Afterlife

Over the course of my military career, I’ve been around A LOT of health/fitness-conscious people. Many of them have become true believers in things like cross-fit, yoga, and other forms of exercise and it becomes a way of life for them. Similarly, I’ve seen all the passing diet and nutrition trends that seem to come on strong, make a big splash, then fade off into the twilight as quickly as they arrived. My observation is that younger people generally want to look good by putting in the work (sweat equity), while older people generally want to look good by changing what they eat. Either way, the goal is to look good and embody the epitome of health.

Now, there is nothing wrong with wanting to stay healthy. There is nothing wrong with wanting to eat healthily. I mean, we only have this one body and we have to make it last as long as we can, I suppose. We should all strive to “do better” regarding our own personal health. No, what I’m referring to here are the people that obsess about their appearance. They obsess about wrinkles, body-fat percentage, balding, gray hair, or dress sizes.

The days of our lives are seventy years; And if by reason of strength they are eighty years, Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; For it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

In the passage above, Moses makes the declarative statement that the age of a man’s life would be between 70 and 80 years. Interestingly, Moses (who himself lived to be 120 years old) wrote this o/a the 15th century B.C. Life spans since then have varied greatly with parts of the ancient world and the middle ages only seeing life spans reaching into the 30s and 40s. However, it is curious to note that we are now back at a time when this 70 to 80 years of life, seems to be the norm, not the exception. But let us make the case for 80 years as a standard. Heck, we could even make the case for 100 years or 1,000 years of age. What do any of these lifespans mean in comparison to eternity?

3. (usually plural) any of the aspects of life and thought that are considered to be timeless, esp. timeless and true

4. (Theology) theol the condition of timeless existence, believed by some to characterize the afterlife

Even the Antediluvian patriarch Methuselah, who lived to the great age of 969 years old, has now been dead for over 4,000 years. We could fit 12 of our 80-year lifespans into his 969 years, and even he would say his life went by in a flash. Not only that, but he has now been in the eternal realm (at least by our measure of time) four times longer than he lived. Thus, Methuselah will spend all of eternity in the glorious presence of God.

Paradoxically, we live in a world absolutely fixated on the here and now, and this has blinded many to the real nature of reality. True reality, is not what we can touch or see, but the world we can’t see. The writer of Hebrews noted that the Law, the Temple, and everything else, are but shadows of the real things already in heaven. The real reality is the eternal realm. It is the timeless state of being that exists outside of our universal fish tank.

Author’s Note: I often use our fish tank to demonstrate to my children just as we exist outside of the fish tank in our home, God exists outside of our universe, and yet, we are not far away. We can add or take water out. We can add food or move the fish to clean the tank. We can add in décor or take everything out. Furthermore, we can look in and see Goldie’s entire existence all at the same time.

God exists outside of our fish tank so to speak, and He can tweak or change things according to His purposes. However, even though God the Father exists in the realm eternal, He still has nearby and has full reach and depth into our existence through His Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, he can look and see everything, all at the same time and He has determined the length, breadth, width, height, and duration of our existence. Here are some Bible verses affirming the sovereignty of God’s universal rule:

Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure,’ Isaiah 46:10

And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise And knowledge to those who have understanding Daniel 2:21

And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; Acts 17:26-27

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End,” says the Lord, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” Revelation 1:8

But for some reason, we live in a topsy-turvy, upside-down, bizarro-world. You’d think, given the demonstrated certainty of death and the brief nature of our present existence, we would be hyper-focused on the world to come and not on the chaotic, ever-changing world we see crumbling before our very eyes.

And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever. 1 John 2:17

Life here on earth without God, is at best, elusive. We come into this world helpless, wholly dependent upon others, but naively thinking, this is the way it will always be. However, we grow, learn, and realize that we will not always have someone to hold our hand. We are expected to become increasingly independent and capable of doing things on our own.

As children, we let our imaginations run wild, thinking magic, fairies, and monsters exist, only to find out those things are real, but not at all as we imagined them to be. We are then thrust into a public education system that begins by ignoring the reality of God, and pummeling our senses with the government-approved propaganda stating we are nothing more than evolved, cosmic accidents with no rhyme or reason for existing.

Growing older, we learn to lower our expectations in people and situations, and we end up settling for the reality that if we are really lucky, we can find purpose and meaning in our life. We hold on to that until we realize that even purpose alone cannot satisfy the deep longings created by the complexity of the human soul. This sentiment was perhaps best expressed by the aged and gritty Rolling Stone philosopher who declared, I can’t get no satisfaction!

The life we currently live is as God declares, but a vapor; it is here today and gone tomorrow. Therefore, it is perplexing, to say the least, how much time people spend on their physical bodies now, which is in the very process of dying, and how little time people spend thinking about where they will go once their earthly existence comes to an end. The fact that we spend infinitely more time on the other side of that deathly vale than on this side of it, is the great lie people have bought into. The reality that people are so invested in their physical health that they will go to great lengths to extend their lives either medically or surgically, proves they don’t have a zeal for life, but rather, a tremendous fear of death.

The fear of death has been terrifying the unsaved for millennia. People of all cultures and ethnicities have gone on to create all sorts of elaborate rituals and schemes to obfuscate the reality of death or redefine the afterlife. The Vikings had Valhalla, to which they could only enter if they died heroically in battle. The Hindus taught reincarnation, in that death was not the end, only an endless cycle of death and rebirth. The Muslims believe in paradise and their arbitrary 72 virgins. Roman Catholicism teaches salvation through purgatory. Atheists believe in annihilationism. The Bible, however, declares that upon our last breath, and our last heartbeat, we enter into the realm eternal.

And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation. Hebrews 9:27-28

Seeing as how death has been sort of a permanent mainstay in human history, it would seem to lend credence to the second half of the passage. We live. We die. We are judged by God. For the unbeliever, there is no recycling, no raucous, beer-laden Valhalla, no virgin-filled paradise, and no self-flagellating purgatory. It’s one and done, and then eternal separation from their Creator. For the believer, we are judged at the Bema Judgment, and then we spend the rest of eternity with our Creator.

While many of us feel as though we have done dreadfully little on account of the Gospel which saved us (in comparison to what we receive in return), we continue to work, to witness, and to be the kind of people Christ called us to be. We do this even if we do not see the fruits of our labor or the worldly rewards in this life. To this point, the writer of Hebrews, detailing the life of the faithful patriarchs, concluded that-

These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them. Hebrews 12:13-16

Admittedly, the Christian life here is hard. I would venture to say that being a Christian in the 21st century is even harder, and why, so many are turning from the faith. G.K. Chesterton once said, the Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried. Jesus promised us that in this life, we will have tribulation. He promised us that if we love Him more than the world, the world will hate us. In his epistles, the Apostle Paul taught us this world is not only, not our home, but is in fact, a battlefield. A battlefield in which we contend not with flesh and blood enemies, but dark, malevolent, and vicious spirits bent on only on our destruction.

While we take no personal trophies on our own accord, or in our own strength, we rest in the triumph Christ already wrought upon the cross some two thousand years ago. And though it seems like we are insignificant and unwanted in this world (we are), it is only a façade put on by our mortal enemy, Satan, who is still furious that in crucifying the Son of God, he sealed his own fate.

It is at that moment of death, in which, Satan has long delighted in taking those who have not yet claimed the free gift of salvation from Christ that separates our faith from any other. Paul writes that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8). Instead of meeting sneering demons, who gleefully drag those poor souls into hell below, we know that at our own moment of death, we will be greeted by God’s holy angels, ready to escort us to our heavenly abode (Luke 16:22).

While in our flesh, we might delight in the much-deserved death of the wicked, God does not. He is longsuffering that all might come to salvation, and thus, has delayed Christ’s long-overdue victory lap all these centuries so that one more lost sheep might be brought back into the fold. Thus we contend with this fallen world, and are persecuted, discredited, censored, silenced, belittled, abused, and murdered as those who Christ describes in His parable of the Wedding Feast (Matt. 22).

Although God is longsuffering, His patience is not limitless. At some point (and we think soon), we will arrive at that fullness of times, when the full number of Gentiles are brought into the body of Christ (Rom. 11:25). It is at this point that even we, a generation of believers, will not taste even the bittersweet agony of death, but will instantly, put on immortality, and fly away to meet our loved ones and our Lord in the air (1 Thess. 4:13-18, 1 Cor. 15:51-56).

Lastly, while we don’t fully understand everything going on in the backdrop of our lives, we can trust in our God to be faithful (2 Tim. 2:13). He is faithful because it is His nature to be, and He has promised us that we can trust in His plan of redemption. Therefore, death is not the end for us, but the very beginning, of an infinite, and glorious future (Eph. 2:4-7).

Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal. 2 Cor. 4:16-18

AMEN!

Do not ever let these works based cultists ever tell you that you must “do” something to earn favor with Christ.

It’s a lie from the pit of hell.

Ignore the trolls too. They only come here to try to steal your joy in Salvation through Christ. They don’t share that salvation so they must attack you. It’s an old tactic of the father of lies.

Jesus hated Pharisee types if you read the gospels.

Thank you for continuing to prove EVERYTHING that has been said about you and your elitist cult!

Why don't you be honest for once and admit it galls you to think that there are Christians who disagree with your cult's interpretation of Scripture, who genuinely love the Lord, believe in the promises of God, demonstrate in their lives that they love God through living holy lives in obedience to Him through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit and WILL be in heaven for eternity because of God's grace? Here you strive to make yourself worthy by your works when it is clear as day that we CANNOT EVER BE WORTHY OR DESERVE SALVATION. That is why it is by grace we are saved and NOT our works. You are trusting in your deeds to save you and they NEVER can!

You accuse me of teaching "that Christians have a license to sin and that there is no PENALTY for unrepentant sin" which I have NEVER done - that DOES make you a liar and a false accuser! Show the post where I did that - you can't and you will bluster and huff some excuse for why you can't. Your pride has blinded you from understanding what GRACE means, just like the Pharisee in Jesus' example. It is not a license to sin with no consequences. Rather, it is the unmerited favor of God by which He gives us eternal life when we place our trust in Him. It is a new birth by which the Holy Spirit indwells us until the day of redemption, convicts us of sin, spurs us to live holy lives that honor God, to walk in newness of life not to be saved but because we are saved. And part of that grace is the discipline of our Heavenly Father who chastens, corrects and nurtures us as He is conforming us into the image of Christ. Those "consequences" you claim we say don't exist ARE part of God's work within our hearts. What you refuse to accept is that the consequence of hell - of actually losing our eternal salvation because of what we may do - is NOT one of them. When He saves us, HE saves us for eternity because if we are not saved by our works, we cannot be kept saved by our works either. Perhaps one day you will get it.

I still pray for you that your spiritual eyes are opened and you come to genuine faith in Christ and are saved. Then you will rejoice in the assurance of your salvation and serve God out of gratitude for His unspeakable gift rather than obligation and fear.

To: boatbums

Sounds like you are not going to answer the question. That must mean that you don’t have an answer that will refute my claim that your position means that there is no penalty for unrepentant sin, and that is tantamount to a license to sin, if that saved person so wishes (and many do). You called me a liar, falsely. Then, you tried to cover it up by refusing to answer the question or saying you and your crew have answered it multiple times but I just don’t comprehend it or simply refuse to believe (more lies and bearing false witness) because you know what the answer really is. And, there goes your once saved, always saved, no matter what happens later in that life, creed. Yes, that means that you bore false witness against me. Some kind of Christian you are, aren’t you? You could have just answered the question and let the chips fall where they may. But then you would have been boxed into a corner, right? You probably figured that one out pretty quick, didn’t you?

444 posted on 8/22/2021, 10:05:33 PM by Philsworld

To: metmom

Oh, and for that matter, I have STILL not received an answer from any of you on what the PENALTY for UNREPENTANT sin is. BB says there’s as penalty but she won’t tell me what it is. MHG says NOPE, there’s no penalty. You all say you told me but I just can’t comprehend.

You already told me in which post? (and don’t give me that crap answer about disfellowship). If you (BB) call someone a liar you had better back it up. SO BACK IT UP.

That’s what I thought.

416 posted on 8/22/2021, 9:09:16 AM by Philsworld

To: MHGinTN

MHG, try to follow this simple logic. I was included in the group that BB called LIARS. Based on multiple posts of your side saying a Christian can’t sin (the Spirit indwelling can’t but the flesh can, maybe) and that ALL saved Christians will be in heaven, EVEN IF THEY CONTINUE TO SIN UNREPENTANTLY, I said that was essentially a license to sin, BECAUSE THERE IS NO PENALTY for wantonly committing lawlessness. BB says that there IS a penalty for Christians that sin (unrepentantly) “It doesn’t seem to matter how many times we have said we are NOT saying “Christians...have a license to sin without penalty, to commit lawlessness” BUT SHE WON’T SAY WHAT IT IS!

If there is no PENALTY for UNREPENTANT sin, then a Christian has a LICENSE TO SIN (like Ravi). They can commit whatever sin they want AFTER they are “saved” and they are STILL going to heaven. To them, “God’s law has been made of none effect”. They are LAWLESS. It is as if Christ’s death on the cross now means nothing. Christ kept the law perfectly as a human on earth, and died for our sins, AS THE LAW DEMANDED (blood must be shed and out of love for us, Christ took our place). The human race now has a chance at salvation. Committing UNREPENTANT sin is like spitting in Christ’s face. If we love Him (for what he did for us on the cross), he tells us to KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS. If not, you are a LIAR.

BB says “no, there IS a penalty for sinning. Those guys who say we are NOT saying Christians...have a license to sin WITHOUT PENALTY, to commit lawlessness, ARE LYING”

So, WHAT’S THE PENALTY for sinning UNREPENTANTLY? (I am not talking about sin where the person is contrite and confesses to God and asks forgiveness AND THEN asks the Holy Spirit indwelling in him to empower him to resist further sin and live as a Christian should. Do you understand the difference? Your post 336 shows that you do not.)

I AM SPECIFICALLY ASKING “WHAT IS THE PENALTY FOR A SAVED CHRISTIAN THAT CONTINUES TO SIN UNREPENTANTLY?”

There is either a PENALTY or there is not. Which is it, and what is it?

337 posted on 8/20/2021, 9:09:12 PM by Philsworld

No, it’s grace, THEN obedience.

Here's some more "gibberish" for you:

For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace. (Galatians 5:4)

They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not understand what they are saying or that which they so confidently assert. Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it legitimately. We realize that law is not enacted for the righteous, but for the lawless and rebellious, for the ungodly and sinful, for the unholy and profane, for killers of father or mother, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for homosexuals, for slave traders and liars and perjurers, and for anyone else who is averse to sound teaching that agrees with the glorious gospel of the blessed God, with which I have been entrusted. (I Timothy 1:7-11)

Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. (II Corinthians 1:21,22)

Commentary on Galatians 5:4

The position some take, that Paul here affirms the arbitrary withdrawal of God’s grace because of certain acts of sin, is without scriptural support. The loss of divine favor results from the voluntary act of the one who forfeits it. God bars no one from the blessings of salvation except those who bar themselves (see Eze. 18:23, 31; 33:11; 2 Peter 3:9; see on John 3:17–20; Eph. 1:4–6). The context of the statement shows clearly that the responsibility rests wholly with those who deliberately reject salvation by faith for salvation by works. It is not a matter of God forsaking men, but of men turning away from Him and rejecting to all who will turn from their willful ways (see John 3:16; 1 John 1:9). One who has fallen from God’s grace is always—and only—one who has willfully chosen a course of conduct he knows to be contrary to the will of God. This is the deplorable state of many professed Christians today. This condition is the result of a desire to follow the natural inclinations of the human heart—to enjoy the pleasures of sin—instead of heeding the promptings of God’s Spirit. Until such persons commit the unpardonable sin by persistent rejection of the promptings of the Spirit (see on Matt. 12:31, 32, 43–45), there is hope that they may be restored to grace.

Paul here specifically and emphatically denies another popular but altogether unscriptural teaching commonly expressed in the words, “once in grace, always in grace.” This, in turn, is based on another unscriptural teaching, according to which God has predestined certain persons to be saved and others to be lost, irrespective of their own choice in the matter. For a discussion of the true nature of Biblical predestination see on John 3:17–20; Eph. 1:4–6. According to the popular concept of predestination, those whom God has elected to salvation cannot possibly fall from divine grace because their right to it has been guaranteed by God. By a parity of reasoning those whom God has foreordained to damnation can never attain to divine grace, and consequently can never fall from it. Corollary to this is the conclusion that those who appear to have fallen from grace only appear to have done so, since they have never actually attained to it. Suffice it to say that only by taking the words of Gal. 5:4 completely out of their context is it possible to make them appear to sustain such a conclusion (see on vs. 1–4). In reality, this theory—the theory of so-called divine decrees—ignores all the plain statements of Scripture that point to the human will as the decisive factor in the salvation of any and every man. See such passages of Scripture as Isa. 55:1; Eze. 18:21–30; 33:12, 13; Luke 5:32; John 6:37; cf. John 7:37; 12:32; Rom. 10:13; 11:20–23; 1 Cor. 9:27; Rev. 22:17. The doctrine that God foreordains some men to salvation and others to destruction, irrespective of their choice in the matter, is clearly incompatible with these statements of Holy Writ. Thus the corollary teaching that a man cannot fall from grace—that when once “in grace” he is “always in grace”—proves to be a human invention. SDA Bible Commentary

If it controls everything then why do morons overdose and die in spite of their DNA? Or are you trying to say you have zero control over your own action and DNA determines everything.

Your DNA is YOU!

It determines your intelligence and your looks and your protections from the environment, and it determines how long you will live.

DNA cannot protect you from accidents or the environment. Morons become morons by making bad decisions, and even the smartest people on the planet can make bad decisions.

Longevity, no matter how much you might dislike the idea, is determined from inception. Living longer than the predetermined longevity in your DNA, does not mean that your DNA was somehow irrelevant or made irrelevant by external actions.

It's all in the DESIGN, and we were not made to live forever. People get old, and we can't do anything about it, other than trying to look younger through cosmetic manipulation or better eating/drinking habits. We will all die, as predetermined, even if we can somehow get around it for a few years.

I don't want to die, and you don't want to die, and most people in the world don't want to die. Living longer is made possible through medicines and medical procedures and having good eating/drinking habits. But, you can't undo the predetermined age for your death, even if you get to live a bit past your "DEATHline".

DNA is what you are. And you can't undo your DNA, but, your DNA can be helped a bit, and you will die at or around your DNA defined end.

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.