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NASB | John 11:11 This He said, and after that He *said to them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I go, so that I may awaken him out of sleep." |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | John 11:11 He said this, and after that said, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him." |
Subject: Where was Lazarus for 4 days? |
Bible Note: "Man is made up of three parts: Spirit, Soul and Body" i agree Philippians 1:21-24 Paul is simply expressing his desire to end his troubled existance and be with Christ, many christians over the centurys have had the same desire and not necessirly expected to be ushered into Christs presence at the moment of their deaths. Also the dead in Christ do not experience the interviening time between death and resurection. Pauls statement needs to be interpreted on the basis of his clear teachings of when the believers will be united with Christ. 1Th 4:16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 1Th 4:17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. the "so" (houtos) refers to the way believers will be united with Christ, ie not by dying but by being ressurected or translated at his comming. if you have a concordance you will notice that houtos means "in this way", placed at the beginning of the sentence it emphasises that "in this way shall we ever be with the Lord." Revelation 6:9-11 you cant ignore that alot of revelation is apocalyptic symbols that are not photographs of actual realitys but "symbolic representations of almost unimaginable spiritual realities". Obviously there are no white, red, black and pale horses with warlike riders and Christ does not appear in heaven in the form a lamb with a bleeding knife wound(rev 5:6) the scene of the martrys squeezed at the base of an altar are to reassure those facing death and matrydom that they will ultimately be vindicated by God(do you really believe that matrys go to heaven where they sit underneath the altar and cry with a loud voice?) The symbolism comes from leviticus where the blood of sacrifices was poured at the bottom of the altar(Lev 4:7) "When the Soul Leaves the Body, the Body Sleeps The term "sleep" is never applied to the soul or the spirit, but only the body. The soul and the spirit continue to exist after death. The body "sleeps" and goes back to dust." how do you know that it is talking specifically only about the body? ("Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I go, so that I may awaken him out of sleep.") this verse uses Lazarus's name ie the person as a whole. ask yourself, what is the difference between someone who is asleep and someone who is awake, the person asleep is unconsious and the person awake is consious, the body is still very much awake(heart pumping, breathing, cellular functions), it is the mind that is asleep when we say someone is asleep. for this reason i can only conclude that when the bible describes death as a sleep i must understand that that means unconsiousness (and the bible describes death as sleep many times "david slept with his fathers etc..) also (to return the origonal question) if Lazarus did experience anything while "dead", he certainly doesnt say much about it... you might expect something like "wow, i was in heaven....", in fact if he was in paradise then Jesus would not have been doing him any favors by ressurecting him back into our world. thanks for reading if you got this far :) daniel |