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Hello NotreDame nice to meet you. The post was not mine you are quoting from it does not belong to me but I am happy to provide some comments for consideration.
The scriptures teach is the those who are asleep in the grave (dead) in Christ will rise again at the second coming...
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
[13], But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.
[14], For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
[15], For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.
[16], For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
[17], Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
[18], Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
.............
I believe the vision on the mount of Jesus, Elijah and Moses is a representation of what happens at the second coming of Christ. Elijah on the Mount with Jesus represents all the righteous living that will be alive when Jesus returns at the second coming. Moses on the Mount with Jesus represents all those who died in Christ and are resurrected at the second coming...
Hope this is helpful.
Not really dear friend. Your quoting from a single post with scripture while ignoring all the scriptures in the OP and many other posts with scripture that disagrees with you. According to the scriptures we are to judge righteous judgement. That is judgement based on scripture and it is scripture that these judgements are based upon. Now what is it that you do not believe?The five reasons aren’t compelling and the reason is because the reasons are nothing more than personal judgment call.
Your response here...LoveGodsWord wrote: The story of the rich man and Lazarus comes at the end of a string of parables filled with symbolic, non-literal illustrations (see Luke 15)
Your mistake here is in thinking that the scrolls here are divided into chapters and verses. They are not the book of Luke as all the scrolls of the bible are individual continuous scrolls with no chapters and full stops, commas etc and the parable of Lazarus and the rich man is just another parable. The meaning being that what we do in life effects the afterlife so once again set in a worldly settings just the same as the other parables. You are also, mistaken saying that none of the other parables talk about the afterlife. If you are familiar with the parable of the wheat and the tares you would see that the wheat and tares grow together until the harvest (second coming). On top of this all the context from Luke 13 to Luke 17 are all parables. Also you may need to consider Matthew 13:34 as everything Jesus spoke to the multitude was in parables and the parable of Lazarus and the rich man was spoken directly to the multitude along with the other parables. So plenty of supporting scripture and precedent wouldn't you say?So what? This is weak sauce man. First, there’s precedent when Jesus is using a parable that it is announced as a parable. “And so He told them this parable.” Luke 15:3 Then, the use of the word “or” in verse 8 tells the read this is a parable in relation to verse 3, reading as the parable in verse 3 “or” the parable in verse 8. The use of the word “and” in verse 11, by the very meaning of how “and” operates, shows verse 11 is connected to the parable of verses 3 and 8. Then chapter 16 doesn’t begin with any wording of the words “and/or” connecting 15 parables to 16. It isn’t clear any of chapter 16 is a parable. Verse 19 in chapter 16 is unlike the other “parables.” The other parables were of very much conditions and practices of the living. Yet, verse 19 is afterlife. If I recall correctly, all of Jesus other “parables” in the Gospels were set and took place in worldly settings and affairs, not the afterlife.
There does not need to be alerting language that each parable is a parable. This is alerted in context already. There is not an alert to every parable in the bible is there? In fact there are a lot of alerts to Jesus speaking parables in Mathew 13 you will notice *Matthew 13:18; 24; 31; 33 but from this point forward it is written in the scriptures in Matthew 13:34 "All these things spoke Jesus to the multitude in parables; and without a parable spoke he not to them." The meaning here is that Jesus mainly spoke to the multitude in parables so of course Jesus was speaking of the parable of the Lazarus and the rich man to the multitude therefore a parable. These are God's Word not mine.In addition, there’s no alerting language verse 19 is a parable. None.
Your response here...LoveGodsWord wrote: 2. It contains an impossible conversation. The parable portrays the rich man in “Hades” speaking directly to Lazarus in “Abraham’s bosom.” Can people in heaven have conversations with people in hell? For that matter, do people in heaven really watch people burning in hell? Not according to Jesus, who describes a “great gulf fixed” between the saved and the lost (Luke 16:26).
Here your trying to make an argument of Jesus as a man not sinning being impossible. Jesus was God in the flesh and of course nothing is impossible for God and to God. The scriptures already provided in the previous section already prove that the object lesson of Lazarus and the rich man was a parable both in the scripture contexts and from the fact that the scriptures state very clearly that Jesus only spoke to the multitude in parables in Matthew 13:34 and it was to the multitude that Jesus spoke the parable of Lazarus and the rich ruler. All you need to do is to read the scriptures to show that there are impossibilities in this parable of Lazarus and the rich ruler. For example in Luke 16:24 it says of the rich man while he was burning in the flames of hellfire; "And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame." Now perhaps you might like to explain how Lazarus dipping his finger in water from Heaven and coming down to someone burning in hellfire is going to literally cool someone's tongue?Oh does it? I find it rather bizarre when people make the “impossible” argument against an interpretation or reading of Scripture that some event or occurrence is factual because it is “impossible.” Really? Well, we can’t have that can we, I mean, the idea of God as man who walked around on earth for 33 years without sinning sounds so unimpossible. Nothing remarkable about that all, so unimpossible a cave man can do it. The idea of God dying as a man and doing something no other human being has experienced, coming back to life for eternity, is also unimpossible. A giant boat with a ton of animals surviving a worldly flood, people brought back from death by Jesus speaking mere words to do it, an 80 year old woman getting pregnant an everyday occurrence, etcetera. The Bible is littered with “impossible” events and as a result, the notion this conversation is declared “impossible” is hardly some earth shattering logic to divert us all away from the idea it’s purported as a factual event. Unless of course we, in a logically consistent manner, carry your banner of “impossible” to all the other remarkable events in the Bible rightly characterized as “impossible.”
Your response...LoveGodsWord wrote: 3. It uses clear symbolic imagery. The rich man wants Abraham to send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool his tongue (verse 24). This must be symbolic—because it can’t possibly happen physically. How much water could pass through the flames, and what help would it provide someone suffering in hell?
Not really dear friend. Your making a strawman argument no one is arguing about here unsupported by scripture. No one said anything is impossible for God. As posted earlier the scriptures teach that Lazarus and the rich man is a parable and not literal unless you also want to argue we are all literally sheep, wheat or tares. It is God's Word (not mine) that says Matthew 13:34 "All these things spoke Jesus to the multitude in parables; and without a parable spoke he not to them." The meaning here is that Jesus mainly spoke to the multitude in parables so of course Jesus was speaking of the parable of the Lazarus and the rich man to the multitude therefore a parable. These are God's Word not mine.The fact you have to tell the reader it’s “clear” causes pause, since logically the clarity is to be found in the logic and facts. And if the logic and facts are sooo ineluctably point one conclusion, then no need to declare its clarity. The clarity is self-evident. Let’s examine the substance of what you said.
I love this logic. With this logic a beginner atheist has no difficulty negating, by your own words, the core belief of Christianity. It is “physically impossible” for dead people to come back to life after being dead for three days and never die again. This “impossibility” can be set next to all the other “impossiblities” in Scripture. Yes, the God of the Bible apparently isn’t the God of the “impossible” by human understanding. Who knew? Not the NT or Gospel writers, or the God of the Bible.
Your response here...LoveGodsWord wrote: 4. It uses figurative expressions. Do the people who died with faith in Christ find their rest in Abraham’s literal bosom? How big is Abraham’s bosom? This must be a figurative expression, for we know that angels will gather the saints at the second coming of Christ (see Matthew 24:30, 31).
Exactly the point that was being made from point 4 you are quoting from. The parable of Lazarus and the rich man is not literal.It could be an idiom is used. The phrase “up in the air” can mean “undecided, and “we’re on the same page” is an idiom. The “rest In Abraham’s bosom” is an idiom for being in a place od rest where Abraham is also. Bosom of Abraham - Wikipedia
Your response here...LoveGodsWord wrote:5. It would otherwise contradict the rest of Scripture. If this story were literal, it would be hard to explain why the Bible says “in death there is no remembrance” (Psalm 6:5). Instead, those who die are asleep in the grave awaiting resurrection (1 Thessalonians 4:15, 16). The Bible compares death to sleep over 50 times. See one example by Jesus in John 11:11–14. The real message of this parable is often and unfortunately lost because people use it to try to prove something Jesus wasn’t even talking about.
According to the scriptures Elijah did not see death. He was taken to heaven without seeing death according to the scriptures (2 Kings 2:11). Moses did die but was resurrected from the dead and taken to heaven *Jude 1:9.And yet we have dead people walking around with Jesus on top of a mountain, Paul stating death here, absent the body, to be present with the Lord, in the context of immediate physical presence as he was immediately physically present on earth. And you are extrapolating too much theologically from the Psalms verse. The word “Sheol” referred to the grave itself when that psalm was written. The writer is literally stating their physical body isn’t going to be praising God. The second temple era, the word “Sheol” took on the meaning of the resting place for the wicked dead until judgment.
The scriptures teach is the those who are asleep in the grave (dead) in Christ will rise again at the second coming...
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
[13], But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.
[14], For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
[15], For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.
[16], For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
[17], Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
[18], Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
.............
I believe the vision on the mount of Jesus, Elijah and Moses is a representation of what happens at the second coming of Christ. Elijah on the Mount with Jesus represents all the righteous living that will be alive when Jesus returns at the second coming. Moses on the Mount with Jesus represents all those who died in Christ and are resurrected at the second coming...
Hope this is helpful.
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