Featured Returning to the Biblical Bema

Luke 6:23 Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.​

Luke 6:35 But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.​

1 Corinthians 3:14 If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.​

Hebrews 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.​

2 John 1:8 Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward.​

Comments?​

HankD

 

Hi Tom,

Your Full Preterist view is evident even in an avalanche of criticism including my own. You have stood your ground.

I was centering from your perception of how the vast majority of people react to the "newness" of your view of eschatolgy having been completed in AD70.

I stand corrected.

Thanks
HankD

 

You still have not answered my linguistic points, and they were my main objections to your ideas.

So I'll continue in that vein first. The hapax legomena of the NT (words that only occur once in the original) are what makes it impossible for your method of NT semantics (the study of meaning) to be successful. If we are not allowed to examine usages outside of the NT for a NT word, then those words that occur only once, or sometimes several times, cannot be translated. 1 Peter 3:3 is just one of many (Peter did this a lot, as does Luke). It would be impossible to translate emploke ("plait") there if we did not use extra-Biblical sources.

I didn't intend to deal with your exegetical errors, but no one else is, so here goes.

First of all, the reference in Isaiah is not time specific. It is a prophecy, but we do not know when the fulfillment will be. Having said that, you are correct that Paul is quoting Isaiah in both passages. What you missed is the context of Isaiah, because in v. 25 he said "In the LORD shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory." Isaiah was arguing from the general ("every knee shall bow") to the specific (Israel will be saved), and Paul is doing the same.

Paul is not exegeting Isaiah, just quoting him as a warning to Christians that hey, we'll all have to bow before God someday, so get right with your Christian brothers now. He makes it very plain in the passages you mentioned, especially Romans 14, that he is speaking specifically to believers, using the Isaiah passage as a warning (without exegeting it). For you to say that then Paul is speaking of a general judgment is taking the passage clean out of context. The context (both the immediate context and the fact that Rom. is written to believers) is very clear that Paul is warning believers and speaking of a judgment of believers. So that makes your claim of absolute, positive correctness sound pretty strange to me.

What makes you theologically wrong is that you would have us believe that Christians will be judged for sin, if we carry your view out to its logical conclusion. This is wrong, dead wrong. Christ cleanses us from "all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:9), and we will never be condemned (Rom. 8:1). So theologicaly there must be a separate judgment for believers without punishment for failure or sin.

The idea that we believers will be judged at the Great White Throne Judgment is wrong on so many levels. Any simple exegesis proves that. The ones judged there are dead. We are alive. No one there receives anything but "the lake of fire, which is the second death." We receive eternal joy with Christ.

As for us receiving no rewards but Heaven, this shows that you haven't completely studied the subject. There are a number of crown rewards in the NT that your view doesn't begin to cover. In fact,the very idea that eternal life is a reward is theological nonsense. A reward is for something we have done. Heaven is the gift of God. Case closed. Absolutely closed. You are completely wrong here.

 

I wouldn't study the Bible so much if I did not love it and want to follow it. I made a promise to the Lord many years ago that would always let the Bible change me when I was wrong. I've always kept that promise.

You've shown me nothing to change my mind about the Judgment Seat of Christ. You ignore most of the thrust of the passages to make the Judgement Seat of Christ for non-believers when it is specifically about believers, and the Great White Throne about rewards when it is specifically about punishment. That's not being a Biblicist!

Then you admit your theory of NT Greek semantics is wrong, right?

You have no idea how I was taught by my father and grandfather, preachers both but dispensationalists neither.

What system? You don't know me.

So the judge of cooking and beauty and Olympic contests dole out punishment?

Very weak argument. You're grasping at straws. This is only an assumption. Prove it.

You must have forgotten it in this thread.

Just copying your silly assertions of infallibility in exegesis. Your words were "absolutely certain." :saint: