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It's remarkable the rancor the rapture stirs up.......and the same tired arguments surface every time with maybe another wrinkle thrown in. It's nothing to separate over but you can tell where everybody is by their position.......Paul is the apostle they single out to attack, not knowing he is the key man many secrets hidden in the mind of God since the void were revealed to.......the disciples were far behind Paul. All those defaming Paul have basically shut off their chance to be saved by grace........too bad for them........in any case the rapture will happen when the Lord gives the signal......a quiet disappearance of the saints for the main purpose of receiving glorified bodies long awaited by those gone on before.....
Yes, the gnashing of teeth of those who believe in it is deafening.
According to bible fundamentalists, it is destined for man to die once then after that judgement. So if you bible fundamentalists are going to be raptured, when are you destined to die?. Remember too you all believe we shall all appear before the judgement seat of Christ.
The destined death of all mankind is to die to self and after that judgement, and the judgement is you awake in his likeness.
Jesus taught--Some of you standing here will not taste death---Yet they all tasted death that stood there, He was speaking to the little flock( Luke12:32) as a whole in that statement, for these last days. There are some little flock on earth guiding Jesus' Fathers will. During the trib-these will be changed in the twinkling of an eye-never to taste death. The great multitude does not leave the earth during Har-mageddon. Proverbs 2:21-22) Matthew 24:22) Then after Har-mageddon, these stand on Gods earth before his throne( The only ruling power left in existence forever( Daniel 2:44) ruling of creation. That's what the bible really teaches.
Though possibly turning away some potential readers at the very outset, I will nevertheless, state the foundational premise of this article up front: There is only one "coming of the Lord." There are not two advents, nor are there ---as the rapture theory postulates----three comings, i.e., our Lord's coming in individual incarnation, born of a woman; a secret invisible coming to snatch His saints out of a world soon to be ravaged by tribulation; and finally arriving and staying to institute His thousand year reign upon the earth. Yeah; they actually imagine three comings. Talk about the kind of confusion that is intrinsic to spiritual Babylon, there's a perfect example.
The scriptures rightly translated do not speak of Jesus as having departed from this earth to a far off distant heaven, and as such, by some definition, being less than intimately near and dear to humanity, and especially to His summoned gathering (conventionally called "the church"). To bluntly state the fact of the matter, our Lord has arrived, is determined to stay--and indeed He is staying, and will continue to do so-- and His continuing presence is that of One, while present, continues His on coming into the depths of our humanity, until His glorified Humanity, in His union with us all, infuses our humanity with His Deity until, as the early church taught, all humanity will be brought to share in nothing less than His Deity.
In short, in Him dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily, and we are complete (or brought to fullness) in Him.
What completeness, what fullness is that in the context?
Clearly His fullness; the fullness of the Godhead, or better of Godness. All proceeds from Him, in whom we live and move and have our being. The Eastern Orthodox Church, with its particular emphasis upon the consensus of the early church fathers in its theology, refers to this doctrine as "theosis," and explains that term as meaning deification, or divinization, or illumination.
Note: it is divinization in contrast to divination---a bad concept. It is very noteworthy to what lengths their theologians go to explain that "theosis" should not be understood as a person becoming God (understandably so), but they go to such pains to avoid such a conclusion, that their attempt seems to me to be almost comical in its conceptual complication.
There is one verse of scripture that Jonathan Mitchell, in his translation, has rendered with such detailed scholarly excellence, with such exquisite attention to the Greek text especially in regard to its verb tense, and very evidently setting aside presumptuous biases, that I must begin with it in nailing down our premise of understanding the coming of the Lord as one continuing coming.
We go, in brother Jonathan's translation, to 1 Jn. 5:20:
"And we have seen and thus and know that the Son of God has arrived and He is continuously here and has given us thorough understanding (comprehension; thought; intelligence; input throughout the mind) to the end that we should constantly know [other MSS: so that we constantly know] by experience the True One (or: the true, the real and the genuine), and we constantly exist within and in union with the True One (or: in the real [situation]; in the midst of Reality): within His Son, Jesus Christ. This One is the True (Real; Genuine) God, and Life pertaining to, and having the qualities of the Age (or: life having its source in the Age; eonian life; life of, and on through the ages).
In this translation, it becomes strikingly clear as to where our Lord is presently, and what He's up to, with the amazing understanding re: the relationship of the True God, Jesus Christ, His Son, and eonian life. The True God has sent His Son into the world, and He has arrived, bringing with Him the understanding of Him who is True, imparting that to us. All this: the One True God, the present and continuing presence of His Son, causing us to share in His understanding of the True God; all of the above IS eonian life.
For additional scriptural support we have The Concordant Literal Translation of the New Testament in its rendering of Jn. 14:3, "[ Jesus speaking], And if I go I AM coming..." (emphasis mine). It is not, "I WILL come."
It is that in going He is at the same time, concurrently coming to His disciples,transitioning from a physical presence to be seen and touched, to their abiding, indwelling, glorified Lord, the Spirit, to be in intimate communion with them as their life. I could have chosen Jonathan Mitchell's translation again, but for brevity sake, I've chosen the Concordant Version. Jonathan's translation brings out the truth that as the One coming anew by going, He is presently, progressively, repeatedly, habitually coming again.
We also have the matter of making a distinction between coming, presence, appearing and unveiling of the Lord. The New Testament presents all of them, though overlapping, as, in some sense, distinct facets in the diamond of God's relationship from the timeless dimension of His I AM Being to, and into our eonian existentiality. As regarding making a distinction between coming and presence, there are many places in the New Testament where "presence" conveys the writers thought better than "coming." Dr. Strong in his Exhaustive Concordance, makes it clear that the root of one pertinent Greek word, conventionally translated as "coming," really conveys "near;" "at hand," and then goes on to offer the option of "presence" alongside, along side of the meaning, "coming."
St. Paul added clarity (not disagreement) to the message of The Twelve, who, until Paul came along only stressed the gift of the Holy Spirit to indwell and empower believers, whereas Paul, through whom God expanded the apostolic message, explained that the gift of, and indwelling of, the Holy Spirit, and God's gift of His Son were one and the same Gift, Experience, and Presence. Both Peter and Paul make it clear that God does not abide in some far-off "heaven," but that He lives in His holy temple, which temple we are: "The temple of God is holy, which temple ye are," Nothing conveys exactly where God's presence is specifically more than Him being in His temple. If one needs some stuff for pondering, ponder that truth and what we ought to infer from it: Just what is the relationship of heaven as God's abode, and the habitation of God in the Spirit, the habitation constructed of living stones right here on earth in the ages?
Truly, our Lord is named, "Emmanuel, which being interpreted, is God with us.
The net effect of the conventional concept of two (or with some eschatologies, three) advents is to diminish the force of the truth that God, in Christ, in Spirit is really in every possible sense with us in the here and now. The general sense that the New Testament gives us is of One who is continually, progressively, habitually coming, YET so, as One present. In a recent home-church meeting, when the subject of this article came up, I contributed the simple illustration of how it is that the Lord is nigh; near at hand, and yet coming by offering the analogy of how often my wife Jan, near at hand in our house, has come to me from, for instance, the kitchen into the family room to get my full attention. Not a wholly adequate analogy, but hopefully helpful for some of my readers.
The Latin Vulgate is known for its errors, but you go right on following Rome.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike555
"Rapiemur" is from the Latin future passive meaning "we shall be carried away," or "we shall be snatched," and is the equivalent of the Greek word 'Harpazo'. Rome has nothing to do with it.
It doesn't mean being caught up in the air or being lifted into outer space from the earth, but means to be elevated to a higher level; a higher position or a better place of understanding. But you do fancy your mythologies of an underworld and that of a secret rapture.
Christians argue about a lot of things. The 'rapture' is among my favorites.
I'm eagerly awaiting the next "gifts of the spirit" thread and maybe one on "proper baptismal theology".
I started the thread because i wanted an answer to how it is destined for man to die once and after that judgement, while somehow raptured christians are exempt and do not go through that fete of being destined to die once.
The answers thus far have come nowhere near being reasonable and the best being, somehow the spirit and soul detach themselves from the body of flesh or something like that while in mid air. Then these same folk get all spun up when i say that Jesus Christ is our true idenity and it is just a matter of coming to realize it.
It doesn't mean being caught up in the air or being lifted into outer space from the earth, but means to be elevated to a higher level; a higher position or a better place of understanding. But you do fancy your mythologies of an underworld and that of a secret rapture.
It means to be caught up; to be snatched away. Paul used the term for being caught up in the air to meet the Lord.
Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.
If you don't like Paul's use of ἁρπάζω - harpazo, then take it up with him. Your arguments are imbecilic.
It doesn't mean being caught up in the air or being lifted into outer space from the earth, but means to be elevated to a higher level; a higher position or a better place of understanding. But you do fancy your mythologies of an underworld and that of a secret rapture.
Only God could know what the end times would look like, or if they will even happen at all. He's changed his mind before.
We can only guess. So it's foolish and a waste of time arguing one way or another as though we "know".
Look out the window and what you see are the end times........we are in them. Huge signal is centered around Israel.........they wandered the planet for almost 1,900 years, they have returned to their land (although smaller thanks to imbeciles who made them give up land) exactly as they left with the same beliefs and language and customs. It has never happened before. This was prophesy, as found in Ezekiel...........(the dry bones) ///////
As with anything on these forums asking questions of the uninformed, the pseudo religious, and the atheists will leave you more confused than when you got here.........
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