When we die do we go directly to heaven??

Before we reach the end of this thread, I want to hear the Eloquent and Profound Exegesis from the Believers of PTR ( Pre-Tribulation Rapture) and BTR( the Believers Total Resurrection at Once).

All the arguments and questions raised here, are based on PTR/BTR( Pre-Tribulation Rapture/Believers Total Resurrection at Once)

1. The Important and Outstanding Events until the End of the Earth according to PTR Believers
1) Rapture of the Church
2) Resurrection of the Believers
3) Judgment Seat of Christ
4) Second Coming of Jesus Christ ( Re 19)
5) New Millennium ( Re 20:6-9)
6) Resurrection of the Unbelievers ( Re 20:11-13)
7) Great Judgment at the White Throne ( Re 20:12-13, 15)
8) Death and Hades Cast into the Lake of Fire ( Re 20:14)
9) Unbelievers Cast into the Lake of Fire ( Re 20:15)

Why does the Bible keep silence about 1), 2), 3) if we read it from the viewpoint of PTR/BTR?

2. Other Events that appear on Revelation which are arguable to be contradicting the PTR/BTR

1) Where is the Resurrection of the believers while we can see the Resurrection of the Unbelievers, according to PTR/BTR?
Is the Resurrection of the Believers less important and therefore it is deleted in the Revelation?

2) Where is the Rapture of the Church mentioned in Revelation?
We read the Ascension of the 2 Witnesses in Re 11:11-13. Is the Rapture of the Whole church less important than 2 Persons?

3) Why is the Rapture of the Church omitted in Revelation while we read the story about the great multitude of the Believers who came out of the Tribulation in Re 7:9-17
Is the Rapture of the Church before the Tribulation less important than the Delivery of the Believers coming out of the Tribulation?

4) Re 7 tells us that a Great Multitude which nobody can count
came out of the Tribulation from all nations, kindreds, people, and tongues stood before the Throne and before the Lamb.

How could they be saved if the whole church was taken up by Rapture leaving no Believers on this earth?

Romans 10:14 tells us No salvation is possible without a preacher and 1 Cor 1:21 tells us that God is pleased to save the souls by the foolishness of preaching.

After the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ, there were thousands of Believers left behind, and more than 500 people has seen Jesus after Resurrection ( 1 Cor 15:6), and 120 Believers gathered together to pray God until they received the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.

Nevertheless, it had taken several decades until they preached the Gospel in entire Roman Empire. How could the new believers be saved within a short time like 7 years while Anti-Christ wage the War against the saints ( Re 13:7) and people would not repent ( Re 9:20, 21, 16:9,11)?

A great multitude whose number nobody can count must be over a million because John counts the number of 144,000, even 12,000 for each tribe, in detail. The number could be tens of millions or over a hundred millions while the Beast wage War against the Saints, even the individual life is oppressed to worship the Beast and his Idol.

5) Why does the Bible keep silence about how the New Believers started to believer despite all the persecution and oppression?

Who can initiate the preaching since there is no believer left behind the Rapture? Without preacher, no one can hear the Gospel, and the Repentance which can lead to the salvation comes only by the Holy Spirit, and Romans 10:14 tells such hearing comes thru the preachers. Therefore the Holy Spirit will work thru the preachers. How can the first believer after the Rapture start to believe the Gospel without having any preacher?

6) If the Believers were all raptured, how could the Beast come up to fight the war against the Saints ( Re 13:7) ?

Normally, the style and the order of the Bible writing is that it explains the people if they appear for the first time. If the whole church was raptured, then Bible would have explained how the new believers started to exist. Where is such account and explanation about the Saints?

If the whole church was raptured, why does the Beast come up and wage the war against the Saints ( He may declare the War on Heretics) ?

7) Re 12:1-5 tells us the Man-child who will rule all the nations with a rod of iron and he was born and ascended up to the heaven. One can hardly deny this is Jesus Christ.

This means that the Revelation contains the story about the Birth and the Ascension of Jesus Christ. Then why are the details of the Rapture and Resurrection of the Believers missing?

8) Re 20:4-5 tells us the following.
Verse 4 John saw 3 groups
A) Judges
B) Martyrs
C) Anti-Beast Believers ( who struggled against the Anti-Christ, the Harlot)

Verse 5 says:
The rest of the dead lived not again ( are not resurrected) until a thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.

Questions:
Which group will the following believers belong to?

i) Robber at the Cross
ii) Fornicator in 1 Cor 5:5
iii) A plain believer who believed in Jesus but lived a plain life and died a normal death in 17 century.

Will the Fornicator be the Judge?

Will the Robber at the Cross be counted as a Martyr because he was crucified despite his
repentance?

 

Your response here simply does not address my challenge. Where, precisely, have you established that the spririt is a consciousness-bearing entity? It obviously does not have to be for reasons that have been provided, so where is your argument that the spirit is the bearer, the vessel, the container, of conscious awareness?

You are simply not arguing properly if you conclude that "The right and only conclusion that James is teaching is that: death is separation" in the specific sense that it is a consciousness bearing spirit that is the thing that is separated from the body.

You are correct up to the point where you conclude that "the body when it is separated from the spirit (without the spirit) is dead." But you have not given any evidence requiring us to believe that the "spirit", which I indeed agree is separated from the body specifically has the property of consciousness.

Where in the Scriptures is this "definition" to the effect that death is the separation of a consciousness bearing spirit from the body?

 

Dear Brother Bob,

The key question on that issue is Re 20:3-7 and there are some heavy variance among the manuscripts for v 5, but the variance is about the order of the words or the words Anezesan or Ezesan ( resurrected or lived again), not about the Xilioi as all the manuscripts are Xilia. Moreover, Re 11 and others do not have Xilioi either. They are with the article ta which indicates the fixed 1000 years.
It is the well accepted belief that there will be the last millennium after 6000 years of the Believers history, so that there will be the New Start on the eighth day ( Lev 9:1)

 

Rev 6:9¶And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
Rev 6:10And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

 

I agree it is a popular belief of a fixed 1000 but Greek says plural. of uncertian. affinity, so it leaves it open for debate don't you think?
Also, I agree that the greatest discussion is of the past tense of "lived" and "reigned".

 

Read carefully this passage of Scripture:

2 Corinthians 5:1-6 For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life. Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit. Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:

Our earthly body is temporary. It will but turn to dust. When we die our spirit will go to heaven. We are confident Paul says, that in this body we are absent from the Lord. He goes on to say that outside of the body we are present with the Lord. The spirit lives on forever. It has consciousness. We, along with the angels, are created spirit beings. The only difference being that we, for a temporary period of time, are housed in an earthly tabernacle or tent which will some day be done away with. At that time (with or without a celestial body) we will be with the Lord. He has given us the "earnest of the Spirit."

 

Quote: (DHK, answering Eliyahu on p.20)

This right here goes right along with Andre's "phenomenological" concept, which you dismissed! As I say on my page, http://members.aol.com/etb700/1stdeath.html if we acknowledge dying as "going into eternity", then why do we insist John counts exactly 1900 years or so in Heaven?

Also, regarding "telling God what to do":

Even though Eliyahu tried to answer that, still, the point is, that the resurrection is called the only hope of the righteous living again. In 1 Cor.15 it is pictured as our only hope. The scripture that should have ended this argument long ago is v.17,18: "If Christ is not risen, then your faith is futile... then those who have fallen asleep in Christ ARE PERISHED!" This does not suggest they would be trapped in a lower "paradise" on the nice side of Hades.
Just think; what would be the purpose of a resurrection otherwise? The way people describe this "waiting place" for both righteous and unrighteous, it is no different from after the resurrection, which would then be rendered nothing more than a unnecessary formality. If people could exist and enjoy heaven or suffer hell as "disembodied souls/spirits"; if that's actually the "real" person, then why wouldn't they just remain that way?

Basically, what Eliyahu was saying was that you have the saved and unsaved dead going straight to Heaven or Hell, which is basically the eternal SENTENCE, but before the judgment. If you say that they were "judged already" before they died, then what would a "JSOC" or "GWT" be needed for? Basically, our lives right now are the "trial" hearing!

So it is not telling God what to do, it is a legitimate, serious scriptural flaw in the traditional view of death. It was basically yet another "tradition" inherited from the Catholics, without questioning it, and when problems were discovered, scriptures had to be bent to make it fit (with the interpretation of Eph.4:8, discussed on the other thread, being the most far out!). One early writer, however, Athenagoras (177AD) pictured "the continuance of man" death as still being "alive" somehow, but NOT like "the continuance of immortals", which is basically what the traditional view argues.
"those who are dead and those who sleep are subject to similar states, as regards at least the stillness and the absence of all sense of the present or the past, or rather of existence itself and their own life".

As far as 1 & 2 Corinthians, and "absent from the body":

1 Cor.15 does go on to mention a "spiritual body" (v.40,44), but this is nothing other than the resurrection body, being "[SIZE=-1]RAISED[/SIZE]" after having been "sown" natural (death of the physical body). (Hanegraaf even explains this well in Resurrection, ch 6, Word Publishing, 2000) 2 Cor.5:1-8 and Phil.1:20-23 mention being "absent from the body and present with the Lord", and vice versa. But the Corinthians passage shows that this is actually another term for the resurrection; v.2:"we are [SIZE=-1]CLOTHED[/SIZE] with our [SIZE=-1]HABITATION[/SIZE] [margin: "dwelling"] which is from Heaven", when this earthly "house" (dwelling), or "tent", is destroyed. This is of course, the resurrection body. Paul further says that the hope is "not ...to be [SIZE=-1]UN[/SIZE]clothed (disembodied), but to be [SIZE=-1]FURTHER[/SIZE] clothed, (restored body) so that mortality (death) may be swallowed up by life". (v.4) Further proof, in v.10, he talks about the Judgment seat of Christ, where we receive the rewards for what we have done "in the body". Rather than proving that this is what the disembodied souls will be doing while "waiting" for their new bodies, it is shown in Matthew 16:27 that this judgment is after the return of Christ, (when the righteous are raised). It will be the same body, but being incorruptible, will be different. So Paul can describe it in these scriptures as being "out of the [present, corruptible] body". It may be hypothetically possible for the unrighteous dead to be placed in a "holding place" to await the judgment (but then, once again, why resurrect them if they are already being punished?). But for the righteous dead, would they live in the presence of God as long as millennia, and then only be judged/rewarded at one point of time far in the future when everybody is resurrected?


And as far as "keyhole methods", that is exactly what your "death=separation" is the way you are using it in the argument to prove a spirit or soul floating out of a body!

 

John relays to us what he saw. He saw what God allowed the angel to show him. He did not see everything. He saw only those things which were permitted for him to see. In fact he wrote of some thngs that he did not see, but was told about instead. John was probably in heaven for just a few days. We know that because he died not long after he wrote the book of Revelation in ca. 98 A.D. The times that John gives, God gives him. They are in relation to the earth--obviously.

Are yoiu taking Scripture out of its context? As the verse says, Paul is speaking of the futility of our faith in Christ if there is no resurrection. How does that add to your argument. It doesn't. It simply means that Paul and the other Apostles would not be willing to be martyrs and give their lives for a lie.

Because God appoints the time of the resurrection, not you.
Because God (acting throught the inspiration of the Holy Spirit) tells us that after death we will be present with the Lord. He does not say sleeping or dormant. The verse or passage indicates that we will be very much active, as does also the Book of Revelation. The body is simply an "extra." We don't need it. We are spirit beings. He created us as spirit beings clothed with a temporary body. We will go to heaven (if saved) as spirit beings. There will come a day when we will receive a celestial body to house our spirits. But that really is superflous to our being with Christ. It is an extra. We are spirit beings. The body really doesn't matter. We have fellowship with Christ with our spirits, not with our bodies. The body is an extra. The angels in heaven exist without a body. It is no big deal. Paul clearly said "We wait for the redemption of our bodies." That means in heaven as well as on earth. The saints in heaven are waiting for the redemption of their bodies. Get it into your minds that we are spirit beings clothed with a temporal body. The body is not important. The spirit is.

Again God sets the time of judgement, not you or I. Take your argument up with him.
Secondly, you both misunderstand the JSOC. It is not a judgment for sin. My sin--past present, and future is all under the blood. It is a judgement of works. It is where rewards will be handed out based on our works.
One thousand years later (earth years, of course) the GWT will take place and that will be a terrifying time for the unsaved. John saw all of this in a few hours or days; we are not sure which. We are not told. The angel took him here and there to catch a glimpse of one scene in history and another. All were not future. He saw Lucifer fall and take one third of the angels with him. Thus he was able to look back as far as creation. But that was one event. He saw the Battle of Armageddon in the future and the Second Coming of Christ. He saw only certain events that God allowed him to see. They spanned various times in history. He couldn't see everything for he isn't omniscient. Only God could do that. It is true that he was outside of time. But it isn't true that he could see from one end of eternity to the other end. He could only see what God allowed him to see for the short period of time he was there.

I would rather go by the teaching of the Bible than by the confused teaching of the ECF, one of whom believed Jesus lived to the age of 80. Neither do I go by the traditions of Catholics. If I believe in the trinity does that mean I go by the "tradition" of the Catholcs just because they believe it too? Nonsense! Your argument makes no sense.

Concerning the unsaved the GWT is a final sentence and that is all.
Concerning the believer, you mention the disembodied spirit, which you may refer to it as such if you wish. That doesn't negate the truth of Scripture that the spirit upon pain of death will go to heaven. Paul was not teaching soul sleep, existentialism, "phenomenology," (a relative to existentialism), metaphysics or mysticism, gnosticism, arianism, or any other such heresy. Again, When plain sense makes common sense why make it nonsense? And yet you are bent on makng the Scriptures into nonsense. Paul was teaching the Corinthians that when he (or they) would die they would go and be with the Lord. They would be in heaven alive with the Lord, even though their bodies would await the resurrection. This is a very clear teaching but some would rather insert a modern day existential teaching in there that doesn't make any sense given the context of the passage. I wonder how much of existentialism Paul had studied!!

Every where in the Bible that death is menntioned it is used in the context of separation. If it isn't prove me wrong.

 

I have read Eric B's post and I agree with how he addresses this matter.

I will also point out the above post still fails to address the issue of the spirit being a consciousness-bearing entity. This cannot (legitimately anyway) simply be assumed - it must be argued for Scripturally. Why are you not addressing this issue?

The 2 Corinthians material is entirely consistent with the view that a consciousness-bearing entity goes directly to Heaven at death, so I do not understand how you (DHK) seem to think that it supports your position.

The essence of the problem with DHK's seeming take on this is that while the text is arguably consistent with a view that there are "unclothed" consciousness bearing spirits presently in Heaven, the text is also consistent with the view that there are not specifically consciousness-bearing spirits presently in Heaven. So the text, as an isolated item anyway, does not do much for either position, actually.

Here is why the text is consistent with the view that are not presently consciousness-bearing spirits in Heaven right now:

1. When Paul writes: "if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" this does not in any way imply that the dissolving of the earthly body liberates a consciousness-bearing spirit that goes to heaven. I have already agreed that the spirit of a person is arguably a "thing", but to say it bears consciousness is another thing altogether.

2. When Paul writes: "For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life", Paul is expressing a desire not to be "naked", in other words he wants to have a body of some kind. I presume that DHK's unstated assumption is that the person indeed transitions to an unclothed state - a state where a conscious spirit is aware of its nakedness.

This is simply not justified by the text to the exclusion of other interpretations - the fact of desiring to not be unclothed (without a body) does not necessitate that this state will come to pass. I suggest that Paul is saying that he does not want to enter such a state and God indeed will oblige him - there will be no state of being unclothed and being aware (conscious) of this.

 

Even if this is conceded, you have not given the readers any justification for your take on the particularities of that separation - that the separation entails a specifically consciousness-bearing spirit being the thing that is separated from the body.

It is important to not squeeze too much out of texts like James 2:26

"As the body without the spirit is dead...."

This (and other texts) does indeed (I think) justify the conclusion that a "thing" referred to as the spirit can be talked about as existing seperately from the body.


But it is clear that this text does not justify the further conclusion that this spirit bears consciousness. You have repeatedly failed to provide a Scriptural case to this effect. Why?

 

But then a resurrection would not be needed if our real hope was our spirit or disembodied soul or whatever you call it, floating off to Heaven. Look at what you say below! If that is our hope, it would still be worth dying as martyrs for!

It doesn't say "immediately in earth time". That is what Andre was pointing out!

But we are right back to 1 Cor.15. Without the resurrection, the saints would have PERISHED. You are directly disputing this, and saying a resurrection is really not needed at all! It is not a mere "Extra". It is the Blessed Hope! You have me taking it out of context, but it is your doctrine that has glossed right over it, not realizing the implications it has for your view. That's why much of the rest of "Christendom" does not even focus on the Resurrection. Criticize "the cults" as you wish, but it was the SDA's and Armstrongism that showed me the biblical importance of the Resurrection. I had never heard of that before, figuring that our hope is for our spirit to float to heaven, as most "traditional Christians" seemed to say.

And then below, and on the other thread, you say

However, whenever your doctrine runs into a corner, then common sense is to be thrown out for "nonsense" that only God can understand or explain! That is a copout!
The "plain sense" here is that if the resurrection is said to be out only hope of "living" again, AND it takes place at the respective judgments of the saved and unsaved, AND their eternal sentence begins after those judgments; then when a person dies, the resurrection and judgment is the next instance of their consciousness when they die, and then they go to Heaven or Hell. That is the plain sense. What opposes this sense is nothing more than tradition. (including prooftext interpretations).

But according to you, they ALREADY have their reward in heaven, and the time of the resurrection adds nothing to it but a mere "extra". I know it's not a judgment of sin, but only for works. But that was not the point.

What difference would that make? According to you, they've already been tormented for as much as thousands of years in a "Hell" that is described in a basically identical fashion as the later Lake of Fire!
See how many contradictions are coming up in your argument?

But they have already been suffering that sentence.

You accept the Creedal definition of the Trinity from Nicaea, as do most Baptists and other "orthodox" Protestants, and accept it as biblical, and only coincidentally what was decided on by the Catholics. But the earlier fathers, while believeing the essential truths about Christ, still did not formulate it the same way. However, trinitarian apolgists historians and scholars all try to use the ECF's to substantiate the doctrine. We cannot deny the ECF's, because if a doctrine was truly apostolic, then it would exist during that period. Unless you believe God reinspired "lost" or "distorted" truth at Nicaea. I'm not arguing like the Catholics that completely foreign, unmentioned practices are "proven" to be "oral tradition" by their being mentioned by ECF's. (And even then, the ECF's are usually filtered through later theology. The earliest ones really did not lay out fully formed liturgoca; concepts, though they are used to try to trace it back to the apostles). There are scriptures which appear to teach sleep, and there are scriptures that appear to teach consciousness. The task is putting them together in a way that is coherent, not forcefiting one set to fit a preconceived interpretation of the other.

So I used the Athenagoras reference to show that the doctine of sleep was not invented by some modern "cult". IT is actually between the Millerite "souls sleep position, and the traditional view, in that it does acknowledge some sort of "life" for them. It seems to be like Eliyahu's view. As the body is the receiver of all our senses, so must it be resurrected for us to get them all back. Even still, there is not complete consensus among traditionalists regarding the intermediate state. It is generally spoken of as the time we shall enter eternal bliss and meet all our loved ones, but now some teachers, seeing the inconsistencies with the scriptures teaching Resurrection as our hope, are now saying we won't see each other; we'll just be in some sort of fellowship with God, alone. So it seems almost as if we won't have all our senses after all, but still, this is not explained in detail. And of course, no scripture discusses all of this. Such shifting sands of doctrine is sign that the theory is full of holes, and people are simply trying to patch it up hole by hole, rather than reexamining the whole premise.

That's not what any scripture "SAYS"; it's your systematic interpretation of them in a way you thinks makes them all fit together.

I did not take anything from any existentialism. You yourself acknowledged time in Heaven was not what we are familiar with on earth. That's the only point. If that is existential, then you have been influenced by it as well. Maybe the term phenomenological might have been coined in modern existentialism, but the concept of the timelessness of "eternity" is generally accepted as Biblical.

 

That is when you filter it through your interpretation of James "the body without the spirit". That also seems to be coupled with spiritual death by which we are "separated" from God. So all of this is therefore generalized to a "spirit" floating out of the body and living a full conscious life elsewhere. (regardless of one's spiritual state). However James is not elaborating about a spirit (breath) floating around over here, while the body is lying over there, so see, they're "separated". ("Separation" then becomes a systematic concept, but no such concept is addressed there). The point there is that one must have the other for the other to be "alive".

 

Good link Eric!!

(Can't believe you and I are going to be on the same side on this one. This should be interesting)

But you left out my Matt 22 zinger from your web page.

Indeed as you point out IF (as many say) long BEFORE the "First resurrection" the saints are given immortal bodies (2Cor 5:1-3) at the moment of death then there is all the reason in the world to suffer and die for Christ and then being given a new immortal eternal body and eternal life BEFORE the resurrection.

in Christ,

Bob

 

That is right. OUR resurrection is not needed in order to be with Christ. Where in the Bible does it teach that? Our hope is to be with Christ. Ask any dying believer what his hope is. It is not the resurrection! I has never been the resurrection. Our hope is in the coming of Christ.

Titus 2:13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;
--The believer's hope is in the coming of Christ, and that indeed is called our "blessed hope," not our resurrection." Our focus is on Christ. And that is the difference.

1 John 3:2-3 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
3 And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.
--Again, the coming of Christ is our hope, not the resurrection.

What was the hope of the Apostle John? What was he looking forward to?
The last prayer and words of the Bible:

Revelation 22:20 He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
--John's hope was in the coming of Christ. That is our blessed hope, not the resurrection. And if we should die before he comes we shall see our Saviour face to face, albeit in the spirit as John did.

Revelation 1:10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet,

And Andre was wrong. God was speaking to man who lives on earth. He wasn't speaking to "the aliens on Mars."

What is the blessed hope?
Titus 2:13 Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;

There are two things most people focus on when the subject of death is brought up: going to heaven and being with Christ, and the rapture or the coming of Christ. The resurrection takes a second place to those two subjects.

I think that you and Eliyahu and Andre have not been to many funerals, have not sat by the side of those who have been dying, etc.
I was at a funeral this week-end of a woman who died of cancer. However she was a Godly woman, who knew that as soon as she would leave this earth she would be with Jesus. She had no fears. She planned her entire funeral during her last days in the hospital. She had lived a full life--40 years of missionary service, alongside her husband in the Indian subcontinent. Her husband preached the message. Her son moderated the service. In over 300 in attendance there was not one tear of mourning shed. There were some tears of rejoicing, tributes of praise, wonderful testimonies, and a settled peace among all that this dear saint of God was with the Lord.
We sorrow not as others sorrow. In fact there was no sorrow, only rejoicing in the Lord. She did not die; she just passed on to glory. This world was not her home; she was just passing through. Her citizenship is in heaven where now she resides. Her body is in the grave here on earth, but that doesn't matter. It is only a body. She is with the Lord.

I conducted the funeral of a friend's father. He died of cancer complicated by cirrhosis of the liver which was caused by his dirinking problem. He was unsaved. Though his son was saved, the rest of the family was not. It may have been a good opportunity to preach the gospel, but the crying, weeping and even some "wailing" was in such contrast to what happened this last weekend. "Blessed in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints."

I have sat by the side of a woman (saved) and watch her slowly pass into eternity with a most peaceful look on her face. Within her family some of the children were saved and some not. One son (mid-forty's), became angry against God, angry against the hospital, angry against the doctors, and anyone he could think of that had a part in letting the life of his mother depart. His mother was saved, and departed so peacefully. But he was not satisfied for he was not saved. And to this day remains an embittered man.

What do such experiences tell you--that there is a God.
That God made man in his own image and likeness.
That that image and likeness, in part, means that he made man as a spirit being.
That the body of man at death is separated from his spirit, and his spirit will go to heaven or hell. The facts are very evident, especially if you work among those that are near death. I am not saying that we base our beliefs on experience, but rather that experience backs up what the truth of the Bible says.

And this is why you are confused today.
Our hope, the Scripture says, is the coming of Christ--the emphasis being to be with Christ. We have that in death as well.

 

In 1 Cor.15 it is pictured as our only hope. The scripture that should have ended this argument long ago is v.17,18: "If Christ is not risen, then your faith is futile... then those who have fallen asleep in Christ ARE PERISHED!"
Not in "paradise", let alone "with Christ".
You are not dealing with this scripture. You offered one answer before, but it did not follow.

And what happens at the coming of Christ? The resurrection! (1 Cor.15:23 1 Thess.4:15, 16)
It's amazing that you can separate the two events like this!

We're not comparing Earth to Mars (which are actually on the same time continuum, though "days" might be reckoned differently because of the different rotation), but rather Earth and Heaven.

Nobody's questioning the peace that comes from dying saved, or the existence of God. Again, whether they float to heaven without the body, or they sleep until the resurrection, to them, they will instantly be with the Lord.
It seems there is an emotional component to this debate, because we don't care what the dying person actually senses in their own "proper time"; we insist that they must instanty "go somewhere" in our "coordinate time", which seems to make us feel better; but their death experience is for them, not for us. We can't see them either way, so to accuse us of denying that they actually do experience glory (or punishment) immediately is ridiculous. We should all agreee that the resurrection is the hope for us all being "alive" together again. Again, 1 Cor.15 tells us that without it, we perish. Your doctrine obliterates that scritpure saying no, it would make no difference.

But it seems that you are actually toying with the notion of using NDE's as proof of your view in this statement, though. An alternate claim by those who deal with that stuff that has been proposed is that whatever the people claim to see or feel is from the brain, which may still be alive (e.g. all the "lights" and stuff they claim to see) having a reaction. But this should not even come up in a discussion on what the Bible teaches. Some unsaved do report feeling peace, or seeing Heaven, so that would blow that right out of the water.

I'm not confused. I'm sorry, but what you have been saying is confused: not even realizing that "the coming of Christ" is when the resurrection of the Body occurs, and hence disproves your view. And then, even an inference of NDE's as some sort of proof to back up the interpretation of scripture when supporting scriptural arguments were run out of. That is the pit of utter desperation, especially from a fundamentalism which rejects all that sort of occultic stuff and more by "association"! This is just what I meant when I compared the traditional view to the Millerites. The tradition view is clearly confused in that issue, and those sects happened to catch the truth in that area. (though I wouldn't go for annihilation of the wicked, once the body is resurrected, though).

 

Well, I was surprised to see you using that as a proof of your view. I always saw that as one of the proof-texts for the other side, for they always claim that teaches "See, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are still alive, conscious, up in Heaven right now". I actually did mention it, but rather the Luke 20:37,8 version instead of Matt., right at the end of the section discussing Cortinthians:

But I actually did think this was a weak link on our side. Still, the overwhelming evidence from Cortinthians supports this. (In other words, it is again not our "coordinate time" God is focusing on, but His perspective, and a future resurrection means that they do still live "unto God".

 

Hello all,

In answer to the original question, I could really get carried away with this topic, but just a few comments and Scripture passages should really put this matter to "sleep" (God, and Scripture both, liken death to sleep)...

"If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change comes. Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee; thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands." (Job 14:14-15).

When a person dies, he must: wait ... for the appointed time ... until changes comes (Resurrection of the dead) ... God calls ... we live again ...

"For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know nothing..." (Ecc 9:5)

Not only do the dead not know the comfort of Heaven, nor any pain in hell, but how could they? Seeing as they have not yet been Judged, until after the resurrection of the dead...

Even in our own court systems, nobody is sentenced (or paroled) without going before a judge. Why would our Heavenly Father do so? Is God going to resurrect people from hell for Judgment, only to send them back to hell after He Judges them? What kind of sense does that make?

Just a couple more notes:

"And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven." (John 3:13)

Jesus is in Heaven, because that's where He came from... mankind returns to where it comes from (until we are changed):

"For that which befalls the sons of men befalls beasts; ... as the one dies, so dies the other; yea, they have all one spirit; and man has no preeminence above the beasts [in death]: for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all return to dust again" (Ecc 3:18-21).

From God Himself concerning Moses...

“Now after the DEATH of Moses the servant of the Lord, it came to pass, that the Lord spoke unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ minister, saying, MOSES MY SERVANT IS DEAD…” (Jos 1:1-2).

And we know that He has YET to receive the promises...

"These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." (Heb 11:13)

I could keep going but this is already getting long... a couple thoughts on a few of the other passages already mentioned:

"We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be [yet future] present with the Lord." (2 Cor 5:8)

"And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee today, shalt thou [again, yet future] be with me in paradise. " (Luke 23:43) - (notice the comma placement... Greek MSS did not utilize punctuation)

I better stop there for now.

Glen

 

You have taken a whole lot of Scripture out of context and/or not bothered to read the context in which they were written in. I will answer just this one, as I do not have the time right now to answer all of your Scriptures.

First Job asks a rhetorical question that needs no answer, for the answer is very obvious.
If a man die shall he live again? The obvious answer is yes. It is not found in the rest of the verse, it is found in the preceding verses, especially in verses 10-12:

Job 14:10-12 But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?
11 As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up:
12 So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.

Job looks at what he sees happening around him. Life is futile. Man lives, dies; his body decays; it gives up the spirit that is within him.. And then he asks the all the important question: "Where is he?" Not the body; for it has decayed--but the spirit--where is the spirit? Man lies down. He does not awake. That is his body. In answer to this dialogue, he exclaims with a rhetorical question:

If a man die shall he live again? Absolutely! Certainly! Of course he will!
The question needs no answer, in light of what has been said already.
It does well to read the context.

 

And having reached well over 30 pages I should close this thread. Please feel free to open another along the same lines if you so desire.