenda, why were most of us presented with an angry deity who needed to be placated and controlled? Why would God even want to “marry” God’s creation? If you think I am stretching it here, look for all the times Jesus uses a wedding banquet as his image for eternity, and both he and John the Baptist call Jesus “the bridegroom” (Mark 2:19-20; John 3:29). Think how strange that is! Jesus is not marrying anyone, is he? The very daring, seemingly impossible idea of union with God is still something we’re so afraid of that most of us won’t allow ourselves to think of an actual intimate relationship with God. Only God in you , “the Holy Spirit planted in your heart,” can imagine such a possibility (Romans 8:11 and throughout Paul’s letters).
The Eastern Fathers of the Church were much less afraid of this realization; they called it the real process of human “divinization” ( theosis ). In fact, they saw it as the whole point of the Incarnation and the very meaning of salvation. The much more practical and rational church in the West seldom used the word, despite Peter’s teaching (1 Peter 1:4-5 and 2 Peter 1:4). John also was quite clear about divine union being the final goal in much of his Gospel: “I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me” (John 17:20-21). It is important not to confuse divine union with human perfection. The choice for union is always from God’s side; our response is always and forever partial and feeble.
Jesus came to give us the courage to trust and allow our inherent union with God , and he modeled it for us in this world. Union is not a place we go to later—if we are good; union is the place from which we come, the place from which we’re called to live now. We wasted centuries confusing union with personal perfection. Union is God’s choice for us in our very imperfect world. Divine Love has no trouble loving imperfect things! That is just our human problem. If God could only love perfect things, God would have nothing to do.
(1) Again, I assumed we will have a resurrection like His" was future because Paul used the future tense (as with 1Cor 15’s resurrection). But “we have been united in a death like his” is not future, is it?
(2) Pilgrim said, Jesus was raised immortal, and you responded, “speculation.”
Are you now saying that he was raised with his old flesh, but it was immortal?
I thought that you asserted that “ascension” is what makes a body immortal and imperishable. Though I have no idea where you see that taught.
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Really? Look at the NKJV of the sentence:
We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.
which I understand as:
We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the [present] body and to be present with the Lord [in the resurrection body].
Your “quote” of the sentence is “To be absent of the body is to be present with the Lord.” That is, as soon as you die, you are present with the Lord. And that is not merely the changing of one word. If you did that, you would have:]
We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord
which makes no sense unless you wipe out “We are … pleased… to be”
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Nope. The infinitive built on the aorist stem indicates an undefined action. Your use of “is” suggests that the action of being with the Lord is defined as taking place simultaneously with the event of becoming “absent from the body.”
This diatribe is the exact reason I rarely get into these discussions. You all (a southern way of speaking) are nit picking.
From my standpoint there is NO RESURRECTION LIKE JESUS BECAUSE HE WAS JESUS AND WE ARE NOT. He did what was needed to do. Amen.
That ought to get the forum thumping. 
Chad calling Bob!
It brings to mind an old joke. What goes ninety nine, thump…ninety nine, thump?
A centipede with a wooden leg.
Paidion, one does not have to physically die to be present with the Lord. As John 14:23 says “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word. My Father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him.”
pilgrim, Yes if you are 'born again" your body has been redeemed. “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”
Davo, no it wasn’t. Enoch pleased God and so he did not see death. Those who followed Enoch’s example would have pleased God as well and not “seen death”. As John 8:51 says “Truly if anyone keeps My word, he will never see death.”
HF, Jesus’ followers are the resurrected body.
Well yeah no question… for Paul and his audience that was the case. And I’m all for acknowledging the future tense where it appears in the text and find it odd, though maybe unsurprising, at your vociferous attempts to then devalue and debunk the present tense when it comes to 1Cor 15… interesting???
Correct… and as with Paul he also in places uses the present to indicate this dying/rising believers were going through as they were exiting their former life and being transformed into the newness of life.
I’m simply saying… the body Jesus took into the grave was the same one he took out… albeit now no longer dead but very much alive… CLEARLY with the ascension all traces of mortality fell away as he entered the presence of God.
No… Christ’s ascension didn’t make his body immortal BUT rather… that’s the clear point at where it can be said any traces of mortality had to cease as he thereafter entered glory; whereas up to that juncture Jesus himself said with regards to his body… “Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father” — ascension is the path to glorification — death and resurrection were the necessary prelude.
Yeah… I simply abbreviated the sentence and yet it carries the self-same essence, i.e., Paul and co. were indeed well pleased knowing that to be absent from the body meant they would in fact be present with the Lord — thus as you point out… “That is, as soon as you die, you are present with the Lord.” Which of course as I already mentioned but you conveniently ignore Paul makes plain here…
Phil 1:21, 23 For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. … For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.
Paul’s gain and desire in departing life was joining Christ… NOT an unconscious state akin to some variant of ‘soul sleep’.
And we know this reality to be true as Paul had just said…
2Cor 5:6 So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord.
And thus conversely… when no longer at home in the body they are the nature of the case at home with the Lord; which again as you correctly identify, means — “That is, as soon as you die, you are present with the Lord.” I agree!
Umm, your point?… the infinitive changes nothing of the action as occurring, i.e., in this case, to be absent results in or equates to… to be present.
Well, no argument there as that’s Paul’s point, as per all the evidence above!
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Are you sure you really thought that through? What death are you saying Enoch didn’t see? Is it not reasonable to conclude from your logic that given Jesus DID see death that he thereby must NOT have pleased God… how is that not the obvious end where your logic leads?
IF the death of Jn 8:51 is the same death you say Enoch did not experience THEN HOW is that not physical death, given it is normally understood that Enoch’s death was physical?
Davo calling Bob!
I would say the same thing…regarding the zombies of Z-Hell (1, 2, 3)
So, let me get this straight - LLC. The Bible says that Enoch was translated and Elijah assented into the clouds. So both did not experience death, right? But then the NT writers, talk about the apostles and others…see Jesus walking around and joining them, after his death…So you believe Enoch and Elijah, did not experience death…But Jesus can’t come back, and appear to folks - after his death? I’m missing something here. Help me out, please!
Why did God take Enoch and Elijah? The Bible does not specifically give us the answer. Some speculate that they were taken in preparation for a role in the end times, possibly as the two witnesses in Revelation 11:3-12. This is possible, but not explicitly taught in the Bible. It may be that God desired to save Enoch and Elijah from experiencing death due to their great faithfulness in serving and obeying Him. Whatever the case, God has His purpose, and while we don’t always understand God’s plans and purposes, we know that “His way is perfect” (Psalm 18:30).
And let’s look at an Orthodox article and it’s conclusion:
DID ENOCH AND ELIJAH (ELIAS) ASCEND INTO HEAVEN?
We have touched upon God’s mysterious concealment of the two Old Testament righteous ones. The prophet Elijah and Enoch were translated to some secret earthly place, where they await the apocalypse. The prophets did not ascend into Heaven; there is no contradiction here with the words of Christ pronounced in His nighttime conversation with Nicodemus: No man hath ascended up to Heaven, but He that came down from Heaven, even the Son of man Which is in Heaven (Jn. 3:13).
And a Calvinist perspective:
Did anyone ascend into heaven before Jesus or not?
The answer is simple when you understand the Jewish concept of the universe. They believed in three heavens. The first was the atmosphere where the trees, clouds, and birds are. The second is the realm of the stars, planets, sun, and moon. And the third heaven was the very dwelling place of God. In the Old Testament in Genesis 5 and 2 Kings 2 above, they were not taken into the very dwelling place of God but into the heavens; that is, they were taken up into the sky. Exactly where is in debate. It isn’t until after the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ were those who had died before, in faith, taken into the highest heaven. Ephesians 4:8 is often referred to as a supporting scripture for this belief. It says, “When He ascended on high, He led captive a host of captives, and He gave gifts to men.” Furthermore, when Paul said he was caught up to the third heaven (2 Cor. 12:2), he was referring to the very dwelling place of God
Davo calling LLC!
I believe Davo and I, are on the same page…regarding these questions, posed to you!
All these discussions of language issues, are very interesting. I remember once, someone was presenting the position…that everything is determined by God…and we have no free will. But when pressed by me…it turns out, he got his ideas from A.E. Knoch…This person created his own Bible edition and thought he worked out, the Greek in the Bible. Of course, his rendition of the Greek language - might be correct. And the collective consensus, of the linguists, Koine Greek language experts and theologians - could be wrong. But I prefer to go, with the collective consensus. And God won’t fault me, for doing so - if I am wrong.
And what’s happening, with my RC /EO transition? Well, I finished my RCIA program. And I will finish up a year, hanging out with the EO - at the OCA branch - in Sept or Oct. Most likely, I’ll probably end up Eastern Catholic. It allows me to not have to follow, the fasting rules…As the RC church in the US, grants exceptions - to those over 59. And I can see things, through the eyes of EO theology and worship style. Without throwing away, the saints and mystics - the Western rite RC branch, has championed. This reminds me of a story from LOOKING FOR LOOPHOLES.
Just before the death of actor W. C. Fields, a friend visited Fields’ hospital room and was surprised to find him thumbing through a Bible. When he asked what he was doing with a Bible, Fields replied, “I’m looking for loopholes.”
Least we forget. Do the zombies of Z-Hell (1, 2, 3), have any commentary to add?
I haven’t “conveniently ignored” anything. This passage no more proves your belief than the other. Personally, I too, can say that I have a desire to depart and be with Christ. But that doesn’t imply that I will be with Him the instant after death. Rather it will be at the time of the resurrection when Jesus returns. This could be hundreds or even thousands of years after my death. Here’s what Paul taught in the great resurrection chapter:
1 Cor 15:23 But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.
Christ (the Anointed One) was the firstfruits of the resurrection (the first to receive a true resurrection— I use “true resurrection” in contrast to mere resuscitation in which one dies again). Then says Paul, those who belong to Christ will be raised to life at His coming.
Yes the Anointed One was the firstfruits of the resurrection. Those who are raised at His coming comprise the main harvest.
Furthermore, I have never advocated “soul sleep.” I don’t even believe in the existence of peoples’ “souls” apart from their bodies. After death, people do not exist—until they are raised to life again. If God is able to give a body to a person who has died, He is also well able to make that body live as the same person who died.
Your response on 2 sounds like speculative gob·ble·dy·gook. You say Jesus was raised with the same old mortal body he’d had before, and that the ascension did NOT then make it immortal. But somehow that old mortal flesh only had “traces” left which somehow CEARLY fell away. Where do you see this conception that the same old mortal body can have only "traces" of mortality that fall away?
#1 is pejorative, I reject that my explanation of present tense usage was a vociferous debunking. Even you admit that despite 1 Cor. 15’s present tense for how bodies are raised, it is consistent with Paul telling them this resurrection was yet future for them.
Your insistence that it was also already present simply hangs on reading Paul’s future tense for these new resurrection bodies as meaning that within their lifetime Rome will sack Jerusalem and be that resurrection. I see this as a reading in of your own theological supposition that doesn’t fit the contextual concern of having a hope only for this life amid concern over believers dying short of Jesus’ return.
And I see no evidence that believers in AD70 closest to this language then recognized that this chaos was actually the promised resurrection. It seems we keep circling to our suppositions.
Why are you telling me that? Have I ever suggested otherwise?
Davo, ALL men physically die. Enoch died. Noah died. Elijah died. Jesus died, and we will die as well. There have also been many who pleased God/kept His word - Enoch, Noah, Jesus etc.
You said, *" Jesus’ death/resurrection was unique in dealing with sin-death once for all."
In what way was Jesus unique if as John 8:51 says " Truly if anyone keeps My word, he will never see death." ?
HF, yes Enoch and Elijah both experienced physical death as ALL men die. However, their spirits lived on in the hearts and minds of those who followed; as they were men who had the Spirit of God. As it says in the NT, Jesus and his followers came in the spirit and power of Elijah.