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Let's break the response down into two parts, Dean.
Part #1:Are you aware that the majority of believing Bible scholars no longer
support this 'teaching'? Are you also aware of the history of this teaching
throughout the last 2,000 years? Are you comfortable with fellow believers
coming to a thoughtful understanding of this 'teaching' that differs from your
own?
----- Original Message -----
Sent: January 15, 2006 08:17
Subject: Re: [TruthTalk]
Differences
----- Original Message -----
Sent: 1/15/2006 6:46:56 AM
Subject: Re: [TruthTalk]
Differences
Any errors in the passage, Dean? No, I know of
none. Any errors in the interpretation, Dean? YES!
Dean:IMO, JT & DM occupy a position wherein
they believe that their 'reading' of Scripture is 'inspired'. IMO, they
believe that God has promised such an 'inspired' reading to be available to
all true believers. IFF I've not mischaracterized them (I'm open to
correction on this) then, this is a rather huge error! This is particularly
important for DM as he believes himself to be a 'prophet' of some sort.
Also, he is in a position to influence the thinking of many. All this to
say, Dean, that those who hold to such an understanding are not likely open
to any correction whatsoever. Dangerous stuff, Dean! Therefore, I wouldn't
want to dissuade you from this 'rapture thingy' should it matter much to
you.
cd: Yes Lance what you offer matters to me as
I am here to learn and to offer what help I can to others as this is
what my master ordered.Having said that back to the passage in question
Thess 4:13-18. How do you interpret this passage to mean? The wording is
speaking of a future event and actually states :" For if we believe that
Christ died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God
bring with him"-what else can this mean. Lance I read you saying we are
wrong but you don't offer no reason why we are wrong nor offer any other
interpretation-please do so.Lance this was written in the late 1700(s) by
Adam Clark which I believe is connected to Rev. 19:7-10 which I am
copying in the below.John will find verse 10
interesting.
1Th 4:18 -
Comfort one another with these words - Strange saying! comfort a
man with the information that he is going to appear before the
judgment-seat of God! Who can feel comfort from these words? That man
alone with whose spirit the Spirit of God bears witness that his sins are
blotted out, and the thoughts of whose heart are purified by the
inspiration of Gods Holy Spirit, so that he can perfectly love him, and
worthily magnify his name. Reader, thou art not in a safe state unless it
be thus with thee, or thou art hungering and thirsting after
righteousness. If so, thou shalt be filled; for it is impossible that thou
shouldst be taken away in thy sins, while mourning after the salvation of
God. They that seek shall find.
cd: And what words are we to comfort each other with?
1Th 4:16 -
The Lord himself - That is: Jesus Christ shall descend from heaven;
shall descend in like manner as he was seen by his disciples to ascend,
i.e. in his human form, but now infinitely more glorious; for thousands of
thousands shall minister unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand
shall stand before him; for the Son of man shall come on the throne of his
glory: but who may abide the day of his coming, or stand when he
appeareth?
With a shout - Or order, e? ?e?e?sµat?? and probably in
these words: Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment; which order shall be
repeated by the archangel, who shall accompany it with the sound of the
trump of God, whose great and terrible blasts, like those on mount Sinai,
sounding louder and louder, shall shake both the heavens and the
earth!
Observe the order of this terribly glorious day:
1. Jesus, in all the dignity and splendor of his eternal majesty, shall
descend from heaven to the mid region, what the apostle calls the air,
somewhere within the earths atmosphere.
2. Then the ?e?e?sµa, shout or order, shall be given for
the dead to arise.
3. Next the archangel, as the herald of Christ, shall repeat the order,
Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment!
4. When all the dead in Christ are raised, then the trumpet shall
sound, as the signal for them all to flock together to the throne of
Christ. It was by the sound of the trumpet that the solemn assemblies,
under the law, were convoked; and to such convocations there appears to be
here an allusion.
5. When the dead in Christ are raised, their vile bodies being made
like unto his glorious body, then,
6. Those who are alive shall be changed, and made immortal.
7. These shall be caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the
air.
8. We may suppose that the judgment will now be set, and the books
opened, and the dead judged out of the things written in those books.
9. The eternal states of quick and dead being thus determined, then all
who shall be found to have made a covenant with him by sacrifice, and to
have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb,
shall be taken to his eternal glory, and be for ever with the Lord. What
an inexpressibly terrific glory will then be exhibited! I forbear to call
in here the descriptions which men of a poetic turn have made of this
terrible scene, because I cannot trust to their correctness; and it is a
subject which we should speak of and contemplate as nearly as possible in
the words of Scripture.
Rev 19:7 Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor
to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made
herself ready.
Rev 19:8 And to her was granted that she should be
arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the
righteousness of saints.
Rev 19:9 And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed
are they
which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto
me, These are the true sayings of God.
Rev 19:10 And I fell at his feet to worship him.
And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellow servant, and of thy
brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony
of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.
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