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FWIW, my position is not so much support for UR as it is opposition to ECT
My assumption, worth the price charged, is that those annihilated would never have existed. "I never knew you". If God never knew someone, then that someone never existed. The image of Christ, IMO, remains unchanged.
“There was a certain hesitation on the part of the early Church to include the book of Revelation in the canonical scriptures of the New Testament. The reason for this was obviously the great difficulty of interpreting the apocalyptic symbols of the book.”
-Orthodox Church of America
That and it's not entirely certain who wrote it.
I think this is interesting and I have come across it several times from different sources. Really causes one to think or at least look more into it.
“ The strongest evidence that the book of Revelation is not canonical in the Orthodox Church is that it is not publicly read in the Orthodox Church. The only exceptions to this are some Alexandrian churches and the monastery on the Isle of Patmos itself.”
Source:
Is the Book of Revelation Canonical in the Orthodox Church? - The Whole Counsel Blog
You need to give some credit to God for being able to do as He pleases. If He wants to put Life into one tree and knowledge into another, who are we to argue?But how could a tree contain knowledge of good and evil? My point regarding the dogs is that it's a metaphor. Revelation if full of them. Like Jesus being a lamb with seven horns and seven eyes.
Yes, the word "saved" has lost a lot of its meaning. It's become code for going to heaven when you die. It's the reason for another hot topic, OSAS or being able to lose salvation.I wonder if this discussion would be better served by finding out how the second temple Jews understood the word that we have translated saved in the English translation. When I read I see the word saved used more than one way, Jesus healing someone would sometimes say they were saved and all he did was heal them. We use the word to be someone who has accepted Jesus and follows him and is now going to heaven. Maybe they did not think that way, maybe it’s not a choice between heaven or hell. When the UR camp says Jesus is the savior of the world it doesn’t have to be everyone is going to heaven. Maybe it’s more like Jesus paid the price for all no one is going to be eternally dammed but not all get the same rewards. I personally see it not as a heaven or hell offer but a offer to be part of the family of God or those who will be subjects of the Kingdom reign of God.Jesus talked a number of times about a king who ruled and those he ruled over . Or when He needed money to pay the tax and he asked his disciples who pays the tax ? The Kings kids or those who are subjects of the king, or the parable of the ruler who went away and gave his servants money and those who multiplied it they became ruler’s over cities.I think Jesus was hinting at what was to come. He already paid the price for everyone but not all will be part of his rule and rein as family. Some will be thrown in prison till every last penny is paid. So maybe we need to understand how saved was used in the second temple Jew mind.
You need to give some credit to God for being able to do as He pleases. If He wants to put Life into one tree and knowledge into another, who are we to argue?
I intend to look into that. Have you?
Seems to me tha the Revelation has been the mainstay of heresiarchs for a long time. It's almost a biblical Rorschach test, everyone comes away with their own notions of what it means. I refused to teach it to my Sunday School kids, who were keen to read about monsters and demons and all that. The whole nature of our Lord as described in the Revelation is radically different than He is described in the rest of the New Testament, and I didn't want the young'uns confused.
I know that the scholar, Elaine Pagels, questions the authenticity of the book of Revelation, and surprisingly, so did Luther. According to a few sources I've seen, Luther wasn't fond of Revelation in the least and had some very negative emotions about it:
“ … to my mind it bears upon it no marks of an apostolic or prophetic character...
Everyone may form his own judgment of this book; as for myself, I feel an aversion to it, and to me this is sufficient reason for rejecting it.”
I'd have to check into it more, too, in order to see if it's a factual statement, but if Luther rejected it, maybe we can too? Maybe we should? It would certainly alleviate a lot of ECT type headaches that so many people seem to have had. (I've never had those headaches, but I can understand the concern of those who have).
Then again, Revelation has been a favorite book in the Bible for me, so letting it go won't be easy.
That's a good point for discussion.Also many consider the account of Adam and Eve and the serpent and the tree to be symbolic.
I have read the same about Luther:
"Luther considered Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation to be "disputed books", which he included in his translation but placed separately at the end in his New Testament published in 1522. "
Source:Luther's Antilegomena
Seems to me tha the Revelation has been the mainstay of heresiarchs for a long time. It's almost a biblical Rorschach test, everyone comes away with their own notions of what it means. I refused to teach it to my Sunday School kids, who were keen to read about monsters and demons and all that. The whole nature of our Lord as described in the Revelation is radically different than He is described in the rest of the New Testament, and I didn't want the young'uns confused.
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