Posted on 04/23/2019 1:44:29 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
The Saturday before Palm Sunday is known as Lazarus Saturday among the Orthodox, and they celebrate Christ raising him from the dead just prior to His entrance into Jerusalem (gospel of John). It is a feast that offers something of a preview of Christ’s resurrection, and a foretaste of the General Resurrection at the End of the Age.
Some years back I sat in a cave that is purported to be the grave of Lazarus. I could not help but think of him – but of him in Hades rather than the tomb. It is said in the Fathers that when Christ raised him from the dead, it was necessary for Him to say, “Lazarus, come forth!” For had He only said, “Come forth!” all of the dead would have risen before their time. It’s a thought that I like a lot.
It is also, however, a thought that has occurred to Hades itself, at least in the hymnody of the Church:
I implore you, Lazarus, said Hell, Rise up, depart quickly from my bonds and be gone. It is better for me to lament bitterly for the loss of one, rather than of all those whom I swallowed in my hunger.
Why do you delay, Lazarus? cried Hell. Your Friend stands calling to you: ‘Come out.’ Go, then, and I too shall feel relief. For since I swallowed you, all other food is loathsome to me.
O Lazarus, why do you not rise up swiftly? cried Hell below, lamenting. Why do you not run immediately from this place? Lest Christ take prisoner the others, after raising you. (From the Canon of Lazarus Saturday)
It is as if when Christ says, “Come forth!” Hell cries, “Get out!”
Most of the Orthodox hymns surrounding Christ’s death and resurrection (and Lazarus’ as well) center on the notion of the “Harrowing of Hell.” The object of the Cross is not the wrath of God, but the death and confinement of man. It is the virtual non-existence that holds us in death that is trampled down by the death of Christ.
The punishment theories of the atonement have a way of mixing moral themes into Christ’s death and resurrection. They are about Christ’s payment for the moral debt of our sins. Somehow, something is terribly askew in such meditations. The utter graciousness and even gratuitous character of Christ’s victory is overlooked.
I am aware of the Biblical passages that speak of the resurrection to damnation as well as the coming judgment. But I always have the sense that those who dwell on such things are somehow afraid that Christ might accidentally forgive someone who should not have been forgiven. Be careful! Someone might get away with something!
When I ponder the atonement, the work accomplished by Christ’s death and resurrection, I tend to think of the imagery of a prison break – a really BIG prison break. When the doors are opened every fellow-prisoner is your friend. You make a run for it because it’s your chance and the sudden generosity that has found you is likely to spill over to everyone and everything. It is like the childhood cry that ends the game of Hide and Seek: “Olly, Olly, Oxen free!”
In truth, despite all of our responsibility for sin, we are largely its victims. We do not begin our lives in Paradise, but in a world in which everyone is broken and distorted. Those who carry out crimes are most likely to have been victims first. We do to others what has been done to us. And sometimes it goes to horrendous extremes. We are psychopaths and sociopaths, addicts and sinners, the children of a world gone wrong.
And though there is help, even salvation for us in this life, many never seem to find it, or being found by it, fail to understand its significance. And now they lie among the dead, bound in their sins, brought down to Hades for their crimes.
It is this fellowship of criminals and sinners that the good bishop, Melito of Sardis, seems to have had in mind when he penned a Paschal homily around the year 160 ad. It is wonderfully primitive in its vision, speaking with a concern that continues to echo in the language of the Orthodox faith. It is hopeful and bold, though perhaps discouraging for those who fear that someone might get off too lightly. He says of Christ in Hades:
[Christ] rose up from the dead, and cried aloud with this voice: “Who is he who contends with me? Let him stand in opposition to me. I set the condemned man free; I gave the dead man life; I raised up the one who had been entombed. Who is my opponent?”
“I,” He says, “am the Christ. I am the one who destroyed death, and triumphed over the enemy, and trampled Hades under foot, and bound the strong one, and carried off man to the heights of heaven.
“I,” he says, “am the Christ.”
“Therefore, come, all families of men, you who have been befouled with sins, and receive forgiveness for your sins. I am your forgiveness. I am the passover of your salvation. I am the lamb which was sacrificed for you. I am your ransom. I am your light. I am your saviour. I am your resurrection. I am your king. I am leading you up to the heights of heaven. I will show you the eternal Father. I will raise you up by my right hand.”
This is the one who made the heavens and the earth, and who in the beginning created man, who was proclaimed through the law and prophets, who became human through the virgin, who was hanged upon a tree, who was buried in the earth, who was resurrected from the dead, and who ascended to the heights of heaven, who sits at the right hand of the Father, who has authority to judge and to save everything, through whom the Father created everything from the beginning of the world to the end of the age.
This is the alpha and the omega. This is the beginning and the end–an indescribable beginning and an incomprehensible end. This is the Christ. This is the king. This is Jesus. This is the general. This is the Lord. This is the one who rose up from the dead. This is the one who sits at the right hand of the Father. He bears the Father and is borne by the Father, to whom be the glory and the power forever. Amen.
Amen. Indeed.
I like this one, where Jesus is pulling our rescued forebears right out of the "jaws" of Hades, while an angel with a spear gives one of the smaller demons a warning poke.
Christ Jesus, Victor!
Christ Jesus, Ruler!
Christ Jesus, Lord and Redeemer!
Class, discuss.
When do you believe the Rapture will occur which Paul wrote about and Jesus hinted strongly at in John 13 and 14?
The Rapture – Indisputable Christian Heresy
https://preachersinstitute.com/2010/04/20/the-rapture-indisputable-christian-heresy/
What Does the Bible Say About the Rapture?
https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/1577-what-does-the-bible-say-about-the-rapture
THE RAPTURE HERESY IN A NUTSHELL
https://stevensperay.wordpress.com/2009/04/25/the-rapture-heresy-in-a-nutshell/
Why the Rapture isn’t Biblical… And Why it Matters
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/thepangeablog/2014/06/04/why-the-rapture-isnt-biblical/
The Heresy of the Rapture
http://orthodoxmeditations.blogspot.com/2011/05/heresy-of-rapture.html
And so on...
or as I prefer to call it...
The Increase Mather Hoax
7
I guess we will not be seeing you in the clouds.
1 Thess 4:13-18 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.
18Therefore encourage one another with these words.
The secret that isn't a secret that even JESUS cited in John's Gospel. Negative naybobs abound in the catholiciism religion.
It did not take long when reading your last cited article to see the author conflates two completely different events. In Matt 24:39-42 Jesus is detailing the sorting that will happen among Jews at the end of the Tribulation. The Rapture Paul wrote about in 1 Thess 4 happens before the wrath is poured out, as he said in passing in 1 Thess 1:10. You will believe what your religion has inculcated you with. The true Ekklesia will not be here for the Testing of the whole world, centered upon the Jews, to put an end to sin in Israel (Danil reference). GOD will not subject The Body of Christ to the seven terrible years of tribulation. Period.
While many devout true believers believe in in the pre-trib rapture, I respectfully do not, believing instead that "our [true born again believers] gathering together unto Him" shall not come, "except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.. sitteth in the temple of God" - 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4 and we go thru the tribulation and when we see "all these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh" - Luke 21:28)
At which time is the rapture/resurrection as I see it:
In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. (1 Corinthians 15:52)
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)
And then the elect go with the Lord as His army to the battle of Armageddon, and then to reign with Christ for a 1,000 years, and then to sit in judgment (as in a jury) in sentencing the lost.
And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. (Jude 14-15)
Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life? (1 Corinthians 6:2-3)
And which Great White throne judgment (Rev. 20:11-15) is not the same as that for believers, which is the judgment seat of Christ, which is the only suffering after this life, which does not begin at death, but awaits the Lord's return, (1 Corinthians 4:5; 2 Timothy. 4:1,8; Revelation 11:18; Matthew 25:31-46; 1 Peter 1:7; 5:4)
And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (Revelation 20:4)
However, it is a shame that Catholics deny the clearly taught fact that rather than one general resurrection of the redeemed and the lost, the is a 1,000 years difference btwn the "first resurrection," the "resurrection of life," and the second resurrection
But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. (Revelation 20:5)
And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation. (John 5:29)
Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. (Revelation 20:6)
And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, (Revelation 20:2)
And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (Revelation 20:4)
During which time there will be unregenerate souls (which the elect rule over) and temple sacrifices and forgiveness, as Ezekiel 34-46 extensively details.
Do the EOs at least agree with RCs on that?
Catholics believe that Christians living during Christ’s second coming will be gathered along with those who have died in Christ to be with him forever. However, Catholics do not believe that a rapture will take place prior to that time. This belief is a form of millennialism, which the Church strongly condemns.
And when THAT will be, I don't know. Soon, I hope.
Daniel reference
The second touch down comes at the end of the seven years of tribulation. Many signs are available for making a precise calculation for that fay and hour but not for the Rapture event which removes The Body of Crist from the coming wrath. The Rapture is not an event at the end of the tribulation testing, and it is not The Body of Christ which will be tested during the seven years.
Please don't forget the verses before those that tell us Jesus brings the souls of the righteous down WITH him when he catches us up who remain alive and together we are changed into our glorified bodies:
The reference is a bit off, brother. You wrote, “I respectfully do not, believing instead that “our [true born again believers] gathering together unto Him” shall not come,”except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.. sitteth in the temple of God”. The reference is to the Day of The Lord, not the Rapture of the Body of Christ. Read it more carefully, please. Whether you believe the ‘apostasia’ should be translated ‘a falling away’ or The Departure, the reference is that the Day of The Lord cannot be arrived because the man of sin has not been revealed and stood in the Holy of Holies proclaiming himself god.
There are however six five pals
that have fallen for a diabolical hoax,
worse a depraved money making scheme
concocted by a swindler that to this day
continues to fleece millions
out of their hard earned labor and
very possibly their eternal reward.
Whatever they are paying,
it cannot save anyone from the
FINAL JUDGEMENT.
Good news:
Our Father in heaven
is Kind and abundantly Merciful,
He waits and watches for us,
longing that we might
return to Him
with contrite hearts.
Your choice.
7
Quod scripsit, scripsit.
Pax vobiscum, puella.
Sadly, true.
Yet those Catholics can still put their faith in Christ alone to save them instead of that great money making scam that the Catholic church has run all these years.
Especially, the sale of indulgences.
How reprehensible that Romanism sold what God offers for free.
Tries to sell (the indulgences are still for sale). In the words of the snail looking alien in Star Wars, “It’s a trap!”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.