Out Of This World

  • Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.

    If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!

    To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
Nov 23, 2013
13,684
1,212
113
#42
I think it's just John's style of narrative rather than anything mysterious.
I think it goes back to the end of the world thing and this is just another clue to help understand what is meant by the world.
 
Dec 12, 2013
46,515
20,402
113
#43
right! - so just by itself we have God saying He is not somewhere, is amazing statement. like when Lazarus died, and He said He was glad for their sakes He was not there, so that they might believe -- He was not there? He is omnipresent! and He holds all things together! there is no such thing as "there" if He is not "there"! but like the song Miri put, Here is infinite God contracted and projected in a man. it's incomprehensible, beyond my mortal mind, "Wonderful"



exactly this ↑

i'm OK with the the answer ultimately being "impossible to comprehend, for now" but i don't think that's any excuse to stop trying ;)
Fully agree....through much prayer, digging, study, pacing and reasoning within oneself a Nugget of pure spiritual Gold gets dropped from heaven into our laps as the lightbulb goes on....

All that genuinely study the deep things will fully understand that statement!
 

posthuman

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2013
37,846
13,559
113
#44
I think Christ is just using well known, and common, patterns of speech to say something like, "there is a sense in which I'm already parted from you, because my work here is finished, and the future is set."
He hadn't yet gone to the cross -- where He finally said "it is finished" :unsure:
 

Locutus

Senior Member
Feb 10, 2017
5,928
685
113
#45
Bones, you're a smart dude - do you think self driving/autonomous cars will take away our free will as Christians?
 

posthuman

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2013
37,846
13,559
113
#46
I think it goes back to the end of the world thing and this is just another clue to help understand what is meant by the world.
i think a clue is here:

as long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world
(John 9:5)
 

Locutus

Senior Member
Feb 10, 2017
5,928
685
113
#47
it's Jesus praying, tho, not John narrating.
Ya but, John is still "narrating" what Jesus prayed or was about to pray before the physical lag thingy tongue.png

Now my head hurts.
 

Locutus

Senior Member
Feb 10, 2017
5,928
685
113
#48
i think a clue is here:

as long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world
(John 9:5)
So he wasn't a light before Pilate or on the road to the cross - at what point did he lose His lightyness?
 

maxwel

Senior Member
Apr 18, 2013
9,526
2,608
113
#49
He hadn't yet gone to the cross -- where He finally said "it is finished" :unsure:
Picking at that phrase doesn't change my overall assertion.

We can just slightly reframe the statement and say "virtually finished", or "virtually finished in terms of the days I have left with you", or whatever; as that does nothing to change my overall assertions in post #29.

So change that phrase a bit; it doesn't matter... the point of post #29 remains the same.

...

...
 

posthuman

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2013
37,846
13,559
113
#50
If you were to join the military, and have a goodbye party, you would say the same things.
You might cry and hug your family, and say, "I'm am no more in this house"... just as Jesus said, "I am no more in this world."
what would it mean He is saying, if we pair this with 'while He is in the world He is the light of the world' ?
what part of what He came to do is finished?


what i meant by my reply earlier was that it seems obvious that "His ministry" wasn't yet complete. taking up the cross, dying and resurrecting, going to the altar in heaven, appearing again to the disciples, ascending, sending the Spirit, appearing to Saul/Paul -- these are all very important parts of His ministry taken as a whole. some facet of it that required His presence in the world ((by some definition not equal to 'physical body present on earth')) may have been complete, but not 'His ministry'
-- which is to say, i think we need more precise language here.
 
Nov 23, 2013
13,684
1,212
113
#51
Joh 17:12 (KJV) While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled.

I don’t know if anybody noticed this but in the very next verse Jesus said “while I was with them in the world”. He said that while standing right in front of them and talking to them.

Jesus obviously wasn’t talking about the physical world.
 

maxwel

Senior Member
Apr 18, 2013
9,526
2,608
113
#52
what would it mean He is saying, if we pair this with 'while He is in the world He is the light of the world' ?
what part of what He came to do is finished?


what i meant by my reply earlier was that it seems obvious that "His ministry" wasn't yet complete. taking up the cross, dying and resurrecting, going to the altar in heaven, appearing again to the disciples, ascending, sending the Spirit, appearing to Saul/Paul -- these are all very important parts of His ministry taken as a whole. some facet of it that required His presence in the world ((by some definition not equal to 'physical body present on earth')) may have been complete, but not 'His ministry'
-- which is to say, i think we need more precise language here.
Why?

What would it mean if we compare what Christ is saying in John 17:11 with the verse in John 9:5?

Why would we want to do that?
Why would we want to compare verses that have a different context?

I think you're trying to pair verses because of similar language, without taking into consideration the passages have different contexts.

Context:

A. In John 9:5 Christ is talking about being physically gone from the world.
B. In John 17:11, Christ cannot be talking about being physically gone from the world, AT THE MOMENT HE'S SPEAKING, because he's still physically in the world.
C. So you CANNOT take attributes of John 9:5, and apply them to the circumstances of John 17:11 AT THE MOMENT HE'S SPEAKING, as the two passages have different contexts.

I explained the context of John 17:11 back in post #29.


Semantics:

I can't see there are any issues beyond the simple semantics I outlined in post #29.
We quite commonly use language with a great variety of semantic nuance, which is explained through context.
If we ignore the context, and try to create artificial semantics, we end up in all kinds of confusion and ambiguity.

A. I think that all of this confusion is caused by merely pressing words beyond the common semantic understanding prescribed by the context in which they are found.

B. I think it's good to have these conversations, and ask questions, and peer deeply... but sometimes the answers are simple ones.


...
....
 

Angela53510

Senior Member
Jan 24, 2011
11,786
2,957
113
#53
I am praying for them; I am not praying for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours. All Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, which You have given Me, that they may be one, even as We are one. While I was with them, I kept them in Your name, which You have given Me.
(John 17:9-12)
this whole passage is immeasurably profound, but i wanted to focus in on this part in this thread:

"I am no longer in the world"


  • what does this mean???
  • how was He no longer in the world?
  • when was He in the world, when did He cease to be?
  • if not in the world and coming to the Father, where was He?
  • ????
  • ???
  • ??
  • ?

This is the high priestly prayer of Jesus. The real Lord's Prayer. It is after Jesus talks to his disciples in John 14, 15 and 16 about them carrying on his mission, about being grafted in the vine, and that he will send another Comforter (Paraclete).

I agree he was talking to his Father about leaving earth, being crucified on the cross very soon. I don't believe he was in outer space, or another dimension. (Even though it might make an interesting Sci-fi story.)
 

Nehemiah6

Senior Member
Jul 18, 2017
26,074
13,777
113
#54
not mad btw bro, even though this is a discussion i had with myself in the middle of the week already, it is useful to go through the logic of by objection to that view :)
thanks, in fact.
Again, you are forgetting something else. Divine logic. Christ can be in two places at the same time -- while He was on earth in His body, His Spirit was with God the Father in Heaven. Now He can be with every believer in Spirit, yet seated at the right hand of the Father.

Think of this one: And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, [PAST TENSE] even the Son of man which is in heaven. [PRESENT TENSE]

How can the Son of Man be on earth and also be in Heaven? Divine logic and divine reality.

So we can see that it is perfectly logical for the Son of Man to say He is no longer in the world when He is still in the world. Divine perspective.

At the same time "I come to thee" (or "I am coming to you") repeated twice is perfectly correct since Christ already knew that He would be with the Father within a matter of days. Divine foreknowledge.
 

Poinsetta

Well-known member
Nov 24, 2018
10,648
6,220
113
34
#55
Clears her tie*

“He was being strengthened in spirit spirit never dies and so He was getting a glimpse of being exalted from earth just so he can have a picture of victory in a convincing way. Strength and nothing else. Jesus was asking for the cup to pass from him.
 

Locutus

Senior Member
Feb 10, 2017
5,928
685
113
#57
So I'm sat here posting while "sitting" together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:

This all part of the pho-tonic Flesh-Spirit Duality of existence tongue.png
 

Lanolin

Well-known member
Dec 15, 2018
23,460
7,188
113
#58
Um because Jesus knew he belonged in Heaven even while he was on earth, and he actually was going to being heaven to earth. And he did in the temple of his body.

If that makes sense - Jesus is divine and human at the same time. Hes in the world but not of it.