Lazarus. The "raising".

Author: Stephen

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Can a witch raise the dead?
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Are you suggesting Adam died physically on the day he ate the fruit? - ME
Most certainly not, that is a claim made by christians in a vain attempt at absolving their god of lying - DISGUSTED
No, it is not God lying, and you misrepresent the information available in Scripture that speaks of both God as spirit and our spiritual relationship. It is a continuous message throughout the Bible, this spiritual relationship. On top of that, (by inductive reasoning) God said, "on the DAY" you eat of it (the fruit) you will die and Adam did not die on that day, yet he was barred from the close relationship with God on that very day, therefore, the death must be spiritual. We see the NT FOCUS is on a spiritual regeneration for those who are dead to God spiritually. In John 3:3, 5 Jesus said that a person MUST be born again to either SEE or ENTER the kingdom of God (i.e., have that relationship renewed and have a new nature given them - one no longer hostile to God). If you do not understand that spiritual relationship through the pages of the NT (and OT) you have missed a major teaching and one of the central themes of the Bible. 

The biblical text makes it very clear that God said on the day Adam ate the fruit he would die.


And as the story goes on to tell us, that was a lie.


No, it does not. It tells us that Adam believed or at least listened to the devil (via Eve) rather than God, and the NT tells us that Satan was a liar from the beginning. The OT and NT always present God as true and the truth. You do not choose to understand that message because you have a bias against God and His word, per Scripture.



Adam was separated from God spiritually and that mans spiritual condition is that he must be born spiritually to either enter the heavenly kingdom or see it


The bible doesn't say that you are making it up, but you have to fabricate lies so that you can convince yourself.
Define spiritually.



Saying after saying in the NT speaks of the readers' SPIRITUAL relationship, and how since the fall of Adam that relationship has been damaged (dead) to God.
What relates to the spirit as opposed to the physical.

But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.

Ephesians 2:1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 

Our sins made/make us dead to God and that relationship. Thus we need regeneration, to be born again, with a spirit that is no longer hostile to God.

because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so,

For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.

He who hates Me hates My Father also.

There are two kinds of people the Bible identifies here and elsewhere - those who love God and those who hate and ignore God. Jesus said if you hate Him you hate God the Father also.

If you don't think the NT (and the Bible overall) is all about this spiritual relationship then check out the biblical links below:



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Quote one passage from the OT that mentions a spiritual death.
God said on the day you eat the fruit you will die, it didn't happen ergo god lied.
Can a witch raise the dead?
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Quote one passage from the OT that mentions a spiritual death.
God said on the day you eat the fruit you will die, it didn't happen ergo god lied.
Can a witch raise the dead?


Do you know the difference between inductive and deductive logic? Can you answer me that? I can show you how the concept is logical and reasonable to believe and the NT develops the reason further of what happened to Adam in the Garden. 

If God is Spirit (Genesis 1:2 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.) and the OT tells the reader as much, and also that we are spiritual beings (Deuteronomy 2:30 But Sihon king of Heshbon was not willing for us to pass through his land; for the Lord your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, in order to deliver him into your hand, as he is today), then losing that spiritual relationship with God is reasonable to believe. 

It explains how Adam could die that very day in the Garden. 

Genesis 3:22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— 23 therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. 24 So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.

Since humans can no longer eat of the tree and live forever because we have been barred from the Garden then someone needs to restore that relationship that we can eat from that tree and live forever in God's presence. 

Do you think God is like you, a physical being? Can you answer that, according to what the Bible reveals? We are told repeatedly in the Old and New Testament that He is a Spirit. If He is not physical then what does this next verse mean:

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

If we are not like God physically, because God is not physical in His nature, then we must be like Him in things that are not physical. Does that make sense to you?

OT

God who is Spirit breathes life into our mortal bodies. How do you think something that is lifeless matter acquires non-material properties? Can you answer? Do you think that all you are is matter, plus energy?

Genesis 2:
Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;
and man became a living being. 



“The Spirit of God has made me, And the breath of the Almighty gives me life.


NT

It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.

who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

So when you say, on the day Adam ate from it he did not die, that is true if that means physical death. But what do we see? We see God throwing Adam out of Eden and barring his return we get the picture that Adam died spiritually to God on that day. He no longer had that close relationship he shared in the Garden when God talked with him on a daily basis. We see reference to a Second Adam who comes to restore the relationship lost in the Garden. We see Jesus in another Garden the night before His betrayal. We see a spiritual truth that mirrors the physical events of the OT. (typology/shadow). This time we see a Man without sin, unlike the first Adam, who is able to restore that relationship and pay the penalty for sin. If the first Adam had not sinned then we would not need the second Adam.

So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

We are told that sin separates us from a relationship with God. That is why you constantly see a sacrifice of atonement in the OT to COVER those sins. The animal REPRESENTS the sinful person. The one who died should not be an animal but the person themselves. 

Blood, which represents life is given for sin. 

And according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of 
blood there is no forgiveness.


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@disgusted
Continue:

Thus, over and over you get a picture that God takes sin seriously, seriously enough to not let a sinful person in His spiritual presence because He is pure and holy. You see the whole Levitical sacrifice system teaching this truth of an atonement for sin. The object lesson is always pointing to the greater sacrifice, Lord Jesus Christ, the SACRIFICE that can TAKE AWAY sin forever. Many physical events of the OT portray a greater truth, a SPIRITUAL truth. If you believe the testimony and repent and trust this SACRIFICE, God gives you a new spirit, one that is no longer hostile to Him, one that no longer denies Him and His truths.  That is why Jesus can say that: 

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.

And, 

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies,

Even though he dies (physically), yet will he live (spiritually and in the image and likeness of God as a spiritual being in His presence).

If God could say before the fall of Adam that everything He made was good, and yet we see how marred Adam and humanity was after he ate, and the result of that choice, then something drastic happened when he disobeyed God. The NT constantly tells us what happened was a separation because of sin for the human from God. That is why we need the Second Adam to restore what the first Adam lost. In the last book of the Bible, we see this restoration, when humanity is allowed to take once again what they were BARRED from in the Garden, the Tree of Life. Jesus again is the true tree. He is the resurrection and the LIFE. He tells them and us, that He is the true vine (John 15). Old Covenant Israel was the tree He cursed, the Olive tree that withered because of lack of faith.


God tells the reader of Scripture to be perfect as He is perfect. How can someone who has demonstrated, time and again, that he cannot live up to this perfection stand before God as justified pure and holy? He can only do it by accepting the gift the One who is perfect has offered to him. Jesus willingly took the place of those who would believe in Him as the sacrifice, paying the penalty for our sins. Even more than this, the NT tells the reader that He lived a perfect life before God, without sin, so He represents us before God in so many ways - as our High Priest, as our sacrificial offering, as a Man without sin, as the sealer of a New Covenant, a better covenant than the Mosaic Covenant. That is the good news! What we could not do, God did for us in His Son. The Son took on humanity to do this for us so that God's righteous requirement would be fully met for us. 

even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),

When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions,


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Your emotional highly charged and suggestive language is an attack against the Christian to ridicule their belief system, used to sway people to the counter-point of view with assertion after assertion:
 
It’s all in your mind and I believe it is the second part of your ridiculous statement above that is making you schoolgirl hysterical. I am quite calm when I post my threads of genuine biblical anomalies, and enigmatic sometimes unexplainable verses. 

YOU JUST DON’T LIKE ME HIGHLIGHTING THEM FOR OTHERS TO CONSIDER. YOU JUST WANT TO CENCORE ME AND REFUSE OTHERS THE CHANCE TO READ OF THEIR OWN CHOICE AND MAKE THEIR OWN MINDS UP. 

 I am quite calm when I respond your silly accusations such as those above. Although, I will admit my highlighting bold underlined and sometimes capitalised text will sometimes give the impression that I am annoyed or being aggressive. So let me address that. I am not being any of the above.  I do this because sometimes you intentionally miss key words that make my point relevant and -  dare I say  - truthful  than you filibustering time wasting responses.
 
Do you know the difference between inductive and deductive logic? Can you answer me that?
 
Stop derailing a thread with your personal irrelevant questions. I will report you the next time you do this. This thread is concerned only with what I believe is only symbolic “raising of  dead” rich people into his inner circle of by Jesus 

It appears to be that,as quick as one can be “raised” from amongst the dead into the Jesus movement, onecan be just as quickly expelled from it. That is to say, one can be “raised from the dead” and then dead again for some rule breaking misdemeanour, as did happen twice to a lovely couple named Ananias and Sapphira his wife, according to Acts 5:1-11.KJV.
 
 
Acts 5:1-11 King James Version(KJV)
  1. But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession,
And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet.
But Peter Said,Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?
Whiles it remained,was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.
And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things.
And the young men arose,wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him.
And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in.
And Peter answered to her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much.
Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord?Behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door,and shall carry thee out.
10 Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in,and found her dead,and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband.
11 And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things.
 
 Please address this vague anomalous statement and what is turning out to be a very problematic for you to explain away statements suggesting that there are different types of “dead” people.

I asked you:>

And can you enlighten us as to what "let the dead bury the dead" actually means and how one dead person or persons go about burying someone else who is dead?
 
“And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead”.Matthew 8:21-22.KJV  

Your dire response was to almost admit that I am right in my belief of a symbolic "raising " when you tell us there there are two types of dead people!

here:>.
 
The dead are those who are spiritually dead to God. They don't hear His voice speaking to them because they don't want to.
So tell me how do you know or how can you tell the difference? AND _ How do you know that Lazarus and Jairus' daughter were not just spiritually dead " to god" ? 
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@Stephen
Your emotional highly charged and suggestive language is an attack against the Christian to ridicule their belief system, used to sway people to the counter-point of view with assertion after assertion:
 
It’s all in your mind and I believe it is the second part of your ridiculous statement above that is making you schoolgirl hysterical. I am quite calm when I post my threads of genuine biblical anomalies, and enigmatic sometimes unexplainable verses. 

YOU JUST DON’T LIKE ME HIGHLIGHTING THEM FOR OTHERS TO CONSIDER. YOU JUST WANT TO CENCORE ME AND REFUSE OTHERS THE CHANCE TO READ OF THEIR OWN CHOICE AND MAKE THEIR OWN MINDS UP.  

 I am quite calm when I respond your silly accusations such as those above. Although, I will admit my highlighting bold underlined and sometimes capitalised text will sometimes give the impression that I am annoyed or being aggressive. So let me address that. I am not being any of the above.  I do this because sometimes you intentionally miss key words that make my point relevant and -  dare I say  - truthful  than you filibustering time wasting responses

I'm pointing out your personal ad hom attacks against me. They don't have anything to do with the thread but are a distraction from the topic of discourse.
 
You did it again here.

Who is censoring who?

 
Do you know the difference between inductive and deductive logic? Can you answer me that?
 
Stop derailing a thread with your personal irrelevant questions. I will report you the next time you do this. This thread is concerned only with what I believe is only symbolic “raising of  dead” rich people into his inner circle of by Jesus 

The point is that by using inductive logic what I said is most reasonable in the Lazarus discussion. 

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@Stephen

It appears to be that,as quick as one can be “raised” from amongst the dead into the Jesus movement, onecan be just as quickly expelled from it. That is to say, one can be “raised from the dead” and then dead again for some rule breaking misdemeanour, as did happen twice to a lovely couple named Ananias and Sapphira his wife, according to Acts 5:1-11.KJV.
 

It is not a movement, but a knowledge of truth concerning God in which, because of the merit of Jesus the believer is once again allowed into His presence. Faith comes from hearing the message of whom Jesus is, and believing that message and what Christ has done for the believer. Being born again is a resurrection from death, from spiritual death or separation from God. There are two realms in the discussion, the natural, physical realm, and the supernatural spiritual realm. In Eden, Adam, as a representative of humanity, chose to disobey God and was separated from His presence. He no longer "walked" or spoke with God. The choice of remaining alive forever in this relationship was taken away from him by barring him from the tree in the Garden and the presence of God. The two trees did not have magical power over them. The choice Adam made is where good and evil were brought into the equation. With his disobedience, he discovered what evil was and the consequences of doing so, separation from God. And that is exactly what we see. We see him being removed from God's presence. He no longer had that close relationship with God. 
 
Acts 5:1-11 King James Version(KJV)
  1. But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession,
And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet.
But Peter Said,Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?
Whiles it remained,was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.
And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things.
And the young men arose,wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him.
And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in.
And Peter answered to her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much.
Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord?Behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door,and shall carry thee out.
10 Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in,and found her dead,and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband.
11 And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things.
 
 Please address this vague anomalous statement and what is turning out to be a very problematic for you to explain away statements suggesting that there are different types of “dead” people.

What is vague about it? These two sold a piece of property, pretending to bring the whole price of sale to Peter for God's glory when in effect they kept part back. Then they lied about the price received that was to used for God's glory. God judged the motive of their heart in lying to Him for the money was to His purpose. What does this have to do with Lazarus other than they all died a physical death? 


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@Stephen
I asked you:>

And can you enlighten us as to what "let the dead bury the dead" actually means and how one dead person or persons go about burying someone else who is dead?
 
“And another of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury their dead”.Matthew 8:21-22.KJV  



 There is physical death, and there is spiritual death. The Bible speaks of both. Physical death is observable to the senses. Life in the body ceases to be. Spiritual death occurs when one rejects the means God has to reconcile a person to Himself. Since the curse of Adam, we as a humanity are all under that curse of being separated from God. Because our nature changed with the Fall, we all inherit a sinful nature that is hostile to God. The new birth requires a change of nature.



Your dire response was to almost admit that I am right in my belief of a symbolic "raising " when you tell us there there are two types of dead people!

here:>.
 
The dead are those who are spiritually dead to God. They don't hear His voice speaking to them because they don't want to.
So tell me how do you know or how can you tell the difference? AND _ How do you know that Lazarus and Jairus' daughter were not just spiritually dead " to god" ? 

You confuse physical death with spiritual death. I did not say that spiritual death was symbolic. It is an actual death, a separation from God for eternity.  You die to that relationship with God. It can be described in symbolic terms. We are speaking of two realms, the physical or natural realm, and the spiritual or supernatural realm. God is not a physical being. You are dead to God, and on your present course will spend eternity dead to Him, unless you hear the gospel message, by His grace and mercy. 

You confuse symbolism and figurative grammatical language to express spiritual truths about the nature of spiritual death. You become dead to a relationship with God upon the judgment.  

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Did god declare that on the day Adam ate the fruit he would die?
YES
Did Adam die on the day he ate the fruit?
No
Did god lie?
Yes.
You claiming a non existent spiritual death is just you trying to defend your god's lie. Nowhere in the entire OT is spiritual death mentioned, I can only conclude therefore that your story is a lie.
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I'm Pointing out your personal ad hom attacks against me.
 
So report me if they upset you so, so much. But telling someone they are being“hysterical”  and “silly” and saying the scriptures come across at times as “silly” are not personal attacks. Grow up is what you need to do.
 
 
You are not addressing the content, Your more focused on what I have to say and the effects that YOU believe that what I say may have on others.  I Can’t help you there , sorry. This thread is not about soothing your concerns or anyone else’s.  So for the last time: ADDRESS THE CONTENT OR STAYOFF THE THREAD OR I WILL REPORT YOU
 
What is vague about it? These two sold a piece of property, pretending to bring the whole price of sale to Peter for God's glory when in effect they kept partback. Then they lied about the price received that was to used for God's glory.God judged the motive of their heart in lying to Him for the money was to His Purpose. What does this have to do with Lazarus other than they all died a physical death? 
 
 It Does not address how this couple ended up just falling down dead and being buried. On gods whim. There must have been thousands of cheaters and swindlers walking about at the time, why didn’t god take a few of those at the same time?
I will tell you why, BECAUSE THEY WERE NOT MEMBERS OF THE JESUS CLUB WERE THEY?
 
And It Has everything to do with Lazarus by the fact that he was raised not from the literal “dead” but from among the “spiritually dead” as you put it. Which According to this MOVEMENT, the Jesus party, anyone outside the circle of was considered “DEAD”.
 
 SO IN OTHER WORDS ANANIAS AND HIS WIFE WERE EXPELLED FROM INNER CIRCLE OF THE“LIVING” TO BE AMONG THOSE THE INNER CIRCLE CONSIDERED TO BE "DEAD".
 
It's That simple. This is nothing miraculous about the so called “MIRACLE” of“raising the "DEAD". As I have proved.
 
It so obvious that you are going by faith alone and have never ACTUALLY studied these scripture or anything extra biblical. The community of the Essenes  or the community of Qumran?  Jesus it is believed belonged to both these groups. Both These groups used SIMULATED resurrection as admittance to the third degree of initiation of the sect. This FACT is undisputed by the Dead Sea scrolls which you also haven’t read have you?
 
People Reading the bible without understanding the terminology of the time cannot accept that this god of theirs would be so vindictive as to murder two people for holding back a bit of "THEIR OWN MONEY".

If you insist that these “deaths” , those of Lazarus and of Ananias and Sapphira and of daughter of Jarius are literal deaths, then you do a great disservice to your " loving " god and to Jesus his son.

The idea of rotting corpse being brought back to life would have been totally abhorrent and disgusting to all Jews of the age.
And to have these so called “deaths" conveyed in such a matter of fact fashion tells me very clear that these “DEATHS” are SYMBOLIC” in nature. 
 
  St Paul doesn’t mention the miraculous ascending into heaven event either, no empty tombs, no disappearance from the grave of the physical body, no physical resurrection, no physical appearances of a Christ who would eat, or that the Jesus was elevated physically into heaven after a given time. To Paul the body of Jesus who died was degradable, weak, and physical.

Get over it, your god is not a god of love but a god of "jealousy" and of "war". And Jesus was no fluffy kissy bunny or teddy bear either under the surface.
Learn to read these scriptures constructively and not like some fawning schoolgirls who has just acquired a poster and magazine containing pictures of her bestest favourite pop star.
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Can a witch raise the dead?
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@disgusted

Did god declare that on the day Adam ate the fruit he would die? 
YES
Yes!


Did Adam die on the day he ate the fruit?
No


Yes, he dies spiritually. The spiritual death is something developed in the NT more thoroughly.


Did god lie?
Yes.


No, as the Bible says, "Let God be true and every man a liar."


You claiming a non existent spiritual death is just you trying to defend your god's lie. Nowhere in the entire OT is spiritual death mentioned, I can only conclude therefore that your story is a lie.

No, I do not. the Bible writings declare that. 


John 3:5-7 (NASB)
Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’

It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.

If we sowed spiritual things in you, is it too much if we reap material things from you?

it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual.

you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.”

Mark 12:25-27 (NASB)
25 For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. 26 But regarding the fact that the dead rise again, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?27 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; you are greatly mistaken.”

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@Stephen
I'm Pointing out your personal ad hom attacks against me.
 
So report me if they upset you so, so much. But telling someone they are being“hysterical”  and “silly” and saying the scriptures come across at times as “silly” are not personal attacks. Grow up is what you need to do. 
 
 
You are not addressing the content, Your more focused on what I have to say and the effects that YOU believe that what I say may have on others.  I Can’t help you there , sorry. This thread is not about soothing your concerns or anyone else’s.  So for the last time: ADDRESS THE CONTENT OR STAYOFF THE THREAD OR I WILL REPORT YOU
 

I believe in freedom of speech. I'm just pointing out a bias of yours. Attacking the man is a way of diverting the argument. It is a way of ridiculing a belief rather than addressing the points of contention. You gave me a number of verses that I addressed. When I counted with other verses that presented my case you sometimes ignored them or my argument as being silly or suggested Christians were.


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@disgusted

Can a witch raise the dead?
Not to everlasting life. 

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@PGA2.0

I believe in freedom of speech. I'm just pointing out a bias of yours. Attacking the man is a way of diverting the argument. It is a way of ridiculing a belief rather than addressing the points of contention. You gave me a number of verses that I addressed. When I counted with other verses that presented my case you sometimes ignored them or my argument as being silly or suggested Christians were.

You know I was going to adress this point by point. But I would only be repeating myself AGAIN. 
REPORTED

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What is vague about it? These two sold a piece of property, pretending to bring the whole price of sale to Peter for God's glory when in effect they kept partback. Then they lied about the price received that was to used for God's glory.God judged the motive of their heart in lying to Him for the money was to His Purpose. What does this have to do with Lazarus other than they all died a physical death? 
 
 It Does not address how this couple ended up just falling down dead and being buried. On gods whim. There must have been thousands of cheaters and swindlers walking about at the time, why didn’t god take a few of those at the same time?
I will tell you why,  BECAUSE THEY WERE NOT MEMBERS OF THE JESUS CLUB WERE THEY? 

It does address how they ended up dead. They lied to God. 

Whether they were believers or not is debatable and not for me, but for God to decide.  They may have just professed faith, but if these actions as believers were judged then it corresponds to Scripture. They were trying to bring glory to themselves rather than God who they claimed it was all about, thus God reacted to the deceit and exposed their lie through Peter. 

If they were believers then 1 Corinthians 3 applies:
11 For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, 13 each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. 14 If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. 15 If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

So, if they were believers their rewards may have been burned up, yet they would have been saved from spiritual death by the grace of God, yet He did not allow them further physical life.



And It Has everything to do with Lazarus by the fact that he was raised not from the literal “dead” but from among the “spiritually dead” as you put it. Which According to this MOVEMENT, the Jesus party, anyone outside the circle of was considered “DEAD”. 

You continue to dismiss (in your reasoning) that there are two realms, the physical and the non-physical spiritual realm. The Bible explicitly explains that God is Spirit. He exists as a Spirit and to be in His presence is to be in that spiritual or unseen realm, not the physical. If we are privy to His presence then we are spiritually alive to Him for He will not let sinful beings remain everlastingly in His presences because He is pure and holy and evil does not remain in the light of God but is exposed by that light and separated from it with judgment. Our merit in staying in His presence as believers is not from our own doing but from the actions of another on our behalf - Jesus Christ!

What is happening here is the same kind of situation that happens when a Christian engages a Jehovah's Witness. Even though we use the same verses, there is a cognizant dissonance, IMO. One of the problems, as I see a discussion with J.W.'s is that we can be speaking of the same Person - Jesus - but what comes to mind as a definition for one is exclusively a man, while the other Man/God.

This discomfort is triggered by a situation in which a belief of a person clashes with new evidence perceived by that person. When confronted with facts that contradict personal beliefs, ideals, and values, people will find a way to resolve the contradiction in order to reduce their discomfort.
(per Wikipedia)
I see you as not wanting to accept the biblical teaching of two deaths - physical and spiritual. But it answers your query on how can a person live when he is dead as not being a contradiction.
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@Stephen
Since you reported me, that is the end of our discussions. I will not engage you again.

Peter
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Can a witch raise the dead? Where do you see mention of everlasting life? Was Lazarus raised to everlasting life? Now answer the question HONESTLY.
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@PGA2.0
Do you seriously think those verses are from the OT? There is no mention of a spiritual in the OT. There is nomention of a spiritual death in the Adam story, why are your arguments so full of lies?
Adam didn't die on the day.
Therefore your God lied.
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@disgusted

Do you seriously think those verses are from the OT? There is no mention of a spiritual in the OT. There is nomention of a spiritual death in the Adam story, why are your arguments so full of lies?
Adam didn't die on the day.
Therefore your God lied.


I never said they were OT verses. I said they support the view that the Fall was a spiritual separation or death. That is the point. If and only if God said Adam would die on that day and he did not, and the death spoken of was a physical death of the BODY, then you have a case. It is REASONABLE and LOGICAL to believe the death was a spiritual death. Adam was no longer open to the leading of God. He had usurped that authority and was now deciding upon himself what was right and wrong/good and evil. 

Figure it out this way; if Adam had eaten of the tree of life, even after he sinned, then he would have lived forever. God barred him from the tree and he lived possibly 900 years after he was barred and had many children. He still died physically, because God did not allow him to eat from the tree of life and live forever.

Adam died spiritually to God that day. I have given the reasons. Therefore, God did not lie (heaven forbid).

Can a witch raise the dead? Where do you see mention of everlasting life? Was Lazarus raised to everlasting life? Now answer the question HONESTLY.
A person can sometimes resuscitate a person clinically dead via Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). That would include a witch. A witch cannot do what God is capable of doing, raise a person from the dead to everlasting life. If Lazarus was a believer, and the indication is that he very well could have been, then Jesus would have raised him from the dead to everlasting life after Jesus was raised from the dead. Jesus, as a man, is the firstfruits of those raised from the dead to everlasting life.

For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;

He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.

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@PGA2.0
You don't get to rewrite the stories that are already written, that they are internally inconsistent is the problem you are being faced with and you discussing a completely different story imagined by you is just dishonest. Your story having perhaps more internal consistency is meaningless because your story doesn't exist in the bible, the internally inconsistent story does and you can't both defend it and be honest at the same time.
There is no mention of spiritual death anywhere in the A&E story or in fact in the entire OT.

Your god said that on that day Adam would die and on that day Adam didn't die. Of course he didn't even know what death was, he was threatened with a non existent punishment, it's no wonder he had no fear of the alleged consequence it was meaningless.
Adam didn't die on the day god threatened he would therefore god lied. It's quite simple if you read the story and not listen to someone changing the story to suit themselves.
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If Lazarus was a believer, and the indication is that he very well could have been, then Jesus would have raised him from the dead to everlasting life after.
It had nothing to do with Lazarus' faith in his god.

What he lost faith in was the movement, he seen it as dangerous and not going anywhere as did Judas and Simon Peter.
He Appears to have been very close to Jesus and very high ranking and  Jesus Couldn't afford to lose someone so high up the ranks because he feared others may follow Lazarus and he was right because that verse clearly states “Come,let us go that we may die with him" in other words they were going to follow Lazarus. 
 
So to put this in context Lazarus first was talking of leaving and abandoning Jesus and the movement  "sick".
Jesus Didn't believe that the "disciple he loved" would abandon him and return to the land of the "dead".

But he did "die"

When Those other disciples heard this , they also decided to abandon Jesus and the movement saying, 
Let us also go, that we may die with him.
 So what changed Lazarus' mind? What had Jesus done to convince "the one he loved" to stay?


Because: 
 JESUS RAISED HIM TO HIGH PRIEST, PERFORMING THE THIRD INITIATION OF THIRD DEGREE. AND THIS NOW EXPLAINS WHY IT WAS THEY ALSO WANTED TO KILL LAZARUS ALSO.

"John 12:9-11 King James Version (KJV)
9 Much people of the Jews therefore knew that he was there: and they came not for Jesus' sake only, but that they might see Lazarus also, whom he had raised from the dead.

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@PGA2.0
So a witch can't raise a person from the dead? You haven't actually read your bible have you?
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@disgusted

You don't get to rewrite the stories that are already written, that they are internally inconsistent is the problem you are being faced with and you discussing a completely different story imagined by you is just dishonest. Your story having perhaps more internal consistency is meaningless because your story doesn't exist in the bible, the internally inconsistent story does and you can't both defend it and be honest at the same time.
There is no mention of spiritual death anywhere in the A&E story or in fact in the entire OT.

Your god said that on that day Adam would die and on that day Adam didn't die. Of course he didn't even know what death was, he was threatened with a non existent punishment, it's no wonder he had no fear of the alleged consequence it was meaningless.
Adam didn't die on the day god threatened he would therefore god lied. It's quite simple if you read the story and not listen to someone changing the story to suit themselves.

I'm not rewriting anything. I'm disclosing a spiritual truth.

1 Corinthians 2:12-14 (NASB)
12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God,13 which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.
14 But natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.


You are DEAD to God's spirit. The spiritual escapes your notice even though it is evidentially explained. It still escapes you.

If your sins have not been forgiven in Christ and His atoning death by faith, then you are dead to God, dead in your sins.

Ephesians 2:1-3 (NASB)
Made Alive in Christ
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

Those who were made alive to God used to be God, as explained in Ephesians 2:1-3. This is the way the believer formally "walked" in, according to the course or ways of the world that do not know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. They have a spirit of disobedience to God. By their very nature, they are children of God's wrath. 

After Adam ate he became a child of God's wrath, and God cursed the ground because of him, plus God separated Adam from His presence and the Garden.

I can give you verse after verse that expresses this spiritual truth, but you are not open.
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@disgusted
The new birth is not a natural birth but a spiritual birth. 

But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.

Nevertheless
death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.

There was no relationship with sinful humanity on the whole except for those God separated for a relationship, and during the time of Moses, He chose a people for Himself to have a special relationship with and to make Himself known to the world through this people. But the point I want you to notice is that Adam, the first Adam, is a type of Christ. Both represented humanity. Both were tested by God and both were tempted by the devil. One was with sin and the other without sin. One gives death to humanity, because of a sinful life before God, the other life to humanity, because of a righteous life before God.   

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.

So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

The difference between Adam and the last Adam, Jesus Christ, is that Christ Jesus is a life-giving spirit. He imparts spiritual life, reconciliation with God.
You
spirit is presently dead to God. You can't hear His word. You can't experience a relationship with Him because you will not submit to Him. 

As Jesus said:

It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.

There is a difference between the flesh or body and the spirit of a person:

Romans 1:2-4 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
2 which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, 3 concerning His Son, who was born of a descendant of David according to the flesh, 4 who was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord,

For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. 29 But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.

It is what God does to our hearts, our inner nature, that makes a person a child of God. 

John 1:11-13 (NASB)
11 He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

There is a difference between natural birth and a spiritual birth. You continue to deny this because you are hostile to God's word. You do not, at present, want to believe.

Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.

because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin.

For while we were in the flesh, the sinful passions, which were aroused by the Law, were at work in the members of our body to bear fruit for death.

The Conflict of Two Natures ] For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin.

With Adam, our natures were physical and sold into bondage and sin. We all inherited a sinful nature through Adam. The Law (The Ten Commandments) is spiritual, it reveals the sinful nature that separates us from God and brings us to Jesus Christ and upon His mercy to rescue us. 

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not.

For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

The Law could not bring us to God for all it does was expose our sin in our natural selves, the self that rejects God to do what it pleases. Jesus condemns that sinful nature and gives us a new spiritual nature to God, one that is no longer hostile by the rebirth. 

So, what does all this show? It shows that you cannot understand because you are hostile to God. You do not want to understand. It means you would have to submit to God's word and God's teaching. You, at present, do not want to do so. Thus, you are blind to God. 



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@disgusted

So a witch can't raise a person from the dead? You haven't actually read your bible have you?
1 Samuel 28:8-15 (NASB)
8 Then Saul disguised himself by putting on other clothes, and went, he and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night; and he said, “Conjure up for me, please, and bring up for me whom I shall name to you.” 9 But the woman said to him, “Behold, you know what Saul has done, how he has cut off those who are mediums and spiritists from the land. Why are you then laying a snare for my life to bring about my death?” 10 Saul vowed to her by the Lord, saying, “As the Lord lives, no punishment shall come upon you for this thing.” 11 Then the woman said, “Whom shall I bring up for you?” And he said, “Bring up Samuel for me.” 12 When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out with a loud voice; and the woman spoke to Saul, saying, “Why have you deceived me? For you are Saul.” 13 The king said to her, “Do not be afraid; but what do you see?” And the woman said to Saul, “I see a divine being coming up out of the earth.” 14 He said to her, “What is his form?” And she said, “An old man is coming up, and he is wrapped with a robe.” And Saul knew that it was Samuel, and he bowed with his face to the ground and did homage.

15 Then Samuel said to Saul, “Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?” And Saul answered, “I am greatly distressed; for the Philistines are waging war against me, and God has departed from me and no longer answers me, either through prophets or by dreams; therefore I have called you, that you may make known to me what I should do.”


The question is, what does conjure or "bring up" mean? Is it a vision or an actual resurrection from the dead. We know from the NT that there is a divide between the dead and the living, per the Lazarus example Jesus cites. We know from the OT that God forbids using mediums and the occult. So she was communicating with the dead (necromancy), a practice that is utterly forbidden by God.
Saul never saw this being (i.e., Samual). So this is not a resurrection, it is necromancy. Saul has to ask her what form Samuel has. He can't see him. 

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From Professor Morton Smith's work titled Marks Secret Gospel;

“And came they to Bethany, and a certain woman whose brother had died was there. And coming she prostrated herself before Jesus and says to him “son of David, have mercy on me”. But the disciples rebuked her. And Jesus, being angered, went off with her into the garden where the tomb was, and straight away a great cry was heard from the tomb. And going near, Jesus rolled away the stone from the door of the Tomb. And straight away, going in where the youth was, he stretched forth his hand and raised him, loved him, seizing his hand. But the youth, looked upon him,loved him and began to beseech him that he might be with him. And going out of the tomb they came into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days, Jesus, Jesus told him what to do and in the evening the youth comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the kingdom of God. And thence arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan”.

Mark.The Secret Gospel, Professor Morton Smith, pp 14

This sounds to me like a very much alive Lazarus.

.
Amazingly, the first conspiracy theory concerning the resurrection comes from the gospels themselves where the Jews insist Jesus’disciples stole the body but only after bribing the guards (Matthew 28:11-15). 
 
Bringing the ritual of “raising the dead” into the modern era, we need look no further than the rituals performed in modern-day Freemasonry particularly the “raising” to a third degree Master Mason as told by  Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas in their excellent book, The Book of Hiram;
 -“The candidate is held straight so that he hinges backwards onto the funeral shroud [of white linen] previously placed on the floor that is immediately draped around him so only his eyes are uncovered. At this point the Masons of the lodge walk around the edge of the ‘grave’, and finally three attempts are made to retrieve the brother from the arms of death. The first two[hand grips] fail because they used the methods from the previous degrees, but the third technique, [a different hand grip] peculiar [only] to the third degree, succeeds. With the assistance of the deacons the ‘cadaver’ is‘resurrected’ from his tomb with a special grip applied by the Worshipful Master. And from this moment onwards the man raised from the darkness of his figurative tomb will be a Master Mason for the rest of his life. The most important information given to the newly ‘raised’ mason is that the genuine secrets of a Master Mason were lost ‘with the death of our Grand Master Hiram Abiff’ ”.

From the work of Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas, The Book Hiram.1996. Page 19.
 
 
 
 
 
 It appears then that there are some resemblances or even a connection here to this ritual of a spiritual symbolic “raising” by hand and the white linen burial shroud carried to the tomb of Jesus by Joseph of Arimathaea After the “dead” body was retrieved from Pilate. There is also a possible connection as told to us above from Mark, The Secret Gospel, where we read about the resurrection of Lazarus and how Jesus stretched forth his hand and raised him, as was in the case of the“ruler’s dead daughter” above, where again it is said Jesus “took her by the hand, and the maid arose”. Did Jesus and his “secret disciples” once more set all this up as in the case of Lazarus? When we take closer look at the“dead daughter” story we can see that either Jesus lied or he didn’t perform a "miracle": 


“behold, there came a certain ruler, and worshipped him, saying, My daughter is even now dead: but come and lay thy hand upon her, and she shall live.  And when Jesus came into the ruler's house, and saw the minstrels and the people making a noise. He said unto them, Give place: for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn. But when the people were put forth, he went in, and took her by the hand, and the maid arose”.Mathew 9: 18-25.KJV

So we see, if the “certain” ruler’s daughter is dead as her father believes she is, then Jesus lied exactly as he did to those disciples who were with him in the case of Lazarus  where he first told them Lazarus was not dead but asleep. And if she (the daughter) was not dead, then there was no miracle performed but a ritual “raising”. It seems Christians or at least these Gospel writers, want it both ways.