To: mdmathis6
Well, if you wish to discuss it from God's state, yes, but then Paul is THERE with them at that "time". So, in effect, are all those yet unborn, witnesses. You cannot apply a present tense in OUR perspective when every use in the Word is either Past OR Future. Our perspective is always past and God's is always future. Rev 1:5 And from Jesus Christ, [who is] the faithful witness, [and] the first begotten of the dead. What is he "witness" too? Nothing in the legal use, and THE MARTYR of all time in that use. And the last of the old dead. First of the new. He died under the law to fulfill the law. He was the last man into Sheol. The Thief on the Cross was the 2nd to the last. The gates of hell then did not prevail and Jesus ascended talking the dead old testament saints with him. 1st Cor 15:12-23 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. MADE alive. Not ARE. Made is again a Future tense. This is still Paul preaching. And when? AT CHRIST's COMING. Not NOW. But NEXT! Soon. Any future event but the present. Now, you have gone to the words "compassed about". Again, English is a poorer choice of languages because it is so imprecise. The word used in the Greek is περίκειμαι perikeimai which means BOUND TO. That is shared in a like manner. Again showing the condition of ALL who die IN or FOR Christ's sake. We are BOUND Together as eternal brothers. THAT is what Paul is saying. And THAT does not refute any other part of Scripture. Talking to the dead, prayer TO the dead and imaging that they can hear you and do anything about it... Now that is totally AGAINST scripture. And of course, we have the best for last: 1TH 4:16 and again following in 1 Cor 15:52 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. 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: How is it, that the dead in Christ will be MADE alive at his trump calling, if they are already alive or in heaven or hanging about thinking stuff over? They are not. They, plainly said, SLEEP. If you sleep, you do not know what is going on. You dream, you rest, you are NOT involved in the dealings of those who are still awake. So Mary was either IN Christ, and thus Sleeps or she has much bigger issues to worry about than these.
305 posted on
08/21/2010 11:40:36 AM PDT by
RachelFaith
(2010 is going to be a 100 seat Tsunami - Unless the GOP Senate ruins it all...)
To: RachelFaith
Somehow all my lines got ran together.... ouch. Sorry about that.
306 posted on
08/21/2010 11:42:10 AM PDT by
RachelFaith
(2010 is going to be a 100 seat Tsunami - Unless the GOP Senate ruins it all...)
To: RachelFaith
So we are presently bound to a great cloud of witnesses or Martyrs. ARE as in now or presently. As for what “sleep” means in the GREEK you never explain it.
Since I don’t know GREEK and God obviously has not blessed any English version(since the language is so imprecise as you “state”) of the Bible so that people can’t get any benefit from it (sarcasm implied) let me just say that from what I’ve been taught, this term of “sleeping saints” has more to do with a restful repose in a Paradise state or in “Abraham’s Bosum” as Christ mentions in the parable of the Rich man and Lazarus. Lazarus was obviously alert and conscious when the condemned man asked that Lazarus should come over to give him a sip of water. Now whether or not Christ was uttering a parable to explain the notion of scripture and the tendency stubborn humans to deny the truth even when confronted with a man so risen from the dead(in physical corporeal form) or teaching from a true event, he WAS relating real conditions as they occur after death. There is a great gulf fixed between the condenmed and the blessed, there is some awareness of each other, and they are obviously self aware and awake. What-ever else they are aware of, only God knows.
307 posted on
08/21/2010 12:15:09 PM PDT by
mdmathis6
(Mike Mathis is my name,opinions are my own,subject to flaming when deserved!)
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