Is death just another life?
- Thread starter Derf
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Ok, the twelve plus a few more.
So, someone who stood up to tempt Jesus was one of His followers? Is that your assertion even though the scriptural passage makes it clear that the lawyer was not a follower of Jesus?
way 2 go
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only evidence is, father is dead , your imagination doesn't count
your definition of the first dead quote "then he was of no use to Jesus" = useless
Mat 8:22 But Jesus said to him, Follow Me, and let the dead bury their dead.
so you contradict scripture , Jesus says Abraham Isaac and Jacob are living
Mat 22:32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”
this is you assuming without evidence
this people here would disagree
Rev_6:9 When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne.
Rev 6:10 They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”
you are still wrong. try again
all are resurrected
Mat 22:32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.”
past tense
Act 2:34 For David did not ascend into the heavens,
Psa 110:1 A Psalm of David. The LORD says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”
if as you say , that would make Moses the 1st resurrected from the dead not Jesus , more contradicting of scripture by you
Moses body is in the ground and until Jesus no one was ever resurrected ,
Mar 9:6 For he did not know what to say, for they were terrified.
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Again, the point is NOT that literally everything in the parable is hidden. But that GENERALLY parables were meant to HIDE information from the masses and only make it available to the initiated per Christ's instructions about them.
But, the instances in question were clearly understood and the Pharisees had ample evidence from what Jesus had said in John 5 to understand that He was addressing them in Luke 16. Jesus' reference to believing Moses and the prophets was well known to them as it was one of the things He said that they clearly hated Him for saying.
Stop making everything as if there is no connected context in the ongoing dispute between Jesus and the Pharisees. The Pharisees were aware of Jesus from age 12 and on as Jesus had confounded them when He showed how little they understood scripture in the temple. Nobody would forget that kind of humiliation coming from a 12 year old kid. They would have kept track of Him.
This is off topic for this thread. Could you start a new one if you wish to continue discussing this?
Derf
Well-known member
Going back to what it means to be human and what death is, in the view I'm espousing here, if a human dies, and there is no function or sentience or relationship or anything, it's as if he ceased to exist. And if a human is made up of three parts, then when one of those parts ceases to exist (the body, in your view), then either he has ceased to be human, or your view is incorrect. You say something similar down below: "We also know that man is a three fold being. You have a soul, a spirit and a body (I Thessalonians 5:23 and elsewhere). Your soul is you. It is your mind, emotions, personality, etc. Your spirit is that part of you that interacts with the spiritual realm and your body is that which interacts with the physical realm. This is the way in which man was created and so a disembodied spirit is an incomplete creature."
I would contest that "your soul is you" in the way that you mean it, because your body is you, too.
[Mat 18:8 KJV] Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast [them] from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire.
[Mat 18:9 KJV] And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast [it] from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.
and
[Job 19:25 KJV] For I know [that] my redeemer liveth, and [that] he shall stand at the latter [day] upon the earth:
[Job 19:26 KJV] And [though] after my skin [worms] destroy this [body], yet in my flesh shall I see God:
[Job 19:27 KJV] Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; [though] my reins be consumed within me.
Good! We're both having trouble understanding the Trinity. So we should both be careful when we use our faulty understanding of the trinity to say what may or may not have happened to Jesus, the man.
I'm not trying to imply or emphasize a contradiction. I'm trying to show that I don't understand the trinity, and you seem to be in agreement with me on that.
I like your illustration, because it both shows and doesn't show how the trinity and how man's tripartite nature work, as you've suggested.
And because we are having trouble, it makes sense not to hold to our views too strongly--but to have these kinds of conversations to sharpen iron on iron.
If God is the source of life, then when that source is removed, what is left? death. Not life in another form, right? The leaf that is removed from the tree ceases to have any semblance of life, eventually. Now, God could take a leaf and cause it to be alive again, even if it is not attached to the tree, because He's the source of life. We see this happened with Aaron's rod that budded.
Because the place of the dead in your view is a holding tank of disembodied spirits, and the place of the dead in my view is the grave--a hole in the ground where the remains of people are put until they are resurrected. Which of these two views are more obviously supported by scripture? I.e., where's a verse that talks about disembodied spirits and all the things they can do without a body?
We talked about the "today with me in paradise" or "today, with me in paradise" verse already. Just repeating it doesn't make your view correct, anymore than the appeal to the democratic process of translators did. They could easily be exhibiting confirmation bias.
I am admitting that I don't know how it works for Jesus to die (be completely nonfunctional for 3 days) when He is an integral part of the Godhead. I'm just suggesting that the same type of problem exists for your view--that of separation when God is tripartite. Therefore, we have more work to do in this area before we give up and declare "mystery".
I appreciate your caveat, and your recognition that a disembodied spirit is an incomplete creature. My point above is that if the creature is defined as having all those parts, then the creature has ceased to exist when any one of those parts goes away. In your tree anal
The context is VERY clear. God breathes into the man and he becomes a living creature. when the breath is removed, he stops being a living creature, and goes back to what he was before--dust (though it would still look like him for a little while). That breath being removed is described in several ways, but the most common and perhaps most pertinent to our conversation is when it is used of Jesus: "And He gave up the ghost" in the KJV. Here are a few other times it is used, but in the NKJV:
[Gen 25:8 NKJV] Then Abraham breathed his last and died in a good old age, an old man and full [of years], and was gathered to his people.
[Gen 25:17 NKJV] These [were] the years of the life of Ishmael: one hundred and thirty-seven years; and he breathed his last and died, and was gathered to his people.
[Gen 35:29 NKJV] So Isaac breathed his last and died, and was gathered to his people, [being] old and full of days. And his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.
[Mar 15:37 NKJV] And Jesus cried out with a loud voice, and breathed His last.
Yet, you seem to think that the scholarly opinion is worthwhile when it fits your view. I've just showed (above) where the it's not just "people", but scholars providing what is usually a very reliable translation that think the word for "ghost" or "spirit" should be translated "breath". And if so, then it changes what we think about when we talk about the spirit of a man.
That's not the only spirit, of course. A person's "will" (what he desires to do, or his plans) might also be considered his "spirit", or "soul". But you can see that either a person's "breath" or a person's "will" would not necessarily have to be a surviving part of the person when the person's body dies.
[Psa 146:4 NKJV] His spirit departs, he returns to his earth; In that very day his plans perish.
That particular verse might very talk of all three parts of the tripartite human--his "spirit", him returning to earth bodily, and his plans, or "will" or "soul". And none of them survive, if spirit = breath, and it isn't a thing in and of itself (it departs, and the man is dead).
Derf
Well-known member
I'm not sure it's off topic. It helps to understand if Jesus might have given the story of Lazarus and the Rich man as a parable, rather than a factual event. But I agree it could be starting to go down the wrong path.
The problem you face is how long God originally intended for man to exist.
Would you agree or disagree that God designed man in such a way that man would exist in some form or another for eternity?
Here's a similar example, but it makes our point better than it makes yours:
And so it was, as her soul was departing (for she died), that she called his name Ben-Oni; but his father called him Benjamin.So Rachel died and was buried on the way to Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem). - Genesis 35:18-19 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis35:18-19&version=NKJV
When she died, her soul was separated from her body (remember, our position is that death is separation, physical death is separation of body and soul/spirit). This verse shows quite clearly that separating a soul/spirit from a body results in the person's physical death.
Riight.... This very passage, Luke 16 is being used to support one side of the argument, the side you agree with, and you're telling me I have to take any discussion of this from my point of view elsewhere. I understand. As far as you're concerned my point of view is off topic.
Derf
Well-known member
There are multiple uses of "dead" here, as a dead person can't bury anyone. So if the bury-ers are dead, but not dead, then the bury-ee can be just as dead but not dead. My evidence is better than yours.
Not an assumption--it's in the text. He was talking to those who didn't believe in the resurrection. He was talking about resurrection.
Definition of resurrect
transitive verb1: to raise from the dead
You can't raise someone from the dead who is not dead.
This is the confusion the death is just another life doctrine causes.
But if Jesus was talking about a future resurrection, then God is the God of the living, because God will raise them from the dead. It's an expression of the power of God to resurrect people, which was the subject of the passage. Are you saying God doesn't have that kind of power? That He can only resurrect live people?
I'm not understanding your point. I said David was dead at the time Peter was talking, and he had not yet ascended to heaven. Perhaps you're saying that David didn't immediately ascend into heaven. But he was still dead, right? Or was he never dead? if he was alive when Peter was preaching, then when was he dead?
No, there were a number of others. The widow-woman's son Elijah brought back to life. The poor couple's son Elisha brought back to life. Lazarus, etc. Lazarus was already decomposing. Moses wouldn't be that difficult. They weren't resurrected into glorified bodies, like Jesus.
Agreed.
Derf
Well-known member
How many forms does man have? What constitutes a "form"? I agree that God designed man to live forever, but then Adam sinned, and that plan had to change, at least for a time. Adam died in that day, but he was promised a savior who would crush the head of the one that brought death. So the plan was revived (pun intended) with the promise of a future resurrection.
I wrote some about this to @Clete. The phrase is also translated "as her life was departing" or "with her last breath", where both "life" and "breath" are translations of nephesh. You can see how dramatic it was, as Rachel was releasing her last breath, she whispered, "Ben-Oni". It's easy to see it your way, because I was raised with that viewpoint. But if it's that easy for me and you, it must be just as easy for the translators to see it that way, and translate it that way. I would say it is quite clearly a wash between the two views as far as that passage.
However, notice what was buried in Bethlehem? Not Rachel's body, but Rachel. (a half a point extra for me!)
So, my comments about "spirit" and "breath" was me doing a bit of fishing. I suspected that you were one of those who somehow think that God has lungs with which physically breathed life into Adam. I still cannot figure out where this 'unconscious dormancy' definition of death is coming from but I'm glad to know that my instincts aren't completely gone. You can play all the games with the Hebrew and Greek you want, the fact remains that just because a word has multiple meanings it does not mean nor even imply that those various things are all the same thing. The air that you pump in and out of your lungs is not your spirit and has nothing to do with your ability to interact with spiritual things. You will stand before God without your physical body and while that physical body is doing all sorts of things other than breathing.
As for the rest of your post, we seem to have reached an impasse.
All I can tell you is that if your use of scripture is appropriate then there isn't any wild-eyed wacky doctrine that couldn't be defended. If you get to arbitrarily define terms whenever the whim to do so hits you and then, in response to that, you then get to re-translate the text of scripture to suit that a priori and arbitrary definition, then anything goes and there's literally nothing anyone can say or do that will convince you because you've pull the rug out from under any chance of having a meaningful doctrinal debate. There's no way to have a debate about Christian doctrine if the bible doesn't stand as common ground. That goes for anyone, including any "scholars" who make decisions about what the bible is teaching based on their doctrine rather than basing decisions about their doctrine on what the bible teaches.
At bottom, all we have is your seemingly totally arbitrary opinion about what death is and your subsequent reinterpretation of any possible text that might disprove your opinion. Where else is there to go? You've got your a priori ideas which you bring to both your reading and re-translation of scripture and I've got the plain reading of scripture and the doctrine that flows from that reading. Unless and until you give me some compelling reason to think that death is something other than the plain reading of scripture would seem to clearly indicate then there's nowhere else for this to go.
Can you give me any such compelling reason or is "The bible doesn't mean what it seems to mean?" the best you've got?
Clete
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Derf
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Well, despite your fish breath comments, you have a worse problem than I do. Man was created with a physical body. Jesus was born as a baby with a physical body. Jesus' physical body grew to be a man's body. Jesus was resurrected with a physical body (one the disciples could touch). Jesus ascended to His father in His physical body. He sits at the right hand of the Father in His physical body, as far as we can tell from scripture.
Paul tells us that we don't long to be unclothed, but to be clothed, which he equates to a glorified body, one that is incorruptible.
And Jesus actually DID breathe on the disciples, with His physical lungs (and no doubt with spiritual power as well) saying "receive the Holy Ghost", using the greek work for ghost, which was "breath".
You mean, the meaning of words in the bible isn't enough? You know that God gave Adam and Eve a language, right? You know that He gave altered or confounded languages to the people at Babel, right? What right do we have to say that God means "separation" when He says "death"? You can bloviate all you want to about how your interpretation of scripture is the right one, but it doesn't mean it really is.
Was this intended to imply that Jesus, the one with a physical body, is the one who breathed life into Adam?
Was this also intended to imply that the Holy Spirit is no more a real thing that you say our spirits are but was instead the wind that came out of Jesus' lungs?
That's my line, Derf!
You're the one making an extraordinary claim here, not me. I simply read the bible and discern that separation from God is what it means to be spiritually dead which parallels with the fact that the curtain that SEPARATED us from God was ripped in two when Jesus gave up His spirit and died physically after having already cried aloud when the Father had forsaken (i.e. separated from) Him as well as all the other biblical material that I've presented that demonstrates that we are conscious after our physical death, all of which you flitter away FOR NO REASON other than to preserve a totally unorthodox understanding of what death is.
If you want to provide some compelling reason as to why your definition of death is necessary then great! Otherwise, there's no need to jump through the hoops that you've set up for us to jump through. Starting with an arbitrary doctrine and interpreting the bible around it is backward. Its the theological equivalent of begging the question and there's a thousand reasons why you shouldn't do it.
Clete
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Derf
Well-known member
What you have, over my position, is tradition. Is that what you want to rely on? I'm surprised, because that's not what I see in your posts on other subjects.
Saying it doesn't make it so, Derf.
The plain reading of the bible, where you simply read the words on the page and take them to mean what they seem to mean lands you with the idea that if you add a spirit to a physical body you get someone who is physically alive and when one gives up their spirit then that means their physically dead. Then when you dig deeper there are all kinds of parallels, not the least of which is the temple veil that separated God from everyone other than the High Priest (and then only once a year and they had to tie a rope around the priest's waste in case they needed to pull his dead body out after he had done something stupid while he was in there.) as a symbol of our separation from God due to sin, which we are told explicitly has KILLED us (Romans 7:9 and elsewhere). Thus, separation from God is spiritual death!
I haven't even mentioned things like how the Jews, who had a relationship with God were to keep themselves separate from the Gentiles who had no such relationship. And there's the City of Refuge and how separating one's self to one of these cities was a kind of symbolic death (in lieu of actual death by the way). And there's probably half a dozen other things that I haven't even thought of yet. I mean, if it were single verse, or something even slightly obscure, then that would be one thing but the concept is literally woven throughout the whole of scripture!
Clete
Ffree, Nothing in the post I quoted was about this threads topic. If you have a point to make that DOES tie in the two, then you need to make that point. Otherwise, the discussion you were having with RD was getting off topic, and it should be taken to a different/new thread.
So make the point, or take the topic of Jesus' methods of telling parables to another thread.
You seem to be forgetting that throughout Jesus' ministry, He would take questions about the physical world, and turn them into spiritual lessons.
Why can't that passage that W2G brought up simply be that a man was saying he wanted to go bury his dead father's body, but Jesus turned it into a spiritual lesson about letting the SPIRITUALLY dead bury their own?
We see this in the story of Jesus' first recorded miracle, turning water into wine. Jesus was asked about literal wine, and Jesus responded by saying "My hour has not yet come," because of course, he was referring to His blood, for which wine is a metaphor! (Matthew 26:17–29; Mark 14:12–25; Luke 22:7–38; I Corinthians 11:23–25)
On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.Now both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding.And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.”Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.” - John 2:1-4 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John2:1-4&version=NKJV
You're still conflating the different kinds of death.
David was physically dead. He was separated from his physical body.
David (at the time of Acts 2) was spiritually alive. He was no longer separated from His Creator, either metaphorically or literally.
So the answer to your question is that David was both alive AND dead, in TWO VERY DIFFERENT WAYS. (Thus, the law of non-contradiction is not violated.)
Their (not including Jesus here) bodies weren't resurrected at all, and won't be until the events described in Revelation occur.
To answer this requires the context of the answer to my question, so I will answer it after my questions to you.
And what does that imply, do you know?
It means that whatever form man takes must be able to last forever, without degrading, even with the Tree of LIfe.
Agree or disagree?
Supra.
And minus two points to you for your position being inconsistent with itself, and more importantly, with the Bible.
Ever heard of the term "synecdoche"?
It's a figure of speech where a portion of something is used to refer to the whole, or vice versa.
Here, because of the context of "in Bethlehem," we can easily recognize that despite "her spirit departing from her," the part of "Rachel" that was being buried was her body, but it's referred to by the whole, "Rachel." Her spirit had already departed from her. She was dead, separated from her body, and was, as far as we can gather from the text, one of the ones whom Christ led from Abraham's Bosom (now empty) during His time in Hell, and is now in the presence of her Creator, awaiting physical resurrection.
If it's as you say, then "Rachel" doesn't exist at that point, and what was buried was just a slab of meat anyways, and not the person, "Rachel." Which makes what the Bible said wrong.
Your view is inconsistent with itself and the Bible. Mine is not, especially considering the use of a synecdoche.