At the end of the day, your views on this matter are theologically peripheral and not a matter at the heart of the gospel....
Debating the meaning of Scripture, and the nature of Father, Son, and Third Person, is merely "peripheral" in your view? This coming from a guy who
just started a thread on this question:
"Are we to relate to the Heavenly Jerusalem as a spiritual mother and the bride of Christ?"
This is at the heart of the gospel? I can't love God properly if I don't happen to know that the Jerusalem above is somehow my mother? And you're referring to a solid,
material city, right? With streets of gold?
At the end of the day, your views on this matter are theologically peripheral and not a matter at the heart of the gospel....
Let me get this straight. You're implying that I shouldn't start a thread unless I've first created another thread to debate/prove/establish the relevance of the topic? Do you hold everyone else to that standard?
...unless you want to claim that Jesus was not raised in the flesh.
Is this cherry-picking? Are you hoping to find in me one deviation from Scripture as a lame excuse for tossing out ALL my arguments and beliefs?
If the creation was one dimensional. then you might have an argument....
Let me stop you right there. I don't speak gibberish. Neither should you. No one has a clear idea of what "other dimensional" is even supposed to mean. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence - blurting out mere gibberish won't suffice.
But the scripture portrays God as being outside of time.
EVERYTHING we know about conscious experience seems to contradict that gibberish. Fellowship is real-time communication, interaction, conversation between two parties. It takes place in TIME. Didn't the Three have any fellowship prior to creation? I'd say so.
Living in eternity before creation screams of immaterialism because He has exists as a spirit and was active before anything was made.
Gibberish screams, well, gibberish.
At the end of the day, your views on this matter are theologically peripheral and not a matter at the heart of the gospel....
Would you like an example of the relevance? Is sanctification relevant, in your view? Or just peripheral? Fellowship can ONLY be defined as a mutual exchange of sensations between two parties. That fact alone is proof enough that we are to interact ONLY with a material God. Example of fellowship:
"The Lord spoke with Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend."
I soon realized that God wants ALL of us, as we mature, to see Him face to face (see Num 12:6-8). Most Christians don't realize this (probably none of them do), but "praying in Christ's name" actually refers to a face to face vision of the Father. This is one of those somewhat veiled truths that most Christians won't see in Scripture without Direct Revelation. My materialistic outlook is what helped me to see it! By the way, the expectation to see God physically explains Christ's lament:
"You have never heard His voice, nor seen His shape" (Jn 5:37)
In sum, materialism is RELEVANT to sanctification because it powerfully confirms that, in maturity, we are to see, hear, touch, feel, and even smell a material God.
