So there will be no more earth, it will be burned up or something like that?
Those in sanctifying grace will go to heaven. Those in mortal sin will go to hell.
Who will be in sanctifying grace,
all Christians or only
certain Christians, or is that something to be decided by Jesus when He returns? What is your conception of heaven and hell? Where are these places located?
No. I know this tactic too well to entertain it. You will present isolated quote after isolated quote without regard to the Scriptures as a unified whole. You will also further forget (or pretend not to know) that all no form of ancient Christianity reads the Bible in a vacuum but also in the light of Sacred tradition, the Magisterium and the Ecumenical councils.
Traditions and councils cannot decide what the Bible means.
I am not a Christian and I was never a Christian, so I can be somewhat objective.
I post to a lot of Christians, mostly on other forums. One thing that all seem to have in common is that they believe that
they know what the Bible means; but as I tell them, this is logically impossible that all of these Christians are right, because Christians disagree about what the Bible means. So who is right?
There are several possibilities: (1) one Christian is right and everyone else who disagrees with him is wrong, or (2) one Christian is wrong and another Christian is right, or (3) there is more than one meaning to many scriptures so they all have part of the truth, but nobody has all of the truth.
How can anyone say the meaning they assign is correct and the other meanings others assign are wrong? Why do people think they are uniquely qualified to interpret the Bible? Even the early Christians did not understand the nature of Jesus, which is why they had to hold councils to decide upon the doctrines of the Church. There are too many different interpretations so nobody can say that only theirs is correct, logically speaking, because they cannot prove that it is correct. As such, it is just their personal opinion that they are right and others are wrong.
The divinity of Christ is divinely revealed by the testament of all these sources. Your isolated, cherry-picked and agenda driven reading of scripture (or rather one you adopt from others) holds no weight whatsoever.
Why does what you believe hold more weight than what other Christians believe?
Divinity of Christ can mean different things to different people. It can mean Jesus became God (that Jesus was God incarnate) or it can mean that Jesus had a divine nature and He perfectly manifested the attributes of God such that he was more than just a man (thus differentiated from the prophets in the Old Testament who were just men who were inspired by God).
I have no agenda. I just read and interpret what I read. If the New Testament differentiates Jesus from God, then
either at least part of the NT is wrong or the councils were wrong. Logically speaking, it has to be one or the other.
Jesus claimed to reveal God, Whom He called Father, but Jesus differentiated Himself from God:
John 5:26 For as the Father hath life in himself,
even so gave he to the Son also to have life in himself:
John 14:1Let not your heart be troubled:
ye believe in God, believe also in me.
John 16:23 And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall
ask the Father in my name, he will give it you.
Jesus said that God was greater than He was:
Mark 10:18 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.
John 14:28 Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father:
for my Father is greater than I.
How could Jesus pray to and go to the Father if Jesus WAS the God the Father?
John 20:17 Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.
John 16:16 A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me,
because I go to the Father.
Moreover, Jesus said that no man has ever seen God:
John 1:18 No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
1 John 4:12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
Jesus said He was from God and that God sent Him, again differentiating Himself from God:
John 17:3 And eternal life means to know you, the only true God, and to
know Jesus Christ, whom you sent.
John 7:28 Then cried Jesus in the temple as he taught, saying, Ye both know me, and ye know whence I am: and I am not come of myself, but he that sent me is true, whom ye know not. 29 But I know him: for
I am from him, and he hath sent me.
So where in the New Testament does it say that Jesus is God?
He is obscure. I wager in confidence that few outside the Shiite world would know who he is beyond the foggiest notion. Moreover, even among those who do know of him, a fragment are open to entertaining his claims. No more than you (or I for that matter) are receptive to accepting the 'obvious' validity of Joseph Smith.
The Baha’i Faith is a religion that is gaining prominence all over the world. In spite of the fact that it is still fairly small it is recognized by governments all over the world. It has spread to over 250 countries and is almost as widespread as Christianity. Most of this happened within the first 100 years after Baha’u’llah declared His mission, from 1852-1952.
How many people believe in a religion is completely unrelated to whether it is God’s Truth or not. How many people do you think entertained the claims of Jesus in the first two centuries?
“There were 1,000 Christians in the year 40, 1 400 Christians in 50, 1,960 Christians in 60, 2,744 Christians in 70, 3 842 Christians in 80, 5,378 Christians in 90 and 7,530 Christians at the end of the first century.
These figures are very suggestive, and reinforce the point that in its initial decades the Christian movement represented a tiny fraction of the ancient world.” From:
How many Jews became Christians in the first century?
The growth rates of the Abrahamic religions from 1910-2010 were as follows: Judaism .11%, Christianity 1.32%, Islam 1.97%, and Baha’i Faith 3.54%.
From 2000-2010 Islam became the fastest growing religion (1.86 %) and the Baha’i Faith was the second fastest growing religion (1.72%).
Statistics from:
Growth of religion - Wikipedia
The growth rates of the Baha’i Faith were higher than Islam from 1910 to 2010 because it includes the “formative age” of the Baha’i Faith (1921-1944)
FOURTH PERIOD: THE INCEPTION OF THE FORMATIVE AGE OF THE BAHÁ’Í FAITH 1921–1944
Growth has slowed down since 2000 because the new goal of the Baha’i Faith is consolidation and community building so the emphasis is not teaching the Faith.
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Comparing Baha’u’llah with Joseph Smith is akin to comparing Jesus with Isaiah. I believe Jesus was a Manifestation of God, a mysterious and ethereal Being who had a twofold nature; the physical, pertaining to the world of matter, and the spiritual, which was born of the substance of God Himself. His body was human but His Soul was not conceived at conception like ours; it was pre-existent in the spiritual world, which is why Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega. In its preexistence the Soul of Jesus was given the capacity to receive direct revelations from God and to translate that Revelation into a form we could understand. His Words are endowed with an invisible spiritual force which is why the New Testament transformed the hearts of man.
At best Joseph Smith was just a prophet who was inspired by God, similar to the prophets in the Old Testament (e.g., Solomon, David, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel), but he did not get direct communication from God through the Holy Spirit, as did Jesus and Baha’u’llah.Moreover, Smith did not even claim to be a Manifestation of God or the return of Christ as Baha’u’llah did.The Mormon religion is based upon the Bible and they believe in Jesus, just like all Christians.
Firstly, that was my signature and not relevant to this discussion. Secondly, as someone who follows a splinter religion of a splinter religion (Baha'i faith from Bábism from Shiaism) you are hardly one to finger wave at the supposed irrationality of 'Christians'. You're free to believe and think what you like but no matter what you may think it in no way troubles my own faith.
The Baha’i Faith is no more a splinter religion than is Christianity a splinter religion from Judaism.
Christianity did not start in a vacuum, since Jesus was a Jew and was raised with Jewish traditions, just as the Bab and Baha’u’llah were Muslims so were raised with Muslim traditions. However, Christianity became a “new” religion because Jesus got a “new” revelation from God which is represented by the New Testament.
Likewise, the Babi Faith was a new religion because the Bab got a revelation from God, and He had His own Writings and abrogated the Laws of Islam. Then Baha’u’llah got a revelation from God and established the Baha’i Faith with new Writings and Laws which abrogated the Babi Laws. The Babi Laws were kind of a stopgap and a way of transitioning from the harsher Laws of Islam to the less harsh Laws of the Baha’i Faith.
Judaism, Christianity, Islam, the Babi Faith and the Baha’i Faith were all new religions, never before revealed. Each of those religions had its own Manifestation of God who received a revelation from God, which is what makes them new and separate religions. However, they are all part of ONE religion of God, revealed in different chapters at various times throughout history.
I'm not buying what you're selling.
Well, I know that. My purpose is to present accurate information about the Baha’i Faith given people have so many misconceptions. People don’t have to believe it but at least they should know what it actually is.
