The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Do you believe the Bible is infallible? If so, why?

Theology
#483

That is entirely unnecessary. Jesus is unique in that He is the Son of God, the only begotten Son of God. When He was begotten by God before all ages as God’s first act, He was not a human being. He was a Divine Being. Though He became fully human, He differed from all other human beings in that he existed both before His birth and after His death.

(1Co 15:45 ESV) Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

Now it’s your turn. Provide a CLEAR scriptural statement that anyone else who has died exists now—before his personal resurrection.

#484

Since we are looking, at what is “infallible”…Let me do something different and radical - with this video!

#485

What!? Holding you to your words AND their obvious ramifications is entirely unnecessary.… really!? No, sorry Paidion but it is totally necessary!

What is unnecessary is for you to keep trying to protect one dodgy dogma simply by promoting another. Jesus was completely and absolutely in every way, human… exactly the same in every way as each one of us…

Heb 2:14, 17 Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil. … Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

If Jesus the Man (1Tim 2:5) was not truly human and not like his brethren then His death on Calvary’s cross was nothing but an illusion! Your position is indefensible!

Well, what saith the scripture…

Lk 9:28-31 Now it came to pass, about eight days after these sayings, that He took Peter, John, and James and went up on the mountain to pray. As He prayed, the appearance of His face was altered, and His robe became white and glistening. And behold, two men talked with Him, who were Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of His decease which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.

So, you demanded… “a CLEAR scriptural statement” and there it is!

Now before you rush headlong to dismiss, dispute or disparage the account of the transfiguration in accord with past practice on the basis that such was just a ‘vision’ as though that mitigates against its factuality — consider the following…

The occurrence these 3 disciples together and simultaneously witnessed and partook in proves Moses and Elijah DID indeed exist postmortem, and were no illusionary trick conjured up by Jesus. IF you are to be consistent in disputing and dismissing this post-death appearance of these two OT witnesses THEN you likewise dispute and dismiss the reality of Jesus’ transfiguration itself as such is ALL part of the self-same event — you cannot do damage to one without doing damage to the other.

A vision simply portrays a particular reality and does NOT (unlike you) deny that reality; take for example…

Acts 9:10-12 Now there was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias; and to him the Lord said in a vision, “Ananias.” And he said, “Here I am, Lord.” So the Lord said to him, “Arise and go to the street called Straight, and inquire at the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus, for behold, he is praying. And in a vision he has seen a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him, so that he might receive his sight.”

Acts 18:9 Now the Lord spoke to Paul in the night by a vision, “Do not be afraid, but speak, and do not keep silent.

These visions were real BECAUSE the reality was real.

And as for your being unconscious… even in that state you DID NOT cease to exist. And quoting “1Co 15:45” does nothing to further your argument that Jesus ceased to exist between his death and resurrection. Again… WHO teaches this? Where in the bible is this? Who else agrees with your dogma?

#486

Davo, It doesn’t matter to me. But doesn’t Paidion’s take parallel Luther, Adventists, and many others who interpret death to leave us unconscious and far short of our inheritance until the resurrection?

Some even read Paul’s 2 Cor. 5 words to be “found naked” as applying at death when our “earthly tent is destroyed,” such that what we really long for is “what is to come,” namely “to be clothed in our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.” And of course, they read this future day of replacing our earthly tent and body as the yet coming day of resurrection, rather than the event of 70AD as you do.

#487

I don’t know… perhaps they do?

I’m simply asking for the ‘biblical’ evidence NOT positional assertions that backs up Paidion’s claim that humanity ceases to exist between death and resurrection; which by the nature of the case HAS TO include Jesus — logic. So far nothing… perhaps you know the answer?

#489

I think Paidion’s response that Jesus can actually be unique amid what is true of mere men is not nothing, but is shared by many Christians who read him to be the God-man.

#490

If that is the case, then Jesus didn’t exist prior to his conception. Is that what you believe?

#491

Well… when Peter thought he was seeing a vision, he didn’t appear to recognize its “factuality”:

So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church. Now when Herod was about to bring him out, on that very night, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains, and sentries before the door were guarding the prison. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood next to him, and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him, saying, “Get up quickly.” And the chains fell off his hands. And the angel said to him, “Dress yourself and put on your sandals.” And he did so. And he said to him, “Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.” And he went out and followed him. He did not know that what was being done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision. (Acts 12:5-9 ESV)

#492

Paidion calling Davo!

There is a related article, in today’s Patheos Evangelical newsletter:

#493

It’s hard to say… but that they existed postmortem has already been demonstrated, and thus contrary to Paidion’s confusing claim that man after death is BOTH unconscious AND non-existent… go figure? One CANNOT be unconscious AND non-existent at the same time.

Bob… do you agree with Paidion that everyone… ceases to exist between death and resurrection?

#494

As I said, it doesn’t matter to me, and I have no assured knowledge about this. I think it’s most plausible that Paul shares your view in his statements about departing and being (in some sense) with Christ (though as I cited, some read 2 Cor. 5 to mean that this will be an inferior state) .

But I respect the view I cited advanced by Luther that we don’t experience the interval between death and receiving a body fit for the new earth. And as you know, I perceive that 1 Cor. 15’s allusion to such a grand event has not yet been fulfilled.

In general, I don’t find the Bible is especially unanimous or clear about the nature of our existence after death, and find we are mostly left to trust God with such questions.

#495

Thanks Bob.

I can agree as to the sketchiness of… “the nature of our existence after death” BUT THAT differs starkly from Paidion’s claim to NON-EXISTENCE after death… which I hear, to you, likewise seems most implausible.

Paidion’s position raises no end of red flags which I will lay out below, but first I want to show where Scripture assures, to my mind at least, existence after death…

Lk 20:37-38 But even Moses showed in the burning bush passage that the dead are raised, when he called the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ For He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him.”

On this text above are some noted scholarly comments…

God is here called the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Each of the patriarchs named had, of course, long been dead when these words were uttered. So the statement that God is not God of the dead, but of the living can be true only if they are alive beyond the grave. The alternative is to think of God as the God of non-existent beings, which is absurd. Caird sees the argument as capable of restatement in terms with great force in our age: ‘all life, here and hereafter, consists in friendship with God… Death may put an end to physical existence, but not to a relationship that is by nature eternal. Men may lose their friends by death, but not God.’ … Luke adds some words not in the other accounts: for all live to him, or as NEB, ‘for him all are alive’. To us they are dead, but not to God. Death cannot break their relationship to Him. There is a roughly contemporary Jewish saying, ‘those who die for God’s sake live for God’ (the construction is identical with that in Luke) ‘just as do Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the patriarchs’ (4 Macc. xvi.25).
Leon Morris., LUKE Tyndale New Testament Commentaries, 1983 p.292-293

In these verses the point at issue is no longer the nature of the after-life, but the fact of its existence. The method of argument is the usual Jewish one of appeal to the letter of Scripture and has no force for modern minds, but there is a deeper thought behind. The argument is ‘Long after Abraham and Isaac and Jacob had died, God said “I am their God.” God is the God of living men, not dead. Therefore Abraham and Isaac and Jacob were still alive.’ But behind this there is the thought that a man’s relationship with God is something eternal, which is by its spiritual nature independent of death. God will not let His faithful perish.
H.K. Luce., The Gospel According To Luke Cambridge Greek Testament For Schools And Colleges, 1949 p.315

So certainly as you can see above I’m no lone voice.

Now, according to Paidion… Jesus DID NOT possess the power of resurrection and thus like OT prophets before him and disciples after him ONLY really possessed the power of resuscitation… BUT definitely NOT as he puts it… “true resurrection”; that at least is the concrete conclusion to be drawn thus far from Paidion’s previous teachings. We all agree the dead were truly dead BUT Paidion claims they were NOT TRULY resurrected BUT ONLY resuscitated.

What Paidion now needs to explain is…

HOW Jesus raised Lazarus from non-existence with a body that presumably DIED AGAIN — meaning Lazarus became non-existent YET AGAIN, for a second time.

Maybe Paidion’s point is true… Jesus can ONLY resuscitate because it appears the body Lazarus brought forth from death could not sustain him, apparently, and he slipped a second time back into non-existence — how does that work?

These are but some of the very real logical conclusions to be drawn from Paidion’s teaching.

#496

Bob, I agree.

Davo, Paidion’s thought on what occurs after physical death is just as good as anybody’s. I don’t find it “most implausible.”

I don’t think what this says is necessarily true. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob worshipped the same God as Jesus and they followed the SAME word. As it says in Hebrews 11:4 “By faith Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks. Their words and their spirits remained alive in the people that followed them " in likeness.” As Jesus said, His words were not His own. They came from the fathers before Him-Abraham, Isaac, Jacob etc.

#497

Ok, but they themselves, so you agree with Paidion that like all humans they… cease to exist between death and resurrection, is that right?

Father… singular OR fathers… plural?

Jn 8:28 Then Jesus said to them, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself; but as My Father taught Me, I speak these things.

Jn 8:38 I speak what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have seen with your father.”

Jn 12:49 For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak.

#498

All I can say definitely, about life after death…is that when the zombies from Z-Hell (1, 2, 3) finally arrive…we will have definitive proof, of life after death…but we might be oblivious, to the proof.

#499

Here’s all the proof you need Randy…

#500

If Christian souls are immortal and are now in heaven, then what is the purpose of the Resurrection? Why not happily live forever in a disembodied state? Tyndal asked this same question.

What’s the big deal about the resurrected body being attached again to the soul? It seems to me to be entirely unnecessary if the “soul” is something separate from the body and is immortal.

Well… you have bolded what you think supports your belief. I am going to quote the same passage as well as the context, and bold that which Jesus was teaching the Sadducees— that which they did not believe— namely that the dead will be raised again.

There came to him some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife, and died without children. And the second and the third took her, and likewise all seven left no children and died. Afterward the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife.”

And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.”

Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” (Luke 20:27-39)

Jesus’ purpose in quoting Moses wasn’t to show that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were no longer dead, as you seem to believe. Rather it was to show that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will be raised to life again. God is not the God of dead people who will never live again. But God is the God of living people, those who now live and those who shall live.

#501

WHERE!!??

Your continual massaging away of what texts actually say is breathtaking… surely I’m not the only one on the forum seeing you doing this? Here again is the pertinent portion from the Morris’ (Tyndale) quote totally putting to lie your latest misrepresentation above…

So the statement that God is not God of the dead, but of the living can be true only if they are alive beyond the grave. The alternative is to think of God as the God of non-existent beings, which is absurd.

The reason you keep obfuscating the issue IS because you have NO honest answer, no text and no evidence to back up your patently false claim that… “After death, people do not exist—until they are raised to life again.” — which claim to ‘non-existence between death and resurrection’ Morris responds… “The alternative is to think of God as the God of non-existent beings, which is absurd.” If anything… your claim to postmortem non-existence actually places you closer to the Sadducees on that very point at the least!

Go back to the text Paidion… IF your “will be raised” and “who shall live” were what Jesus said THAT would be what the text says, it doesn’t… go back and parse Jesus’ “are raised” and “all live” and see what the Greek text actually says.

#502

Davo, everyone has their own thoughts about the afterlife. I certainly don’t know what happens and neither does anyone else on this earth. As Bob says, " We are left to trust God with such questions."

Abraham was considered the Father of Israel as it is said, " Abraham is the Father of all who believe."
When I was a child, my mother told me not to run with a pencil in my hand. When I became a mother, I said the same thing to my children. Whether my mother said the words or I said the words, it doesn’t really matter. When her voice speaks through me, it is as if I am my mother. Likewise, Abraham’s voice was still speaking through others including Jesus, even though he was physically dead.

Contrary to popular belief, the Levitical law did not come from Abraham, nor did it come from Moses as is assumed. As Acts 7:37 says, (speaking of Jesus) " This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, " The Lord god will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren , Him you shall hear." All coming out of Egypt received the living oracles from Moses. However, some rejected his words, “And in their hearts they turned back to Egypt, saying to Aaron,’ Make us gods to go before us; as for this Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”

#504

For the record. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches - from my understanding…say the saints are in heaven.