Davy
Well-Known Member
That's right.
If each person doesn't verify for themselves, then they are just taking someone else's word for it.
Soul Sleep yes or no?
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If each person doesn't verify for themselves, then they are just taking someone else's word for it.
Davy
Well-Known Member
History reveals that often... the majority are NOT correct with what they think or believe.
Aunty Jane
Well-Known Member
@Johann, in response to the post you referred to, please allow me to take just a few examples to demonstrate that it isn't the words of scripture that are the problem…..it’s how our pre-conceived ideas can color the interpretation of those inspired words. They are given a slant that the Jewish Bible writers never intended.
This verse (in context) is not speaking about ourselves as triune beings. It is speaking to the anointed congregation as a body, collectively referring to the things that were to keep them together, unitedly serving their God along with his most trusted “holy servant” and teacher, Jesus, whom his followers knew was his “Christ” or ”Anointed One”. (Acts 4:27)
2 Cor 1:3-4 begins by saying….”Praised be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”….so Jesus has a God whom he worshipped along with his disciples. When he returned to heaven, Jehovah was still his God.
In Rev 3:12 Jesus calls his Father “my God” four times in that one verse. Jesus was in heaven when the Revelation was passed along from God to Jesus, and then by him to the angel who gave it to John. Four individuals had a part in revealing its symbolic message.
Dont we have to ask how does God worship an equal part of himself?
Did the apostles ever say that Jesus was Jehovah? Did they believe that he was God Almighty incarnate?
What did they say?
1 Cor 8:5-6…
”For even though there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, just as there are many “gods” and many “lords,” 6 there is actually to us one God, the Father, from whom all things are and we for him; and there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things are and we through him.”
If God’s word never contradicts itself, (and it cannot) then we have to find where these seeming contradictions occur in the interpretation, and allow the clear and unambiguous statements to speak louder than the ones that have a false interpretation placed on them.
Collectively, the apostles acknowledged that the Father was their “one God” and that Jesus was their “Lord” which is not another name for God, but a title that commanded respect. Even Sarah called Abraham “lord” [A·do·niʹ]. (1 Pet 3:5-6)
Thinking about what these two words mean in a Jewish context by a Jewish writer…..a “soul” is the person, (a living, breathing creature, both man and animals) and the “spirit” is what animates the mortal body of all creatures.…the very air in their lungs and the processes that keep a soul breathing, is likened to the power of God’s word. The similes are there like “a sword dividing“ “joints and their marrow”…and this is how God’s word operates because it divides people by ‘discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart’. Some of these “thoughts and intentions” are not even obvious to those who possess them….but God knows what motivates us to believe what is presented as truth, even though it isn’t. If we “want” to believe something, we will. But nothing becomes truth, just because we want to believe it.
This is an interpretation, but it does not reflect the Jewish understanding of what death meant to them from their scripture. Because belief in an immortal part of man that departs from the body at death was adopted (by those who formulated “church” doctrine after the death of Christ and his apostles), this thought was inserted to make that verse infer what it never did.
This is the “spirit”, not the “soul”. They are not interchangeable terms but Christendom has blurred that distinction by accepting that we are not really dead when ‘the spirit departs’. So, what is the “spirit“ that departs and returns to God from the perspective of the Jewish writer? (Solomon)
Jews believed in resurrection and the “spirit” was the breath that made a dead soul, live. It’s what God gave to Adam to bring his lifeless body to conscious existence. The very right to breathe again is what returns to God when the resurrection takes place as Jesus said it would. He would call the dead from their graves and restore the life they had before. (John 5:28-29) Think of all the resurrections performed in the Bible and see that only a physical resurrection was demonstrated, even after Jesus died, those dead ones raised were here on earth.
The spiritual resurrection of the elect was not to take place until Christ’s return. (2 Thessalonians 4:13-17)
The dead were “sleeping” and would not precede those who are alive when Christ returned. This too is proof of the resurrection, not immortality of the soul.
Psalm 146:3-4 says…..”Do not put your trust in princes
Nor in a son of man, who cannot bring salvation.
4 His spirit goes out, he returns to the ground;
On that very day his thoughts perish.”
Read this carefully and understand that Jewish beliefs were at the base of the Psalmists’ words….
When humans (even good ones) have plans for something beneficial to be achieved, they can die and their plans can die with them If there is no one to carry on with them.…and if an evil one gains a position of power, he can undo all the good that a predecessor did before him. Israel’s kings were a classic example of that fact.
“His spirit goes out” like a candle or a light “goes out”….it is extinguished….it doesn’t leave the room.
At death their “thoughts perish” confirming what Solomon wrote in Eccl 9: 5, 10…..there is no conscious activity in death. Even Jesus was unconscious in death for three days following his execution. He never once mentioned an immortal soul, because that term does not appear in any verse of the Bible.
They say a lot if you don’t add meaning to them that the writers never intended. Reading things into scripture is what creates the confusion instead of allowing the Bible to speak for itself, in its entirety.
Ask where were all of us were before our parents conceived us? We simply did it exist, and at death we return to the same state, but God has promised us a resurrection…..not a continuation of life but a restoration of who we were. The soul that is us will live again.
James 2:26…
“Indeed, just as the body without spirit (breath) is dead, so also faith without works is dead.”
Allowing false religious ideas to penetrate religious thought when the foretold apostasy was going to corrupt the Christian faith, (just as it corrupted Judaism) is what resulted in a false Christianity that has led people astray for centuries. Jesus sowed the “wheat” but the devil sowed the “weeds” or “tares”.
Ignorance about what the entirety of scripture teaches, results when doctrines are singled out and promoted despite what other parts of the Bible say on the subject. Ignoring clear unambiguous statements and substituting false religious thinking into ambiguous verses, produces a false belief system. (poisonous weeds)
If people cannot see through the deception, they will end up just like the Jews who are still waiting for their Messiah to show up the first time. But their situation was going to be repeated in this “time of the end” because satan has done to Christendom exactly what he did to the Jewish religion in the past. He has no new tricks, so we can see history repeating if we can really perceive what he is up to.
God’s word didn't fail, but those who took on the role of teachers certainly did by allowing the devil to corrupt their thinking. Things are never what the appear to be…..as Jesus pointed out to his disciples…..what the Pharisees taught for centuries was a corruption of the scriptures, which led to the whole nation being led astray. (Matt 15:7-9) Only those who heard Jesus preach, and got the sense of it in their hearts, had the determination to leave that corrupted system behind…..their decision often divided families. (Matt 10:34-36) This was not unexpected, but it took courage to separate from a system that they had grown up in, and to see scripture as Jesus presented it. He only used the Hebrew Scriptures.
Food for thought.
There is so much more that I could address, but eyes and hearts have to be open, not closed, or history will repeat on us who have no excuse to fail to see it happening, just as Jesus said it would…..
This verse (in context) is not speaking about ourselves as triune beings. It is speaking to the anointed congregation as a body, collectively referring to the things that were to keep them together, unitedly serving their God along with his most trusted “holy servant” and teacher, Jesus, whom his followers knew was his “Christ” or ”Anointed One”. (Acts 4:27)
2 Cor 1:3-4 begins by saying….”Praised be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”….so Jesus has a God whom he worshipped along with his disciples. When he returned to heaven, Jehovah was still his God.
In Rev 3:12 Jesus calls his Father “my God” four times in that one verse. Jesus was in heaven when the Revelation was passed along from God to Jesus, and then by him to the angel who gave it to John. Four individuals had a part in revealing its symbolic message.
Dont we have to ask how does God worship an equal part of himself?
Did the apostles ever say that Jesus was Jehovah? Did they believe that he was God Almighty incarnate?
What did they say?
1 Cor 8:5-6…
”For even though there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, just as there are many “gods” and many “lords,” 6 there is actually to us one God, the Father, from whom all things are and we for him; and there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things are and we through him.”
If God’s word never contradicts itself, (and it cannot) then we have to find where these seeming contradictions occur in the interpretation, and allow the clear and unambiguous statements to speak louder than the ones that have a false interpretation placed on them.
Collectively, the apostles acknowledged that the Father was their “one God” and that Jesus was their “Lord” which is not another name for God, but a title that commanded respect. Even Sarah called Abraham “lord” [A·do·niʹ]. (1 Pet 3:5-6)
Again, even in this antiquated language, this verse speaks about the dividing of “soul and spirit”.
Thinking about what these two words mean in a Jewish context by a Jewish writer…..a “soul” is the person, (a living, breathing creature, both man and animals) and the “spirit” is what animates the mortal body of all creatures.…the very air in their lungs and the processes that keep a soul breathing, is likened to the power of God’s word. The similes are there like “a sword dividing“ “joints and their marrow”…and this is how God’s word operates because it divides people by ‘discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart’. Some of these “thoughts and intentions” are not even obvious to those who possess them….but God knows what motivates us to believe what is presented as truth, even though it isn’t. If we “want” to believe something, we will. But nothing becomes truth, just because we want to believe it.
This is an interpretation, but it does not reflect the Jewish understanding of what death meant to them from their scripture. Because belief in an immortal part of man that departs from the body at death was adopted (by those who formulated “church” doctrine after the death of Christ and his apostles), this thought was inserted to make that verse infer what it never did.
This is the “spirit”, not the “soul”. They are not interchangeable terms but Christendom has blurred that distinction by accepting that we are not really dead when ‘the spirit departs’. So, what is the “spirit“ that departs and returns to God from the perspective of the Jewish writer? (Solomon)
Jews believed in resurrection and the “spirit” was the breath that made a dead soul, live. It’s what God gave to Adam to bring his lifeless body to conscious existence. The very right to breathe again is what returns to God when the resurrection takes place as Jesus said it would. He would call the dead from their graves and restore the life they had before. (John 5:28-29) Think of all the resurrections performed in the Bible and see that only a physical resurrection was demonstrated, even after Jesus died, those dead ones raised were here on earth.
The spiritual resurrection of the elect was not to take place until Christ’s return. (2 Thessalonians 4:13-17)
The dead were “sleeping” and would not precede those who are alive when Christ returned. This too is proof of the resurrection, not immortality of the soul.
Psalm 146:3-4 says…..”Do not put your trust in princes
Nor in a son of man, who cannot bring salvation.
4 His spirit goes out, he returns to the ground;
On that very day his thoughts perish.”
Read this carefully and understand that Jewish beliefs were at the base of the Psalmists’ words….
When humans (even good ones) have plans for something beneficial to be achieved, they can die and their plans can die with them If there is no one to carry on with them.…and if an evil one gains a position of power, he can undo all the good that a predecessor did before him. Israel’s kings were a classic example of that fact.
“His spirit goes out” like a candle or a light “goes out”….it is extinguished….it doesn’t leave the room.
At death their “thoughts perish” confirming what Solomon wrote in Eccl 9: 5, 10…..there is no conscious activity in death. Even Jesus was unconscious in death for three days following his execution. He never once mentioned an immortal soul, because that term does not appear in any verse of the Bible.
What “saith the scriptures” indeed.
They say a lot if you don’t add meaning to them that the writers never intended. Reading things into scripture is what creates the confusion instead of allowing the Bible to speak for itself, in its entirety.
Ask where were all of us were before our parents conceived us? We simply did it exist, and at death we return to the same state, but God has promised us a resurrection…..not a continuation of life but a restoration of who we were. The soul that is us will live again.
Good question….but not an accurate one. It is not the “soul” that departs…..it is the “spirit” or “breath”, which is the animating force that keeps a soul alive. A body without breath is a dead body. The spirit has no personality or life apart from the body.
James 2:26…
“Indeed, just as the body without spirit (breath) is dead, so also faith without works is dead.”
Allowing false religious ideas to penetrate religious thought when the foretold apostasy was going to corrupt the Christian faith, (just as it corrupted Judaism) is what resulted in a false Christianity that has led people astray for centuries. Jesus sowed the “wheat” but the devil sowed the “weeds” or “tares”.
Ignorance about what the entirety of scripture teaches, results when doctrines are singled out and promoted despite what other parts of the Bible say on the subject. Ignoring clear unambiguous statements and substituting false religious thinking into ambiguous verses, produces a false belief system. (poisonous weeds)
If people cannot see through the deception, they will end up just like the Jews who are still waiting for their Messiah to show up the first time. But their situation was going to be repeated in this “time of the end” because satan has done to Christendom exactly what he did to the Jewish religion in the past. He has no new tricks, so we can see history repeating if we can really perceive what he is up to.
God’s word didn't fail, but those who took on the role of teachers certainly did by allowing the devil to corrupt their thinking. Things are never what the appear to be…..as Jesus pointed out to his disciples…..what the Pharisees taught for centuries was a corruption of the scriptures, which led to the whole nation being led astray. (Matt 15:7-9) Only those who heard Jesus preach, and got the sense of it in their hearts, had the determination to leave that corrupted system behind…..their decision often divided families. (Matt 10:34-36) This was not unexpected, but it took courage to separate from a system that they had grown up in, and to see scripture as Jesus presented it. He only used the Hebrew Scriptures.
Food for thought.
There is so much more that I could address, but eyes and hearts have to be open, not closed, or history will repeat on us who have no excuse to fail to see it happening, just as Jesus said it would…..
Last edited:
BarneyFife
Well-Known Member
Not sure why you specified that you were commenting on a "soul sleep" thread, in particular, then.
St. SteVen
Well-Known Member
RR144
Well-Known Member
BarneyFife
Well-Known Member
It's really quite a dilemma, isn't it?
"...for all is vanity and vexation of spirit."
BarneyFife
Well-Known Member
I'll deny I was up this late. Aunt Bee says it's the sleep you get before midnight that counts.
BarneyFife
Well-Known Member
By the way, @St. SteVen, I'm preparing a (hopefully) thoughtful response to your last PM. I have to get to bed before somebody catches me, though. ;)
St. SteVen
Well-Known Member
Yes.It's really quite a dilemma, isn't it?
"...for all is vanity and vexation of spirit."
As if "history" is an unquestionable authority.
Who shot JFK?
mailmandan
Well-Known Member
The word "sleep" in scripture when referring to death, refers to the physical death of believers and not being in an unconscious (literal sleeping) state. 1 Corinthians 11:29 - For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. 30 For this reason many among you are weak and sick, and a number sleep. 31 But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged. 32 But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world. Paul knows that the judgment of God can take on the form of physical illness and even physical death. The word "sleep" when referring to death, refers to the physical death of believers, not spiritual death or soul sleep. (John 11:11-12; Acts 7:60; 1 Corinthians 15:6,18,20,51; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-15; 2 Peter 3:4)
BarneyFife
Well-Known Member
I shot the Sheriff (but I did not shoot the President).
St. SteVen
Well-Known Member
Oswald shot the President. (but claims it was in self-defense)
Can't question history. - LOL
BarneyFife
Well-Known Member
Lambano
Well-Known Member
I was wondering why we haven't seen Andy for awhile...
BarneyFife
Well-Known Member
Unfortunately he passed away in 2012. One of the saddest days of my life. But one of those Internet TV apps has a channel that plays nothing but the entire run of TAGS in constant rotation. Naturally, I have the entire series in digital form. Maybe I could start a Facebook watch party if there was enough interest.
I got carried away.
: (That's gotta be my favorite smiley!)
amigo de christo
Well-Known Member
Onwards in the Lord my friend . He is our hope and our salvation . Let all praise and thank the LORD .
BarneyFife
Well-Known Member
Serious question:
Believer or no, how can anyone sleep if they're awake in Heaven or Hell?
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