Subject: Getting the verdict before the judgment? |
Bible Note: Matthew, "I see that you have run out of scripture to support the weak views carried out by 2,000 years of Christian exegesis(whatever that word is)." Would any amount of scripture change your position? I doubt it. It is not the scripture or its amount that is at issue, but the interpetation of scripture. Please look up the meaning of exegesis and isogesis also. It is at the heart of our disagreement. "Those seeing you will gaze even at you, saying . . . " (Is. 14:9-11). To be absent from the body is not to be unconscious, but rather it enables one to be home with the Lord, according to Paul (2 Cor. 5:8, Phil. 1:23). The body is just a tent, or clothing, or a tabernacle that does not last (2 Cor. 5:1-4; 2 Pet. 1:13), while man cannot kill the soul (Matt. 10:28). In fact, the souls live past the death of the bodies, since John "saw . . . the souls of those slaughtered . . . and they cried with a loud voice, saying . . . and they were told . . . " (Rev. 6:9-11). Because the soul does not die with the flesh, those in heaven are able to offer our prayers to God (Rev. 5:8), and live in happiness (Rev. 14:13. I know that according to you some "souls" in heaven are the integrated resurrected bodies and souls of the Old testament just. But it seems fundamentaly inconsistent that once the gates of heaven were opened all the other soul/bodies should be unconscious until the Second Coming. But I now know where you are coming from and why, since as you said, you have "let the cat out of the bag." We must for obvious reasons disagree with one another on this matter. What I found disingenuous about your earlier posts was your assertion that you came to your positions by reading of the bible just on your own. Emmaus |