The Evangelical Universalist Forum

It would be better to not have been born...

Evangelical Universalism Arguments for Evangelical Universalism
#61

Man, I’m really short on time . . .this was a conversation I had just last week . . .dealing with Judas not being born . . .because I’m new here . . .let me throw out my platform . . .I see everything is from a spiritual platform rather than a natural stage. Jesus’ words are spirit. Like his parables, he uses natural means to reveal spiritual truths. For me, “the man” isn’t about an individual named Judas . . . it’s about the OLD man never to have been born. The inward man of flesh . . .due to time, I’m gonna paste something I’d written to this last week on . . .not sure if I can get back today to check for responses or not. Definitely be back tomorrow . . .

I’d like to lob out a couple thougts on this thread if you don’t mind. One is, I personally think Judas was convinced that Jesus was going to literally take the throne back from the Romans. If you keep this story in the context of the day, the Jews avidly despised the Roman authorities and Jesus spoke much about ruling and reigning. In fact, I believe all of the disciples felt Jesus was going to literally take the throne. Even after his resurrection, they inquired of him as to when he was going to do that. So . . .when Judas put two and two together, I think he felt he was going to cause Jesus to force his hand . . . I think Judas thought that if he turned Jesus in, that Jesus would take the opportunity to call fire down from heaven and consume all of his enemies and once the Romans were burned up, Jesus would then be at the helm of Israel as a nation. But, like all the other disciples, Judas didn’t realize that Jesus was speaking of a spiritual kingdom, not a naturall one. But by the time Judas did realize Jesus wasn’t going to call fire down, it was to late and they killed Jesus. I don’t think Judas expected Jesus to be murdered. I think “that’s” what put him over the edge of his sanity. When he saw them kill Jesus, he knew that “he” was the kingpin that got Jesus killed. Once the plan fell apart, suicide was the only option left and it was also the result of one who wished they were never born. To take your own life is to despise the day of your birth.

#62

I haven’t read through this thread so pardon me if I missed a discussion on this. But to me it seems only reasonable that Jesus is speaking in hyperbole as He often did, not literally or technically. It’s a means of highlighting just how bad of a situation a person is in.

“If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. If you eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.” “It would have been better that he was never born.” “It’s harder for a rich man to be saved than for a camel to go threw the eye of the needle.”

The point of the passage is how terrible it would be to be Judas, the one selected to betray the Lord! It wasn’t meant to be taken literally, I believe.

#63

Yeah, I agree with ya on that one as well Sherman . . . it’s such a tough thing for us to do once it’s been engrained in us how we’re supposed to read the Bible, but for me, the truth is, the rules change the moment we move from natural to spiritual. In the natural, everything is based on logic and reason . . .as it should be . . .but in the spirit, it becomes like the quantum, things that “should” add up, don’t. And just by observing, we affect the process of the very things we can’t see. In the spiritual realm, the least becomes the greatest. Things that we give least attention to are the very things that activate illumination. In the natural, everything is confined to knowledge. The balances of what is good and what isn’t. What is white, what is black. Who is right, who is wrong. But in the Spirit, nothing is based on knowledge, everything is based on faith. Faith is seeing things that aren’t visible by natural means.

I tell it to people this way . . .In “this” realm, my mind is in “operation”. but when I move into the spiritual realm, “I” need to submit my mind from that of operation, to become one of “observation”. My mind can only “observe” what has already been done. It’s my “spirit” that goes into operating in that finished state. All my mind can “understand” is current state. Healing comes, light comes . . .when I can enter into the “finished state” of what’s already been done. And “that” can only happen “through” our relationship with God through Christ.

So . . when I see passages like this one that’s been brought up, rather than try to reason out why Jesus would tell us it’d be best if we weren’t ever born if we were to do this or that . . . I try allow my spirit to do what I see we were created to do . . .to “hover” over the face of the deep . . .the identity of the unknown (to us). You know the passage . . .the deep that calls to the deep. My spirit is the light within me, searching my most inward thoughts (Proverbs 20:27) my mind is blind to spiritual truths. In fact, my mind is at emnity to God’s truths. It can read the Bible just like any other mind of man, but it’s ability to see spiritual truth is nonexistent without the Holy Spirit breathing life into what’s being read. So . . .when I’m not seeing understanding with a passage, I hover . . .I ponder . . .I stay with it for a while and listen for sound to come out of it. There are times when it’s immediate, other times, not so much. And yet other times, I’ll see different variations or different “dimensions” of the same passage. I think this deal with Judas is one of those.

Logically, what Jesus is saying doesn’t seem to line up with the fact that life in and of itself is a gift from God. But yet is Jesus saying the gift God gave Judas is actually a curse? If God is no respector of persons, why would life for Judas be cursed when the rest of us aren’t? Unless . . .it’s meant to be seen as a spiritual truth rather than a natural statement.

#64

I just don’t think like this. I don’t believe that we have a “soul” and a “spirit” each of which is somehow “us”, one of which reasons, and the other which somehow perceives — apart from reason. I believe that each of is is a person holistically, that everything that actually exists and operates is totally rational. “Body”, “soul”, and “spirit” are not three different entities, but three different aspects of the one entity, namely the whole person.

Our Lord, the “logos” of God, was and is, wholly rational. The word “logos” means “reason”; it is the word from which “logic” is derived. If we wish to submit to God’s work in our lives to bring us to the point of being in the image of Christ, then we must be rational, too.

#65

One other thought (and I think this was proposed by a universalist named Andrew Jukes) is that Jesus might have been saying that it would have been better for Judas (as the man he was at the time he betrayed Christ) if he had never been born (or even ever existed, as long as he is the man he was.)

Paul talks a lot about “the old man” and “the new man,” and I think Jukes saw this as relevant to Christ’s words concerning Judas (assuming the standard translation is correct.)

#66

According to Vine’s Expository Dictionary of NT Words, in the passive voice gennao (Strongs # 1080) means “to be born.”:

studybible.info/vines/Beget,%20B … 0begetting,%20Born
sermonindex.net/modules/arti … &aid=37324

Out of dozens of translation & Greek-English sublinears i haven’t seen one that doesn’t translate the word as “born” at Mk.14:21:

biblehub.com/mark/14-21.htm
studybible.info/CLV

“The Greek term gennao (Strong’s Concordance #1080) underlying “born” can be confusing because it broadly means “to
procreate” or “to father,” and figuratively, to regenerate.” It can also be used as “to bear,” “to beget,” "to be born,
" “to bring forth,” “to conceive,” “to be delivered of,” “to engender,” and “to make.” The Greeks used the term for
both conception and birth, for the entire gestation process. Therefore other parts of Jesus’ and the apostle’s
instruction must be sought to reveal more clearly which Jesus means.

"In his The Complete Word Study New Testament, p. 313, Spiros Zodhiates reveals that gennao in this verse is aorist
subjunctive and in the passive voice. Word Pictures in the New Testament, “John,” p. 44, confirms that gennao is
“aorist passive subjunctive” here. Vine’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, p. 104,
relates that, in the passive voice, gennao means “to be born.”

bibletools.org/index.cfm/fus … hiates.htm

#67

Do you mean MARK 14:21?

It doesn’t matter if ALL translations render the word “εγεννηθη” in Mark 14:21 as “born.” The word means “begotten” or “generated” or “produced.”

If you download the Interlinear Scripture Analyzer, run the program, and look up the passage in the interlinear, you will find the immediate translation of “εγεννηθη” to be “generated.”

interlinear-scripture-analyzer-basic.software.informer.com/2.1/

In the following passages you will find that all translations render “μονογενης υιος” (monogenās huios) either as “only-begotten Son” or simply as “only Son.” None of them render it as “only-born Son”; yet the root word is the same one that you insist can mean “born.”

John 1:18 No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
John 3:18 "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Hebrews 11:17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son,
1 John 4:9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.

#68

I’m curious how you translate the following:

Matthew 19:12 "For there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother’s womb

John 9:2 And His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would
be born blind?”
19 “Is this your son?” they asked. “Is this the one you say was born blind? How is it that now he can see?”
20 “We know he is our son,” the parents answered, “and we know he was born blind.
32 Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind.

John 16:21 A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets
the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world.

Acts 7:19 He dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our ancestors by forcing them to throw out their newborn
babies so that they would die.
20 “And it was at this time that Moses was born; and he was lovely in the sight of God; and he was nurtured three
months in his father’s home.

Hebrews 11:23 By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden for three months by his parents, because they saw he was a
beautiful child; and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.
23 By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and
they were not afraid of the king’s edict.