And I believe the other one was Elijah. In any case, dead or alive, he still had the stain of sin on him when he got there.
How do you know? I'm not arguing that they lived a sinless life - but it says that Enoch walked with God for 300 years. His faith made him righteous - but faith in what? If he walked and talked with God for 300 years, it seems that it had to be in something more - perhaps it was Christ's life, death and resurrection to come? Elijah did a lot of amazing things and was in constant contact with God. Could their faith in the coming, dying and resurrection of Christ have made them 'righteous' before God? I don't know.
Some speculate that the two will be the two witnesses at the end times - the two that stand from the wailing wall - the two that will be killed and then brought back to life. Maybe because it is appointed to man to die once, they couldn't die, be brought back to life, then die and be brought back to life again - perhaps that doesn't jive with the rules set in place. This is all wild speculation based off of my feeble understanding...
I hate to default to the whole 'God's plan is perfect and He's got a purpose' thing, but as a believer, that is what I believe. And I REALLY hate giving that answer in a discussion with a non-believer, but I just don't have a sufficient answer. Sorry.
As far as I know, the Bible says nothing about God being outside of time and space.
It could very well be, though since God created time, it means that certainly He existed before time existed - thus making Him timeless. Perhaps the act of creating time itself and then entering into this creation constrained by time meant that God entered Himself into time - if this is so, I would think He could just as easily remove Himself from the constraints of time. But God Himself, He is timeless, that is part of His definition, which is clear from the text - He has no end and no beginning, that's essential to what He is. I see no contradiction but that's another issue for another thread - this thread is about Hell and judgement and whatnot (I think?).
This suggests that God did not know that Adam and Eve would disobey him. This contradicts what we are told about God knowing everything, including the future.
It is true that God knows everything that will happen (all true statements) and I didn't mean it any other way. God knew they were going to eat it and I think God knew exactly what His plan was going to be to fix everything. When I say new plan, I mean it's unfolding began at the time of consumption (of the fruit) and the first prophecy of Christ is given in chapter 3 when God speaks to the serpent.
Im afraid Im just going to have to remain skeptical then.
Fair enough.
Okay, we are told that Satan wanted to be (or thought he was) like God, that there was a rebellion and he and a third of the heavenly host were cast out and that this occurred sometime before or right after creation.
Problem is, when I did a little research on this, I ran into a couple of problems. The only book in the Bible that mentions Satan being cast out is in Revelations chapter 12 and as everybody knows, Revelations is an account of what will happen in the last days. The only other reference I found was Isaiah 14:12:
First I want to address the problem with the Isaiah reference. When this verse is read in context, it is an obvious continuation of chapter 13 which is a prophecy against the king of Babylon.
As for Revelations 12, it tells the story of how the dragon (Satan) threatens the pregnant woman and her soon to be born child. She and the child are then whisked away to safety.
Then in the very next paragraph it recounts a war in heaven between the dragon, Satan (presumably the same dragon that threatened the woman in the preceding paragraph) and his angels on one side and Michael and his angels on the other.
The problems here are twofold. First, the dragon (Satan) swept a third of the stars from the heavens with its tail (which I interpret to mean that the dragon was so large and menacing, its tail was able to literally knock the stars from the sky) before the war in heaven while he was threatening the woman. Secondly, As I mentioned, Revelations is an account of what will happen in the last days. So if Satan is to be cast out during the celestial battle in the last days as Revelations clearly states, how is it that people take the story in this chapter to mean Satan was cast out before creation? And why would there even be an account of Satan's ouster before creation in an account of the Apocalypse at the end of days?
In Luke 10 Jesus says that he saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning, so clearly the fall and everything happened before Christ came to Earth, meaning it happened well before the end of days depicted in Revelation.
I'd have to read more of Isaiah, it's difficult for me to fully grasp, just like Ezekiel. There is a passage in Ezekiel 28 (I think) when God talks against the 'ruler/prince of Tyre' who is a mortal then to the 'king of Tyre' - it's obvious that it is Satan that is the 'king' - remember, Satan is the 'king' behind the earthly kings and rulers, the ruler of this world.
As for the story in Revelation regarding the woman and the dragon, I always took that to be a simple summation of history itself. The woman is Israel, pregnant with the messiah (Christ) and from the beginning of time Satan has tried to kill the child (Christ), because as God declared in Genesis 3, Christ would defeat Satan and save a portion of the human creation that Satan so despised. As far as the timing goes and the chronological order of events, I would have to read and study and ask others questions because Revelation is a book full of symbolism and other wild imagery that I do not understand because I don't understand the culture, the time period or the thinking of the people back then, the one writing it and to whom he was writing it for.
In other words, I don't want to just give something the one over, then reread it, do a quick google search and then come to a conclusive decision as to what it says, what it means and how that all ties into the rest of the Revelation narrative, the historical narrative and the Biblical narrative.
No, temptation is not a sin but pride is.
Indeed.
I apologize if I seemed testy but it wasnt really directed at you per se.
Oh, ok, no worries - I didn't think you were calling me an idiot but you can never be sure when it comes to internet message boards.
why would they be tempted by it?
That's a good question. I think you were on to something when the prospect of death was 'removed' by the words of the serpent. I don't have to be aware of good and evil to know that it would be awesome if I could do, think and be more than I am now. Same thing goes with cheating death.
If I taunt you and you injure me out of anger, whose fault is it? The court would find you guilty of assault and I would not be charged at all because you always had the choice not to assault me. You could have walked away and that would have been the end of it.
Spoken words have no power to make us do anything. It is our choice to allow words to trigger us and it is our choice to react or not to react.
I agree. But your choice words to me, though not found guilty by the courts we have created, may be hateful or hurtful or whatnot and may influence my violent actions - putting us both at fault in God's eyes. I agree though that spoken words does not make our choices for us - but they can certainly make it easier or harder to make a certain decision.
Thing is, the text says nothing about the eating of the fruit infecting them with a sinful nature, it only says that after eating it, they had the knowledge of good and evil. If simply having the knowledge of good and evil means we have a sinful nature then the gods must have had a sinful nature too, correct?
Well, we and 'the gods' are totally different creatures/creations. Every 'god' I assume has been in the presence of God, has powers to travel between dimensions or existences (physical/spiritual), do not die, etc. It seems to me that the natural reaction of an angel/god would be to worship and obey God - but that is not our natural reaction. We see the light and we run from it, because we know that the light will reveal the evil in our hearts, the evil that we are - men love darkness more than light. It seems that the gods/angels love light more than darkness and it was actually UNnatural for Satan and the 1/3 to rebel, because they went against the nature they were created with.
Humans and angels are under two different sets of rules. Comparing the two just doesn't work.
And I just can't see why it's necessary for A&E to need to understand good and evil or have a sinful nature before they could disobey God. Eating the fruit was something UNnatural for them, it wasn't natural, it wasn't what they were created for. Just as the unnatural event of Satan's rebellion led to unnatural results, so too the unnatural event of A&E's disobeying God to gain knowledge of good and evil had unnatural results upon the rest of Creation, including you and me. Agree to disagree?
*I had to delete some of your quotes - text too much to post otherwise.
