Bible Teachings or Traditions of Men?

jimmydiggs · Oct 19, 2012

Kerykeion said:

I don't know what lead you to that, but I am changing the avatar now as we speak to appease.

cfultz3 · Oct 19, 2012

jimmydiggs said:

You know what he is going to say now don't ya? The cross is still encircled by black.

jimmydiggs · Oct 19, 2012

cfultz3 said:

Now it's blue.

Alter2Ego · Oct 19, 2012

Grandpa said:

ALTER2EGO -to- GRANDPA:
The word "hell" is the synonym for "Sheol," "Hades," "pit," and "the grave." That's not a teaching that I'm presenting. That is a documentary fact. Even the English Dictionary gives a partial definition as such.

DEFINITION OF HELL:
"The abode of the dead, identified with the Hebrew Sheol and the Greek Hades; the underworld."
http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/hell

Alter2Ego · Oct 19, 2012

Grandpa said:

ALTER2EGO -to- GRANDPA:
Something cannot be symbolic and literal at the same time. Just because that's what you choose to believe, that does not make it so in the real world.

For instance, the statement "I did a killing in on Wall Street" is symbolic/figurative speech. It means the investor got a good cash return for his or her investment in the stock market. If one were to take the words "a killing in on Wall Street " at face value, it would literally mean someone got murdered on the literal Wall Street.

Symbolic language is representative of something else and cannot be taken at face value. However, if it makes you feel good to apply literal meanings to figurative speech in the Judeo-Christian Bible, be my guest.

NWL · Oct 19, 2012

My respnose to this thread and question:

Trinity

The Bible makes it quite clear who Almighty God is, if you asked any christian on hear who God is 99 outta 100 of them will say its the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. If you ask them whom we should be worshiping they'll also tell you "your meant to worship God" aka Father Son and Spirit But Jesus made it quite clear who we should be Worship.

(Luke 4:8) In reply Jesus said to him: “It is written, ‘It is Jehovah your God you must worship, and it is to him alone you must render sacred service.’”

Christians unknowingly go against Jesus own words!!

Look also what Jesus said Here (John 17:1,3) “..Jesus spoke these things...he said: “Father (Jehovah)...This means everlasting life, their taking in knowledge of you, the only true God..”

Here Jesus refers to the Father Jehovah as the "ONLY" true God, it would be contradictory for Jesus to be God, the Holy Spirit to be God but then the Father to be the ONLY true God, so its evedent that the Bible doesn't teach a trinty.

Its clear of Jesus origins as the Bible says this about him, (Revelation 3:14) “..These are the things that the Amen (Jesus) says, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation by God.."

Jesus was blatantly created by Jehovah who created all things - Hebrews 3:4

Hell

Hellfire and torment is also a MAJOR misconception, like you've already pointed out its un-scriptural, and goes against basic human morals not alone Almighty Holy Holy Holy God.

It's so simple I dont know how people can't work it out. If your own Father or you yourself as a parent would NEVER put your child's hand over a flame as a punishment then why would God, WHO IS LOVE as the Bible says burn us forever and ever and ever etc, it makes no sense if we wouldn't then why would he.

The truth is simple, the Bible says (Romans 6:23) "..For the wages sin pays is death.." so if Death covers our sins then why would God go a step further and torment us for the rest of eternity, the false teaching contradicts the Bible.

I've seen people post scriptures regarding Gehenna and the lake of fire on here, but they don't seem to realize that its simply a place of non existence, scripture shows that itself.

(Matthew 10:28) And do not become fearful of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; but rather be in fear of him that can destroy both soul and body in Ge·hen′na.

If both SOUL AND BODY are destroyed in the Lake of Fire then whats left to TORMENT!!? Its so obvious That's its equivalent to the common Grave.

Anyways that's my 2 cents.

kenisyes · Oct 19, 2012

angelofmercy said:

You misunderstand, angel, I don't offer the parable as proof of anything except as proof of which of the two meanings Jesus understood for the word "fire". The problem is, that although Jesus states 5 times that there is fire in hell, someone could argue that Jesus meant the fire symbolically, based on the Greek word. My point is that in this parable, Jesus used the word flame. That proves that in His mind, the fire of hell had flame, and thus is not symbolic. I'm simply working around the Greek word having two meanings, since the topic of this thread is whether that fire is symbolical or not.

The statement that the rich man is different from Jesus' resurrected body,, proves that Jesus understood that those who die in sin will be able to feel such flame and will suffer from it. This is to support my interpretation of I Cor. 15:52 in above posts "all are raised, we are changed" as being two separate statements, not one, as some are objecting.

The parable supports the interpretation of words. The other Scriptures prove; this helps us interpret the words of those.

angelofmercy · Oct 19, 2012

kenisyes said:

First beloved, I don't believe you need greek or any other language to understand the simplicity of Christ. In short, the rich man represented the Jews (house of judah) and the poor man those without (gentiles).

Now we understand flame naturally. If I were on fire, the LAST thing I would ask for a drop of water for my tongue. These are all symbols.

kenisyes · Oct 19, 2012

Laodicea said:

I am not saying the Bible is just opinions. I am saying that sometimes God gives us an opinion of someone so we can see how wrong it is. "The fool says in his heart there is no God" is a perfect example. The Bible is clear Jonah was in the fish 3 days. Jonah said it was forever. Jonah is wrong. God wants us to know that three days of His "discipline" can feel like forever.

You have three great examples of "forever" in these Scriptures you provide. In each case, they are God's statements, not opinions, and therefore are correct. Be aware they are two different words. Revelation is aion of aion, ages of ages. Jesus' word is sunteleos of the aion, until everything in this age is brought to its completion of purpose.

Technically, after the new heavens and new earth are present, Jesus will be visibly with us at all times, so this passage in Matt. covers until then. That's how it only needs to mention one age. This is exactly how I understand your comment that the word for "forever" in Revelation is the word for "world" in Matthew. Revelation is "ages of ages" (tous - ton on the articles); Matt. is consummation of the age (one age; this one).

kenisyes · Oct 19, 2012

Alter2Ego said:

I believe I provided the proof. This is cultural background, only to prove that it made sense to Paul's audience, and the early Christians who assembled the Bible.

You never did answer my first question about why you got interested in such very specific matters. Now, I don't know, and it does not really matter, because as you say, we are here to discuss Scripture. But unless you do tell me, one option may be that someone you know has asked you some questions and you want our help to figure out how to get them closer to Jesus. People who are on the fence often do not benefit from the Bible without additional help. Such opinions are sometimes of benefit to such people. Read 2 Tim 3:16-17 very closely: scripture benefits the man of God. It does not say it benefits everyone.

At the worst, all it did was waste a few minutes to read and respond to. At best, it might have helped an unsaved person listen more closely to what you had to say.

kenisyes · Oct 19, 2012

Alter2Ego said:

It is not the screaming ones who will rejoice, obviously. The saved rejoice: as in Rev. 15:3.

i don't need to prove this. I offer the argument as the details of how a pagan philosopher might view the situation. As you already observed, they do not know scripture, and often get matters wrong. The likelihood is proved by Gen. 6:3, where God calls the spirit in man His spirit (usually mistranslated; the Hebrews interpret this "my spirit shall not use man to strive with the earth". It is also proved by Eccl. 12:7 - the spirit returns to God who made it, the assumption (not proved) is that an eternal God would not make a non-eternal spirit.

kenisyes · Oct 19, 2012

Alter2Ego said:

Of course I agree. I had mentioned earlier that you seem to be thinking that God created hell on purpose. God created angels and people out of love. When they sinned, He had 3 choices: 1. ignore the sin and not be just 2. erase those people and say He made a mistake, or 3. put the people someplace away from the God they have chosen to hate. He created a fourth choice, by asking Jesus to come: 4. Ignore the sins of those who will try to follow Jesus. Justice and righteousness makes 3 the best of the bad alternatives. I quoted Rev. 15:3 in the post I just wrote to you. That song could not have been sung if God chose alternative 2.

It's a hard reality to deal with, but we call symbolic fire onto ourselves right here, in this life, when we refuse to follow God. That's not God putting punishment on us, it's us refusing grace until we feel like punishment is all that's left. Like where Jonah felt that three days was an eternity.

There is an old story about C.S. Lewis, the Christian author. He agreed to believe only if he could believe that even though there is a hell, that God is so merciful that no one ever goes there. My wife used to like to believe that Jesus appears to everyone still in sin at the moment of death, and evangelizes the person successfully, so that no one actually ever gets to hell. The Catholic Church told him that he could believe that as a Catholic. (Please don't ask whether I believe the catholic church told him the truth.)

kenisyes · Oct 19, 2012

angelofmercy said:

You would if you had been in the flame for sometime, and found out you were not burning. This happens when you have an eternal body, because you rose incorruptible.

If you don't need any language to understand the simplicity of Christ (and I agree you don't), why are we discussing Scripture in the first place? It is the word of God presented in a language, is it not?

Why can't the passage have many meanings?

angelofmercy · Oct 19, 2012

kenisyes said:

That's the whole problem. NO MAN needs to be taught of any man. The scriptures only mean one thing, with division based on PRIVATE INTERPRETATION. But scripture is not subjected to what we believe as it moves on it's God given course uninhibited by what we "think" it means.

Scripture tells us that the gentiles being without the law, did BY NATURE that which was in the law becoming a law unto themselves.

But yet here it is that we who have it still argue about going to church on saturday vs. sunday. Do you think this was what the gentiles we were doing being without the law?

So for this reason, be not many masters among us knowing we will receive the greater condemnation.

We are to be of the same mind and judgement, but as you can tell, no one here has this because we STILL do not love our neighbor as ourselves.

Do you see yourself burning forever in flames? Then you should not see anyone else burning a well? From out of the same mouth we cannot bless God, then curse any man made in His image.

GraceBeUntoYou · Oct 19, 2012

Alter2Ego said:

When was the topic of this thread ever changed? Someone asked a question, I provided an answer. It was never an attempt to change topics, that's something you're reading into the conversation. I'm really quite willing to engage you on your statements as I have shown in my first post to you, which you have not responded to, and I think I've shown my willingness to engage those in opposition as I have done so in the past on nearly every Trinity related thread here on CC. You are not the first Jehovah's Witness (or "Bible Student") that I've engaged on this forum, and you certainly won't be the last. If you think you can present a solid case against the Trinity then present it, but up until this point you have not.

As for eternal torment, this is not exactly one of my focuses of study or real interest at this present time, but I will say that the denial of eternal torment is not Jehovah's Witness or Bible Student exclusive, there are many within Orthodoxy such as the semi-Preterists which deny eternal torment. Chris Date, the gentleman who runs theoapologetics.com is a Trinitarian, and also an... annihilationist. There's bigger fish in the sea.

GraceBeUntoYou · Oct 19, 2012

Alter2Ego said:

This entire post seems to be a bunch of rubbish to me. You state that what you "believe" is not the issue, but that it is what the Scripture says that is of importance. However, in just a few sentences later you ask Jimmydiggs, "Do you accept what the Bible says, or are you more inclined to go with the crowd and believe what everybody else seems to believe?"

But what you really meant to ask is, "Do you accept MY entire exposition of the Bible, or are you inclined to go with those who I don't agree with?" Do you have some kind of divine inspiration that we should know about?

kenisyes · Oct 19, 2012

angelofmercy said:

I added numbers.

1. Scripture tells us the will of God. We each get different understandings because we are different. See #5.
2. I thought Jesus fulfills the law.
3. I don't know why people argue about such things. Maybe we should go every day?
4. But not from any of us who are not masters, I trust?
5. Or do we just see a diamond from different angles?
6. I'm saved, but I have to admit I see unsaved people. So why should I not see that God is also just and not just merciful?

If you really believe this, I ask again, why are you here? If you really know what you need without other people telling you, and think we are argumentative and not loving, what do you get out of it? If you can answer this for me, then perhaps we can move closer to understanding each other. Our disagreements seem to center on a desire to get different things from this forum.

GraceBeUntoYou · Oct 19, 2012

Alter2Ego said:

(1) The issue of this entire post is that you're guilty of anarchronism. You are applying 21st century English definitions to an ancient language.

(2) When Paul speaks of Christ as the “Firstborn,” he is not depicting Christ as the first-created of God’s created order. Of course, “Firstborn,” as it is used throughout the Old Testament is often used in reference to the preeminence of an individual, and is clearly seen in the highly Messianic Psalm, in which David (who here is a typification of the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ), the youngest amongst the sons of Jesse (1 Samuel 16.11-13), is described and appointed as God’s “firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth” (Psalm 89.27). It is Christ, as the Son of God, who is the “Firstborn” in the sense that He is the “heir” of all things, for everything that belongs to the Father also belongs to the Son (John 16.15, 17.10). As the “firstborn” is the heir to all of his father’s estate, so too is Christ the heir of all the Heavenly Father’s estate, namely, all of creation (Colossians 1.15, Hebrews 1.2, Psalm 2.7-8), and the overall context of Colossians really does demand this view.

Sure, we could discuss partitive genitives (“one of the students of the class”), genitives of subordination (“King over Israel”), and its correlative analogous genitive (“King of Israel”), but instead I’d like to direct attention to the preposition found in v. 16, ὅτι (“He is the image of the invisible God, the Firstborn of all creation, because…”). The reason for Christ being called the “Firstborn of all creation” is “because all things were made in Him… through Him… and for Him.” This statement of course makes little or no sense if πρωτότοκος here means something in the sense of “first-created,” and/or if the phrase “Firstborn of all creation” is taken as a partitive genitive. How is it that Christ is the first-created of all creation, because all things were created in, through, and for Him? However, when considering the Orthodox interpretation of this passage this makes much better sense, fits the overall context, and is consistent with the testimony of Scripture: Christ is the Firstborn, the heir of all creation, because all things were created in Him, through Him, and for Him.

(3) Should the apostles had thought the Word was some part of the created order sometime before the incarnation as Arians espouse then the prologue of John would have been the place to say it. John could have easily wrote, “All other things came into being through him, and apart from him nothing else came into being that has come into being.” However, call attention to v. 3,

“All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.”

Contemplate here for a moment on John’s words, because their import is indeed striking. Everything that was created; everything that had a starting point in time; everything that has come into existence… all things that “came into being” did so through, or by means of the Word. These are not words that describe a created being, these are words that describe the active, and eternal agent of creation. The Logos is not here identified as one that “came into being,” but the One through whom all things that have “come into being” have their existence .

GraceBeUntoYou · Oct 19, 2012

Shaije said:

This is not at all what I was hinting at. I was not suggesting that the NWT was the only English translation which mentions Jehovah here (though this is one feature that is key in determining which translation was cited). What I was getting at is that the word order differs (“that you, whose name is Jehovah, you alone” compared to “that you alone, whose name is the LORD&#8221

from many English (though, not all) translations, and some of the terms used in the NWT are rarely found in other translations (such as “people,” rather than “they,” or “them”; “Jehovah” as compared to “LORD&#8221

. Though these are only of minor significance, the NWT does stand alone in the precise rendition of the text.

New World Translation
That people may know that you, whose name is Jehovah, you alone are the Most High over all the earth.

New Living Translation (©2007)
Then they will learn that you alone are called the LORD, that you alone are the Most High, supreme over all the earth.

English Standard Version (©2001)

That they may know that you alone, whose name is the LORD, are the Most High over all the earth.

New American Standard Bible (©1995)
That they may know that You alone, whose name is the LORD, Are the Most High over all the earth.

GraceBeUntoYou · Oct 19, 2012

Alter2Ego said:

In Hebrews 1.3, Christ is described as the "exact imprint" of His Father's very nature (Hebrews 1.3), the Greek expression "charaktēr tēs hypostaseōs autou" is significant. This statement about the Son being the exact representation of the essence of God tells us that the Son is both, (1) a distinct Person from the Father; and (2) that He shares in the same nature as another, namely, the Father.

Let's consider for a moment that Arianism is true: If Christ is the "exact" representation of the essence of God, then not only is Christ put to shame, but also the Father. If Christ is apart of the creation, and ontologically inferior, and yet He is the "exact" representation of the Father's nature, then you also make the Father, both, apart of the created order, as well as something less than God. However, if Trinitarianism is true, and Christ is the "exact" representation of the essence of God, then not only is Christ glorified and honored, but so too is the Father. The Son, like the Father possesses all the attributes that makes God, God (John 1.1c, Hebrews 1.3, Colossians 2.9), including eternality.

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