As to the separation between the living and the dead, Christ erased it, at least as concerns His saints:
Every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting (Mt. 19:29)
Are we separated from the saints? If so, we would be separated from Christ also, as He is with them in the everlasting life. But no, death does not separate us from either Christ or His angels or saints:
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NO! Such assertions are gross assumptions, inferences, extrapolations.
Those verses say NOTHING about whether there is still a gulf between the living and the dead. In fact, Christ mentioned such a gulf when talking about the dead rich man that wanted to warn his relatives.
Certainly we could say legally we are saved and one with Christ. We can say that Christ indwells us by His
Spirit. But that’s fudging on the issue of whether there’s a gulf between the living and those who’ve graduated from this life.
They ARE NOT WITH US in the sense that they were when alive in this time/space dimension. Neither is Christ with us in the sense that he was with the Disciples in this time/space dimension.
PRETENDING OTHERWISE IS PRETENSE of the worse sort, imho.
We do NOT have ready access to dialogue with those who’ve graduated from this life. IN FACT, there seems to be very strict rules about such and they are USUALLY not violated—except in fairly rare Heavenly visitatioins etc.
In fact, even at the Ascension, the angels chided, exhorted, rebuked the Disciples for gazing into the Heaven vs getting on with the business of the Gospel in this time/space dimension—and they were gazing after CHRIST HIMSELF vs some departed believer.
It is clear from any fair-minded reading of Scripture that God has set the current rules up such that we are to be about His business for us in this time/space dimension with little to no awareness of the goings on with the believers who’ve already graduated from this life.
There’s mention of the “cloud of witnesses.” But we are given little to no elaboration of what that means. Inferring, extrapolating and assuming what it means just doesn’t cut it in terms of justifying a given theology based thereon.
That gulf was in a different place: between the condemned and the blessed.
There’s mention of the “cloud of witnesses.” But we are given little to no elaboration of what that means
I am Catholic, and I just elaborated, for your benefit.