Ah, a universalist. I had no idea that's what your cult preached.
No, not universalists....annihilationists (for want of a better term).....and we are no more a cult than what Jesus and his disciples were. Would you suggest that Protestantism is a cult of Roman Catholicism? Tell me what the difference is between a sect and a cult......then tell me what difference God sees?
In the Bible, eternal death is the opposite of eternal life. This is what God placed before his people....life or death, not heaven or hell. (Deut 30:19, 20)
We do not believe in an afterlife of any description because the Bible simply does not teach it. Resurrection is the Bible's teaching. There is no immortal soul that flits off to destinations unknown when humans die. When Christendom adopted this notion from the pagan Greeks, they then had to invent places for these "souls" to go. Some of theses places were very imaginative, but not Biblical. God did not give humans a separate spiritual part of them to go on living after death...why would he? We are material creatures who were designed to live forever on a material earth. Everything that we needed to keep us alive was provided by the Creator in abundance. It was not meant to end. The means to keep humans living forever was there in the garden. (Gen 3:22-24)
Yes, well, all of this is fine and dandy, but you need to keep studying your book and not cherry picking around the simple truths. It would help if you didn't use a widely recognized heretical copy of the Holy Bible, too.
LOL "widely recognised by whom"....those who are themselves heretics?
Please don't tell me you only use the KJV or I will have to point out the countless 'heresies' in your own Bible. How boring.
You quote Revelation 21, yet overlook the passages right before.
We have studied all of Revelation very thoroughly and overlook none of it.
Revelation 21 is what we can expect with the rule of the kingdom, "New Jerusalem", is seen coming to earth from heaven. God's tabernacle is then to be with "men" and he will spread his tent over them in loving protection from any further harm from the devil and his evil reign. (1 John 5:19)
You claim to follow Christ, and ignore the fact He spoke about hell 50 or so times in the New Testament. Did your rendering of the text remove those as well, similar to how it altered the meaning of John 1:1?
What Greek word is used in your "proper" Bible when Jesus spoke of this "hell"? Would that be "hades"?....."gehenna" ?.......or "tartarus" perhaps?
We can go into an indepth bible study on if that hell (for the masses) referenced is eternal torment or eternal death, that is annihilation, but your whole premise about no afterlife is completely ludicrous. That would suggest that Jesus, who talked about hell more than anyone else in the bible, was teaching about something that didn't even matter?
By all means let's talk about the Bible's "hell".
It's quite ironic you don't even realize that is actually you. James 3:1. Revelation 22:18-19. Deuteronomy 4:2. Proverbs 30:5-6.
Of course it is
......only problem is we weren't around almost 2,000 years ago when the weeds first put in their appearance. The apostles said that the apostasy was beginning way back then. It came into full bloom with the declaration of Roman Catholicism as the state religion of Rome and it has been degenerating and fragmenting ever since. Surely you can't be suggesting that the fractured, bickering disunity of Christendom is true Christianity.....can you?
It was only at the harvest time that the wheat would be seen as distinctly different to the weeds. Since Jesus said that "few" are found on the road to life, we cannot expect true Christians to be in the majority, can we? Many will claim to be, but Jesus will not recognise them. (Matt 7:13, 14, 21-23)
Um, what? Wait, didn't you quote Revelation 21:2 earlier? Did you really not read the first verse?
I did...did you?
Yeah, I mean, I guess He intended us to dwell here forever, except He completely scrapes it and makes a new one. Are you suggesting, perhaps, He didn't see that coming?
Not so fast.....why would he need to scrap this earth and make a new planet? There is nothing wrong with this one. Its perfect. It's the humans living on it that need replacing.
Proverbs 2:21-22....
"For the upright will live in the land And the blameless will remain in it; But the wicked will be cut off from the land And the treacherous will be uprooted from it."
God spoke of a "new heaven and a new earth" once before, but it had nothing to do with a new planet or a new universe. He was speaking about the restoration of the Jews to their homeland after their exile in Babylon. They would live in a renewed land with God's rulership over them once again. That was the new earth and the new heaven. (Isa 65:17-23)
God eliminated wicked humans once before in Noah's day but he did not destroy the planet....just ungodly, wicked humanity upon it, then the apostle Peter used it and also the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah as examples of what God will do again.
2 Peter 2:4-6....
"For if God did not spare angels when they sinned.....and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter"
Ecclesiastes 1:4....
"A generation goes and a generation comes, But the earth remains forever."
If these are the examples then the earth is not going anywhere....it will be just the wicked who will be dispatched. (Matt 24:36-39)
Except that this is all blatantly wrong. You think God made you to enjoy paradise? Is that the human purpose God had in mind for you? And oops, someone spilled some milk and darn-nabbit, we're missing out now? Let's all get back to the paradise we're owed ... ??
Isaiah 55:11...
"So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it."
Jesus just came to teach us about the Father, eh? Wrong. Jesus came to die for us.
I believe that is a given. But it wasn't all he came to do.
While He was here, He did many things, including teaching us how to pray and teaching us about His Father. But He came to lay down His life for us so we wouldn't need to die. He died in our places so we can avoid eternal death.
Who is "we"?
And now you're talking about "eternal death"....please explain.
You know, the thing you skipped over in Revelation 20, the white throne (which is judgment), where people not found in the book of life get tossed into the big lake of fire (whose thirst is never quenched)? Yeah. Your reference to John 5:28-29 is talking about those who inherit eternal life by believing in Jesus, and the other people to go into the lake.
No sorry I don't buy that. Those mentioned in John 5:28, 29 are the "righteous and the unrighteous" who are resurrected at the same time. These are not those who will rule with Christ in his his kingdom because theirs is "the first resurrection" and all will be raised as "kings and priests" to take their positions in heaven. The rulership of the kingdom lasts for 1,000 years. (Rev 20:6)
No one goes to heaven before these ones except Jesus (John 3:13) and they do not get their resurrection until Christ's return. That means that all sleep in death until that time. No one went anywhere. They didn't have to.
1 Thessalonians 4:13-17....
"But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope........For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 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."
Nothing more, nothing less. You either believe and inherit eternal life to the glory of God, or you die in your sin.
In other words, yes, you can miss out.
I agree, we can miss out, but only if we turn our back on God or put another god in his place.
Judgment is indeed simple, but those resting in death are not in the process of paying for sin -- it's not a layaway program. You either sinned, or you didn't (in thought or deed). If you sin, you die and live with the punishment of sin, which is death... which is eternal, just like life. If you don't believe in Christ, you are dead in your sin. John 8:23-24.
So in Christ, we inherit eternal life. Otherwise... we die in our sin.
Strange, but you seem to be agreeing with us. The wages sin pays is death. Those who have died have paid sin's wages. Christ's sacrifice makes a return to life possible for even the unrighteous. The wicked, on the other hand...these will never see life again. Only God knows who is truly wicked. Ignorance has never been held against anyone. That would be contrary to Jehovah's justice. If there is no law, there can be no conviction.
Romans 5:13....
"for until the Law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law."
The law was given to Israel, not to any other nation. Those ignorant of the law cannot be tried by it. God uses another criteria. (Rom 2:12-15)
I'm sorry the truth is rough, but the truth is the truth. Re-inventing Jesus to fit your perspective is not the way to go here, I assure you.
Oh, you are funny. We did not reinvent Jesus....Christendom did that by turning him into God Almighty, which is a blasphemy of the highest order. They then turned him into a fiendish monster roasting people alive in flames that never die. Ugh! What a horrid God! He said such a thing would never occur to him. (Jer 7:31)
We just put Jesus back where he was in the big scheme of things....as the precious "only begotten son of God", which was all he ever claimed to be. Even in heaven, Jesus is still subservient to the will of his God and Father. (Rev 3:12)
Everything you said here is unscriptural. Are you just making this stuff up as you go? There's no in-between extra dimensional learn your lesson playground that God re-educates people who hate Him, deny Him, and choose to live apart from Him. If there was, He would have mentioned it, don't you think...?
Can you show me where any of this is mentioned in scripture?
It was prophesied in Isa 11:6-9.....it pertains to the earth, not heaven.
Isaiah 11:9...."
They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, For the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord As the waters cover the sea."
Knowledge is what will be imparted to man in all the earth....the best knowledge of all.
As for being misled, Jesus talked a lot about being aware of false teachers, He even rightly predicts a bunch will come after Him. The epistles of John encourage you to "test the spirits" (1 John 4). Or is all that not important either, like hell you know, which He constantly brought up all the time? Is that one of those not-so-important teachings from Jesus, too?
As a Jew, Jesus had the Jewish view of "hell" (Sheol hades) not the Catholic view. I do hope you know the difference.
Please start a thread on the "hell" Jesus spoke about and I will be happy to participate.
