controversial scriptures

[B. W.]

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Catherine please let us move on. I am glad that you are not of that stripe. I am sorry to have offended you. Please re-consider your doctrine on Annihilationism. The doctrines of Annihilationism come in many diverse forms, running gauntlet from Atheism to Universal Salvation and have led to some very materialistic political modus of operations with horrible human rights violations but let us move on...

Please review the and Read this Link from the Bible NET for a good example of what the Orthodox position on Luke 16:22-23 is before contending that the Annihilationist or Universalist statements on Luke 16 is the only superior translation.

I would also like any reader following this debate to note that several persons in this debate have made repeated overtures that Orthodox Christians do not know how to read the bible properly and are all guilty of the greatest of sins — Literalness and this alone is reason why everyone should abandon Orthodox Christian doctrine in exchange for what they believe.

Many continually cite that certain scriptures can only be read in a symbolic or spiritual context and that all orthodox Christians are guilty of misinterpreting scriptures because they ignorantly take theses passages literally and thus all orthodox Christian doctrine is error; Thus, they are 'leading the witness' to a presupposition that only the doctrines of Soul Sleep, Annihilationism, and / or Universalism is valid truth that the bible teaches.

We who hold to the orthodox Christian position are being told to deny what the bible clearly teaches on the grounds that orthodox Christians are just fear mongers who should stop taking the word of God so darn literally and acquiesce with their spiritual interpretations because only they are the true purveyors of truth who can correctly interpret the bible. Such tactics employed by the Universal Salvation, Soul Sleep, and Annihilationism are nothing new.

In fact, their form of argument can be traced all the way back to early Gnosticism — one of the first theological attacks on the Christian faith. The early Gnostics claimed that one needed 'special knowledge' in order to understand the bible. They always mocked with condescension the literal interpretation of Holy Scripture by accusing the orthodox position as being superficially literalistic.

For the Gnostic, only they had the real spiritual truth based on some secret knowledge of Christ. The early tactics used by theses Gnostics always laughed at Christian orthodoxy with derision on the grounds that the orthodox lacked true spiritual interpretation of scripture. Nothing much has changed. This is the same playbook employed by all those adhering to bad doctrine and religious cultic systems.

Some things are so clearly taught in the bible that it takes great effort to distort the clear meaning of text with an over abundance of man made spiritual interpretations in order to supplant truth with error. When this happens — your eyebrows should rise in suspicion that someone is twisting the word of God to suit their own doctorial taste buds.

For example, every scripture in the Old Testament and New is clear and describes in the simplest and purest of terms that those who have passed away, who are termed asleep, are all still spiritually alive and cognizant while their physical body is interned and decays. The bible is also clear on the fact that at a future date and time that the spiritual part of a person will be rejoined with their new body in a final act that determines where one will spend the rest of eternity as a united being.

When the Old Testament speaks of the dead as shades speaking, seeing, hearing, trembling — it takes a lot of spiritualization to say the bible does not mean what it clearly says. The seriousness of all of Jesus' warnings about hell are also thus symbolically spiritualized watering down the true meaning of the text. When you hear of such lame interpretations you, the reader, are being bamboozled to rely on the teaching of men.

The bible teaches foundational doctrines so plainly that it takes great swelling of empty words to convince the unwary that foundational orthodox Christian doctrine is all error. Like the Gnostic's of old, such people blinded by error attempt to shame one into submission by accusing the orthodox of taking the bible to literally and not as spiritually as they do.

For those of us who hold to orthodox Christians doctrines we should learn to contend for the faith against those who blatantly attack it and teach others how defend the faith by our examples. We do this not for our own sakes but rather for those neophytes who are just beginning their spiritual journey with Christ so they will not be lead astray by every wind of doctrine men lay in order to deceive and turn away from the truth Christ teaches.

We cannot in good faith water down Christ warnings on the subject so that we can 'just' feel better. To do so opens a Pandora 's Box of error and deception. When one dies believing in soul sleep, annihilationism, universalism it is too late to turn back. They'll awake realizing Christ was right and they were wrong.
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[catherine]

HI B.W, thanks for this reply. I am presently re-studying and making sure of things, like the Bereans did, as it is vitally important to get to the truth of God's word. I can clearly see why many believe in the immortal soul etc and as it is orthodox doctrine, I am aware that I may be in error- hence my being careful to study these things. At the end of the day, I can only ask God to show me the truth of the matter and first and foremost I must go by what my 'heart' tells me or to put it another way, my conscience, or 'spirit' if you like. I know these may be 'faulty' but they are all I have got to go on and they scream out to me that God is not a monster. He does not keep people alive to allow them to be tormented forever. Anyway, I'd better not get into that again as we could go on forever. I hate not being in agreement on things, but I do promise to try to have a good heart and sincerely seek the truth and I am sorry that I have felt 'unloving' towards you during the last week. I have allowed my pride to blind me to the real importance of getting to the truth. I pray we will all know the truth. God Bless...

[Canuckster1127]

HI B.W, thanks for this reply. I am presently re-studying and making sure of things, like the Bereans did, as it is vitally important to get to the truth of God's word. I can clearly see why many believe in the immortal soul etc and as it is orthodox doctrine, I am aware that I may be in error- hence my being careful to study these things. At the end of the day, I can only ask God to show me the truth of the matter and first and foremost I must go by what my 'heart' tells me or to put it another way, my conscience, or 'spirit' if you like. I know these may be 'faulty' but they are all I have got to go on and they scream out to me that God is not a monster. He does not keep people alive to allow them to be tormented forever. Anyway, I'd better not get into that again as we could go on forever. I hate not being in agreement on things, but I do promise to try to have a good heart and sincerely seek the truth and I am sorry that I have felt 'unloving' towards you during the last week. I have allowed my pride to blind me to the real importance of getting to the truth. I pray we will all know the truth. God Bless...

The whole idea of "God being a monster" ......

Keep in mind, God's knowledge and power are above ours and as such, our judgements of the justice and wisdom of what God does and why he does it are going to be incomplete.

While there certainly is room for, and our humanity is going to lead to our looking at and understanding things from our prespective, we need to consider that the basis God has given us to know Him is through His revelation, both in the person of Jesus Christ, the written word which we believe is the Bible and to a lesser extent through what we can derive through the General Revelation of this creation and the existence of a moral code within us, which we need to recognize is tainted throught the fall and original sin. What we feel about something, is secondary to what God says about it.

That's not a fully satisfactory answer and that is a reason many give for rejecting Christianity as a whole or certain elements that they feel are distasteful.

God is not cast in our image however. We are cast in His. Further that image has been marred and it is a fallacy to imagine that we can fully understand and then be in a position to judge what God has done or why He has done it. We either accept Revelation, or if we don't then there's no real basis for knowing God to that degree anyway.

That doesn't settle this issue but I hope it gives some understanding as to how we need to approach it and why.

[catherine]

I'm not sure if I shouldn't really post this in the 'Humour and Jokes' forum, but as it's touching on our 'differences' I thought I'd post it in a light hearted way:

I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said, "Stop! Don't do it!"

"Why shouldn't I?" he said.

I said, "Well, there's so much to live for!"

He said, "Like what?"

I said, "Well...are you religious or atheist?"

He said, "Religious."

I said, "Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?"

He said, "Christian."

I said, "Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant?"

He said, "Protestant."

I said, "Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?"

He said, "Baptist!"

I said, "Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?"

He said, "Baptist Church of God!"

I said, "Me too! Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you Reformed Baptist Church of God?"

He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God!"

I said, "Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?"

He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915!"

I said, "Die, heretic scum!" and pushed him off.

[B. W.]

HI B.W, thanks for this reply. I am presently re-studying and making sure of things, like the Bereans did, as it is vitally important to get to the truth of God's word. I can clearly see why many believe in the immortal soul etc and as it is orthodox doctrine, I am aware that I may be in error- hence my being careful to study these things. At the end of the day, I can only ask God to show me the truth of the matter and first and foremost I must go by what my 'heart' tells me or to put it another way, my conscience, or 'spirit' if you like. I know these may be 'faulty' but they are all I have got to go on and they scream out to me that God is not a monster. He does not keep people alive to allow them to be tormented forever. Anyway, I'd better not get into that again as we could go on forever. I hate not being in agreement on things, but I do promise to try to have a good heart and sincerely seek the truth and I am sorry that I have felt 'unloving' towards you during the last week. I have allowed my pride to blind me to the real importance of getting to the truth. I pray we will all know the truth. God Bless...

Note: Please Read this Link to Bible NET for a good example of the Orthodox teaching concerning Luke 16:22-23.

This brings up the point of what constitutes justice on God's terms and not mans. What of all those who played a part in the Holocaust such as Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler, Hitler, Goering, etc? What is just for them for all the terror, misery, suffering, and woe they were responsible for bringing upon each victim of their schemes?

Would eternal annihilation really be just punishment? If this were the case then each perpetrator would have successfully gotten away with their sins' crimes. They spared not their victims, nor gave them rest, nor provided cessation of their personal torment upon their victims unless one considers soul sleep a viable option.

According to Annihilationism, combined with or without Soul Sleep, the guilty before God may suffer a bit of torment but then are extinguished into non-existence. This would in essence mean that the guilty did indeed successfully get away with their crimes and all the woe they caused. After a little terrifying pain — they are permitted to escape into nothingness having successfully committed their deeds. Some may find nothingness a great terror but for those going through any such temporary punishment this would be seen as great relief.

According to Universalism, combined with or without Soul Sleep, salvation will come to all. Some will suffer little terrifying pain in the purging flames and then they and all enter heaven with hearts filled with love for God. This is not justice either as the most wicked will have been successful in getting away with their deeds free and clear. As for learning love — no — they learn terror from the purging flames — not love. Taste for sin remains knowing God will not require a true accounting. This would be manipulated by such persons to perpetuate sin because coercion is not love nor can it produce heartfelt love. The bible teaches that Christian believers are cleansed during this mortal life and those that reject the Lord will not be cleansed in the hereafter.

What of God? The above would for man be fair to man — not God. What truly punishes for sin and crime? The answer would be 'Eternal Recompense' unending. No one gets off easy; there is true justice for sin and its crimes. The guilty truly do not successfully get away from the pain and sorrow they caused their victims and the true gravity of sin's ruin is exposed.

You see, God proves his mercy is way beyond man's interpretations which lines up with Isaiah's 55 statement that 'God's ways are not man's.' Annihilationism, Soul Sleep, Universalism only declares from man's perspective what type of mercy they can accept as just — extinction with no pain.... How can God really punish with just recompense if he himself is forced to commit in essence a crime we humans assign to the abortion industry -- Cessation of life?

God's mercy —that alone — is why he does not make one non-existent extinct in absolute cessation of life. Instead God warns, he pleads, he cajoles the sons and daughters of Adam's progeny, to return to him. He offers a way of escape and cleansing to all that he knows will respond and draws these to himself. As for the others, they rejected God's warnings, the pleadings, his cajoling, exchanging these interludes for Soul Sleep, Annihilationism, Universal Salvation, or even the tenets of Atheistism all in the hope they'll never truly be held to account.

Annihilation is one of those doctrines that claim non-existence is truly horrible and just measure for sin. However, Annihilationist fail to recognize that in doing so would make God guilty of not truly living to the standards of absolute mercy he holds for himself, or towards the victim's suffering, or toward that of perpetrator. It is rather in the personal interest of the condemned to be annihilated rather than fall into the hands of the absolute perfect God who justly, righteously, perfectly holds one to account.

God is not a cosmic abortionist — he gave a gift of life to each and this gift is his gift. What do we do with this gift? Each of us must answer before God. We cannot expect that we can successfully get away with our own crimes and sins in any manner, shape, or form. God, for his own glory and praise, will not abort the gift of life he gave no matter what we crave or think is unjust for us. It is what is unjust for God to do. That is what is at stake in this debate.

God sent Christ into the world to save us from a certain fate caused by our fallen nature. Christ came to heal us and bring us back to God cleansing us along the way. From the day we were born we became an eternal being sharing a reflection of God's own livingness. The fact is; he will not extinguish this gift into a state of non-being. To do so, defies the mercy he gave in giving the gift of life he gives to each.

It is satisfying to the ears of men and women to think of annihilation or universal salvation doctrines as true because in doing so, one would successfully have gotten away with ones sins - even for just a mere moment. Think on this for a while. The only way one can never-ever successfully get away with their sins is to be eternally held to account.

Jesus came, as Paul stated, 'to save sinners' so that we can forgiven of our transgressions and find abundant life with and in God eternal, 1 Timothy 1:15. Let us run boldly run to his throne of grace and find help, forgiveness, cleansing as well as escape the wrath to come.

1 Timothy 1:15, "The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost." ESV

He came to save - please you who read do not neglect such great salvation!
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