Posted on 02/10/2008 1:46:46 PM PST by wagglebee
A bishop described as "one of the most formidable figures in the world of Christian thought" is now challenging the widely held belief that Christians go to heaven when they die.
N.T. "Tom" Wright, the fourth most senior cleric in the Church of England who has been praised for his staunch defense of the literal resurrection of Jesus Christ, has published a new book in which he says people do not ascend to God's dwelling place. Instead, God will be coming back to Earth.
"Never at any point do the Gospels or Paul say Jesus has been raised, therefore we are we are all going to heaven," Wright told Time Magazine. "I've often heard people say, 'I'm going to heaven soon, and I won't need this stupid body there, thank goodness.' That's a very damaging distortion, all the more so for being unintentional."
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
>> Thats Originism and its not at all what Bishop Wright is speaking of. Orthodoxy does not teach of people going to some place called heaven, it speaks of theosis <<
I should think the anabaptist /adventist doctrine of soul sleep would be quite anathema to you.
These guys also sang that they were believers:
“in the Septuagint version explicitly called the Paradise which is in Eden”
Where does it say that specifically? Paradise is not the garden of Eden.
To quote the Creed “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead”. This is based on the testimony of the Gospels (remember the “what you did for the least of these...” lesson) and the Epistles (not to mention a certain painting in the Sistine Chapel).
All persons, living and dead, face the final judgement. For saints to go to Heaven when they die would mean that they must come out of heaven with Jesus, meet up with the wicked to face the Last Judgement and then go back into heaven. Does these mean that the wicked, having gone to hell upon their deaths, come out of hell to meet up with the saints to face the Last Judgement and then go back to hell?
“Do the Anglicans recognize Purgatory?”
No. The Anglicans do not recognize the Roman Catholic concept of Purgatory.
“I should think the anabaptist /adventist doctrine of soul sleep would be quite anathema to you.”
I’ve never heard of that doctrine, D and have no idea what it is.
Apropos of that and even further off topic -- I found the cutest Valentine to send to my daughter at college. Three adorable little Yellow Lab puppies, all in a row. The first one sings, "I thought love was only found in fairy tales."
The second one sings, "Then I saw your face,"
Third pup: "Now I'm a retriever!"
(Inside: "Have a happy Valentine's Day, doggone it!")
Monkees, 1963. But Neil Young perpetrated it, I think.
What a stretch!
Psalm 2:7
The Lord hath said to me: Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee.
Is the Psalmist implying that the Son was begotten in time? No, of course not. That would lend itself to Arianism - that the Son was created one day by the Father and did not always exist.
This day, if we approach it in the sense of an Augustinian reading of Genesis, is not related to a 24 hour rotation of the earth. The term "day", according to Augustine, represented the immediate instance of knowledge revealed to the angels. In other words, Augustine viewed a "day" as a single mark in eternity where all things were revealed to the angels that God willed them to know. Therefore, Augustine taught that the seven days of creation were not seven days, per se, but a sequential drawing out of that eternal moment for the sake of making sense to a time-constrained audience on earth.
If we add to that St. Peter's comment that "one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day," then there's certainly a basis to reason that Christ was not speaking to the thief as if he would get to heaven, glance down at his watch, and realize he made it just before midnight. I submit that the "day" Jesus speaks of is the eternal day of the new Creation, where there is no time to speak of. With reference to eternity, there is no "sequence of events" as we understand the unfolding of time. All things are in the PRESENT. There is no future and no past, but the eternal NOW. So to conclude that "paradise" must be some layover on the way back to the new Earth doesn't make sense. The paradise Jesus speaks of is eternal glory. That day, for the departed, is always "today" or "this day". Thus, the proceeding three days until the Resurrection are irrelevant to what Jesus is saying. Jesus, as the Son, has always been in Heaven, so there is no way the thief could get there "before Him". Jesus, in the flesh, is still God, Who is omniscient.
Heaven is basking in the presence of God.
It doesn’t matter if we go to join God or God comes down to us. Where ever he is, there is heaven.
The final judgment is reserved for the wicked. We will all be resurrected on the last day, but only the wicked will be judged.
Does these mean that the wicked, having gone to hell upon their deaths, come out of hell to meet up with the saints to face the Last Judgement and then go back to hell?
Pretty much. But the saints, IIRC, will be judging with Christ, not facing judgment.
The living are anyone still alive on Earth at His return. Anyone who is alive has yet to face particular judgment.
What's not in evidence is that God will judge ALL of the dead. The living, as I stated, ALL have to be judged because none have faced the first judgment. "The dead", however, does is not supported by any similar condition. It does not imply necessarily that ALL the dead are judged. And "dead" could conceivably be referring to those that were condemned to death in the particular judgment, thus, they are already "dead" in the metaphysical sense.
John 5:24, 29
Amen, amen I say unto you, that he who heareth my word, and believeth him that sent me, hath life everlasting; and cometh not into judgment, but is passed from death to life...And they that have done good things, shall come forth unto the resurrection of life; but they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment.
Revelation 20:4
And I saw seats; and they sat upon them; and judgment was given unto them; and the souls of them that were beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God, and who had not adored the beast nor his image, nor received his character on their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.
Genesis 2:8 kai ephuteusen ho theos paradeison en Eden . . .
“paradeison” might be Englished as ‘garden’, but it is the source of the word Paradise, and is the same word (albeit in a different case) used by Christ on the Cross when he tells the repentent thief who acknowledged His Kingdom ‘This day you will be with me in Paradise’ (in the original Greek,
‘sEmeron met’ emou esE/ en tO/ paradeisO/’).
So take your pick: either God planted Paradise in Eden and Christ told the thief he would be with Him in Paradise, or God planted a garden in Eden and Christ told the thief he would be with Him in the garden.
(I render omicrons as o, Omegas as O, epsilons as e, and etas as E, phis and thetas as the usual digraph in English words of Greek origin, and rough breathings as inital h’s, and iota subscripts as / following the letter.)
Paradise is the Garden of Eden.
Genesis 2:8 kai ephuteusen ho theos paradeison en Eden . . .
“paradeison” might be Englished as ‘garden’, but it is the source of the word Paradise, and is the same word (albeit in a different case) used by Christ on the Cross when he tells the repentent thief who acknowledged His Kingdom ‘This day you will be with me in Paradise’ (in the original Greek,
‘sEmeron met’ emou esE/ en tO/ paradeisO/’).
So take your pick: either God planted Paradise in Eden and Christ told the thief he would be with Him in Paradise, or God planted a garden in Eden and Christ told the thief he would be with Him in the garden.
(I render omicrons as o, Omegas as O, epsilons as e, and etas as E, phis and thetas as the usual digraph in English words of Greek origin, and rough breathings as inital h’s, and iota subscripts as / following the letter.)
Paradise is the Garden of Eden.
So you really think Jesus was telling the thief that he’d see him in the Garden of Eden later in the day?
Where does He use the word “Eden” when talking to the thief? I don’t think the word “Eden” is spoken when Jesus is hanging on the cross. If He meant “Eden” he would have said “Eden”. Yes, Eden was a paradise but it’s not the same Paradise spoken of on the cross.
Don’t argue with me, take it up with the Fathers of the Church: they uniformly read the Scriptures as taking Paradise to be the same as the Paradise in Eden, understanding it as having been removed from the world after the expulsion of our first parents.
Anglicans often fall into modernist heresies, and there are hints of some in the bishop’s statement if one reads closely, but the main thrust of his remarks, including that alluded to in the headline, which seems to exercise protestants so much, are a return to the way the ancient Church understood the Scriptures.
“take it up with the Fathers of the Church: they uniformly read the Scriptures as taking Paradise to be the same as the Paradise in Eden”
Given that they thought this, do you think the Fathers of the Church may have been wrong? Why would Jesus go to the Garden of Eden after his death? To hang out with the thief? What purpose would that serve? Were the Old Testament Saints in the Garden of Eden waiting entrance to heaven after the resurrection?
Paradise was separated from hell by a large chasm. How could this be the Garden of Eden?
I’m not arguing, just trying to apply a little logic.
Have you considered that reading the Scriptures in accord with the Fathers, who were formed by the same culture as the Holy Apostles makes it far more likely that you will get their meaning right than reading them on your own, or with the guidance of only of your fellow believers who grew up in a culture shaped by the rationalist ‘Enlightenment’?
“Have you considered that reading the Scriptures in accord with the Fathers, who were formed by the same culture as the Holy Apostles makes it far more likely that you will get their meaning right than reading them on your own, or with the guidance of only of your fellow believers who grew up in a culture shaped by the rationalist Enlightenment?”
Of course I considered it. However, the “Holy Apostles” didn’t understand some things that Jesus told them to their faces. The “Holy Apostles” were human. The “Church Fathers” were also human.
No one will roast in hell because one thinks He was speaking of Paradise or the Garden of Eden!
YOU:
its always been my impression that in Christianity, the dead sleep until they are resurrected on the day of judgement to either go to Heaven or to Hell....
39 And one of those robbers who were hanged, blasphemed him, saying: If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. 40 But the other answering, rebuked him, saying: Neither dost thou fear God, seeing thou art condemned under the same condemnation?
41 And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this man hath done no evil. 42 And he said to Jesus: Lord, remember me when thou shalt come into thy kingdom. 43 And Jesus said to him: Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with me in paradise.
— Luke 23:39-43
ME: well, during those three days before Christ rose from the dead, where was he? and where was the thief then?
sounds very purgatorial to me.
afterall, even today, nothing unclean can enter heaven, and when one dies, you are not immediately clean enough to enter heaven.
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