BavarianWheels wrote:...Christ tasted and experienced the separation that exists between the sinner and God. Simple. (Matt. 27:46, Mark 15:34) Had God forsaken Christ? He had to! But only for a time. But it was God that brings Christ back... (Acts 2:32, Acts 4:10, ...) There is no resurrection from the dead after the second death. (Rev. 2:11, 20:6, 20:14, 21:8)
There is nothing too extraordinary in knowing a man, left to die the death that sin claims, cannot be raised from the dead having paid his own penalty. Why? Because sin was in the man. But Christ, having taken on sin and died according to the penalty (which God himself set and God himself pays) comes back because He was without sin and God raised him. (my words probably not good enough) If Christ did not pay the debt sin asks...then he didn't redeem us...simple.
BavarianWheels, you defined and limited the words translated in English as 'death' in the bible to only mean absolute non-existence. I was applying your definition to the logic of the
Hebrews 2:9 text. If you apply the above meanings you cited to this text, you would be contradicting your doctrines definition of death. Since the penalty for sin is death (
Genesis 2:17) then what would fulfill the full requirements of sin according to your own doctrines definition?
In other words you said — “
But Christ, having taken on sin and died according to the penalty (which God himself set and God himself pays) comes back because He was without sin and God raised him. He was without sin and God raised him. (my words probably not good enough) If Christ did not pay the debt sin asks...then he didn't redeem us...simple.”
So therefore, this penalty would be an absolute non-existent state according to your doctrines definition of the word died, death, etc.
Question: So are you declaring that God raised Jesus form an absolute non-existent state?
BavarianWheels wrote:B. W. wrote:John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
Who may have life? Are you attributing this promise for those that go into hell?? If not, what are you citing it for?
Let me clarify a bit further: Who may have life — abundant life refers to those that awake to Christ, born again, etc. There are two kinds of eternal life the bible speaks of — everlasting abundant life with God and eternal damnation / banishment from God. Both are eternal.
Why did I cite
John 10:10 and John 8? Answer to make a point: The devil does these things for the pleasure of doing them. He wants people exterminated as that would make God deny his words spoke in Genesis chapter one regarding Humanity to prove God spoke a word he could not keep and thus not be God. The devil wants to steal things from people, faith in God, love, hope, dreams, health, etc, so people curse and blame God for it all. The devil wants to bring people into a state of ruination — lives ruined so people mock God for this (note: there is more to these things than I can write here).
Jesus speaks in
John 10:10 concerning the devil as liken to a certain kind of thief that comes only to steal, kill, and destroy (meaning bring to ruination). One should not correlate this with God justly exercising his judgment / wrath on mortal beings. The devil steals, kills, and brings to ruin for the mere pleasure of doing so.
Next question that comes, does not also God create calamity, and bring to ruin as
Isaiah 45:5-8 says? Answer is yes. However, the Lord God does not do this for pleasure but instead to bring his salvation to light and restore his rule (
note Isaiah 45:8). Look at the ways of the Lord regarding this matter summed up in:
Nahum 1:2:
“
The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD is avenging and wrathful; the LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies, 3 The LORD is slow to anger and great in power, and the LORD will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.”
The Lord is slow to anger and pleads to people to return to him and makes offers of reconciliation, even to those he foreknows will reject him. He offers ways of escape and if people do not repent, it is upon their own heads. He will punish, destroy, to bring to end wickedness so it does not triumph. He does so rightly, justly, faultlessly, which reveals himself all-that-he declares himself to be and is thoroughly justified in doing so. He makes his ways known and his ways are without fault or wrong doing.
God fashions calamity so that a greater good, his good, arises. The bible records in
Ezekiel 18:23-32. that God himself spoke that he has no pleasure in the death of the sinner but rather they may turn and live. This does not negate wrath and punishment, nor justify non-existence as punishment, nor justifies that God does not punish eternally to temporarily spank in hell to allow all entry into heavenly bliss. Instead the bible declares: the LORD will by no means clear the guilty who reject God's call.
God is slow to anger so many can turn and live. The evil one does not grant such possibility. God's ways are beyond all other ways mortal mind can fathom yet he proves himself God true to himself and makes this glory known. God is Holy and pure. None like God!
When we die, eternity awaits. Where will we spend eternity? With God or banished from him to a place originally made for the devil and his angels? You see, God is perfectly just and righteous and does no wrong. He is without sin. He does not extinguish life into a state of absolute non-existence as this truly robs life of life that God gives. God is not a robber. He keeps his word. Life is his to give. He is a God of the living.
When the followers of Korah went down alive into Hell, they went down alive. Jesus said
that there was a certain rich man that died and went to hell, alive. When God causes mortal life to cease, it is for judgment. God knows these individuals have reached the point where they will never repent and are totally corrupt. This was found in them, not placed within by God. He knows all. He is just. They are sent to wait the final verdict in the depths of hell, alive.
He consigns such to the same place prepared for the devil and his angels, forever. He is not a murderer as life continues after the mortal ceases. God can slay the mortal wicked justly without violation of life he gave and his word given in Genesis Chapter One. So in a sense when God slays the mortal wicked — these go into judgment. Before this time, God pleads and warns and exhorts people everywhere to repent through the message of the cross. He offers a way of escape as Jesus paid the penalty for the sin of us all. This is the way of God - as he is merciful and full of grace and truth.
God is just and wise. He is slow to anger but an accounting will nevertheless come. Where will we all be standing in a day of judgment when mortal life ceases and the eternal begins? Changed by Christ work on the cross resurrected to new life or rejecters of God's offer of love?
One needs to measure theological doctrine according to how the bible reveals and describes God's character, nature, acts, and deeds. Instead, what ends up happening is that the bible is measured by the standards of men's personal biases. These get in the way of what the bible reveals about God.
What I write lines up how the bible reveals and describes God's character, nature, acts, and deeds and lines up with God as He is and not as how I think He should be. I learned this the hard way and had to shed my biased ideas on how God should be for how he reveals himself through the standard of his word. I pray you may do the same in due course as God so wills as many reading this have more to learn from the Holy Spirit's living instructions. This takes time and often much wrestling with the Lord.
I wrestled like many of you have thinking that God way too loving to eternally punish but this did not line up with God's justice. I thought once as an atheist that abortion and euthanasia where examples of a superior from of love but this I found later to be contrary to the God of the living and giver of life who holds us accountable for what we do with his gift.
I even once asked, why did not God just do things right the first time around in the Garden of Eden and thought God to have erred but later I discovered — he did things right - all according to who he is. He keeps his word and proves he is God.
“
Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth, ”
Genesis 1:26-28. Then the fall...
That was Eden then. A place to see what would be found in the heart. On earth now, God refining those who will return to Him as He reveals who He is so we can be purified sealed never to rebel again in the new heavens and earth to come. In the process, we learn to love God because he first loved us. Loved so much that He keeps His word to restore us to His original goal He had purposed beforehand before the foundation of the world which in part involves taking care of his precious things: each other and his living things designed.
There is much here, more than I can write. I am being brief. The rest I leave up to you and the Lord to explore on your own. Now, for those of you stumbling across this post who do not know the Lord, it is time for a decision to be made. Think on it a moment, we make plans for our vacations and spend more time doing this than we do about planning for eternity. Vacations do not last, eternity does.
Where do you want to spend eternity? With God or the devil and his fiends? Come to Christ today. God is Just. Christ paid the penalty for sin and by the cross we can now return to God. Through the resurrection of Jesus we discover new life with purpose and meaning through all life's storms and all life's wonderful moments.
I am now only writing to those that do not know Christ in case any stumble upon this Forum. For those that choose life — that life abundant spoken of in John 10:10 and if you are tired of being robbed, killed, and brought to ruin, please pray this little prayer that I quoted here from the end pages my book and then find a bible believing Church to grow strong in:
“
Dear God, Lord Most High! I am dumb as a post and know nothing. I am tired of living my life and making things all ugly around me. I ask you to forgive me and make me whole. Teach me, instruct me, guide me and never let me go. Dear Lord Jesus Christ, invade my life and help me make life, live, where I have been assigned. I need your Spirit of life blown inside me; please do this for me. The nails tore your wrist causing your bones to pull apart for me. I do not understand why you did this, but please teach me. Dear Jesus, teach me the way I should go. Make me born again from above by the breath of Your Spirit. Amen.”
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Note: Bible quotes from ESV unless cited otherwise