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Dear Ones,
With all bickering aside, the
Bible, Genesis to Revelation, is what I rely upon. The Apocrypha adds
historical insight. The Lord has not led me to trust claims of additional
revelation. Usually, supporters of such writings say that there is no
contradiction with the Bible, but I have not found this to be so. I prefer
to reference the Bible, which is at least common ground to those who make claims
to extra-biblical inspiration.
In the Bible, I have been noticing scriptures that do not
line up with any particular faith or creed or group's doctrine. I am just
trying to understand them. Much of the difficulty has to do with
semantics, and language. Other difficulties arise from the infusion
of the world's religions and philosophy into this thing called
"Christianity." It is hard to rally under the banner of a title, first
attributed to the followers of Jesus by outsiders in Antioch, when there are
thousands of ideas that are attributed to that title.
Here are a few interesting findings:
The word for angel means messenger and is used
to refer to John the Baptist. Thus it can refer to men in the flesh,
as well as supernatural beings that serve God.
When the Septuagint is quoted in the new Testament by its
writers, the word for the plural Hebrew word God, Elohim, is
translated "angels."
The word archangel is always used with the definite
article "the," and is always singular, referring to Michael. In most
references to Michael, whose name means "he who is like God," the same can be
applied to the works of the being who became Jesus Christ. He could
be referred to as the arch messenger, since He is the Word. The one part
that does not seem to fit is where Michael contends for the body of Moses,
unless it was a jurisdictional matter rather than a matter of
might.
DNL 8:16 And I heard a man's voice
between [the banks of] Ulai,
which
called, and said, Gabriel, make this [man] to understand the vision. DNL 9:21 Yea, whiles I [was] speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me about the time of the evening oblation. LUK 1:19 And the angel answering said unto him, I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to shew thee these glad tidings. "But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one
and
twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia" (Daniel 10:13). "But I will shew thee that which is noted in the scripture
of
truth: and [there is] none that holdeth with me in these things, but Michael your prince" (Daniel 10:21). "And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince
which
standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation [even] to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book" (Daniel 12:1). In addition to being called the Son of
God, Jesus is called the Son of Man, descended from Adam, the son of
God. Men are called the sons of God, and sons of men.
Although many times when an angel appears he looks
like a man, and I have never noticed where one looked like a woman, there are
definitely some weird creatures with many wings and many eyes, called Cherubim,
a plural word.
There are "fellow servants" in the vision of John, in
Revelations, whom he tried to bow before.
Fallen angels, called demons or devils, were everywhere
during the time Jesus walked the earth, yet, except for some "Pentecostal,"
or Charismatic flavors of Christians, these are not acknowledged nor
discerned much today.
Aside from these crossover uses of terms, I do believe
that there is a domain of spirit beings that is composed of angels.
Humans in the after life are compared to them in Mark 12, where it is said that
we will neither marry nor be given in marriage, like the angels. I see
nowhere in the Bible that anyone is transformed from that domain of beings
into the domain of sons of men or sons of God, or vise
versa.
Comments?
Marlin
I am so confused If Jesus was an angel then how could he be God??? Laura |
- Re: ****** SPAM ***** Re: [TruthTalk] Is the Bible Comple... CHamm56114
- Marlin Halverson
