Posted on 07/26/2012 3:15:35 PM PDT by NYer
What verses are you refering to? What kind of real evidence will satisfy you?
Eternal life means life without end. In other words, you don't die, don't degenerate, don't get old, don't get sick. Entropy is a non-factor.
God makes this stuff simple enough for a 3-year-old to accept Him. Theologians make it hard for the rest of us.
They can go back to their cloisters and debate the color of Mary's hair until Judgment Day for all I care, as long as they just leave the rest of us alone to adore our God and Savior and allow HIM to reveal Himself to us through His Word and His Holy Spirit.
God doesn't need anyone's help to do that.
There will be a new heaven and a new earth (Revelation 21:1). It looks like there will be a physical universe.
Just being around our creator, that intelligence, perfect and loving, to be able to talk with Him, have some time with Him, to be around Him, well, we can only imagine how great that will be.
And I love that picture of Jesus hugging the little lamb. I hug a few of my pets that way, and i get those little smiley faces from them as I pet them and hold them.
I knew a religious scholar whose take on this was that physical life or lives was training, and that the afterlife was continued spiritual evolution.
As part of this evolution is the gradual joining together of identities, so that a person, for example, joins with other people, retaining their individuality as “I’s”, but also becoming a “we”. They remember their life as their own, but they can now remember another’s life as their own as well, with the experiences of both lives.
This resolves the “karma” predicament, described in the East, because giver and receiver, oppressor and oppressed, father, mother, and child all become one. If you harmed another, you harmed yourself, and if you helped another, you helped yourself.
Eventually, the evolution of all returns to and joins with God, from where it all began.
Time is necessary for the material world. Not for the spiritual. But as all creation is renewed, to me it appears both material universe and spiritual will exist. I believe we will have a resurrected’glorified body like Christ’s and will be able to go wherever we want, in the material universe, or the spiritual heaven.
AMEN! That last verse chokes me up as well.
No, there will not be a physical universe.
The NH,NE will be of a different nature. The atomic particles of which our universe is made will cease to exist, and the image of passing time will cease with them. “The corruptible must put on incorruption...”
Our universe was/is corrupted by sin.
Excellent post, thank you.
I believe Jesus teaches us to trust, to not live in the future, or the past. But in the present moment - fully.
We can, IMHO, get a glimpse of eternal if we do so, when our awareness is focused on ‘now.’ We can all remember some time in our life when we were totally absorbed in something - either observing or doing, not constantly narrating our lives or living some past experience or hoping or dreading something in the future. Just ‘now.’
Eternal life is the present being forever. Second it is not the past nor the future, it is the forever here and now.
Some secular lyrics from a secular band that I think is touching on that thought:
“The future disappears into memory
With only a moment between
Forever dwells in that moment
Hope is what remains to be seen.”
You don't have to guess...Just read the bible...
2Pe 3:8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
The NH,NE will be of a different nature. The atomic particles of which our universe is made will cease to exist, and the image of passing time will cease with them. “The corruptible must put on incorruption...”
I'll take Jesus' word for it instead of yours, if that's ok...
Joh 14:2 In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
Joh 14:3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
And not only that, Jesus tells us how big the city is...And it's massive...
So when Eternity starts, you'll be stuck in what ever condition and position you are in now, forever???
You’re missing out on the fact that the place he prepares will be of a completely different nature, not of the corruptible matter that our universe is made of.
And yes it will be a big place, 1500 furlongs cubic, if I remember correctly.
Remember that the substance of Jesus’ new body was able to slip through what we see as solid matter.
I often think we haven’t done a very good job in setting forth the doctrine of Eternal Life.
But since most people can not even agree on the less important things that are clearly literal then i don,t know how any one would agree on something so big.
The only thing that my human mind can even relate to would be reincarnation but that is taboo and there is not enough evidence in the scriptures to be teaching it.
So i think i will just wait and see because i think we have screwed up the teachings of the scriptures enough already.
Amen!!
Amazing how many don’t even know HIM; yet, are rock sure they do.
“‘The Lord said to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand
35 until I make your enemies
a footstool for your feet.”’[f]
36 “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.”
37 When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off —for all whom the Lord our God will call.”
40 With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” 41 Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.
The Fellowship of the Believers
42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
What about the actions of that person?
Words can be cheap.
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