You are most welcome. Secularists want to denounce and make you doubt your faith. I want Christians to be able to defend it with logic and unassailable proofs beyond resting on traditions or because of what some man or institution of men say.
The war for our faith is just getting heated up on these shores. Scripture tells us to have an answer ready when questioned about it.
At the same time, I don't disparage those who hold otherwise. This is a vexing passage, and good Christians can and do disagree on what it means. I have myself gone back and forth for years, and am still not 100 percent persuaded. After this discussion, though, I'd call it 99.9 percent. It has been very enlightening.
Del Rapier, I did read and understand what you were saying. For convenience, here is your post:
“The fact that he was raised back on Earth is a discrepancy but for different reasons,I have no problem believing he was raised from the dead.....just why he came back here.
It is not a form of damnation when that happens but it “can”
speak of a certain distance between the Lazarus(the raisee) and God.Essentially it speaks of unfinished work not of the world but of the individual.
Otherwise I am not unfamiliar to this subject,just have never experienced it from a first-hand perspective.Jesus could have experienced it face to face with people who’d died and then decided to try it for himself.
As if any of this could make any sense to anyone here.......”
Actually the Scriptures are quite clear on why Lazarus was raised. Here is the explanation from the mouth of the Lord Himself, from the eleventh chapter of the Gospel of John:
‘40 Then Jesus said, “Did I not tell you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”
41 So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”’
Iow, Lazarus was raised not because of unfinished personal issues, but for the glory of God, so that the disciples could/would believe that Jesus was sent from God. I.e: Jesus raised a man who had lain four days in a hot tomb (1) to glorify God by showing beyond the shadow of a doubt that God has dominion over death, and (2) to establish and strengthen the faith of the disciples. That faith was about to be tested by the death of the Messiah. It would shake the disciples to the core. For any who opted to remember, the resurrection of Lazarus would provide a ray of hope in an otherwise dismal and shattering time.
Jesus’ resurrection is similar. If He had rose and ascended immediately to heaven, w’out appearing to even a single disciple, who would believe it? Humans tend more naturally toward doubt than belief. Being told Jesus had arisen and gone to heaven would only inflame that natural tendency. That He appeared over and over to the disciples—at one time to 500 of them—provided a firm foundation for the faith of millions down through the ages. We have not believed cleverly devised stories [i.e.: fibs] but eyewitnesses—eyewitnesses who died horrible deaths rather than recant what they knew to be true.
Does that make sense?