You are saying that none of the passage is literal, not me.
You want some parts to be symbolic to accommodate the massive contradictions arising from making any part literal.
Or it can refer to the part of a person called the soul, which is separate form the body and the spirit (1 Thess 5:23). And the word has other definitions as well.
We must understand opaque 1 Thessalonians 5:23 KJV in the clear light of Genesis 2:7 KJV - not in the darkness of Jesuit Immortal Soul theology!
So, you think John was delusional when he said he saw the souls of dead people then (Rev 6:9-11, Rev 20:4)?
It's so pathetic how you guys resort to making symbolic imagery of symbolic prophecy literal to find support for your doctrine, the most egregious of hermeneutical violations.
In your mind, but not mine. The bible repeatedly teaches of real places called heaven and hell and refers to people having consciousness after physical death.
It nowhere teaches that! It says the dead know nothing, feel nothing, praise nothing...because at death, the Spirit returns to God, the Body to the dust, and the Soul ceases to be.
You mean the rest of you Seventh-day Adventists who teach other false doctrines as well?
Long before SDAs, Luther, Tyndale, Wycliffe, Huss, countless others taught Conditional Immortality.
Scripture does not teach this. The verses that you think teach that (Eccl 9:5, etc.) are actually talking about those people not doing those things on earth anymore and they say nothing about what happens to them after physical death.
You think God wastes precious words telling us things about corpses we already know?
Why is it the only examples of "consciousness in death" you point to are symbolic passages?
Why isn't a single instance recorded in Scripture of a dead "soul" in heaven?
Because they ain't there.
We're not currently capable of comprehending heaven and hell and the spiritual realm, so that's why those things are only ever described figuratively, including in the book of Revelation. It doesn't mean those places aren't real.
Yes, Jesus told countless parables describing heaven, but "we can't know" - right?
Ezekiel and James tell you souls die, but you choose to believe the serpent's "immortal" lie in Eden - right?
Where? Why say this without even giving the reference?
Jesus tells us exactly what the symbolism is in Matthew 15 so that a blind man can see:
[26] But He answered and said, It is not meet to take the
children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.
[27] And she said, Truth, Lord:
yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table.
Rich Man = Jews
Lazarus with dogs = Gentiles
Table of Fare = God's table of blessing
Crumbs = Jewish disdain of Jesus
Lazarus in Abraham's bosom = the Gentiles now comforted by the Comforter, the Holy Spirit
Fiery Torment = the kingdom taken from Jews, given to Gentiles
The passage - which has nothing to do with what happens when we die - is a parabolic warning, like all His parabolic warnings, that if they don't repent, the "tables will be turned" on the Jews.
LOL. What explanation is that exactly? Your interpretation of the 5 brothers that you've given before was completely ridiculous and was your own explanation, not His.
Love the way you say I can't have my own opinions while you insist on having your own facts.
How can you think that all of His parables were about them?
I didn't say "all" of his parables were warnings to Jews
What other resurrection will occur at His second coming besides a bodily resurrection? Do you deny that 1 Cor 15:52 is referring to a bodily resurrection, too? And 1 Thess 4:14-17?
Your interpretation doesn't account for OT and NT resurrections before Calvary.
>OT guilt transfer from sinner to lamb took place
before the promised Lamb of God came to take away sin.
>OT prayers ascending with incense got through
before the promised High Priest came to bear them.
>OT resurrections occured before the promised "First Fruits of the Resurrection" died and rose for us.
You can't limit "Firstfruits of Resurrection" to end times when Paul says if He doesn't rise, we're doomed.
Scripture says Jesus was the first to be resurrected unto bodily immortality.
Nowhere does it say "bodily" in that verse - and Paul says nobody can be "present with the Lord" unless he's clothed in his resurrection, immortal body. Capice? Moses, Enoch, Elijah, and others were "changed".
Acts 26:23 That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should shew light unto the people, and to the Gentiles.
He wasn't
sequentially the first to rise from the dead - only
hierarchically.
Christ was the first to rise from the dad unto bodily immortality, not Moses, which made the way for the dead in Christ to be able to rise unto bodily immortality when He returns.
Find me a verse which plainly says "first to rise from the dead unto bodily immorality" and I'll agree.
Paul says nobody is "present with the Lord" without their immortal body clothes.
Not only is there no scripture which says Moses was resurrected from the dead, it contradicts scripture to believe that as well. Scripture is definitely not on your side here.
The fact that he was in the Mount says it all - resurrected to old "mortal body" clothes or new "immortal body" clothes - not some "naked" and "unclothed" supposed extra-Biblical "spiritual body".
Paul fully expected to be in the presence of the Lord immediately upon his physical death. That's why he said this:
More reckless emotionalism.
Where, in fact, does that verse explicitly say "be with Christ" happens immediately after "depart"?
Paul knew just as an exhausted person collapses into bed and wakes the next morning feeling he's slept only one minute, so then the person who dies will seem to "sleep scarce one minute" when Jesus comes.
In your doctrine, to live is Christ, and to die is to lose all consciousness and is not gain at all.
Of course, a dead person who sleeps until the resurrection realizes "gain". They "rest in peace" in the grave with Job awaiting their "change" and then put on their immortal clothes in the first resurrection.
Though the souls of the dead in Christ are in heaven, they still look forward to one day having immortal bodies.
Genesis 2:7 KJV - a soul is the whole which is comprised of the two parts: spirit and body...so there are no "souls in heaven looking forward to a body".
Why would Paul talk in 2 Cor 5:6-8 about being away from the body
Why does the Immortal Soul crowd refuse to address why Paul did not want to be "naked" and "unclothed" but "clothed upon" in immortality "at the last trump"? Of course, Paul wanted to be absent from his mortal body, skip the "naked/unclothed" grave, and just go on to be present with the Lord in his resurrection body "at the last trump".
Angels were sometimes able to be seen even though they are spirit beings
Humans ain't angels. They're "Souls" comprised of a Body and Breath of Life. Take away either part and the Soul ceases to be.
the reason Michael and Satan disputed over the body of Moses is not given, so all we can do is speculate.
There's no need to speculate. A blind man can see it was over whether the Lord should resurrect Moses.
You make so many leaps in logic with your doctrine
You believe the serpent when he said the dead are not "surely" dead.
Does the fact that angels sometimes appeared to people mean they are physical beings instead of spiritual beings?
Humans ain't angels, nor are they immortal. Those who seek it are granted immortality "at the last trump".
You certainly have done nothing to convince me that is true.
Your belief the dead "are not surely dead" is a satanic snare.