Pro-Life means sex creates souls?

Fascinated With God said:

In what manner? Thru the 70? What are you referring to?

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Lets look at that one again.
Isaiah 10:O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation 6 I will send him against an hypocritical nation,(ancient Israel) and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.7 Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few..... Then he spends multi verses denouncing Assyria's pride and intentions and then God makes this statement to them. 15 Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it? as if the rod should shake itself against them that lift it up, or as if the staff should lift up itself, as if it were no wood. All of this meaning. The rod God rules the nations with in this case is the nation of Assyria.

Here the rod God wields to purge Israel of idolaters is the nations that ruled over them.
Ezekiel 20: 32 And that which comes into your mind shall not be at all, that ye say, We will be as the heathen, as the families of the countries, to serve wood and stone. 33 As I live, saith the Lord GOD, surely with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out, will I rule over you: 34 And I will bring you out from the people, and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered, with a mighty hand, and with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out. 35 And I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face. 36 Like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, saith the Lord GOD. 37 And I will cause you to pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant: 38 And I will purge out from among you the rebels, and them that transgress against me: I will bring them forth out of the country where they sojourn, and they shall not enter into the land of Israel: and ye shall know that I am the LORD.

Here Israel is the rod of God's inheritance.
Jeremiah 10: 16 The portion of Jacob is not like them: for he is the former of all things; and Israel is the rod of his inheritance: The LORD of hosts is his name.

Here God rules the nations with the rod of the mouth of the messiah which is symbolic of his word. Same thing in Revelation the sword of the his mouth is his word. Beside Jesus himself being the rod of God in verse 1.
Isaiah 11:1 And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: 2 And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD;3 And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the LORD: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: 4 But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.5 And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. These animals represent the nations of the world lying down at peace with one another. Not seeking to conquer, plunder and enslave their neighbors because of the influence of Gods invisible kingdom. 6 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. 7 And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8 And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den.9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.

This are just some of the examples of the way in which Jesus rules the world with a rod of iron. Or how about these precious promises and prophecies that pertain to this age in nations that meet the conditions due to the influnce of Christians and the Bible in their nation. Notice none of these promises speak of a utopian world but a world where the righteous are winning the battles against the wicked. Something non existent in the ancient world outside ancient Israel.

Isaiah 54:14 In righteousness shall you be established: you shall be far from oppression; for you shall not fear: and from terror; for it shall not come near you. 15 Behold, they shall surely gather together, but not by me: whoever shall gather together against you shall fall for your sake.....17 No weapon that is formed against you shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against you in judgment you shall condemn.
Isaiah 60:26 And they shall bring the glory and honor of the nations into it 12 For the nation and kingdom that will not serve you shall perish; yes, those nations shall be utterly wasted.
Zechariah 13:8 In that day shall the LORD defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the LORD before them.
Psalm: 149:7 To execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people; 8 To bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron; 9 To execute upon them the judgment written: this honors have all his saints. Praise ye the LORD.
Daniel 7:27. And the kingdom and empire, and the greatness of the dominion under the whole heaven, will be given to the people of the saints of the most High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and all empires shall serve and obey him.
Revelation 20:8 And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea. 9 And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.

Fascinated With God said:

How does it change our duties?

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That part of the sentence on duties is not meant to be disconnected from the rest of the sentence.
"In other words understanding what our present duties are and what we can reasonably expect to accomplish in Christ or not."
Did the early persecuted Christians expect that wherever the Gospel was preached the power idolatry over the nations would be destroyed? Did they ever expect the Gospel would make half the nations of the world believe idols are nothing and something to be mocked and ridiculed? Is it reasonable to expect the rest of the nations where idolatry has power to follow suit as the Gospel reaches them and transforms their cultures?

Did the early Christian raised in world where almost half the population was the property of others and that it had always been that way expect slavery to be made illegal?

Did the Apostles think that some day the world would no longer be ruled by despotic human government the way it had always been? Did they this this would only happen when Jesus rode in on a white horse with armies of visible angels behind him. Could they ever imagine a world where people influenced by the Gospel, the Word, the providence of God created good government, a scriptural system of justice. Where the poor became prosperous etc etc. Further. What can we reasonably expect to happen in the rest of the nations?

Did they expect the average life span to double? What can we reasonabley expect?

Can you picture the planet continuing for thousands of years and generally being a much better place than it ever was? Or is your view of the future much more along the lines of a dystopian Hollywood movie? It matters what you believe the Bible prophesies. It matters to God if you agree with him or work contrary to his plans and purposes. It matters if you underarnd this prophecy correctly.

Isaiah 2: 2 And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD'S house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.
The Lords house is his people which is not debatable NT doctrine.The mountain represents God's people's influnce in the world. Not the only influnce but the greatest influnce as there are clearly other mountains in the same prophecy in other books. All nations ARE FLOWING TO IT. This just takes centuries so people sort of miss that.
3 And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.
Where do people go to find God and salvation? To God's people, to a church or to God's written Word. This is happening big time. A billion new Christians in the last 50 years. If the trend continues 2 billion more in the next 30. The Word of the Lord originated in Jerusalem but now is spread by the New Jerusalem.
4 And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.
In the OT God's people had to make prolific use of the sword to spread or maintain the influence of the invisible government of God in their world. In the NT the sower sows the Word. The spread of the influnce of the kingdom of God comes through the preaching of the Word, the preaching of the truth, all truth. The swords and spears of the OT are beat into instruments of farming.This has been happening for 2000 years. Republics founded and maintained in varying degrees of Biblical principle have not been waging wars of conquest against each other. Something unheard of in the ancient world.

Fascinated With God said:

In the OT the destination of spirits is only mentioned once, in Eccl 3:21, where Solomon says, "Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?". That's it, that's all the OT says about where the spirit goes in the afterlife.

As to souls, all souls go to Sheol, the grave. But there are resting places and there are hellish places, namely Abaddon, the Place of Destruction, and the Pit, sort of like Purgatory.

The NT by contrast only refers to the afterlife destination of the spirit. Only the salvation or destruction of the soul is discussed, never a destination.

How to mesh those two disparate descriptions is rather confusing. It seems to suggest that the soul and the spirit go to different locations. But that is confusing.

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You need to do a Bible search on the term "realm of the dead". It comes up 29 times in the NIV translation. OT and NT. It even shows up in Peter's sermon in Acts chapter two.

The other thing to consider is the story of the Rich man and Lazarus. Some say that you can't take that story as an accurate representation of the afterlife, but why would Jesus teach an inaccurate view? One of the things that comes up in that story is a fixed chasm that cannot be crossed. Compare this scripture with that idea.

John 5:24
“Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life.

Fascinated With God said:

There is a popular belief among some Jews that Adam was a super-soul from which all other souls come, because God breathed his neshama into Adam. The largest category of references to neshama speak of all living beings dying when God inhales his neshama.

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I have a lot of theories too about the "inbetween the lines" of biblical narratives. But I know it would be irresponsible to let these theories shape how I understand God independant from the bible. They must be clearly reinforced through scripture for it to be responsible and the theory should act only as a compliment to what is already established.

Let's say Adam was this super-soul. How does this shape our understanding of our own soul and is this concept clearly reinforced through scripture? Also what happens when we don't believe it? Does it have a impact on our salvation or how we approach God? For example I may say I believe Jesus was a tall man. Scripture doesn't comment on this specifically but perhaps I use areas of scripture to say it points to Jesus being tall. What next? If that's all it is then it doesn't really matter much even if it is impossible to know but if I say because Jesus was tall all tall people are more holy we have a problem.

So the hypothetical is Adam has a super-soul or there is a repository of souls... what next? Does it lead to abortion is ok because God has control over life and we don't and aborted babies doesn't really have a soul? Well if that's the case then that's a problem. So it's less about the theory and more about how it changes the way you approach other things.

Fascinated With God said:

And I have been asking questions about the passages which you keep evading by claiming your assertion is self-evident from the passage you cited. That is not a dialogue.

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So you say someone keeps evading? Isnt this a turn of events?!

Fascinated With God said:

My synopsis is that you are saying your duty is to spread your doctrine. Is that correct?

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What do you think?

DamianWarS said:

I have a lot of theories too about the "inbetween the lines" of biblical narratives. But I know it would be irresponsible to let these theories shape how I understand God independant from the bible. They must be clearly reinforced through scripture for it to be responsible and the theory should act only as a compliment to what is already established.

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AMEN!

Fascinated With God said:

Acts 2:29 says "dead and buried". "Realm of the dead" is a common translation of the Hebrew word Sheol, used 65 times in 63 verses. The NT doesn't contain Hebrew words.

Note how the chasm is not depicted as vertical. That is classic OT cosmology.

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Why are you so into cosmology with foundations in the fuzzy and unspecified parts of the Word?

Still waiting for the verses.

Fascinated With God said:

Ignoring yes / no question with an obvious answer is not evasion. I was bombarded with replies so I didn't have time for rhetorical questions like yours.

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Mine wasnt rhetorical in anyway. In fact i am still waiting for verses that were not addressed in the op. Ur excuse was manstration answers.

Fascinated With God said:

This was my reply to him:

The OP has barely been discussed. This thread has gone off on endless tangents, especially about the nature of the soul and spirit. I just threw that out there as something some Jews believe. It had nothing to do with the Pro-Life topic.

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I know, i read both posts.