Lon, had Jesus said "As touching that Abraham is now alive..." or "As touching that the dead live on as spirits" then that would match what you are saying. But he said the opposite, "
As touching that the dead do rise...."
... and THEN he proved this by "God is the God of the Living, not the dead" -
You have not yet explained how (while assuming your doctrine) this statement requires the resurrection for fulfillment. And if you claim 600 million, that's 600 million failures to answer this simple question in any way that doesn't make Jesus a fool out of himself in front of his audience. Let's not play number games.
Let's explain this slightly differently Lon. In Christ's context,
if God were the God of the dead, then there need be no resurrection because Abraham would never live again, and "I AM the God of Abraham" would just be referencing a historical figure, a figment of memory.
Jesus hasn't even taken a second breath in his rebuttal and you've already turned his meaning upside down.
Seems God speaks differently in Genesis. He says that
man is dust, and shall return to the dust. He doesn't differentiate that
man is anything else. He doesn't say "
I shall take your dust away" or "
I shall take back the dirt from you."
Genesis 3:19 KJV
(19) In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken:
for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
You require a body for existence. You have a mortal body now. If you are changed, and only if you are changed, then you shall receive immortality. It's in Paul's definition of the gospel message in 1 Corinthians 15. If you are not changed, you have not immortality.
I suppose I could claim that my computer wasn't the physical parts, but really the software and data that it stored, but do you think it could perform any calculation, do any task, or do anything if I destroyed its body, memory, motherboard, hard drives, reduced them to atoms? Paul says we shall not be found naked.
There are only two options he gives; a corruptible body, or an incorruptible body received at the resurrection.
The typical use of the term means something seen only in the mind. At least, that's what I've always thought. Let's check a quick dictionary definition. "A Vision" as in "saw a vision" or "it was a vision"...
noun
[COLOR=#878787 !important][/COLOR]
- 1.
the faculty or state of being able to see.
[COLOR=#878787 !important]"she had defective vision"[/COLOR]
[COLOR=#878787 !important][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#878787 !important][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#878787 !important][/COLOR]
- 2.
an experience of seeing someone or something in a dream or trance, or as a supernatural apparition.
[COLOR=#878787 !important]"the idea came to him in a vision"[/COLOR]
Lon, you are getting too careless here. Jesus doesn't say they saw a reality, he says they saw a vision. No where does it say that Moses and Elijah were alive and conscious in an ethereal realm before that time, and when you say "scripture says so" that hardly seems very honest.
Please respond seriously so that I can take you seriously. Unsupported claims that "it says so in the Good Book" fall a bit flat with me.