We, humans, because we are innately made mortal, whether subconsciously or on purpose seek to make ourselves immortal whether it be literally through the positions we hold in life, whether by title, career, money or anything that will give us a sense of immortality (being a god). This is our denial of death.
Even religion can be just another way to seek immortality in our attempt to deny our mortality. I say religion as differing from true trust in someone outside of one's self which is what true Christianity is suppose to be, but in large part as seen is not. It is largely based on "personal belief" systems to gain immortality. It is not based on the story the Bible shows mankind, but some select verses to believe in that will save you as a man, grant you immortality, and because of your "belief" make you a god, over others who do not believe. Thus your god, and I use the little "g" to differentiate between yourself and the Creator, is but another invention of yourself as a god and in order to do that, you must always have those who are not gods. Our nature is to deny life to others while granting it to ourselves, because our faith is in our definition of our faith rather in the CREATOR himself, so anything that would threaten that, drives us to be sure, to have something that separates us from those "like myself that believe" from those that unlike myself "that do not believe."
The foundation of that has to be "because I believe I am saved." Thus making ourselves once more a god, denying God as the ALL POWERFUL ONE and ALL LOVING ONE WHO SAVES. We change it to "I must believe" to be saved.
Which is to say,as most "chirstians believe" if the " I" ( my human will ( god likeness) ) is not exercised God is unable to save me or anyone else.
I ask was it by your will you came into this world, and is it by your will you will be able to keep yourself from going out of this world? Of course not, thus what good does your human will do you?
Is it your will that MAKES you sin, or something outside of your will? Can you make yourself walk in perfection to the Mosaic Law or even the law of love? I think experience tells you that isn't true either and even the Word of God tells you that isn't true. So how shall you save yourself, oh Man?
You cannot save yourself from the same experience all men will have, even Jesus suffered it, the end of yourself as you know yourself and others know you now. PHYSICAL DEATH, the ceasing of your present cognitive abilities to see, feel, hear,touch and speak, etc.
YOU WILL DIE. so why do you deny it?
Your situation hasn't changed from anyone else - Death still knocks on your door.
So in seeing that is true, we yet have to and seek to deny our deaths, by creating once more division between us and someone else, since we can show a difference there, we must now turn from literal denial to symbolic denial. (so we can be gods and others not) So that we can be immortal.
Thus we find comfort in the doctrine of eternal torment. It keeps us in our status of a god, I BELIEVE, and therefore THEY DON'T , therefore they have not SAVED THEMSELVES AS I HAVE.
It is still a subconscious means for you to be a god and deny your death and yet be immortal while others are not.
Why will that work for you?
Why do you insist on it as a necessity belief to be saved?
I will tell you why, because as long as you hold to that belief, and that is really what your faith in faith is.
It also enables you to attempt to prove your are right that BELIEF saves you by using something to SCARE people into believing like you. It is the same way, that governments use the threat of force against other governments that may oppose their culture and politics. The same way men use any power over others to achieve and sustain they are right and everyone else is wrong, and thus they remain a god, but truly only believe like that if they can get more people believing what they believe thereby proving they are "a god" and immortal, for see MAJORITY proves it.
It is not a trust in the God that is love and that created all men to love, but it is in something that is an unknown factor that one can only surmise at, and not prove, or even show in the story of Jesus death.
If the wages of sin is eternal torment, then surely if Jesus paid the debt of our sins, then doesn't it surmise that He should be in "your hell" still being tormented? Of course He is not, He paid God himself - in the flesh, our debt which is death physically and even more then that, and Jesus died being separated from the Father, that some how majestically brought forgiveness to us from God, and enables us to forgive God for the mess we are in.
To see that in both actions God is love, it's not about the punishment Jesus received, but about the life He gave to know what death is, and means to us as humans, and how and why it effected our view of God, it delivers us from seeing God as evil (unlike the teachings of the "belief' and retribution and deterrence theologians do, they present a schizophrenic God) but gives us the full view of God, as ALL POWERFUL AND ALL LOVING.
They say they believe God is one, yet they have the Father as He must punish someone to get satisfaction before He can forgive them, and then we have God the Son, who says, I will die so that they might live, I will love them into my Kingdom, by letting MYSELF be punished?
Telling us see God loves you so much, then if you don't believe that Jesus took the whacking you deserve, then you are going to take something worse then what He did, you will be tormented in your flesh (?) FOREVER,
I am confused already, aren't you?
I still haven't figured that one out, seeing I have seen bodies that have been burned as a Firefighter, they are burned up and dead. Most importantly on top of all that in order for people to have that punishment they too would have to be granted "immortality."
Meaning they have life and not death, which would be contradictory to the passage they hold to as proof of eternal torment, which is the passage in Revelation regarding the Lake of Fire, which is defined right there what it means, but they read over it, because they have been blinded by tradition and CAN'T see truth.
This is what it reads: Revelation 20:14
Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire This IS the second death, the lake of fire.
Whenever one sees the word IS what is about to follow is the definition of the what preceded it.
The Lake of Fire is the second death.. so if they are being tossed into death, how can they yet be alive?
Then we see before all this passage:
Revelation 20:14
Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire This is the second death, the lake of fire.
So hell is destroyed by hell? Geez.... figure that one out.
I am confused already, aren't you?
Which one is GOD? God is LOVE or is it GOD IS HATE as they teach and carry that teaching on into their eternal torment theology.
How could anyone accept that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son with that kind of theological and eschatological garbage being put out by those that are supposed to be His people?
They make God sound like someone who needs to be on a psycho - pharmaceutical, to arrest or at least ease his Schizophrenia. They are sadly themselves deluded, this is not the God of the Bible but the delusion God sent them who love not the truth.
2 Thessalonians 2:11
And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
God number one, full of wrath and demanding he must have some justice, isn't physical death the justice he gave us all, isn't it enough, it is of course, but because of it, we could no longer relate to God, spiritually. Even though we still had spirit, the breath of life, we only related to God in fear, now because our own inevitable deaths made us fearful of Him. We could then only relate to God, by the things we brought into this world, good and evil, but that which men no matter which way he swings on that tree, always still ends up doing evil. So in the end, the human mind, the carnal mind viewed God as such, that because this world is that way, God must be. WRONG!
God told Adam that day surely you shall die! That is the consequence of disobeying God's law, this is revealed to us throughout the Old Testament, and in life itself!
So God comes to deliver us from ALL that by dying as well, experiencing our deaths which gave us spiritual inability to perceive of Who God is, and His intentions for us, our significance in other words.
Why did you create us God for what purpose if we but just die?
It can't be proved per se, that men's hell exist or doesn't exist, it only comes into existence because it is what you need to maintain your god like status of other men. It allows you to see yourself as immortal, as a god, thereby denying your mortality. So you have managed as I did for years, to take certain passages of Scripture BRAINLESSLY, and use them to try to PROOF TEXT your theory and hypothesis so other people will be as scared as you , or at least come alongside you to strengthen your "god' status to prove you are right, and your BELIEF in BELIEF will hold true for you to get your well deserved heaven and no hell, because YOU BELIEVED> you are a god now. Let me bow before you! NOT!
What if the only way to gain immortality is to know the ONLY ONE who is Immortal, to have intimate knowledge of Him and the Son He sent. What if it was all about our relationship in the here and now to Him, others and ourselves, and not being saved from your hell later to your heaven later.
What?
You thought in your believing something you would gain immortality.
I hate to disappoint you, but let's believe the Word of God first and foremost.
Here it is that will punch a hole in your belief to get immortality or that men have immortality, which you have to have to go to hell or heaven.
1 Timothy 6:15-17
He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen.
What ? You don't possess immortal life?
Does that scare you?
I hope so, because you don't!
What? Grandma isn't seeing God with her eyes right now in heaven while floating on a cloud with her angel wings playing a harp?
NOPE, she isn't sorry to say.
But I don't want to leave you without hope for Grandma or yourself.
I want to continue here to show you more than a hope, or a theology of your FAITH that saves you or the eschatology of your heaven or hell that scares you into submission of lips but gives you NO power of will to do that which is Godly, Holy or Righteous.
Only God is IMMORTAL, and man is NOT IMMORTAL and was not created IMMORTAL.
If man obtains any immortality it is because -He Christ the IMMORTAL ONE has graced us immortality because He is Spirit and in the beginning gave us LIFE and then in the end, put us into that life, for HE poured out HIS SPIRIT upon ALL FLESH.
Outside of that NO MAN HAS IMMORTALITY that he may grant himself.
To go one place or another.
He cannot save Himself, whether he believes or doesn't believe.
No more than He can choose when to be born and when to die.
ALL IS THE HANDS OF THE FATHER.
Does that scare you, that your will is of no account, I hope it does!
The amazing thing about truth, is it always stirs the self righteous indignation of those who don't want to hear it. They are angry because you have attacked their stronghold to which their faith is in in truth- THEMSELVES. Not the God of the Universe, but the god of SELF.
So, if we have a wrong perception of the Father right from the start, then yes, we are going to believe in a mean and full of hate Creator who wishes to destroy or harm man for infinity for some finite sins, but worse then that, we get it because ADAM did it to us, and we had no choice yet between the TREE OF ETERNAL LIFE and the TREE Humans live on, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now that truly reveals a God of Justice and Love, doesn't it?
Blame Eve really she was the one busy in the day talking to a beast.
Maybe if she would have had kids, she wouldn't have had time for such conversations and the world would have never got in the shape it is. Of course, I am being humorous here, and facetious. Ladies I am not trying to disparage you, neither was Paul of the New Testament.
Jesus did more for women's equality then ever was done by all the religions in the world, and present "christian religion' does.
To ASSUME that all men are made immortal and die immortal and go to a heaven or hell is going beyond Scripture.
That is not what the STORY IS ABOUT... immortality is a GIFT, and we ALL RECEIVE IT ONLY AS A GIFT not because of what we believe but whom we were CREATED FOR.... and BY!
That gift was unavailable without our slavery to sin, the fear of death and the power of sin -devil being conquered first and foremost for our lives.
Yet, immortality means you have life and never will die?
True immortality is this, no BEGINNING AND NO END, as seen in the Father, but then we see something else with the Son, in the flesh, which we can relate to, He had a physical beginning as we do, but born from God, He had a life lived, but from the Father, He had a death He died, but with the Father, He had a resurrection by the love of the Father, and He now has immortality and power, because He is present with the Father. Yet, he was human while on this earth in every thought and action. It is this humanity lived out by God the Creator, as God the Creator intended for us, that alas gives us not only the Story of God's intention but Jesus then gives us the RESTORATION for all of God's Creation to be like Him, to live as He did, to die as He did, to be resurrected like He did, and to be glorified as a Son or child of the Father.
It's His story told, that is all of our story to unfold.
ALL BECAUSE OF JESUS!
In other words to be immortal you go on living forever, and we see God never died, in the sense, of being immortal, but we see Jesus in the sense of being both God and Man did.
We see God becoming man, and tasting our physical death as well, but in the end we see Jesus victorious!
Was Jesus raised because He was God, or because He was man?
Or was He raised because He was the GOD/MAN and just what does that mean?
Here is a thought for you to consider.
If God who is Spirit has poured Himself, the same Spirit poured out upon ALL FLESH at Pentecost, then what has happened to you as a human?
This:
2 Peter 1:3-5
"seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.
For by these
He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.
Jesus the man, but also God (a mystery still to the mind) tasted death - spiritual death for us, so that we might not taste spiritual death, the SECOND DEATH. The Lake of Fire.
In other words, He died our death physically and spiritually so He could give us Spiritual life in our physical lives in the here and now, and that though the BODY IS DEAD BECAUSE OF SIN, when we are finally freed from it in physical death.
The very life of God will be all of our lives forever more...
- Romans 8:11
But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. - 1 Corinthians 15:53
For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. - 1 Corinthians 15:54
But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, " DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory. - 2 Corinthians 4:11
For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. - 2 Corinthians 5:4
For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life.
We are still in this tent but you see....WE SEE JESUS CONQUEROR OVER THE" POWER OF SIN" (the Devil)l, over our slavery to it, because He has removed our fear of death. SIN is that which produces and produced the FEAR OF DEATH.
How do we obtain that understanding we see it through forgiveness, we see, that God has forgiven us ALL of our sins, and in that His death alone, ALL ARE FORGIVEN and thus restored to life, for which He created us for HIM.
So our own deaths physically would be a contradiction of innate immortality, wouldn't it?
So what immortality is it that God grants, physical life forever?
We know that not to be true, for even Jesus could not remain among us in the flesh, even after the resurrection.
Though here he was in a resurrected body, only so that He could show the Disciples He had been raised from the dead, not for us to build a doctrine on about physical resurrection, for Paul didn't see Christ that way, He saw Him how he now is. Unapproachable LIGHT.... as described in another passage I put in this article. It blinded Him, so he didn't see but He heard the voice of GOD speak no less then Moses did.
Jesus had to ascend to the Father, So that He could truly come to us, to remain with us, by sending the Spirit.
Spiritual Life is IMMORTAL LIFE, and it can't be seen, touched or handled anymore.
Jesus could while he was here, he told the Disciples this:
"We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work.
(Audience Relevance Again, please when reading these passages)
which simply means to whom was he speaking?Was he speaking to you and me some 2,000 years later or the Disciples?
To the Disciples of course! but this was for us as well, as it will lead to us understanding why the Holy Spirit was to come.
"While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world."
and herein is the reason He left. Let us see the reason HE LEAVES
TO SEND THE HOLY SPIRIT
John 16:7-11
"But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.
8"And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment;
9concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me;
10and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me;
11and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.
Who was the ruler of THIS WORLD... the old Adamic Nature, Sin and the power of sin ie; the Devil, and ALAS DEATH which is our mortality will be swallowed up in victory and it is in our knowing that He was victorious so shall we be.
1 Timothy 1:17
Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.
So my friend, where or how will man obtain immortality since it wasn't a given, or nor shall be a given by our nature of being human or by our willing it so.
2 Timothy 1:10
but now has been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,
Yes, my friend He abolished DEATH and brought LIFE. But how can this be so, since we still all die physically?
Because the DEATH He abolished is our spiritual death. Which is the second death, the Lake of Fire.
He wrote all our names down in the BOOK OF LIFE... thus the grave and death, is thrown into that death, it holds no more power to make us fear, it is swallowed up in victory, by Christ and therefore it shall be for us as well.
The Beast (serpent) and the False Prophet have been cast into the Second Death, the Lake of Fire where THEY WILL BE TORMENTED DAY AND NIGHT.
For you see they are not beings, but the power of sin, and it's partner the fear of death that it brings that kept us as slaves to sin..
For us who know Him, we understand these things, and are not drawn off into the vain carnal imaginations of men.
In our fellowship with Him who is Spirit, He reveals that which is SPIRITUAL and not CARNAL.
Seek Christ and not IMMORTALITY for you see HE IS IMMORTALITY and in having Him, here and now, WE HAVE LIFE.
We are so blessed that God so loved us, He left us a written testimony of the STORY, and not a book that we can find immortal life in, but a book that testifies of IMMORTAL LIFE- JESUS CHRIST- the LIVING WORD.
1 John 1:1
What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life--
A short poem from the Spirit
My heart sings with joy
my eyes behold His glory
My ears hear the singing
of the salvation he is bringing
I see in the world
His mighty Hand
I see the Spirit works
to bring in ALL men.
What a glorious Savior we have and what a marvelous CREATOR HE IS.
Joseph W. Black D.D.
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