Brakelite, I am following your logic here and meditating on it. For now I have questions. If the dead know nothing then how did Abel speak being dead? How was the gospel preached to the dead?
Hi Gary. I will presume as did agua that the verse you speak of in question is Genesis 4:10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.Let us not add more to the text than is already there. The Lord said that
thy brother's blood cries....not
thy brother cries....therefore the voice of blood must be a metaphor for the demand to He who gave life that justice be made on behalf of the victim who lost life.
As for the spirits in prison, the same rule must apply. Do not read into those texts more than God has already been pleased to reveal. Allow me to quote, again what agua suggested, the verses I think you are referring to.
1 Peter 3:18 ¶ For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:
19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;
20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
There are 3 theories that men claim that Peter was teaching in these texts.
1. That Peter was referring to disembodied spirits of people who lived before the flood, the antidelvians.
2. That these antideluvians must have been conscious to hear the preaching, thus this is proof that men are conscious in death.
3. That this preaching was accomplished by Jesus in person during the 3 days Jesus body resided in the tomb.
The problem with these assertions is that they cannot be made to harmonise with the clear consistent teaching in the rest of scripture on the subject of the state of the dead. Your questions regarding this text can be cleared up quite simply by answering a few fundamental questions.
#1.
When was this preaching done?
The scripture says it was "in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing". It was "when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah". (Verse 20). The preaching then did not take place 1000s of years later when those antideluvians were long dead.
#2.
How was this preaching done?
Quite clearly the scripture says "by the Spirit"....
by the Spirit:
19 By which also he went and preached....therefore the preaching was accomplished by the ministry of Noah, who preached for 120 years while he built the ark. Noah was Christ's representative, and a type of Christ. Christ, by His Spirit, preached through Noah in an attempt to save those sinners who in the end refused the call to repentance and died in the flood. Elsewhere Peter wrote:
1 Peter 1:10 ¶ Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you:
11 Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify,
Noah was a prophet, and Peter is here saying that the prophets had in them the Spirit of Christ. And in 2 Peter 2:5 Peter calls Noah a preacher of righteousness. Noah, filled with the Holy Spirit, was Christ's spokesman preaching to the doomed antideluvians.
#3.
Why was this preaching done?
If the preaching was done to dead peopleby Jesus in person 2000 years ago, the implications are rather confusing and illogical. What message could he possibly bring to them? Would He be offering them a second chance? Despite the teaching of Noah that they stubbornly rejected, why give them another opportunity? Why them and not any other generation who have long since died? Why not the Sodomites? Why not the first born in Egypt? Why not everyone else throughout all history? Is Peter saying that God plays favourites? Is he teaching the doctrine of purgatory? Sorry, Gary, none of the above makes any scriptural or logical sense. The scripture makes it clear that death seals the fate of all, with no further opportunity for repentance. "It is appointed unto men once to die, then the judgement."
Another text which can be confused in the same fashion is....
1 Peter 4:6 For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit.
This doesn't mean that dead people have the gospel preached to them. Notice the tenses of the verbs of the text in question. "For this cause
was (past tense) the gospel preached to them that
are (present tense) dead..." The gospel was preached to them while they were alive, but after hearing, they died.
The part that seems out of place is the logic concerning man becoming a living soul. I understand that we have a pile of dust formed into a man and God then breathes the breath of life into the man and at that point he became a living soul (which became in this case can properly mean to come into existence). Help me here. At some point God created angels and we are not given a narrative on the process. But we do know that they are eternal as they are that which is unseen.
I have seen no scriptural evidence to suggest that angels are immortal. Yes they may live forever, but I am convinced that their eternal state is as dependant upon their obedience as it is for us. Lucifer sinned and fell, was cast out of heaven and is now known as Satan. The Bible is clear that when Satan is cast finally into the lake of fire he will be destroyed. He does not have eternal life in sin and rebellion any more than man does. The wages of sin being death is equally true for spiritual beings as it is for us who have bodies.
Death is inevitable because sin separates sinners from their only source of life, that is God. Once separated from the source of life one cannot help but die. Unless of course one claims that we were created naturally immortal, but the scripture on that matter is plain also, for it says that God only is immortal.
1Ti 6:16 Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.
If invisibility was evidence of immortality, then angels cannot be included. Many people have seen angels, including myself on several occasions, both good and evil.
So God created eternal beings, right? So why can't it be understood that at the moment God breathed life into man, that there were both temporal and eternal parts to the man? That which is seen (outer man) and that which is unseen (inner man). We must remember that Jesus was from eternity past and yet became a man. He had a body of dust just as we do but he was not that body of dust. He was merely inside of it. A living soul. If not then when a man dies he ceases to exist and he cannot cry out to God from the ground.
All the above is supposition and based on pagan Greek teachings most scholars claim originated with Plato. Not in the Bible. God did not create eternal beings. He created beings with the capacity and opportunity to live eternally if they met certain conditions. For Adam and Eve that condition was obedience. Their way was barred from the tree of life for the express purpose of denying them access that they might live forever as sinners if they partook. Thus there is no such thing as an immortal sinner, for as I said in a previous post, Adam could not pas on to his posterity that which did not belong to him in the first place.
The duality of man as body and soul is of pagan origin. Nowhere in the Bible does it teach that the soul or spirit of man is a self existent entity apart from the body.
Nor can he feel pain in Hell as Jesus eluded to happening.
The subject of hell as a place of torment for the sinner is a topic I think that needs to be dealt with on a separate thread.
Did Jesus cease to exist because his body stopped functioning? You say he was in the grave for 3 days. In a body that has no function? Without awareness? Asleep? What then is the point of tasting death...he slept while he was alive, it would be the same right?
Throughout the New Testament the Christian hope was the resurrection. Never did any of the apostles or disciples look forward to death and an
immediate presence with God. The resurrection was always uplifted as being that which all looked forward to. We do not cease to exist. We will always remain in the memory of our Creator, who has promised to raise us up when He comes. Nowhere did Jesus promise an immediate trip to paradise (notwithstanding the misplaced comma) ; His promises always and consistently and clearly gave the hope to all Christians that at the last trumpet sound, on the last day, when He comes with all the angels of heaven and His own glory and the glory of the Father (what a day that will be) the dead in Christ from all ages will rise first, then they which are alive will be changed, all will be given immortality as a gift, caught up together with them in the clouds and together will travel to heaven for the first time. 1 Thess. 4:16
gdemoss asked.......My questions:
- When did eternal existence begin?
The
promise of eternal life begins the moment our names are written in the Lambs Book of Life. This I believe would take place the moment we receive Christ as our personal Saviour. Eternal existence as a natural component of man's being is a false teaching. Only God is immortal. Immortality is a gift that doesn't come to us until the resurrection when Jesus comes.
- When is eternal destiny consecrated?
You mean absolutely sealed? If we are faithful unto death, then it is at death. Whatever character we die with, that is the character we enter judgement with. If it doesn't match with the character of Christ, then it must match the character of Satan. That determines our destiny.
It is a close and intimate knowledge of the Father and the Son. This intimate relationship is one through which our characters and lives are changed into the image and likeness of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, for which purpose we were created.
The opposite of life. A state of being from which there is no resurrection. It is the complete absence of life, just as eternal life will be the complete absence of death. Eternal death is that from which there is no release. This is spoken of as the second death. The first death that we all must go through unless Jesus comes first for some, ends with a resurrection. Either the resurrection to life, or the resurrection to damnation. The resurrection to life is at the second coming of Jesus, the resurrection to damnation is at the third coming of Jesus along with all His saints in the city of New Jerusalem. The resurrection to damnation is for those wicked from all ages who together gather before the throne of the almighty and meet their final judgement. Thei fate and sentence is passed, they all admit their guilt, and are all cast into the lake of fire along with the devil and his angels. All will be destroyed in that fire. That is the second death.
- Why are there both eternal life and death as a destiny if we are not eternal in some part of our being?
Our eternal life will always be dependant upon our partaking of the tree of life in the New Jerusalem. Eternal death is easy to explain. The wicked will be as if they had never been. The wicked will cease to exist.
Hope this helps and hasn't confused you more.
