PGA2.0's avatar

PGA2.0

A member since

3
5
8
Topics Posts

Total posts: 3,179

Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen
You made a claim, "No show."

And so does the bible HERE>>>. “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.”2Peter 3:4

that^^^^^^^ sounds like a no show to me sunshine.
Repeat, repeat, repeat, without justification.

 The bible at 2Peter 3:4 justified my question and my claim.  You are on the ropes sunshine and have proven nothing. 
Please note, reader, Stephen has not answered one of my questions yet again. 

 I have no need to answer your questions.
Then why create a thread? You poison the waters with your allegations of "No show."

You ask questions in relation to the verses that you cherry pick from scripture to support your own outrageous claim that Jesus` corpse, after sinking and rotting in his grave for three days , rose from the dead and after ascending up into the sky  to heaven into be "with his father" THEN ,decided to return back down earth and take part in the siege of Jerusalem in AD 66-70.
You cherry-pick. You collapse the context to make it sound like Peter is teaching that Jesus was a no-show because he records what the mockers are saying. He also reassures the elect not to be alarmed; the Lord is not slow in keeping His promises. Peter tells the elect to keep watch. As I mentioned, 1 Peter, the first letter, told these elect that the Lord's coming was near. Many of the epistles of Paul warn that the Lord's coming is near. 

Paul and the author of Hebrews, who many believe is Paul:
The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore let’s rid ourselves of the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.

Now these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

that is, the mystery which had been hidden from the past ages and generations, but now has been revealed to His saints,

When He said, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is about to disappear.

Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been revealed to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

Let your gentle spirit be known to all people. The Lord is near.

not abandoning our own meeting together, as is the habit of some people, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

James:
You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near.

Peter:
The end of all things is near; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer.

John:
Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour.

Blessed is the one who reads, and those who hear the words of the prophecy and keep the things which are written in it; for the time is near.

[ The Final Message ] And he *said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near.

Jesus said that when the signs sprout, His coming would be near. All the apostles sense this nearness, Peter, Paul, John, and James. 

so you too, when you see all these things, recognize that He is near, right at the door.

[ Parable of the Fig Tree ] “Now learn the parable from the fig tree: as soon as its branch has become tender and sprouts its leaves, you know that summer is near;

So you too, when you see these things happening, recognize that the kingdom of God is near.

For this reason you must be ready as well; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will.

then the master of that slave will come on a day that he does not expect, and at an hour that he does not know,

Be on the alert then, because you do not know the day nor the hour.

Because you have kept My word of perseverance, I also will keep you from the hour of the testing, that hour which is about to come upon the whole world, to test those who live on the earth.

But, unfortunately  for you, those very same  cherry picked verses that you have chosen to support your claim that Jesus has already returned can be  and are,  also used to support the claim by millions of Christians that Jesus' return hasn't happened yet but is imminent.
You seldom do the work of exegeting a text, and you ignore the context. I had noted that since day one when I confronted your interpretations. You bluff; you go nothing.  

I posted those links for you and you decided you didn't want to even look at them never mind debunk them. Indeed, your response to those links  was to  asked me " what am I supposed to do with them"?  I told you then, ` do what you like' I am just showing you that the same verses can and are used to "prove" the opposite to what you claim` I also said  'I don't care what you do with them or glean from them.  It makes absolutely no difference to me.
You post reams of links. Get specific with those links. There is too much information for me to tackle every verse, but every verse could be tackled. 

Start your own thread sunshine, what are you afraid of?
Nope, I'm not ready to do that. I want others to understand your careless eisegesis. 

PGA2.0, WHY ARE YOU SO SCARED TO START A THREAD ON THE EXACT TOPIC WHERE  PRETERISTS BELIEVE JESUS ALREADY HAD HIS SECOND COMING IN AD 70?! 
Because ..............................That takes a big chunk out of my day. I do not have time to either prepare or respond at the moment to such a thread. 

 But you can find the time for debates that you brag about and find time to post reams upon reams of cherry picked verses from scripture on this thread alone.

My wife's radiation treatment started over two weeks ago, which meant I did not spend much time on the debate for the information of those who listen. She has lung cancer and has a lung capacity of between 25-30%, and her lungs are very fragile. That means she needs lots of care on any day, not just in this period of time, so quit your BS.  

 Start a thread on your belief that Jesus has been and gone in AD 66-70  lets see how you do?   You never know, you just may convince me? But as of this the moment,  you have proven absolutely jack!
Post 111. I don't have time at the moment, and I want to hold you accountable for this thread. You said "no show." I say you don't understand the nature of the Second Coming. I have explained this to those who will listen. 
Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@BrotherDThomas
PGA2.0, WHY ARE YOU SO SCARED TO START A THREAD ON THE EXACT TOPIC WHERE  PRETERISTS BELIEVE JESUS ALREADY HAD HIS SECOND COMING IN AD 70?! 
Why not? Because I drive my wife to a city fifty miles away from my hometown every day for cancer treatments. That takes a big chunk out of my day. I do not have time to either prepare or respond at the moment to such a thread. 

PGA2.0, don't you realize that the membership and Jesus are watching you RUN AWAY from doing this simple request, like FAUXLAW equally runs away from substantiated biblical axioms, huh?  You are the continued Bible fool when you run away in "trying" to defend your faith, which is obviously in the name of Satan!


Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen
You made a claim, "No show."

And so does the bible HERE>>>. “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.”2Peter 3:4

that^^^^^^^ sounds like a no show to me sunshine.
Repeat, repeat, repeat, without justification.

 The bible at 2Peter 3:4 justified my question and my claim.  You are on the ropes sunshine and have proven nothing. 
Please note, reader, Stephen has not answered one of my questions yet again. 

***

No, it does not. Peter is speaking to the elect about the mockers and scoffers. He explains, 

"9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance."

The "you" refers to the elect. To the elect Peter says,

13 But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells...since you look for these things, be diligent to be found spotless and blameless by Him, at peace, 15 and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation."

Again, the elect are looking for these things, a new heaven and new earth. The scoffers keep scoffing.

The Lord's patience is towards the elect, not the mockers. As for the mockers, Peter says, 

in which there are some things that are hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction... be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of [e]unscrupulous people."

Take note of the underlined, Stephen. 

Remember in Peter's first letter to these people he said, 

7 The end of all things [f]is near; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of [g]prayer. 

17 For it is time for judgment to begin [m]with the household of God; and if it begins [n]with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?

Because Peter warned them the end of all things was NEAR when it did not come as quickly as expected, some scoffers mockers the second coming. That is the gist of the context of 2 Peter 3. 

"... this is now the second letter I am writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of a reminder, 2 to remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles."

The reminder was the day of the Lord was close, and it would come like a thief in the night when the ungodly were not expecting it. 

oldest propaganda trick going

You must have missed this princess>
Please stop using derogatory names when you address me.

 Peter, not to mention those that took him to task admitted that the Christ hadn't return and this is the reason he   was forced to move the goal posts from  " a generation "  to a thousand years!<<<<< this is the "oldest propaganda trick" that has been peddled for TWO THOUSAND YEARS!!!!
Where do you see the goalposts moving? Where is the word generation mentioned? A generation has a particular meaning in Scripture. 

In accordance with the number of days that you spied out the land, forty days, for every day you shall suffer the punishment for your guilt a year, that is, forty years, and you will know My opposition.

Hebrews 3:7-11
7 Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says,
“Today if you hear His voice,
8 Do not harden your hearts as [d]when they provoked Me,
As on the day of trial in the wilderness,
9 Where your fathers put Me to the test,
And saw My works for forty years.
10 Therefore I was angry with this generation,
And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart,
And they did not know My ways’;
11 As I swore in My anger,
‘They certainly shall not enter My rest.’”

Just as with the first exodus, so with the second. God judged that wilderness generation for their sins of unbelief, just as there was danger of with this, another generation who were about to enter the new promised land. 

Here are some of the parallels:

Moses leads his people out of the land of bondage in Egypt.
Jesus leads His people out of the land of sin and spiritual bondage.

Moses provides manna from heaven for the people to eat.
Jesus is the bread of heaven and provides the food for us to eat, His word of salvation.

Moses is told to construct the tabernacle and its items according to a pattern.
That pattern is Jesus Christ. He comes to tabernacle with His people. 

A sacrifice of atonement is made for the people every year.
Jesus makes a one-time sacrifice that is sufficient for all time.  

Moses strikes a rock in the wilderness, and water flowed out of it. 
Jesus is the rock that provides water of everlasting life to His people. He tells the crowd He is the water of life.  

Moses, at Sinai, receives the Ten Commandments. The people make a covenant with God there, agreeing to do all that the LORD commanded in exchange for Him being their God and they being His people.
Jesus, at Golgotha, Calvery. He made a covenant with His people. 

Moses leads the people to the Promised Land but he cannot enter. 
Jesus takes His people into the Promised Land.

There are numerous parallels not mentioned.

***

The "thousand years like one day" is figurative language. Therefore, it is not to be taken literally. The expression is used to denote that to God time is of no consequence. He is patient, not willing that any of the elect should perish.

8 But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. 9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.
A New Heaven and Earth
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and [c]its works will be [d]discovered.
11 Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! 13 But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.

Obviously, Peter is speaking to the elect of Israel "scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen 2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father..." How do we know this? The fathers are mentioned and prophets were sent to Israel, not the Gentiles. 

 And I see that you are still no closer to starting your own thread .
Nope, I am here to show others your "no show" is a misunderstanding on your part. You never supplied the rest of the context or how it related to other passages of Scripture. 

Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen
You made a claim, "No show."

And so does the bible HERE>>>. “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.”2Peter 3:4

that^^^^^^^ sounds like a no show to me sunshine.
Repeat, repeat, repeat, without justification. By telling your tale long enough you believe others will side with you. Anyone who does without seeing you explain the passage in question and answer your critiques is very malleable. 


How did you answer my questions? You basically repeated the catchphrase verse with a few additional verses thrown in. Try exegeting the passage and proving your contention with other passages that support that passage. I asked you many questions you keep evading. Who is Peter addressing as his primary audience? How well do these themes he speaks of mirror the Olivet Discourse?  

oldest propaganda trick going

You must have missed this princess>
Sunshine and princess, wow!

 Peter, not to mention those that took him to task admitted that the Christ hadn't return and this is the reason he  was forced to move the goal posts from  " a generation "  to a thousand years!<<<<< this is the "oldest propaganda trick" that has been peddled for TWO THOUSAND YEARS!!!!
What a bunch of nonsense. What is Peter reminding his audience of? 

"remember [1] the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles. 3 [2] Know this first of all, that [3] in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, 4 and [4] saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? [5] For ever since the fathers [a]fell asleep, all things continue just as they were from the beginning of creation.” 5 For [b]when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, 6 through which the world at that time was destroyed by being flooded with water. 7 But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly people.
8 But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. 9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.
A New Heaven and Earth
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and [c]its works will be [d]discovered.
11 Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! 13 But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.
14 Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found spotless and blameless by Him, at peace, 15 and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, 16 as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which there are some things that are hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction. 17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of [e]unscrupulous people and lose your own [f]firm commitment, 18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

[1] In Peter's second letter he reminds them (his audience, those who I am still waiting for you to identify) of the words spoken by the 1) prophets and by 2) the Lord Jesus, concerning what? Which prophets is he speaking about, OT or NT?

[2] Know what? 

[3] That in the last days. The last days of what, Stephen????  Do you have any idea??? 

[4] "where is his coming" is the same theme that Jesus speaks of in the Olivet prophecy, as I pointed out in Post 104. 

Matthew 24:48-51
48 But if that evil slave says in his heart, ‘My [al]master [am]is not coming for a long time,’ 49 and he begins to beat his fellow slaves, and he eats and drinks with those habitually drunk; 50 then the [an]master of that slave will come on a day that he does not expect, and at an hour that he does not know, 51 and he will [ao]cut him in two and assign [ap]him a place with the hypocrites; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.  

[5] Peter is quoting the scoffers and mockers in 2 Peter. Jesus prophecied that such mockery of His coming would be present later after His death where the mockers would complain of where is His coming again, as pointed out in the Olivet Discourse. What do they mean by everything remains the same? 

I will leave the discussion of the rest of the chapter for now waiting for your replies to my questions, but just mention verse 10 and how it ties into the length of time and the impatience of these mockers. Jesus told His disciples that His coming would be like a thief in the night and that the love of many would wax cold. That is what is happening during the time that Peter is writing his second epistle. And this nonsense that Peter is teaching that the Lord failed to come contradicts what Peter said,

The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.

The reason the Lord has not come yet, according to Peter, is that He is not slow in keeping His promises but is patient  and wants none of the elect to perish. Then the very next verse Peter tells his audience (who you have not identified) that the Lord will come, like a thief, and surprize those mockers and the unfaithful who doubted His promises.  

After you answer my questions I will set the record straight and exegete 2 Peter 3 further. 


 And I see that you are still no closer to starting your own thread .. 

Nope, I'm bent on correcting your misconceptions so that others will see the errors of your interpretation. 
Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen

Please note anyone reading this thread, Stephen seldom does any expounding on texts/verses I issue, he just moves on to his next pet verses and talking point because he is unable.

The texts contradict what he is preaching.

 I haven't had to move on anything  at all.  And the   BIBLICAL text agree with me.
Not at all. You fail to identify how the Father came in His glory in the OT. [....................................]oldest propaganda trick going

No. No. No!  You have to admit that even Peter, not to mention those that took him to task admitted that the Christ hadn't return and this is the reason he   was forced to move the goal posts from  " a generation "  to a thousand years!<<<<< this is the "oldest propaganda trick" that has been peddled for TWO THOUSAND YEARS!!!!

 And I see that you are still no closer to starting your own thread .. 
You made a claim, "No show." You keep trying to create a narrative by repetition, posting one verse repeatedly as if that makes your point.

I'm just showing others how little you understand of His coming in AD 70. Let's get back to your claims in 2 Peter 3. Do you think Peter was saying anything unusual in his identifying these mockers? Jesus warned His generation that the thief would come at a time when those unaware would be caught off guard. That is what is happening here. Peter shows that there are mockers, just like Jesus prophesied. What is prophesied in the Olivet Discourse is shown the fulfillment many years later by these authors.

For instance, the thief coming:

But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into.

“But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have allowed his house to be broken into.

For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord is coming just like a thief in the night.

But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness, so that the day would overtake you like a thief;

[ A New Heaven and Earth ] But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be discovered.

Same theme, and I could show you that the apostles issued many warnings of warning not to ignore the signs of the times. The Olivet Discourse, which you probably don't know, is expanded on in many of these epistles.

Matthew 24
4 And Jesus answered and said to them, “See to it that no one [c]misleads you. 5 For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the [d]Christ,’ and they will [e]mislead many people...See that you are not alarmed, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end...11 And many false prophets will rise up and [h]mislead many people. 12 And because lawlessness is increased, [i]most people’s love will become cold. 13 But the one who endures to the end is the one who will be saved. 14 This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole [j]world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.

Be Ready for His Coming
42 “Therefore be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming. 43 But [ai]be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what time of the night the thief was coming, he would have been on the alert and would not have allowed his house to be broken into. 44 For this reason you must be ready as well; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will.
45 “Who then is the faithful and sensible slave whom his [aj]master put in charge of his household slaves, to give them their food at the proper time? 46 Blessed is that slave whom his [ak]master finds so doing when he comes. 47 Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions. 48 But if that evil slave says in his heart, ‘My [al]master [am]is not coming for a long time,’ 49 and he begins to beat his fellow slaves, and he eats and drinks with those habitually drunk; 50 then the [an]master of that slave will come on a day that he does not expect, and at an hour that he does not know, 51 and he will [ao]cut him in two and assign [ap]him a place with the hypocrites; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Again, Peter is just showing what the Lord had warned of many, many years previously that would happen within the course of that generation is happening as he writes. And please note, reader, every time I ask a question recently, Stephen ignores it. That is because he cannot do exegesis on the passage in contention without damaging his position. 
 
Stephen, do you understand who Peter was written to? Let's get the primary audience of the address down pat.
Who do you say it was written to, or do you even know? (Baby steps)

that they were saying to you, “In the last time there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts.”

Stephen, when are the last times? Last times of what?

‘Look, you scoffers, and be astonished, and perish; For I am accomplishing a work in your days, A work which you will never believe, though someone should describe it to you.’”

Stephen, whose days? Who is Paul speaking of?

Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen
Please note anyone reading this thread, Stephen seldom does any expounding on texts/verses I issue, he just moves on to his next pet verses and talking point because he is unable.

The texts contradict what he is preaching.

 I haven't had to move on anything  at all.  And the   BIBLICAL text agree with me.
Not at all. You fail to identify how the Father came in His glory in the OT. I documented that coming. Jesus said He would come in like manner. That blows your little popsicle stand off the map. 

How does "this generation" agree with you? What age was Jesus speaking of? He lists two, "this age" He was in and the age to come. 
How would the destruction of the temple and abandonment of the priesthood affect OT Israel's relationship with God?

You believe you have proved something i.e. that Jesus kept his promise and has returned. You haven't provided a single piece of proof to support your claim. The bible also says he didn't return when he promised to return.
I gave you Scripture. Jesus' disciples wanted to know when the temple would be desolated, "Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the [a]end of the age?” Matthew 24:3

1. When will no stone be left unturned?
2. What would be the signs of His coming?
3. What would be the signs of the end of the age. 

Jesus told the disciples, with verse 4 onwards. Do you want to do a checklist of whether those things took place or not? I already showed you that Josephus recorded a nation rising against nation, kingdom against kingdom, famines, and earthquakes. What was Josephus' word's in the Preface to the Wars of the Jews?

Let me remind you.

"the war which the Jews made with the Romans hath been the greatest of all those, not only that have been in our times, but, in a manner, of those that ever were heard of; both of those wherein cities have fought against cities, or nations against nations;"

And,

"it appears to me that the misfortunes of all men, from the beginning of the world if they are compared to these of the Jews 3 are not so considerable as they were"

And what did Jesus say before the words of Josephus? 

For then, there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will again.

Do you understand the tribulation and how it affected Israel? You should. You say you read Josephus. I can break down the tribulation further for you if you don't know. And, do you know that Jesus is taking from the prophecy of Daniel when He speaks of this great tribulation like no other. Once again, prophecy is fulfilled.

Daniel 12
12 “Now at that time Michael, the great prince who stands guard over the sons of your people, will arise. And there will be a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time. At that time, your people, everyone who is found written in the book, will be rescued. 2 And many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting [a]contempt. 3 And [b]those who have insight will shine like the glow of the [c]expanse of heaven, and those who [d]lead the many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever. 4 But as for you, Daniel, keep these words secret and seal up the book until the end of time; many will roam about, and knowledge will increase.”

What Daniel was told to seal up, Jesus is telling His disciples will happen to that generation. 

I will deal with the rest of your post where you get into 2 Peter 3 again after an errand. 

In Post 96, he ignored my points and Scripture, just moved on as usual.

 They wasn't points. They were unreliable verses  from the same unreliable source that prove nothing. And I haven't had to move on at all. Those verses that show Jesus didn't return when he promised are still there proving MY case while debunking yours. Get over it princess. If the bible is the word of god you have to accept it, contradictions an'all. 
Bull. What you pull is the oldest propaganda trick going. By repeating your lie long enough, you think that makes it true, at least to those who are not willing to think the issue through, ignoring what Scripture teaches.
Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen
Please note anyone reading this thread, Stephen seldom does any expounding on texts/verses I issue, he just moves on to his next pet verses and talking point because he is unable. The texts contradict what he is preaching.

In Post 96, he ignored my points and Scripture, just moved on as usual. The same with Post 98. He resorted to 2 Peter 3:4, 8. In upcoming posts, I will deal with that chapter in greater detail, exposing the bankruptcy of his view.   


Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen
Again, you don't understand the covenant Israel made with God,

 And again you have ignored what was expected from the promised  messiah as prophesised in the Old Testament that you cannot help but keep referring to.
No, I have not ignored anything. You do not understand the spiritual. 

We also speak these things, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.

But a natural person 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 discerned.

But the one who is spiritual discerns all things, yet he himself is discerned by no one.

and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ.

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

We are born as physical beings into a physical world. To be with God, we are born again spiritually. In Eden, Adam lost that intimate fellowship with God. In the Second Adam (Jesus Christ), that fellowship is renewed. The physical and spiritual bodies are different.  

You, as an unbeliever, try to understand everything through your natural eyes and natural mind/understanding. You do not see the spiritual, and when someone points that out to you, then you deny it. 

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

The natural comes first, not the spiritual. Jesus said that no one could see or enter the kingdom unless they are born again. The OT is a physical history of Israel but it contains typology and the greater spiritual truths in that it all points to Jesus Christ. What is said of God in the OT is applied to Jesus Christ in the NT. You do not have eyes to see.

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,

Christians have a blessing that you understand very little if anything of. 

For this reason we also, since the day we heard about it, have not ceased praying for you and asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,

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

That is the third temple spoken of in the OT. Each Christian forms the building blocks of such a temple. 

Those in the OT were looking for a spiritual country, a spiritual city, a spiritual land, a heavenly country where God resides in Spirit. 

But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.

And Jesus answered them, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted.

[ Second Coming Foretold ] Now He was questioned by the Pharisees as to when the kingdom of God was coming, and He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God is not coming with signs that can be observed;

nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or, ‘There it is!’ For behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst.”

So you too, when you see these things happening, recognize that the kingdom of God is near.

Jesus responded and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless someone is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.”

Can you understand that? Is your brain able to comprehend these things? Jesus' kingdom is not of this realm. The OT points to it and speaks of it. I will get into your chosen verses next after my errand is finished. 

Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen

They will have it that virtually the whole of the apocalypse was fulfilled by A.D. 70 with  the invading Roman armies and the fall of Jerusalem, while others have it that the promised return happened with the fall of Rome A.D. 476! 
Again, you don't understand the covenant Israel made with God, the covenant they all agreed to (Exodus 24:3,7). The blessings and curses (Deuteronomy 28) would apply to Israel once they reached the measure of their sins (Matthew 23:32; Zechariah 12:2; Isaiah 51:17). 

AD 70 fulfills those curses, as per the warnings of Jesus (Matthew 23-24), John the Baptist (Matthew 3:7-10), and the apostle's teaching (1 Thessalonians 2:16). 

Jesus made it plain that not one iota of the Law or the prophets (prophetic fulfillment) would pass away until everything in both was completed/fulfilled. 

17 “Do not presume that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. 18 For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not [a]the smallest letter or stroke of a letter shall pass from the Law, until all is accomplished!

What is the case after AD 70? 
1. No more priesthood to apply the atonement of sin or mediate between the people and God. 
2. No more animal sacrifices. 
3. No more temple.
4. No more city of God.
5. No more feast days.
6. No more genealogical records (destroyed with the temple).
7. The people were taken captive and dispersed to all corners of the known world.
8. The possibility of fulfilling the OT prophecies about the Messiah, promised to the covenant people, vanished after AD 70. That is because it is already fulfilled. The Messiah came and fulfilled all OT prophecies that up to the time of His coming still lacked fulfillment completing the list in AD 70. 

What was said of the new covenant between God and His people is now established forever. It is sealed in the blood atonement of the Messiah, a one-time sacrifice for all time, sufficient so that no other atonement is necessary!

Jeremiah 31:31-34 (NASB)
31 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. 33 “For this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord: “I will put My law within them and write it on their heart; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 They will not teach again, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their wrongdoing, and their sin I will no longer remember.”

Happened under the Lord Jesus Christ. He was the atonement needed. (Hebrews 9:23-28)

Brother, if  Revelation and  Matthew 24:7 and Luke 21:11 are ever to fit a time and place in human history then today would be that time. IMHO.
The 1st-century meets all the requirements of these verses.

Matthew 24:7 (NASB)
7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places.

Luke 21:11 (NASB)
11 and there will be [a]massive earthquakes, and in various places plagues and famines; and there will be terrible sights and great [b]signs from heaven.

These signs were all noted by your friend, Josephus as being fulfilled up to and during the siege on Jerusalem in AD 70. Note the title of his writing, The Wars of the Jews. 

In the Preface of The Wars of the Jews, he said this:

PREFACE
1. 1 Whereas the war which the Jews made with the Romans hath been the greatest of all those, not only that have been in our times, but, in a manner, of those that ever were heard of; both of those wherein cities have fought against cities, or nations against nations; while some men who were not concerned in the affairs themselves have gotten together vain and contradictory stories by hearsay, and have written them down after a sophistical manner; and while those that were there present have given false accounts of things, and this either out of a humor of flattery to the Romans, or of hatred towards the Jews; and while their writings contain sometimes accusations, and sometimes encomiums, but no where the accurate truth of the facts; I have proposed to myself, for the sake of such as live under the government of the Romans, to translate those books into the Greek tongue, which I formerly composed in the language of our country, and sent to the Upper Barbarians; 2 Joseph, the son of Matthias, by birth a Hebrew, a priest also, and one who at first fought against the Romans myself, and was forced to be present at what was done afterwards, [am the author of this work].

4. However, I will not go to the other extreme, out of opposition to those men who extol the Romans nor will I determine to raise the actions of my countrymen too high; but I will prosecute the actions of both parties with accuracy. Yet shall I suit my language to the passions I am under, as to the affairs I describe, and must be allowed to indulge some lamentations upon the miseries undergone by my own country. For that it was a seditious temper of our own that destroyed it, and that they were the tyrants among the Jews who brought the Roman power upon us, who unwillingly attacked us, and occasioned the burning of our holy temple, Titus Caesar, who destroyed it, is himself a witness, who, during the entire war, pitied the people who were kept under by the seditious, and did often voluntarily delay the taking of the city, and allowed time to the siege, in order to let the authors have opportunity for repentance. But if any one makes an unjust accusation against us, when we speak so passionately about the tyrants, or the robbers, or sorely bewail the misfortunes of our country, let him indulge my affections herein, though it be contrary to the rules for writing history; because it had so come to pass, that our city Jerusalem had arrived at a higher degree of felicity than any other city under the Roman government, and yet at last fell into the sorest of calamities again. Accordingly, it appears to me that the misfortunes of all men, from the beginning of the world, if they be compared to these of the Jews 3 are not so considerable as they were; while the authors of them were not foreigners neither. This makes it impossible for me to contain my lamentations. But if any one be inflexible in his censures of me, let him attribute the facts themselves to the historical part, and the lamentations to the writer himself only.

Sound familiar? 

For then there will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will again.

Again, Matthew 24 describes the signs to look for before Jesus' Second Coming. I could go through each one and show you where Josephus makes note of it, but that would take a lot of time. 

Preface continued:

11. After this, I shall relate the barbarity of the tyrants towards the people of their own nation, as well as the indulgence of the Romans in sparing foreigners; and how often Titus, out of his desire to preserve the city and the temple, invited the seditious to come to terms of accommodation. I shall also distinguish the sufferings of the people, and their calamities; how far they were afflicted by the sedition, and how far by the famine, and at length were taken. Nor shall I omit to mention the misfortunes of the deserters, nor the punishments inflicted on the captives; as also how the temple was burnt, against the consent of Caesar; and how many sacred things that had been laid up in the temple were snatched out of the fire; the destruction also of the entire city, with the signs and wonders that went before it; and the taking the tyrants captives, and the multitude of those that were made slaves, and into what different misfortunes they were every one distributed. Moreover, what the Romans did to the remains of the wall; and how they demolished the strong holds that were in the country; and how Titus went over the whole country, and settled its affairs; together with his return into Italy, and his triumph.


The evidence is in my favour, not yours. Your knowledge of Scripture and what went on is proving to be paltry. 
 
Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen
He is not a great thinker is he, Brother?  PGA2.0`s belief that the Christ had already kept his promise to return on a cloud in AD 66-70 [a] I am sure can be debunked with just one example of many from scripture itself. 

[b] Take for instance  2 Thessalonians 2: 3- "Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;".

 Do you see that right there Brother? 

 
[c] Falling away from what?  The facts are that  there  were no established christian church to "fall away" from and not [d] a single Christian was involved in the siege of Jerusalem. 

Jesus had his Jewish support from all quarters. which included rich and influential men and women supporters of the cause.  Men/women on the inside of the Jewish authorities and serving in Herod's palaces.  Women supporting them of their substances, massive support  from the heartland of the zealots in Galilee, but does he ever once call them "Christians"? [e] Answer to that is NO! Not a single author of the four gospels ever mentions the word  - Christian.

So again, [f] what was there a falling away from? When did the great Christian apostacy happen? It didn't . [g] In fact the Christian church grew massively and eventually became the state religion of Rome!  Does that sound like a great "falling away from the CHRISTIAN church, Brother?

And for all the whaling and stamping of feet  coming from PGA2.0, it is interesting too that like the many different Christian sects can't  a agree with one part of scripture or another, [h] preterist can't actually agree among themselves  concerning the time second coming. 
I can't believe how bewildering your teaching is and how well you ignore what Scripture teaches. To be blunt, IMO, you speak of things you either have very little knowledge of, or your purpose is to deceive others due to your great bias and hatred of Christianity. When pushed to explain yourself, you make your feeble excuses and ad hominem attacks against my character and my inability to think (attack the man) rather than address the arguments themselves. 

[a] Debunked, you say? Okay, let's examine what you have written concerning the falling away.

[b] 2 Thessalonians, just like all of Paul's epistles, contains an expounding of the prophecies of the Olivet Discourse and the falling away or great apostasy (Matthew 24:10-12). Don K Preston wrote a book on the similarities between 1 Thessalonians and the Olivet Discourse in which he lists them, one by one. I can list the similarities, one by one (p. 183-184). 2 Thessalonians is written to a church. (so that you know) Many of the same themes of apostasy are present in the other churches Paul writes to.  These themes concern a particular sign spoken of by Jesus before His Second Coming, and that sign is present when Paul is writing his epistles. That should tell you something, Stephen, of when that time was to be. 

[c] You are not paying attention again. You don't know what "the falling away" is? Who is Paul writing to? Answer, for your information, the church of the Thessalonians. Who does Paul address most of his epistles to? To churches! The author of Hebrews makes it plain that some of the Hebrews who have put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ were in danger of falling away or turning back to Judaism. The author of Hebrews makes plain to these in danger that Christ Jesus is superior to Judaism and the OT law and sacrificial system in every way. He makes it plain to THEM, in the 1st-century, that the OT system of worship is about to disappear and be replaced totally with the better way. 

[d] Jesus told them beforehand when they saw Jerusalem surrounded to flee to the countryside. Other historical documents reveal many fleed to Pella. 

[e] Why? Because the word Christian (follower of Christ) was first used many years later than Jesus teaching at Antioch. Every one of the apostles professed the name of Yeshua, the Moshiach/Messiah, or who we call Jesus, the Christ in English.

[f] It was a falling away from believing in the one name under heaven by which a person can be saved. The Jews who heard the message and started to believe were influenced by their fellow countrymen (Jews) to return to Judaism. 

[g] It happened during the reign of Nero. There was a persecution of Christian at that time by Nero and the Jews, and what with the pressure of the Jews and Romans, many turned away from the faith in the Lord, the Messiah. I can provide documentation on all I claim. That would be in other posts. This is just answering your rubbish claims. 

[h] There is a distinction between full preterism and partial preterism. A full preterist agrees that all of Scripture has been fulfilled and can give such beliefs a good reason. 

I will address the rest of your post another day since I am finishing the last round of my debate. 
Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen

What did Jesus say to Peter?
He said,  " get ye behind me SATAN!!!!! Matthew 16:23

After that? He restored Him to grace and forgave him.

John 21
The Love Question
15 Now when they had finished breakfast, Jesus *said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you [e]love Me more than these?” He *said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I [f]love You.” He *said to him, “Tend My lambs.” 16 He *said to him again, a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you [g]love Me?” He *said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I [h]love You.” He *said to him, “Shepherd My sheep.” 17 He *said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you [i]love Me?” Peter was [j]hurt because He said to him the third time, “Do you [k]love Me?” And he said to Him, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I [l]love You.” Jesus *said to him, “Tend My sheep.
Our Times Are in His Hand
18 Truly, truly I tell you, when you were younger, you used to put on your belt and walk wherever you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will put your belt on you, and bring you where you do not want to go.” 19 Now He said this, indicating by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when He had said this, He *said to him, “Follow Me!”
20 Peter turned around and *saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them—the one who also had leaned back on His chest at the supper and said, “Lord, who is the one who is betraying You?” 21 So Peter, upon seeing him, *said to Jesus, “Lord, and what about this man?” 22 Jesus *said to him, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me!” 23 Therefore this [m]account went out among the brothers, that that disciple would not die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but only, “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you?”

So, Peter denied Jesus three times, and the Lord restored him by testing his love with those three questions. He also told Peter how he would die and that if He chose John would remain alive until His coming. Church tradition has it that John did live to witness the second coming, for he lived past Jerusalem's destruction in AD70. 

He returned in AD 70.I started such a thread before. The participants largely avoided the issues.
Have you!?  Or is that more bullshit?  You have started  only five threads total on this forum. Four of which are directed to the person.  Two of those were directed and personalised towards me. How you got away with breaking that rule puzzles me to this day when the Brother was banned for simply quoting someones biographical profile that was already available to anyone on this forum.. And the fifth is to do with morality.


Well, I was not aware of such a policy until you made such a big fuss. Very gracious of you. You post thread after thread that ad hominem Christians and mock Christianity, calling us stupid and other derogatory names, and because we question these threads, it really gets your goat.  You even blocked me once. I'm glad to see that you have a forgiving nature! 

I cannot locate your thread alleging that  Jesus had already returned  to earth as promised in 66-70 AD some 35+ years after once laying  dead , rotting and stinking for three days and then ascending into heaven,  as you claim. 


I did include evidence in my two threads that addressed you. 


Also I see no thread of yours claiming historian Flavius Josephus describing Jesus' return as you claim, either. So when you are ready,  maybe you can resurrect your old thread for us all to look at, read ,  scrutinize and question. In your own time sunshine.
The greater context was the Second Coming and all the prophecies being fulfilled with the judgment spoken of by both Jesus and Josephus. What does 'it' refer to? 'It' refers to the judgment to make myself clear. Josephus describes the judgment of Matthew 23-26 in detail in his writings. Although he does not believe Jesus is the Messiah, he does mention the coming of the Son when the talent stones were slamming into Jerusalem. 

Here is the greater context:
Even at his trial he told the priests and the council :“you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.“” Matthew26: 63, 64.     And the no show hadn’t gone nu-noticed by the people either:
The High Priest definitely understood that the Son of Man was seated at the right hand of the Father during the judgment in AD 70. Josephus describes it in much detail. I recommend you read it to familiarize yourself with what actually happened. All the signs of Matthew 24 are present. In fact, you can find many of the fulfillments happening during the forty-year transition. Peter and Paul speak of the Gospel going to the ends of the earth during this period and before they were put to death by Nero between AD 64 and AD 68. Revelation describes the harlot, which is Jerusalem, and they also describe the kings or caesars, of which Nero is the one who is.

I did not claim Josephus believed Jesus returned. Still, he certainly had references to the Son, like the one I referenced about the stones being pelted against the city and the reference to "the Son is coming." What Josephus confirms, perhaps unbeknownst to him, is that what Jesus predicted in the Olivet Discourse came to pass, including many things Jesus promised for His Second Coming. What do Matthew 23-24, Mark 13, and Luke 21 all have in common? They all are the author's recounting of the Olivet Discourse, the judgment of Israel, specifically Judah. 

Luke 21:20-24 (NASB)
20 “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then [a]recognize that her desolation is near. 21 Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those who are inside [b]the city must leave, and those who are in the country must not enter [c]the city; 22 because these are days of punishment, so that all things which have been written will be fulfilled. 23 Woe to those women who are pregnant, and to those who are nursing babies in those days; for there will be great distress upon the [d]land, and wrath to this people; 24 and they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. 

Not only did Jesus say that when Jerusalem is surrounded, this time of judgment (these days of punishment) was to fulfill all that is written, but also speaks of great tribulation upon the LAND and the PEOPLE.

Josephus had a bird-eye view of Jerusalem's siege, and he too knew it was a judgment from God. He makes the point of great tribulation on these people just as Jesus had.  

The key is that He said He would come in the Father's glory, so you have to understand what that is.
And how does Flavius Josephus " describe it in much detail " #26  as you claim he does? And you have also already told me that - #25 >>>  "TO YOUR MIND"coming in the father's glory  can mean two things" -    none of which prove a damn thing.  Why not three things or four or five or five hundred!!!!!?  that will certainly leave no room for doubt, would it!!! Have you even  considered that "YOUR MIND" has been tricking you!?

When I answered, my Post's 25 and 26 were one post that the thread would not accept because of length, so I broke them up at the point I did, but you can see from Post 25 that I was speaking of the judgment.

Post 32 and Post 33 are where I documented loads of Josephus quotes. 

To my mind is a specific quote, not adlib for anything you choose to make it as you did below. Yes, two things above all others, judgment and reward as referenced in the words 'power' and 'glory.' His coming was to fulfill both. He would judge the wicked and reward those who are just as many of His parables laid out in words like separating the 'wheat from the chaff,' or the 'sheep from the goats.'  So, I have good justification for stating what I stated. I could reference many verses that support such a view or reward and punishment, power and glory. 

Do you want me to issue the formal challenge?
 You must keep missing or misunderstanding  what to any one else it plain English would suggest that you start your own thread about your own belief that Jesus has already returned , been and gone again, in 66-70 AD. What do you not grasp about that. I have suggested this to you FOUR FKN TIMES NOW!!!! 


Make yourself more clear, then. You keep berating me for your inability to make yourself clear, and I noticed you use profanities when speaking to Christians. Exchange is to investigate and try to understand what the other person means. 

I am cross-examining your claims of a no-show. That concerns whether or not Jesus returned when He said He would and the nature of that return. 

I will bold and underline it for you this time  so you cannot miss it!

 don't we let someone else judge who has the better argument here? How about a formal debate?

I am more than happy to be in conversation discussing my questions and opinions on this open forum. 
 But  how about that  you start a thread laying out your belief that Jesus has  retuned to earth as promised in 66 - 70 AD already!   Let us see how much support and agreement you get from the Christian members on the forum.  I should imagine your thread will garner much attention considering most if not all of the theist and some atheist here don't agree with me either . Off you go then. 
Why have you failed to create your own thread on your own belief that "to your mind" Jesus had already returned  to earth as promised in 66-70 AD some 40 years after being dead for three days and then ascending into heaven,  as you claim.
To my mind or what the authors of Scripture actually taught?

Why would I create my own thread when I am addressing the claim of a no-show? He showed, just not in the way you think. He presented Himself before the Father in heaven and before myriads upon myriads of saints. That seating at His Father's side would be understood in the judgment that He warned them of repeatedly in AD 27-30. 

And to clear up your view of what I said, He was crucified, died, rose again from the dead three days later, spent 40 days with the disciples, then ascended into heaven to be with the Father and returned in judgment 40 years later on these OT people.

Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen

Why don't we let someone else judge who has the better argument here? How about a formal debate?

I am more than happy on this open forum.   
How does a formal debate happen on an open thread? Do you want me to issue the formal challenge?
Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen

Okay, commitment! You say 1st-century.

 Stop putting words into my mouth. What I say is that Jesus hasn't returned on a cloud after resurrecting form the dead and stinking in his rich friends  tomb for days and then descending from "heaven".
That was not the original context. The original context was about the generation the text referred to, a 1st-century generation.

You are doing what you do all the time; you snip out the parts of something that you don't want others to see, collapse the context and make it a pretext. Here is the greater context. You keep twisting things around. Here is the greater context:
What generation does the text infer? Answer that

 I have already. Jesus  also says the those alive at the time that he made his promise return will see him return. 

Or have you forgotten this >> :“Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom”. Matthew16: 27-28.

Even at his trial he told the priests and the council that they too would witness his return Or have you also forgotten this>>>:"you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven"Matthew26: 63, 64.
Okay, commitment! You say 1st-century. You say that the text teaches the 1st-century, and that is correct judging from the texts themselves.
Are you aware of what you are writing? Those at His trial were in the 1st-century; those He said would not taste death was 1st-century. Thus, the text teaches 1st-century. Now you backtrack as to say it does not. 

MILLIONS !!!! of Christians don't believe that his return hasn't happened at all , "yet"  but his arrival is immanent.
I already covered the imminent part. What some Christians believe does not always line up with what Scripture teaches. 

So, once again, what are the signs that Jesus said would happen in that generation?

Already covered and again this was explained earlier when Jesus to his disciples said of the signs to look out for.. I mentioned this is my very first post. But you are so so far up your own arse that you didn't bother to read it or have simply forgotten what I wrote. Either way, here it is again... 
Again, your ad hominem is not cool. Do you think it is funny or mucho? I have refrained from calling you derogatory names like "up your arse" or "stupid" like you have done with me. 

POST #1  Stephen Added01.30.21 06: Wrote: 

Jesus then goes further telling them which “signs” to look out for but this time including the whole “generation” and ending again with:

“Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened “Matthew24:25-34.
Mark13:26-30 says the same as does Luke21:27-32. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<THIS  on top of those further promises about returning before those ALIVE AT THE TIME OF THE PROMISE PASS AWAY LOOK>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
:“Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom”. Matthew16: 27-28.

Even at his trial he told the priests and the council that they too would witness his return Or have you also forgotten this>>>:"you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven"Matthew26: 63, 64.
What is a sign? Here are a few definitions that might apply to that context:

2: a mark having a conventional meaning and used in place of words or to represent a complex notion
6a: something material or external that stands for or signifies something spiritual
b: something indicating the presence or existence of something else signs of success a sign of the times

Something material or eternal that stands for or signifies something spiritual. 

And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.

Now to the dozens of questions you failed to answer.

 I believe I have answered those relevant to the thread -- my thread. And you can believe what the fk you like.
Selective confirmation bias. 

Why don't we let someone else judge who has the better argument here? How about a formal debate?
I am more than happy on this open forum.   But  how about that  you start a thread laying out your belief that Jesus has  retuned to earth as promised in 66 - 70 AD already!   Let us see how much support and agreement you get from the Christian members on the forum.  I should imagine your thread will garner much attention considering most if not all of the theist and some atheist here don't agree with me either . Off you go then. 
He returned in AD 70.

I started such a thread before. The participants largely avoided the issues.

I'm trying to hold you to the commitment you made. You said Jesus was a no-show. I'm showing others that you do not understand Scripture.

If everything He said would happen happened, what makes you think He did not return? It is because you have a fixed notion of what it means that every eye will see Him. You have brought into the common take on this verse not understanding what it means to come in the Father's glory, and the Father came in CLOUDS of glory. His presence was felt when the cloud appeared. 

Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen

And you keep forgetting Jesus' actual words according to the scripture.>>>>> :“Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom”. Matthew16: 27-28. That will be those " alive and standing " at the time of the promise to you and in any language including ancient Greek!
I haven't forgotten them. I have addressed those verses about four times now. John would have been one of those, according to church tradition, who lived to see the evidence that confirmed that Jesus was sitting at the right hand of the Father in heaven and coming with judgment. 

Even at his trial he told the priests and the council that they too would witness his return Or have you also forgotten this>>>:"you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven"Matthew26: 63, 64.
Addressed earlier as well.


What did Jesus mean when He said He would come in His Father's glory, with His angels, and that He would give everyone their due recompense?

You don't get this at all do you? 
I get it. I doubt you do. 

That shite is for you to explain, ( if it is at all relevant to the thread).
I already explained it to you. 

It is not for me to support your own mental theory or beliefs about Jesus already having returned as promised. So you explain it and I will read your explanation and any relevance you believe it has to this thread. 
The key is that He said He would come in the Father's glory, so you have to understand what that is. You do not understand what the OT taught us about His glory. 

and in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord, for He hears your grumblings against the Lord; and what are we, that you grumble against us?”

How did they see the glory of the Lord? Did they see Him physically? No, because God is Spirit. They saw His glory manifest in the cloud. 

And it came about, as Aaron spoke to the entire congregation of the sons of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud.

His glory appeared in the CLOUD.

The glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; and on the seventh day He called to Moses from the midst of the cloud.

As He called Moses from the mist of the cloud, so in the NT He calls His Son, Jesus, from within the cloud.

[ The Glory of the Lord ] Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.
It came about, however, when the congregation had assembled against Moses and Aaron, that they turned toward the tent of meeting, and behold, the cloud covered it and the glory of the Lord appeared.

so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.

so that the priests could not rise to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of God.

then the Lord will create over the entire area of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, and smoke, and the brightness of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory will be a canopy.

He said to Me, “You are My Servant, Israel, In whom I will show My glory.”

So they will fear the name of the Lord from the west And His glory from the rising of the sun, For He will come like a rushing stream Which the wind of the Lord drives.

[ God’s Anger over Israel ] How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion With a cloud in His anger! He has hurled The glory of Israel from heaven to earth, And has not remembered His footstool In the day of His anger.

Like the appearance of the rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the appearance of the surrounding radiance. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell on my face and heard a voice speaking.

Then the glory of the Lord went up from the cherub to the threshold of the temple, and the temple was filled with the cloud, and the courtyard was filled with the brightness of the glory of the Lord.

“And I will place My glory among the nations; and all the nations will see My judgment which I have executed, and My hand which I have laid on them.

And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.

Christ Jesus is coming in the Father's glory. The sign is the clouds.

[ The Judgment ] “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne.

And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.

IMO, power and glory signifies two things, judgment with magesty and honour.

shouting: “Blessed is the King, the One who comes in the name of the Lord; Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to come into His glory?”

The same glory He shared with the Father before the universe began is the same glory that the Father manifest in the OT when His presence was experienced in the cloud.

Jesus *said to her, “Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?”

How did they see the glory of the Lord? They saw it in the cloud, and in the fire. His presence went before them.

And now You, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world existed.

That is the glory that Isreal experienced once again in the OT Shekinah cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. 

Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.

When Christ ascends into heaven (Acts 1) the witnesses see the glory of the Father in the cloud that takes Jesus out of their sight, and that is how He will come again, in the cloud of glory.

Beyond question, great is the mystery of godliness: He who was revealed in the flesh, Was vindicated in the Spirit, Seen by angels, Proclaimed among the nations, Believed on in the world, Taken up in glory.

Jesus was taken up in glory, and that is how the disciples saw Him go into heaven in Acts 1, out of sight with the cloud.

who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice from the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to Him!”

But while he was saying this, a cloud formed and began to overshadow them; and they were afraid as they entered the cloud.

Again, they entered the presence of God. 

[ The Ascension ] And after He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were watching, and a cloud took Him up, out of their sight.

They saw the cloud take Him out of their sight. The cloud of the glory of the Lord God took Him out of their sight. (1 Timothy 3:16)

Then we who are alive, who remain, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.

[ The Angel and the Little Scroll ] I saw another strong angel coming down from heaven, clothed with a cloud; and the rainbow was on his head, and his face was like the sun, and his feet like pillars of fire;

Again reference to God's glory. 

And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, “Come up here.” And they went up into heaven in the cloud, and their enemies watched them.

[ The Harvest ] Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and sitting on the cloud was one like a son of man, with a golden crown on His head and a sharp sickle in His hand.

And another angel came out of the temple, calling out with a loud voice to Him who sat on the cloud, “Put in your sickle and reap, for the hour to reap has come, because the harvest of the earth is ripe.”

Then He who sat on the cloud swung His sickle over the earth, and the earth was reaped.

Judgment. Clouds and judgment.
Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen

No biblical Christian who has an ounce of sense recognizes the Mormons as brothers in Christ. 
Except other Christian Mormons and perhaps our resident monk, Mopac
As we have said before, even now I say again: if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!

For if anyone thinks that he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.

 You claimed Peter was teaching a no-show.

Nope. Again you are putting words into my mouth.  I have claimed that Peter,  the lying turncoat, actually tried to explain away Jesus' no show with the bullshit excuse that to "the Lord"  a generation was a thousands years. And only came up with that shite years after the crucifixion and the population had started to question the promised return..  Its a shame Jesus didn't  mention the " 1,000 years" crap  at the time, isn't it?
From Day 1 you have been teaching that Scripture combined with your interpretation and history teaches a no-show. You include Scripture from 2 Peter as teaching this. 

Here is my Post 59 in context: "I showed how you mistook 2 Peter 3. You claimed Peter was teaching a no-show. I showed that from the text, your claim was invalid." 

From that text (2 Peter 3) Peter was teaching by the scoffers [happy now?], thus Scripture was teaching a no-show. That was the whole point of using that verse. You had a motive. You wanted others to think that Scripture teaches a no-show. He was not teaching that Jesus was a no-show from these verses as you alleged. He was teaching that they were wrong, that God was not slow in keeping His promises but did not want any of the elect to perish because He came earlier than the prescribed time.   

Post 1 - YOU: "Where was he?" [What are you suggesting here?]
2Peter 3:4 “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.”
Yet even allowing for all those Jews alive at the time of the promise and living another hundred + years, Jesus simply failed to show and keep his promise.

That is your post and what it says. 

You are suggesting a no-show, saying that people questioned His coming. I told you that Peter set the record straight, that God is not slow in keeping His promises. 

Post 27 - YOU: "Remember Peter had no answer for them did he?" 

He most certainly did. You are misleading the reader once again, and I set the record straight that he DID have an answer. You continually collapse Scripture to suit your purposes. 

See my reply in Post 28.

Post 30 - YOU: "Not a single thing that you have posted goes anywhere in showing that Jesus returned from the dead and appeared to his apostles or anyone, on a cloud or anything resembling as such after the accession."

YOU: "Peter was challenged wasn't he?  But he had no explanation for the no show did he,? So instead just like you he swerved the problem with bullshit : lets see what they said and  Peter's weasley reply."

Again, you claim that Peter had no explanation for the no-show, thus from such logic, you must be teaching that Peter taught a no-show. 

This post:
ME: "You claimed Peter was teaching a no-show."
YOU: "Nope." 

Post 30 continued: YOU:
"They asked;
“Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.”2Peter 3:4

Yet even allowing for all those Jews alive at the time of the promise and living another hundred + years, Jesus simply failed to show and keep his promise. They didn't ask because he had returned, did they you fool.   They asked because he hadn't!       And everything went on the same.  

What was Peter's BS response to them:

8 " But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day".

Odd it is that Jesus forgot to mention this thousand years when he promised the generation living at the time of the promise.

Odd then isn't it that Jesus forgot to mention they wouldn't pass away because they would all live for another thousand years before they all witnessed his return. 

No matter how many verses you post here, trying to tell us that Jesus did return  , they won't alter what the scriptures actually state  and only go further to shown your BS is full of holes.
Again, you are trying to teach everyone that Scripture teaches a no-show by selective citing verses and collapsing the context.

Post 34 - The thousand years explained. 


Post 60 - "Peter's verse about "scoffers" only comes years after the people started to wise up and ask where was Jesus."

***

PS. I missed your Post 48 because you failed to include my name in the Receiver's box. I ask that you would do so in the future so I get notified to have replied to me. I will have something to say on that too.

Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen
As I explained, scoffers and mockers were questioning the coming but Peter explains that God is not slow in keeping His promises,

 Nope . Peter was a  the liar and turncoat. When there are many verses telling us that we should listen to the voice of god,  who is it that we should we listen to? Jesus's own words? OR  PETER a man that tells lies - and that denied even knowing Jesus three times! Luke 22:59-62?  PETER,  that was supposed to be "keeping watch" over Jesus but fell asleep three times! that led to Jesus` arrest, trial and barbaric torturous execution? Matthew 26:40?   give me a fkn break!
You conveniently pick and choose only what you want to mislead others with when it comes to Scripture.
1. Jesus restored Peter to grace after Peter denied Him three times. 


What did Jesus say to Peter?
And I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.

After Peter denied Jesus three times, Jesus restored him to grace.

[ The Love Question ] Now when they had finished breakfast, Jesus *said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?” He *said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He *said to him, “Tend My lambs.”

He *said to him again, a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” He *said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He *said to him, “Shepherd My sheep.”

He *said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” Peter was hurt because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?” And he said to Him, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.” Jesus *said to him, “Tend My sheep.

Peter became one of the leaders of the early church. This is known through Acts, and he was used mightily by the Lord.

2. The trial was preordained by God to take place. The Father set(s) the times. (Every one of those verses in that link proves that God appoints the times.

God appoints apostles. 

And God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, and various kinds of tongues.

1 Peter 1:1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
2 Peter1:1 [a]Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,

***

You said, "telling us that we should listen to the voice of god," and the Holy Spirit empowers these men to speak God's revelation to humanity. Moses said that God would put His words in the mouth of a prophet.

Deuteronomy 18:18 I will raise up for them a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them everything that I command him.

 Joseph Smith is not even recognized as a Christian but a false prophet

I agree, as are you. Your own bullshit is totally on par with this fake "prophet". You are no better and have nothing new to say only regurgitate all the  Shite that has been said in the past.
A false prophet is proven that way via the vehicle of Scripture. If what they say does not align with Scripture, then they are not to be believed. Prove so via Scripture. You can't. 
Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen


And I gave you quite a few. And most of all, I have shown you that for every cherry picked verse that you believe "proves" Jesus had already returned in 70 AD,   there are as many if not more verses that hundreds of CHRISTIAN organisations can cherry pick from showing Jesus has not returned yet but his arrival is imminent. Would you like more from those many Christian organisations?  Which kind of makes nonsense of your own bullshit, doesn't it?  Face it, you have been out bullshitted by a better outfit that has more knowledge about these ambiguous and  unreliable scriptures than you will ever live to know. 
Bring it on.
See below. And  just to remind you, as unreliable as Wikipedia is I cannot see it as having  any reasons to exaggerating the times the "second coming" has been already predicted   BY CHRISTIANS  since the ascending  AND the fall of Jerusalem.  

Just to list a few of hundreds:

 Sextus Julius Africanus  a Christian  historian as was  Irenaeus who was brought up in a Christian. St Beatus of Liébana he was a christian  , theologian and geographer. Hippolytus of Rome  was one of the most important second-third century Christian theologians.

 Pope Sylvester II   Jan 1000, John Wesley English cleric, theologian, and evangelist, who was a leader of a revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism predicted 1836,  Catholic Apostolic Church predicted 1901 and the very famous Jehovah's Witnesses who predicted 1914. 
What is it you want me to glean from the links? If you want me to provide yards and yards of links without explaining exactly what I am saying (as you have), we can get into a links war. 


ALL ARE  Christians .  They too must have , just like you, failed to read and understand the bible too.
No, they are not. JW's are not a Christian denomination, and they have been proven to be false in what they said thousands of times. And so what if hundreds of denominations preach a futurist view of eschatology? Do you know the Dispensational View's history (another future view that preaches the Second Coming is still the future)? Please read up on John Darby and C. I. Scofield and how they pushed that view into mainline thinking. 

John Darby - "considered to be the father of modern Dispensationalism and Futurism. Pre-tribulation rapture theology was popularized extensively in the 1830s by John Nelson Darby and the Plymouth Brethren,[1] and further popularized in the United States in the early 20th century by the wide circulation of the Scofield Reference Bible.[2]"

C.I. Scofield - "as an American theologian, minister, and writer whose best-selling annotated Bible popularized futurism and dispensationalism among fundamentalist Christians."

Unfortunately, Christian denominations bought into this carp.  

What Christian should believe or care about what they think if it does not agree with the teaching of Scripture. The Bible is our blueprint, not some Christian denomination.

Are you seriously including the Mormons here?

Second Coming Of Jesus Christ


As in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man

FOURTEEN SIGNS ANNOUNCING CHRIST'S RETURN
What do you want me to glean from this. Chose a few signs or breakdown the keys from each link that you want e to address. I'm not going to read reams of material. Get specific. For instance, in your last link, they present 14 signs. Shall we discuss each of those signs, one by one, as to whether they were a no-show during the 1st-century?

How about we discuss these signs 14 in light of your claimed no-show? Everything Jesus described in the Olivet Discourse is related to 1st-century Israel and finds its fulfillment in that 1st-century. Each one of the following can be discussed in detail and shown to have taken place. Now, if everything described in the Olivet Discourse has taken place, just as Scripture said it would, then your view on eschatology is definitely wrong. You are trying to understand everything in light of a 21st-century perception. 
 
1. WARS, VIOLENCE, AND LAWLESSNESS - was this a no-show during the 1st-century? 
2. DROUGHT AND FAMINE - I already showed you that Josephus lists famines during the siege. 
3. EARTHQUAKES AND OTHER NATURAL CATASTROPHES - recorded in the NT and noted by historians of the time.
4. DISEASE EPIDEMICS
5. THE RISE OF AN AGGRESSIVE, FUNDAMENTALIST ISLAMIC POWER (What a bazaar interpretation)
6. AN ASCENDANT EUROPEAN UNION SEEKS GLOBAL PRIMACY (Another bazaar interpretation)
7. A POWERFUL RELIGIOUS FIGURE LEADS A RELIGIOUS REVIVAL
8. THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD PREACHED TO ALL NATIONS - Do you know that this is recorded in the NT as already fulfilled in the epistles?
9. FAITH AGAIN BECOMES A MATTER OF LIFE OR DEATH
10. A CRISIS STRIKES JERUSALEM - AD 70. Trying to fit these prophecies into today's culture does a great disservice to the texts themselves.
11. THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION - Again, do you understand this in the light of Scripture and its references to Israel?
12. THE GREAT TRIBULATION—THE COLLAPSE OF THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING NATIONS - The Great Tribulation, another verse applied to these OT people.
13. HEAVENLY SIGNS AND THE DAY OF THE LORD - We already spoke briefly of a couple of those SIGNS recorded by Josephus about the catapult missiles (white stones) flying into the city with talent stones lit on fire by the Romans. What you probably don't understand is that the Mosaic Law prescribed stoning for an unfaithful wife. Do you understand the symbolism there? In Revelation, Israel, and specifically, Jerusalem is likened to a harlot, an unfaithful wife. Here again, the symbolism is that God is giving a writ of divorce to Judah. He is also judging her for her unfaithfulness by the prescribed method of punishment in the OT.  As these stones came flying into the city the one man would cry out, "The Son cometh." He understood the judgment application.  
14. THE SEVEN LAST PLAGUES - Again, plagues against who? Do you understand the curse teaching in Deuteronomy 28? That is a subject we could speak about for a long time when you claim "no-show."

Do you realize this carp is a follow-up from the Herbert W. Armstrong organization and "The World Tomorrow" broadcasts he used to do in the 1980s and 1990s? If you want to get into some of these false teachers, I'm game. I studied some of their literature years ago.





Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen
LOOK>> “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened “Matthew24:25-34.
Mark13:26-30 says the same as does Luke21:27-32. 
What generation does the text infer? Answer that

 I have already. Jesus  also says the those alive at the time that he made his promise return will see him return. 

Or have you forgotten this >> :“Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom”. Matthew16: 27-28.

Even at his trial he told the priests and the council that they too would witness his return Or have you also forgotten this>>>:"you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven"Matthew26: 63, 64.
Okay, commitment! You say 1st-century. You say that the text teaches the 1st-century, and that is correct judging from the texts themselves. Granting for a second (for those reading this) that Christianity is true, it would mean that futurist views do not understand the nature of the Second Coming, that Jesus did come back, and to that generation, He judged, as promised. And what do we find in Scripture and by recorded history?

Now to the dozens of questions you failed to answer. IMO, you don't answer them because they incriminate your position. You don't want others to see how irrational your position is.

So, once again, what are the signs that Jesus said would happen in that generation?

What did Jesus mean when He said He would come in His Father's glory, with His angels, and that He would give everyone their due recompense?
Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen
You started this pissing match with ad hominem.

Nope, wrong again. 
I started this thread questioning Jesus's failure to return when he promised to according to scripture.  You have claimed  he kept his promise and returned in 70 AD. You haven't proven that and millions of Christians contradict you and your belief, as stupid as it is..
You may have started the thread questioning what you believe is a no-show, but in your posts to me, starting at Post 30, you began the ad homs. 


The problem is you started a thread on a subject that I have studied in depth for over ten years.

Which comes nowhere near my 40+ years years in bible study and the New Testament in particular.  and it is not a "problem" for me. 
I, too, have studied the Bible for around the same period of time. Why don't we let someone else judge who has the better argument here? How about a formal debate? I can set it up. 

It is no skin off my back what you think but when you post it on a forum get ready to be challenged.

 I am. And you still haven't proven anything.

Post 30:
But YOU!  In typical fashion of the theist caught on the backfoot, you have ignored what these scriptures actually state.

LOOK>> “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened “Matthew24:25-34.
Mark13:26-30 says the same as does Luke21:27-32. 
What generation does the text infer? Answer that.
What things were to happen? Answer that since you claim 40 years of Bible study. List them, and I will go down your list.

Once you answer these two questions, I will demonstrate through Scripture that all these things have already happened and had by AD 70. 

I believe your view does not have a leg to stand on. 

What view is that? 
The view you stated above, that I have not proven anything, the view that the Preterist view of Scripture is wrong, the view that the Bible is false, the view that there is no God. How is that for starters?

I can prove it. As I pointed out, there is evidence for my faith. Can I prove it to you without a doubt? No, not likely

Stamping your feet again. You really should grow up sunshine. 
Stamping my feet? How is that? You have a vivid imagination. About growing up, how is insulting me constantly instead of addressing the argument growing up? 

You choose not to believe.

I choose not to believe YOUR version of events.
Then answer my questions, pick apart my view and demonstrate it is wrong. Just because you don't believe it does not necessarily make it wrong.  

You have been told Christianity does not make sense,

 Nope. Wrong again. I found out for myself that scripture makes no sense in the way it has come down to us. 
How has it come down to us? 

[ that] Christianity is not true. 

Wrong again. I know Christians  ergo Christianity exists. I just don't believe what  YOU and other Christians believe in. 
Fine, and I don't believe other worldviews can justify or make sense of themselves while I can show that Christianity can and is most reasonable. Again, whether you choose to believe it is up to you, not me. 

I'm hoping for a reasoned response

And I gave you quite a few. And most of all, I have shown you that for every cherry picked verse that you believe "proves" Jesus had already returned in 70 AD,   there are as many if not more verses that hundreds of CHRISTIAN organisations can cherry pick from showing Jesus has not returned yet but his arrival is imminent. Would you like more from those many Christian organisations?  Which kind of makes nonsense of your own bullshit, doesn't it?  Face it, you have been out bullshitted by a better outfit that has more knowledge about these ambiguous and  unreliable scriptures than you will ever live to know. 
Bring it on. Take a verse at a time so we don't get swamped. Remember, the Christian's authority is God's Word, not some organization or denomination. 

 You mean Jesus never died.

 I do.
That is not what Scripture teaches. It is not what the early church fathers taught. Where are you getting this belief from? Name your sources and why they are believable to you.

I mean He died, was buried and rose again from the dead three days later.

Prove it!?
What proof will you accept? None, right? How can you accept something you do not believe in? 

Hebrews 11:6 (NASB)
6 And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for the one who comes to God must believe that He exists, and that He proves to be One who rewards those who seek Him.

Why would you come to a God you do not believe exists, and since you do not believe Him, why would He reward you and confirm His existence to you. As with Adam, you have elevated your thoughts above that of His revelation. The difference is that Adam never had a written revelation, and you never had a personal relationship, whereas Scripture reveals Adam did.  

Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen

You are just plain cold closed to listening. You have eyes that do not see, ears that do not hear, and a heart that will not soften.
No. that will be you.
You started this pissing match with ad hominem. The problem is you started a thread on a subject that I have studied in depth for over ten years. And I have been a Christian for almost forty years so most of your threads are not new to me. It would just take a tremendous amount of time to address all your confirmation bias. Here, on this thread, I am pointing out that you have not been accountable for what you wrote. You ignore most of the questions I ask you because you want to direct the narrative to your purposes, which is your bias towards Christianity. I pointed out one page of your multiply threads that display this abnormal obsession and anger with Christianity.

I'm hoping for a reasoned response but if you fail what is written speaks for itself whether you respond or not. 

And like I have shown above.    For every one of your cherry picked verses you decide and believe fits your own narrative there are just as many  from Christian organisations that can, will and do, cherry pick  verses to say Jesus hasn't returned yet but his return is "imminent". 
Our standard as Christians is not some denomination or organizations, but the Bible, God's Word. 

Imminent does not mean 20-centuries later. The text gives the interpretation and makes its meaning plain. 

So stop stamping your feet and crying about it.
Oh, great, more drama! Who's crying now? Boohoo. 

Well, after three days His body would not have yet rotted.
"rotting" , is what I have wrote. Here educate yourself ffs!  Decomposition begins several minutes after death, with a process called autolysis, or self-digestion. Soon after the heart stops beating, cells become deprived of oxygen, and their acidity increases as the toxic by-products of chemical reactions begin to accumulate inside them.
So, what is your point? He raised three days later, per Scripture. These disciples then went out into the known world preaching the gospel because of the resurrection. They suffered, most of them to the point of death, for what - a lie?  

Who cares what you think
You do.  It  is why your are crying and stamping your feet all over the forum because I do not agree with you. 

You:
Who cares what you think unless you can back up your conjecture as reasonable and truthful. Go ahead.
It is no skin off my back what you think but when you post it on a forum get ready to be challenged. I believe your view does not have a leg to stand on. 

unless you can back up your conjecture as reasonable and truthful.
 What!?   I have said quite plainly, open and clear to you, that I cannot prove what I believe. I have used the word "coincidence" often.  Not once have I made no claims that what I believe is fact.
I can prove it. As I pointed out, there is evidence for my faith. Can I prove it to you without a doubt? No, not likely. You are not open to hearing. You choose not to believe. You are a skeptic that does not want to discuss the reasonableness of the Christian faith. You have built up a resistance over the years from a secular confirmation bias. You have been told Christianity does not make sense, Christianity is not true. 

But the odd thing here is that while you ask me to "back up my conjecture",   YOU have shown YOUR support of my belief  that Jesus was alive and well at the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70!!!!!     Is this another coincidence.
I have explained that. What you mean and what I mean are two different things. You mean Jesus never died. I mean He died, was buried and rose again from the dead three days later. 

The difference is that YOU state it as fact whereas I made it clear I cannot prove a single thing.
Is it a fact that the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the temple in AD 70? 
Is it a fact that the NT writers prophesied that would happen before it did? Show me the evidence otherwise.
Is it true that there are written historical records that record the birth, life, death and resurrection of Yeshua/Jesus, the Messiah?
Is it true that these records describe this Jesus as being put to death and these disciples claim He rose from the dead?   
Is it true that we have historic records that state some of these disciples went to their deaths believing that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead?
Is it true that Christianity grew to be the biggest religious belief in the world based on the two testaments, the OT, and the NT?
Is it reasonable to believe that no canonized NT writing was written after AD 70? Most reasonable. Show me the proof otherwise. 
Is it true that the Olivet Discourse prophecies are shown coming to fulfillment even before Peter and Paul were executed by Nero? Yes! Most definitely. Show otherwise.
Is it true that prophecy is intricately connected throughout the Bible?
Is it true that after the fall of Jerusalem there is no more atonement for sin as required by OT law? 
Is it true that the priesthood is no longer mediating for the people after AD 70? 
Is it true that the whole temple ritual system of worship and economy is no longer operational after AD 70?
Is it true that the feast days can no longer be followed as per the Mosaic law after AD 70?
Is it true that the genealogies regarding the priesthood are no longer available after AD 70?

Show me otherwise, and not by posting a link. Give me some actual evidence to work with. If you want to quote from some link an area for discussion I'm fine with that but don't blitz me with a link full of information or I will do the same to you.  

Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen

when refuted

"refute" means that you have shown proof.   But you haven't shown proof of anything that actually proves your claim. I have told you, pointing to ambiguous and unreliable verses from the same ambiguous and unreliable source does not amount to any kind of proof. 
You are just plain cold closed to listening. You have eyes that do not see, ears that do not hear, and a heart that will not soften.

I have shown proof. You failed to answer my questions.
Who is the audience of address in the Olivet Discourse (for example, Matthew 24:3)? 
Who is the audience of address in Matthew 16:27-28?
Who is the audience of address in Acts 1:9-11? 
Who is the audience of address in 2 Peter? 

Any idea? 

What does it mean the Jesus said He would come in the glory of the Fathter? 
How did the Father come in glory in the OT?

Any idea?

There are millions of Christians still waiting for his return.  AND just like YOU, they too quote verses from the bible  that - according to them - point to Jesus' imminent return - that hasn't happened yet. 
True, there are millions waiting for His return. What is the standard that they get there information from, the Bible or some denomination? What should their standard be? 

Here is just one example of Christians believing Jesus' arrival is near . Notice how many pointless bible verses they too point to that profess his arrival  is imminent. 
Yes, it was imminent in the 1st-century. To that audience of address passage after passage speaks of a soon, quick, near coming, within the span of that generation. You nor any Christian could prove that one NT verse that mentions "this generation" is speaking of another one other than at that time. You can't prove otherwise. Thus, the denominations have botched up a correct interpretation. 

What exactly do you want me to dispute here? Are you going to give your whole argument through links?

Here's another that "refutes"  your claim

Shall I just keep posting Christian organisations the "refute" what you insist as already happened? 
I could refute every one of those heading that are incorrect in that article, but I want to refute your arguments, not there's. You are living off the backs of others who misinform you. How well do you actually understand the Bible? Not well. Joseph Smith is not even recognized as a Christian but a false prophet and charleton. No biblical Christian who has an ounce of sense recognizes the Mormons as brothers in Christ. They are wolves among the sheep. 

The interesting thing about this conversation is that we agree on nearly everything.  I believe there is a great possibility that Jesus was alive and well in 70 AD.
Again, what is the evidence? By alive you mean never died, up until AD 70. For me, as a professing Christian, I believe that Jesus was crucified, died, and rose again three days later to never die again. So let's not equivocate here.  

You claim he definitely was and had returned from the dead to show himself at the fall of Jerusalem. 
Yes, to show Himself in the same manner that the Father showed Himself, not physically, but spiritually. His presence was understood to be in heaven at the right hand of the Father, making His enemies a footstool with the judgment at that time. 

 I don't believe he was raised from being deceased and physically dead after laying there stinking and rotting in his private rich friends tomb set in private grounds, for three days .
Well, after three days His body would not have yet rotted. Who cares what you think unless you can back up your conjecture as reasonable and truthful. Go ahead.

You believe as the bible claims in the miracle that Jesus rose from the dead after three days. ( And you nor the bible has ever explained who raised him)?
Here again, you show you do not know the Bible as well as you might think you do. The reader is told via Scripture that Jesus will raise Himself as well as the Father raising Him because what applies to God applies to Jesus.

Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” (21 But He was speaking about the [a]temple of His body.)

For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes.

The Father raises the dead. Jesus was dead. Figure it out.

And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that of everything that He has given Me I will lose nothing, but will raise it up on the last day.

Jesus raises the dead. Jesus raises Himself. Figure it out.

For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.”

What is true of the Father is true of the Son.

But God raised Him from the dead, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.

It is this Jesus whom God raised up, a fact to which we are all witnesses.

Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen

Peter's verse about "scoffers" only comes years after the people started to wise up and ask where was Jesus. 
As I explained, scoffers and mockers were questioning the coming but Peter explains that God is not slow in keeping His promises, not wanting any of the elect to perish. I explained that Jesus told that generation they would witness His coming and the judgment. I asked you how long a generation, identified in Scripture is, of which you gave no reply as normal. It does not suit such warped theology that you borrowed from those who hold a futuristic view. 

A generation by inductive reasoning in Scripture is a period of forty years. 

During the Exodus from Egypt God told that generation they would not enter the Promised Land because of their grumbling and unbelief. 

your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness, all your numbered men according to your complete number from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against Me. 30 By no means will you come into the land where I [q]swore to settle you, except for Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun. 31 Your children, however, whom you said would become plunder—I will bring them in, and they will know the land which you have rejected. 32 But as for you, your dead bodies will fall in this wilderness. 33 Also, your sons will be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, and they will [r]suffer for your unfaithfulness, until your bodies perish in the wilderness. 34 In accordance with the number of days that you spied out the land, forty days, for every day you shall suffer the punishment for your [s]guilt a year, that is, forty years, and you will know My opposition.

It took forty years for that generation to perish in the wilderness. Like the OT, the typology of this physical exodus is seen in Jesus Christ. He is the Second Moses in leading His people to the new Promised Land, the heavenly country, in the second exodus. Just like Moses, the people grumble against Jesus Christ yet He extends His grace towards them for forty years. That is why the author of Hebrews could say:

Hebrews 3 Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession: Jesus; 2 [a]He was faithful to Him who appointed Him, as Moses also was in all His house. 3 For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house. 4 For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God. 5 Now Moses was faithful in all [b]God’s house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later; 6 but Christ was faithful as a Son over His house—whose house we are, if we hold firmly to our confidence and the boast of our [c]hope.
7 Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says,
“Today if you hear His voice,
8 Do not harden your hearts as [d]when they provoked Me,
As on the day of trial in the wilderness,
9 Where your fathers put Me to the test,
And saw My works for forty years.
10 Therefore I was angry with this generation,
And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart,
And they did not know My ways’;
11 As I swore in My anger,
‘They certainly shall not enter My rest.’”
The Danger of Unbelief
12 Take care, brothers and sisters, that there will not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart [e]that falls away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another every day, as long as it is still called “today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have become partakers of Christ if we keep the beginning of our [f]commitment firm until the end, 15 while it is said,
“Today if you hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts, as [g]when they provoked Me.”
16 For who provoked Him when they had heard? Indeed, did not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses? 17 And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose dead bodies fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? 19 And so we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief. 

Jesus too gives Israel forty years to come into that rest through Him that their forefathers failed to enter. Unlike Moses, who was not allowed to enter the Promised Land, Jesus leads His faithful people into that land, while those with unbelief perish once again.

Forty years, from AD 30 - AD 70.


Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen
The same way you saw Him go into heaven? He went into heaven, "and a cloud took Him up, out of their sight.

And hasn't returned and you haven't proven that he did , So please change your boring record. And millions of Christians do not agree with you. 
You are very disingenuous here. You set up a thread, tell everyone that Jesus was a no-show, then, when refuted, provide these one-liners with little proof. 

Little proof of what.?
What are we speaking about? My two previous posts provide a clue. Did you read them? I justify my interpretation through hermeneutics, which I believe is biblical and not easy to refute without doing tremendous damage to the context and greater context. I asked you all kinds of questions about your interpretation, and you gave very little justification, usually your one-sentence blurbs that I had already discussed.  

I haven't made the claim that he has already returned. That was YOU! sunshine.
I provided proof from Scripture's text, not some futuristic eschatological denominational twist. Futurism gained widespread acceptance with Darby and Scofield to become the mainstream thought. It is wrong, and even skeptics like Hume and Schweitzer saw futurism as flawed.  

I didn't make the claim to those people  living at the time of the promise that they will witness him/Jesus return on a cloud, either. 
I'm sure they understood the reference of clouds better than we do today. 
Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen
The same way you saw Him go into heaven? He went into heaven, "and a cloud took Him up, out of their sight.

And hasn't returned and you haven't proven that he did , So please change your boring record. And millions of Christians do not agree with you. 
You are very disingenuous here. You set up a thread, tell everyone that Jesus was a no-show, then, when refuted, provide these one-liners with little proof. 

I showed how you mistook 2 Peter 3. You claimed Peter was teaching a no-show. I showed that from the text, your claim was invalid. 

With Matthew 16:27-28, I showed that Jesus was coming in the glory of the Father. I asked you to show me how the Father's glory was manifest in the OT. A no-show by you. I broke the verse into its components, the glory of the Father, the recompense for the people's deeds, and the statement that some there would not taste death until they saw Him [Jesus] coming in His kingdom. How did Jesus come into His kingdom? Was that something they could see here on earth? Or, rather, was it something they understood when the judgment took place, just as Christ said it would. Then they would understand He was seated at the right hand of power in heaven. I even explained to you that Jesus said His kingdom was not a physical kingdom, not of this world, although His followers lived in this world until physical death. I explained that Jesus taught that a believer must be born again to either SEE or enter His kingdom. The point is, how do you see a spiritual kingdom?

Here are the definitions of SEE:
1a: to perceive by the eye
b: to perceive or detect as if by sight
2a: to be aware of: RECOGNIZEsees only our faults
b: to imagine as a possibility: SUPPOSEcouldn't see him as a crook
c: to form a mental picture of: VISUALIZEcan still see her as she was years ago
d: to perceive the meaning or importance of: UNDERSTAND
3a: to come to know: DISCOVER
b: to be the setting or time of The last fifty years have seen a sweeping revolution in science …— Barry Commoner
c: to have experience of: UNDERGO see army service
4a: EXAMINE, WATCH want to see how she handles the problem
b(1): READ
(2): to read of
c: to attend as a spectator see a play
5a: to make sure See that order is kept.
b: to take care of: provide for had enough money to see us through
6a: to find acceptable or attractive can't understand what he sees in her
b: to regard as: JUDGE
c: to prefer to have I'll see him hanged first. I'll see you dead before I accept your terms.
7a: to call on: VISIT
b(1): to keep company with especially in courtship or dating had been seeing each other for a year
(2): to grant an interview to RECEIVE The president will see you now.
8: ACCOMPANY, ESCORT See the guests to the door.
9: to meet (a bet) in poker or to equal the bet of (a player): CALL

News for you, Stephen. It does not always mean physical sight. It can also mean to be aware of, to imagine as possible, to form a mental picture, perceive the meaning or importance of/UNDERSTAND, and come to know/DISCOVER,  examine/watch, judge. 

Second, how did Jesus go into heaven? He was taken up into a cloud, the Shekinah glory or presence of God (as I explained to you in the OT). That cloud hid Him from their sight. By cloud is how God appeared to Israel, as I detailed with various OT verses. The glory of God was present with Him, and Jesus said He would return in the same manner and glory. Did Israel see God when He appeared in His Shekinah glory? No, they felt the light of His presence. How can you see a Spirit?

A cloud took Him up out of their sight. In the same manner, he would appear again in a cloud of glory, the Shekinah glory cloud. They would sense His presence, the presence of God. 

Examine the transfiguration. 

While he was still speaking, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and behold, a voice from the cloud said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to Him!” 6 When the disciples heard this, they fell [c]face down to the ground and were terrified.

Did they see the Father physically? They understood they were on holy ground, just like Moses in Exodus 3:5.

And notice the transfiguration of Jesus:

2 And He was transfigured before them; and His face shone like the sun, and His garments became as white as light. 

***

So, Stephen, you continue to speak about matters you have very little understanding of but want to make it appear that you do. You want to take everything literally when you think it benefits you, but you don't understand the context and greater context through its references. These passages are connected to OT teaching that you gloss over. Jesus speaks of what was written throughout Matthew. He said Scripture could not be broken. You break Scripture up when you do not understand the connections. The whole of Scripture is a tapestry all woven together. 

No one has seen God at any time; God the only Son, who is in the arms of the Father, He has explained Him.

Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen
Continue, Post 52

Peter was challenged wasn't he?  But he had no explanation for the no show did he,?
Of course, he did. 

3 Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, 4 and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming?

It wasn't a no-show. It was a perceived no-show by the mocker. Peter explains that God is not slow in coming but wants none of the elect to perish. Thus, the time had not yet reached its fulfillment; the Jews had not yet filled up the FULL measure of their sins.  

Fill up, then, the measure of the guilt of your fathers.


So instead just like you he swerved the problem with bullshit : lets see what they said and  Peter's weasley reply.

They asked;
“Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.”2Peter 3:4

Yet even allowing for all those Jews alive at the time of the promise and living another hundred + years, Jesus simply failed to show and keep his promise. They didn't ask because he had returned, did they you fool.   They asked because he hadn't!       And everything went on the same. 
Of course, He did. You fail to understand the nature of His coming. It was not a physical coming; simple as that.  

What was Peter's BS response to them:


8 " But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day".

Odd it is that Jesus forgot to mention this thousand years when he promised the generation living at the time of the promise.
Yes, now supply the rest of the context instead of collapsing it and taking it out of its context:

9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.

10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and [c]its works will be [d]discovered.

13 But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.

Peter explains just fine.

What do the new heavens and new earth represent? Do you know? Do you have the foggiest idea? 

God was giving His elect time to come to repentance before He judged the nation. The problem with your interpretive efforts is that they only go as far as you want the reader to see to feed your narrative but leave the narrative short of the full explanation. 

John the Baptist understood the soon coming judgment, as did Jesus. He spoke extensively on the subject. 

Matthew 3 (NASB)
The Preaching of John the Baptist
3 Now in those days John the Baptist *[a]came, [b]preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, 2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven [c]is at hand.” 3 For this is the one referred to [d]by Isaiah the prophet when he said,
“The voice of one [e]calling [f]out in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way of the Lord,
Make His paths straight!’”

7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for [h]baptism, he said to them, “You [i]offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Therefore produce fruit consistent with repentance; 9 and do not assume that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father’; for I tell you that God is able, from these stones, to raise up children for Abraham. 10 And the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore, every tree that does not bear good fruit is being cut down and thrown into the fire.

Judgment was coming soon. The axe was already at the root of the trees. Jesus cursed the fig tree. It would not produce fruit in keeping with repentance. Thus it would never bear fruit again. That covenant of works would come to an end. The heaven and earth they knew of would come to an end, and a new covenant was already in the making with the coming of the Messiah, where He lived for around 30 years. 

Odd then isn't it that Jesus forgot to mention they wouldn't pass away because they would all live for another thousand years before they all witnessed his return. 
Where do you get that misinterpretation from???

No matter how many verses you post here, trying to tell us that Jesus did return  , they won't alter what the scriptures actually state  and only go further to shown your BS is full of holes.
I learned a long time again that you can't convince someone against their will, but what I can do is demonstrate to others the futility of your thinking regarding Scripture. 

And this is all before we even get on to what all this is supposed to mean in the "ancient Greek language" that you Christians always rely on for another BS excuse for the scriptures failings.

Christians are too dumb to realise that every time they pull out the Greek card, that they render the whole of the Christian bible written in English obsolete and useless as  any kind of theological authority. 
You have not learned the principles of sound hermeneutics, thus all your blunders of interpretation. I ask you questions that you cannot answer; just silent!  



Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen
But YOU!  In typical fashion of the theist caught on the backfoot , you have ignored what these scriptures actually state.

LOOK>> “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened “Matthew24:25-34.
Mark13:26-30 says the same as does Luke21:27-32.
I will ask you again, how long is a generation? Does the Bible tell us?

***

All three passages you gave are Jesus' Olivet Discourse as recorded by Matthew, Mark, and Luke. I want your take on each verse of Matthews version, as I have recorded here:

Matthew 24:25-34 (NASB)
25 Behold, I have told you in advance. 26 So if they say to you, ‘Behold, He is in the wilderness,’ do not go out; or, ‘Behold, He is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe them. 27 For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes as far as the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man [a]be. 28 Wherever the corpse is, there the [b]vultures will gather.
The Glorious Return
29 “But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 30 And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. 31 And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet blast, and they will gather together His [c]elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.
Parable of the Fig Tree
32 “Now learn the parable from the fig tree: as soon as its branch has become tender and sprouts its leaves, you know that summer is near; 33 so you too, when you see all these things, [d]recognize that [e]He is near, right at the [f]door. 34 Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.


Who did Jesus tell in advance?
Verse 28, what OT Scripture does that verse refer to?
What do the words, "the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken" mean? 
Who does the pronoun "you" refer to in the context?
Tribulation of what days? What days do "those" refer to?
What tribes of the earth is Jesus referring to? 
What does the fig tree refer to? 

***

Here are the other verses you noted:

Mark 13:26-30 (NASB)
26 And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. 27 And then He will send forth the angels, and will gather together His [a]elect from the four winds, from the end of the earth to the end of heaven.
28 “Now learn the parable from the fig tree: as soon as its branch has become tender and sprouts its leaves, you know that summer is near. 29 So you too, when you see these things happening, [b]recognize that [c]He is near, right at the [d]door. 30 Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.

What generation is Jesus referring to?   

***

Luke 21:27-32 (NASB)
27 And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. 28 But when these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”
29 And He told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees: 30 as soon as they put forth leaves, you see for yourselves and know that summer is now near. 31 So you too, when you see these things happening, [a]recognize that the kingdom of God is near. 32 Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all things take place.

Whose heads were Jesus instructing to lift? 
Remember in Mark 11, Jesus cursed the fig tree? What does the fig tree represent?

Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen


And neither has this >>>>>>>>>>>Acts 1:11 And said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
The same way you saw Him go into heaven? He went into heaven, "and a cloud took Him up, out of their sight." What is the significance of a cloud? I explained that to you in Post 46. Just as the Father came in judgment, so also was the Son coming in like manner. Clouds symbolize God's judgment. Clouds also symbolize the presence of God. 

***

Here it is again:

And it will roar against it on that day like the roaring of the sea. If one looks across to the land, behold, there is darkness and distress; Even the light is darkened by its clouds.

“Behold, he goes up like clouds, And his chariots like the whirlwind; His horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us, for we are ruined!”

For the day is near, Indeed, the day of the Lord is near; It will be a day of clouds, A time of doom for the nations.

A day of darkness and gloom, A day of clouds and thick darkness. As dawn is spread over the mountains, So there is a great and mighty people; There has never been anything like it, Nor will there be again after it To the years of many generations.

The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, And the Lord will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. In the gale and the storm is His way, And clouds are the dust beneath His feet.

That day is a day of anger, A day of trouble and distress, A day of destruction and desolation, A day of darkness and gloom, A day of clouds and thick darkness,

NT:

And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.

Jesus *said to him, “You have said it yourself. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.

He comes in the glory of the Father (exactly how the Father made His presences known in the OT), and He comes in judgment with great power as the Father came in judgment in the OT. And God never gave His glory to another, which means Jesus and the Father share the same glory. This can be backed up with many verses.

And Jesus said, “I am; and you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”

The Son of Man coming as with the presences of God, with the clouds. 

As many of these high and mighty, holier than thou twats, often  do, he must have thought me far too stupid not to have ever heard of, never mind  read the works of Yosef ben Matityahu, aka Jewish historian Flavius Josephus for myself. 
Yeah, right. More ad hominems when you can't respond with a cogent argument and counter. 


Can it get anymore laughable

No. It can't, Brother.
It's come to this, has it? Tag team. When you have nothing constructive to say, attack the man. I was hoping for better. 

Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen

The facts are that this >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Revelation 1:7  Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. "  <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<  did not and has not happened!
Once again, Matthew 16:27 says that when He comes He will come in His Fathers glory, with the angels. How did the Father appear in the OT? I asked you this several times. Do you comprehend? How did the Father appear before His people in the OT? I gave you multiple clues. And what did it mean that He would "then repay every person according to his [a]deeds."And notice the time frame. Some there would not taste death before His second coming. 

Second, the wording, "every eye will see Him." See Him in what way? Understand or physical sighting? Can an eye be used in a way that does not denote physical sighting? 

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,

Third, how will every eye see Him coming with the clouds? Do you, Stephen know what OT writing this quote is taken from --> Daniel 7:13-14. It is a heavenly scene. Do you follow so far? The same scene (Daniel 7:13-14) meets its fulfillment in Revelation 4-5. The scene is where Jesus, the Lamb comes before the Father in heaven and is given dominion and power and honour and glory (i.e., the same glory He [the Son] shared with the Father before His incarnation). 

Revelation 5:9 “Worthy are You to take the scroll and to break its seals; for You were slaughtered, and You purchased people for God with Your blood from every tribe, language, people, and nation...11 Then I looked, and I heard the voices of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was [f]myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands, 12 saying with a loud voice,
“Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power, wealth, wisdom, might, honor, glory, and blessing.”

So, that generation of Jews would understand (see) that the Son is seated in the presence of the Father and all the saints. The eyes of their understanding would comprehend this. 

And if you think that is far-fetched Matthew 26:63-64 confirms that those on earth would also understand that Jesus is who He said He was and is seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven and He would come on the clouds of heaven in the judgment of these very men and of the nation of Israel for rejecting their Messiah. 

But Jesus kept silent. And the high priest said to Him, “I place You under oath by the living God, to tell us whether You are the [aa]Christ, the Son of God.” 64 Jesus *said to him, “You have said it yourself. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.”
65 Then the high priest tore his [ab]robes and said, “He has blasphemed! What further need do we have of witnesses? See, you have now heard the blasphemy; 66 what do you think?” They answered, “He deserves death!”

As I said before, Stephen, how did the Father come in judgment in the OT? He is described as coming in the clouds, as I showed you briefly in a previous post.  You ignored it because you were clueless once again. Remember, Jesus would come in the glory of the Father and reward everyone according to His deeds (judgment). 

Do you realize how many passages in the NT speak of a soon-coming judgment, and because of this, there were a warning and call to repentance before the judgment. 
Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen
PGA2.0's long "War and Peace" dissertations are to throw you off

I noticed , Brother.


whereas his mental capacity cannot even come close to scaling them down in a precise manner.

Indeed, I noticed that too. And what he produces as proof goes nowhere in proving Jesus ' promised return after his accession to "  heaven " had already occurred in AD 70. And no matter how many biblical verses he produces to fit his beliefs  and believes proves his case, they don't!  

Besides, what did you expect in him being a Satanic "PRETEREST" where this division of Christianity accepts an "invisible resurrection" of Jesus the Christ on Pentecost Sunday, June 22, AD 66! Huh?
As I have pointed out, Brother,  he accuses me often of  "asserting",  when I assert nothing other than that which is clearly stated in these ambiguous unreliable  scriptures. 

PGA2.0 on the other hand, attempts to tell me that the even Jew turncoat Pharisee and historian Flavius Josephus witnessed the return of  "Jesus on a cloud " as per promise.
Prove your (yet another) assertion that Josephus was Joseph of Arimathea. 

"Josephus describes it in much detail".#26  <<< this is of course simply  bare faced lie. 
You ignored gallons of Josephus quotes. It is only what suits you that you reply to.

He has since backpedaled slightly on that claim,  and tells us Josephus is saying that the missiles of flame and smoke catapulted at the city of Jerusalem were in fact  "Jesus coming on a cloud"  as he had promised.  You mentioned "mental capacity" above, I ask you,  has  anyone ever heard of such lunacy?  But he is more than entitled to his beliefs.
And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.

The sign. The sign. There was a multitude of signs that would precede His second coming. 

As usual, Post 26 was virtually unchallenged. Also, Post 28 and 29 showed your inept understanding and hence, your big bluff. My 22 statements went unchallenged. (Clueless)
Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen

You are just full of BS.   

The fall of Jerusalem was not started by the Romans, it was started by Jews,  and two Jews in particular, John and Simon vying for power who Josephus described  as "“Galilean brigands” (zealots) with John being the greater culprit. He spilled blood in the temple and set it ablaze.  And Rome let them get on with it for about 4-5 years before stepping in to finish off that particular siege. 
The Temple is Set on Fire
Introductory Comment
    Here is Josephus' description of the moment when the first flame is put to the Temple. The agent of destruction is an anonymous Roman soldier, acting impulsively against the orders of the commander, Titus -- but obeying the orders, Josephus implies, of the highest authority.
 
    War 6.4.5 249-253
    So Titus retired into the tower of Antonia, and resolved to storm the Temple the next day, early in the morning, with his whole army, and to encamp round about the Holy House; but, as for that House, God had for certain long ago doomed it to the fire; and now that fatal day was come, according to the revolution of the ages: it was the tenth day of the month Lous, [Av,] upon which it was formerly burnt by the king of Babylon; although these flames took their rise from the Jews themselves, and were occasioned by them; for upon Titus's retiring, the seditious lay still for a little while, and then attacked the Romans again, when those that guarded the Holy House fought with those that quenched the fire that was burning in the inner court of the Temple; but these Romans put the Jews to flight, and proceeded as far as the Holy House itself.
    At which time one of the soldiers, without staying for any orders, and without any concern or dread upon him at so great an undertaking, and being hurried on by a certain divine fury, snatched somewhat out of the materials that were on fire, and being lifted up by another soldier, he set fire to a golden window, through which there was a passage to the rooms that were round about the Holy House, on the north side of it. As the flames went upward the Jews made a great clamour, such as so mighty an affliction required, and ran together to prevent it; and now they spared not their lives any longer, nor suffered anything to restrain their force, since that Holy House was perishing, for whose sake it was that they kept such a guard upon it.
The aspect of fate is stated by Josephus in saying that "God for certain long ago doomed it to the fire," and then pointing out that the Second Temple was set on fire by the Romans on the same day that the First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE.

***

Overlooking the Temple compound, the fortress provided a perfect point from which to attack the Temple itself. Battering rams made little progress, but the fighting itself eventually set the walls on fire; a Roman soldier threw a burning stick onto one of the Temple's walls. Destroying the Temple was not among Titus's goals, possibly due in large part to the massive expansions done by Herod the Great mere decades earlier. Titus had wanted to seize it and transform it into a temple dedicated to the Roman Emperor and the Roman pantheon. However, the fire spread quickly and was soon out of control. The Temple was captured and destroyed on 9/10 Tisha B'Av, sometime in August 70 CE, and the flames spread into the residential sections of the city.[3][10] 

***

Flavius Josephus - Antiquities, xi. 1.2:
These Romans put the Jews to flight, and proceeded as far as the holy house itself.  At which time one of the soldiers, without staying for any orders, and without any concern or dread upon him at so great an undertaking, and being hurried on by a certain divine fury, snatched some what out of the materials that were on fire, and being lifted up by another soldier, he set fire to a golden window, through which there wion, passage to the rooms that were round about the holy house, on the north side of it.  As the flames went upward, the Jews made a great clamor, such as so mighty an affliction required, and ran together to prevent it; and now they spared not their lives any longer, nor suffered anything to restrain their force, since that holy house was perishing...thus it was the holy house burnt down...

***
While it is true that "it was the Jews who first used fire in the Northwest approach to the Temple to stop Roman advances," they did not set fire to the inner temple itself.

***

What is more, I could list various prophecies (a long list that is not just a coincidence) that meet their fulfillment with the destruction of the city and temple in AD 70. 


And let me tell you further, Josephus does actually mention A Jesus being present.
Are you seriously trying to equate Jesus the Messiah with Jesus, son of Ananias? You have a lot of evidence to the contrary to overcome. 

It appears that it was this Jesus that surrendered the vestment of the high priest to the Romans.  All these biblical names - A Simon,   A John,  A Jesus and  A Joseph and even A priest named  Caiaphas just like the biblical Caiaphas,  all present at the fall of the city of Jerusalem in AD 68-70.  Can this all be coincidental?  What are we to make of them and it all.
I don't know, but you are reading something into it. Can you support it? 

I have said. I have good reason to believe Jesus survived the ritualistic crucifixion played out so barbarically and was alive, if not present at the fall of Jerusalem.
Show me your proof so that I can dispute it instead of more assertions and innuendo.

Your boy didn't resurrect from the dead. He never did die. He didn't come disguised as a fire ball  from a giant catapult or on a cloud smoke.
The evidence is more reasonable that he did resurrect. Compile your list that gives evidence that He did not resurrect, and I will compile the evidence that supports He did, and we will let others judge which is more reasonable. If you wanted a formal debate on this topic, I am willing (put your money where your mouth is). 


Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen

These white balls or torches of fire flying through the sky. The Romans lit the stones, causing fires in the city and temple.

He is describing the final stages of the siege of Jerusalem and its armaments.   Balls of fire do not a returning Jesus on a cloud make! 
They understood this to be the judgment of Christ. Clouds represent judgment, as the previous post demonstrates. Hence, the comment by Josephus from this person of the "Coming of the Son" with these balls of fire thrown from the Roman catapults weighing a talent in judgment, as promised through prophecy. 

This is not  the return of the son of god coming on a cloud to make peace and unite his people.
Sure it was. There was a two-fold judgment; one on the faithful (eternal life) and one on the wicked (eternal separation from the glory that is God. He came to reward those faithfully waiting for Him, and judge those who rejected Him, separate the wheat from the chaff, as promised in the OT and NT.

29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs for the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, 30 and you say, ‘If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 So you testify against yourselves, that you are [aa]sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 [ab]Fill up, then, the measure of the guilt of your fathers. 33 You snakes, you [ac]offspring of vipers, how [ad]will you escape the [ae]sentence of [af]hell?
34 “Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will flog in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city, 35 so that upon you will fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the [ag]temple and the altar. 36 Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
Grieving over Jerusalem
37 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who have been sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. 38 Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! 39 For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘Blessed is the One who comes in the name of the Lord!’”

Remember what I explained about this generation in previous posts (40 years from AD 30-70). Judgment and reward were coming to that generation. The measure of sin, present through all the OT's rebellion, was filled up when they crucified their Saviour. 

They were even more dived than ever . Especially when a Jew  named Simon and  another Jew named John decided to start butchering their own people and decimating the temple in an attempt to gain power and control of the city. 
Again, Jesus promised His disciples that brother would fight against brother. We see and read that as happening in Scripture and Josephus's description in the internal turmoil during the siege of Jerusalem where three different factions fighting each other. Again, we see fulfilled prophecy from not only the Olivet Discourse but other passages of Scripture. 

“Now brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death.


Josephus.
Galilean zealots led by someone whose name was John and a personal enemy of historian Flavius Josephus, a John who had taken over the temple, and along with a Simon had killed their own people and had “spilt the blood” of Galileans inside of it. <<<READ THAT CAREFULLY, and then read what the Jesus of the gospels has to say. Flavius Josephus The Wars Of The Jews) Or The History Of The Destruction OfJerusalem. Books V, VI and VII.

Bible
And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force. Matthew 11 King James Version (KJV).  Is this a coincidence?

Is the collapse of Siloam tower incident yet another coincidence? 

Bible 
 "Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices.  Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?  I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”


Josephus. 
“NOW,on the next night, a surprising disturbance fell upon the Romans; forwhereas Titus had given orders for the erection of three towers of fifty cubits high, that by setting men upon them at every bank, he might from thence drive those away who were upon the wall, it so happened that one of these towers fell down about midnight;and as its fall made a very great noise”.

Here's another;
Josephus 
" The priests and the Elders of the city send word to Pilate for help incase they “confiscate our property and put us to death and set our children adrift”

Bible
"But some of them went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done.
 Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles.
 If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.
 And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all,
 Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.
 And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation;
 And not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad".

I not only maintain that the Jesus of the gospels was alive and well during the fall of Jerusalem.
That is right. He rose from the dead tree days after the crucifixion and is alive, and was during the fall of Jerusalem.

I also have good reason to believe that the secret disciple of Jesus, the biblical character Joseph of Arimathea (who it was asked for the body of Jesus)  is also  Yosef ben Matityahu, aka Jewish historian Flavius Josephus.
Bring you evidence. Let's test it. 

While Josephus mentions what people described as happening in Jerusalem during the siege, He does not mention Jesus specifically as coming. 

That is correct, yet here you are attempting to rewrite the works of Josephus by telling us what he meant just as you do with scripture.
No, I am saying the Olivet Discourse's prophetic signs find fulfillment during the siege that Josephus writes about.  


You once said: 

"Josephus describes it[Jesus' second coming] in much detail."#27.   This was , according to you Josephus witnessing and or describing the second coming of Jesus as he promised he would.. Though you have backpaddled somewhat on that claim, telling us that Josephus " doesn't actual mention Jesus". 
As I said, Josephus describes the Bible prophecies fulfillment by describing the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70. What was promised in the future concerning Jerusalem and the end of the OT's age (which you failed to address with my questions, as is your habit of cherry-picking only what suits you) meets its fulfillment in the history that Josephus describes.  

Let me tell you. Balls of fire , stones heated in fire and sulphur fired from a giant sling/catapult is not describing the son of god's return on a cloud.   In fact, if we are to personify  such a weapon and its missiles, wouldn't it be  more aptly described as  " Satan coming on a cloud"?
It is describing the judgment promised. That judgment was to take place before He came, before the end of the age. I asked you what age. No answer yet again. The end of the age signified the end of the OT economy and temple worship. It was replaced with a better covenant, a covenant promised in the OT by Jeremiah and other prophets.  






Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen
Do you think that asserting something enough makes it true?

I have asserted nothing.
Sure you have. 

Here is a smidgeon of your assertions:
Everything promised about or by Jesus failed to come to fruition.   He didn't return after the ascension, no one - including Flavus Josephus - seen him arrive on a cloud. He failed to unite the lost sheep of Israel and free them from the Roman yoke and  he didn't make peace on Earth.  
Those are assertions that need proper support and evidence. I have questioned most of what you have supplied as being biblically unfounded. You have ignored many of my replies and questions. 

I have simply highlighted what the bible clearly shows what was supposed to happen according to Jesus and the bible,  what didn't happen, and what the bible also says actually happened instead. Your problem is that there are so many contradictory half stories, and lies in the scripture that you have to invent a new story made up of your own opinions every time you are caught on the backfoot or  - as Christians often do - have painted yourself into a corner .  
I have shown you that when you properly understand the audience of address and nature of the Second Coming the Bible makes perfect sense. There are no contradictions. The Preterist view conflicts with your existing indoctrination and you cannot fathom it because your mind is completely closed to looking at the evidence. 

So simply tell me what the word "secret"  means in " koine Greek"
The same as it means in English. In what sense are you applying it?

Yes, that is exactly what I thought.

But there are  some cretins on this board will have us all believe different. This is what I mean about the likes of you being caught on the backfoot and painting yourselves into a theological corner trying to defend these unreliable, ambiguous half stories that make up the scriptures not to mention the cruel nature of your god.
I am perfectly happy to defend the position and I can. You haven't refuted my posts. You just keep supplying the same verses. You hightlight a particular phrase, as if that is doing the exegetical work for you. With Revelation 1:7 I explained to you the audience addressed by taking you back to the two OT verses that Revelation 1:7 combines. You ignored my post. I asked you how every eye would be able to see a physical man riding on the clouds. I explained to you that the OT speaks of the Father coming to His people in clouds and that they sensed His presence in the clouds. I mentioned in Matthew 16:27 that Jesus would come in the same manner as the Father (in the glory of the Father). If you don't understand how the Father came to His people how can you understand how Jesus will? Obviously, you need more biblical evidence of what I am saying. Here it is:

And it came about, as Aaron spoke to the entire congregation of the sons of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud.

The glory of God was present in the cloud. They did not see God. Jesus was coming again in that glory, the glory of the Father. 

The glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; and on the seventh day He called to Moses from the midst of the cloud.

[ The Glory of the Lord ] Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud had settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle.

And Moses said, “This is the thing which the Lord has commanded you to do, so that the glory of the Lord may appear to you.”

And Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting. When they came out and blessed the people, the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people.

But all the congregation said to stone them with stones. Then the glory of the Lord appeared in the tent of meeting to all the sons of Israel.

So Korah assembled all the congregation against them at the entrance of the tent of meeting. And the glory of the Lord appeared to all the congregation.

It came about, however, when the congregation had assembled against Moses and Aaron, that they turned toward the tent of meeting, and behold, the cloud covered it and the glory of the Lord appeared.

Then Moses and Aaron came in from the presence of the assembly to the entrance of the tent of meeting and fell on their faces. And the glory of the Lord appeared to them;

You said, ‘Behold, the Lord our God has shown us His glory and His greatness, and we have heard His voice from the midst of the fire; we have seen today that God speaks with mankind, yet he lives.

“There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, Who rides the heavens to your help, And the clouds in His majesty.

Clouds and thick darkness surround Him; Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne.

He lays the beams of His upper chambers in the waters; He makes the clouds His chariot; He walks on the wings of the wind;

then the Lord will create over the entire area of Mount Zion and over her assemblies a cloud by day, and smoke, and the brightness of a flaming fire by night; for over all the glory will be a canopy.

[ God’s Anger over Israel ] How the Lord has covered the daughter of Zion With a cloud in His anger! He has hurled The glory of Israel from heaven to earth, And has not remembered His footstool In the day of His anger.

Then the glory of the Lord went up from the cherub to the threshold of the temple, and the temple was filled with the cloud, and the courtyard was filled with the brightness of the glory of the Lord.

[ The Son of Man Presented ] “I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a son of man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days And was presented before Him.

And coming in clouds of judgments:

And it will roar against it on that day like the roaring of the sea. If one looks across to the land, behold, there is darkness and distress; Even the light is darkened by its clouds.

“Behold, he goes up like clouds, And his chariots like the whirlwind; His horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us, for we are ruined!”

For the day is near, Indeed, the day of the Lord is near; It will be a day of clouds, A time of doom for the nations.

A day of darkness and gloom, A day of clouds and thick darkness. As dawn is spread over the mountains, So there is a great and mighty people; There has never been anything like it, Nor will there be again after it To the years of many generations.

The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, And the Lord will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. In the gale and the storm is His way, And clouds are the dust beneath His feet.

That day is a day of anger, A day of trouble and distress, A day of destruction and desolation, A day of darkness and gloom, A day of clouds and thick darkness,

NT:

And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.

Jesus *said to him, “You have said it yourself. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory.

He comes in the glory of the Father (exactly how the Father made His presences known in the OT), and He comes in judgment with great power as the Father came in judgment in the OT. And God never gave His glory to another, which means Jesus and the Father share the same glory. This can be backed up with many verses.

And Jesus said, “I am; and you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”

The Son of Man coming as with the presences of God, with the clouds. 

Then we who are alive, who remain, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.

Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen.

Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen

Everything promised about or by Jesus failed to come to fruition.   He didn't return after the ascension, no one - including Flavus Josephus - seen him arrive on a cloud. He failed to unite the lost sheep of Israel and free them from the Roman yoke and  he didn't make peace on Earth.  
You are just so biased and set in your thinking that your confirmation bias triggers every time someone shows you that what you say is not provable by Scripture. 

Every prophecy in the OT came to fruition by AD 70. He returned spiritually in AD 70 in the judgment and reward for those waiting for Him. 

While Josephus mentions what people described as happening in Jerusalem during the siege, He does not mention Jesus specifically as coming. But he does mention the sources mention the judgment of the Son.

"The SON Is Coming!"(24)
(v:vi:3)
3. …The engines, that all the legions had ready prepared for them, were admirably contrived; but still more extraordinary ones belonged to the tenth legion: those that threw darts and those that threw stones were more forcible and larger than the rest, by which they not only repelled the excursions of the Jews, but drove those away that were upon the walls also. Now the stones that were cast were of the weight of a talent,(25) and were carried two furlongs(26) and further. The blow they gave was no way to be sustained, not only by those that stood first in the way, but by those that were beyond them for a great space. As for the Jews, they at first watched the coming of the stone, for it was of a white color, and could therefore not only be perceived by the great noise it made, but could be seen also before it came by its brightness; accordingly the watchmen that sat upon the towers gave them notice when the engine was let go, and the stone came from it, and cried out aloud, in their own country language, "THE SON COMETH:"(27) so those that were in its way stood off, and threw themselves down upon the ground; by which means, and by their thus guarding themselves, the stone fell down and did them no harm. But the Romans contrived how to prevent that by blacking the stone, who then could aim at them with success, when the stone was not discerned beforehand, as it had been till then; and so they destroyed many of them at one blow…

And huge hailstones, weighing about a talent each, *came down from heaven upon people; and people blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, because the hailstone plague *was extremely severe.

8 And the fourth angel poured out his bowl upon the sun, and it was given power to scorch people with fire. 9 And the people were scorched with [e]fierce heat; and they blasphemed the name of God who has the power over these plagues, and they did not repent so as to give Him glory.

These white balls or torches of fire flying through the sky. The Romans lit the stones, causing fires in the city and temple. 

This is how it is supposed to happen >> Revelation 1:7  Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.

This ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ did not happen!
Again, you ignored my whole argument. Not one iota of reason, just assertions galore. 

Acts 1:11 And said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

This ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ did not happen!
Again, total avoidance of my argument. Just more assertions, as if that wins any argument. 


Stephen asked: Tell me. what does the English word  " "secret" mean or defined as in " koine Greek" ?


 Words in different languages have equivalencies, or else communication between two different languages would not happen. Words are symbols that represent the thing discussed. The point I was making is that translating does not lose word equivalencies because it goes from one language to another, not a multitude of languages. It goes from koine Greek to Latin, from koine Greek to German, from koine Greek to English, not from koine Greek to Latin, to German, to English. 

Ok.  In English the word - secret - is defined and means ; 
(1) something that is kept or meant to be kept unknown or unseen by others.
(2)not known or seen or not meant to be known or seen by others.


So simply tell me what the word "secret"  means in " koine Greek"
The same as it means in English. In what sense are you applying it?




Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen

Not a single thing that you have posted goes anywhere in showing that Jesus returned from the dead and appeared to his apostles or anyone, [1] on a cloud or anything resembling as such after the accession.
Something tells me that you did not read a single thing I wrote,

Oh but I did.  And I have said that offering more unreliable " cherry picked" verses from the same unreliable source does not and will not serve as any type of proof.  
Cherry-picked?

Yep. Cherry picked. You think that  by flooding my thread with cherry picked verses that you believe  somehow prove your point that Jesus returned to Earth in one form or another.  THEY DON'T! 
BS. Do you think that asserting something enough makes it true? What I'm doing to your theology is showing it up for your eisegesis. You isolate verses and collapse contexts to prove your points. You ignore the audience of the address (a 1st-century Jewish people) and the time frame. That is false hermeneutics. You read your own interpretations into the text instead of finding out what the text means and says. To find out what it means, you often have to find out how the 1st-century audience would understand the meaning. Then, what did it mean to the PRIMARY audience it was written for? Your interpretation does violence to the text and distorts the meaning. 

Original Post, where all this state nonsense of yours happened because you do not understand the spiritual nature of Jesus' teaching:
Where was he?

Jesus said said to his followers that some of them would live to witness his return to earth:“Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom”. Matthew16: 27-28.
The verses in question that started the whole shazam showed the connection between a spiritual coming instead of a physical one. The first verse you gave me (Matthew 16:28) goes in conjunction with Matthew 16:27, which you listed but did not include. That is because it does not play into your made-up narrative.

27 For the Son of Man is [1] going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and will [2] then repay every person according to his [a]deeds.

You could not even exegete it.

[1] Jesus said He would come in the Father's glory. I asked you how the Father's glory was demonstrated in the OT  --> No reply. Silence. 

[2] I mentioned that there was going to be a judgment taking place here, as confirmed throughout the NT. Every person was to be repaid according to their deeds. 

Matthew 16:28 (NASB)
28 “Truly I say to you, there are [1] some of those who are standing here who will not taste death --> [2] until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”

Some standing there? Who was standing there? Did you bother to find out? 

Matthew 24:24 Then Jesus said to His disciples,

Mark 8:34 And He summoned the crowd together with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow Me. 

Luke 9:18 And it happened that while He was praying alone, the disciples were with Him

[1] Thus, some of them would still be alive at His Second Coming. So, once again, you have to understand how the Father came in the OT to His people. Jesus was coming in the same glory. Show me the Father came physically to His people. Show me that when the Father came in judgment, He came physically. If Jesus was coming in the glory of the Father, then you have to understand how the Father came in glory with His angels. Notice other passages that speak of the Father coming with the angels

[2] How did they see the Son of Man coming into His kingdom? What does that MEAN? When did Jesus come into His kingdom? Do you know, Stephen? Can you even answer that, Stephen, or do you not have a clue, you who pretends to know what Scripture teaches? 

Daniel 7:13-14 (NASB)
The Son of Man Presented
13 “I kept looking in the night visions,
And behold, with the clouds of heaven
One like a son of man was coming,
And He came up to the Ancient of Days
And was presented before Him.
14 And to Him was given dominion,
Honor, and [a]a kingdom,
So that all the peoples, nations, and populations of all [b]languages
Might serve Him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
Which will not pass away;
And His kingdom is one
Which will not be destroyed.

So, Jesus comes before the Father in HEAVEN, not on earth. 

Revelation 4 (NASB)
Scene in Heaven
4 After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven, and the first voice which I had heard, like the sound of a trumpet speaking with me, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things.” 2 Immediately I was in the [a]Spirit; and behold, a throne was standing in heaven, and someone was sitting on the throne. 

Again, a heaven scene, not an earthly one. 

Revelation 5:8b-11
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who [f]is to come.”
9 And when the living creatures give glory, honor, and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, to Him who lives forever and ever, 10 the twenty-four elders will fall down before Him who sits on the throne, and they will worship Him who lives forever and ever, and will cast their crowns before the throne, saying,
11 “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they [g]existed, and were created.”

We get the same words we find in Revelation 1:8, that of the One who was and is and is to COME. Throughout the Revelation, we find mention of the One coming and in Revelation 22, it is revealed as Jesus.

Again, we see God is given worship, and it is said He created all things, and because of Him, they exist. We find the same words used of Jesus throughout the NT as the creator of all things, and they exist for Him. 

Then in Revelation 5, still with the heavenly scene, we see the Son of Man coming before God's throne to receive His kingdom. Thus, Stephen's questions about 'thy kingdom come' on earth is just pure misunderstanding on his part. Revelation 5 reveals Jesus comes into His kingdom in heaven. 

5 And one of the elders *said to me, “Stop weeping; behold, the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome so as to be able to open the scroll and its seven seals.”

8 When He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each one holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the [e]saints. 9 And they *sang a new song, saying,
“Worthy are You to take the scroll and to break its seals; for You were slaughtered, and You purchased people for God with Your blood from every tribe, language, people, and nation.
10 You have made them into a kingdom and priests to our God, and they will reign upon the earth.”

We Christians live on the earth in the victory Jesus won, part of His spiritual kingdom even here that is not of this world. It does not have the values of this world. We receive every spiritual blessing in Christ while we live here because we have been born again into His kingdom. 
11 Then I looked, and I heard the voices of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was [f]myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands, 12 saying with a loud voice,
“Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power, wealth, wisdom, might, honor, glory, and blessing.”
13 And I heard every created thing which is in heaven, or on the earth, or under the earth, or on the sea, and all the things in them, saying,
“To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be the blessing, the honor, the glory, and the dominion forever and ever.”

The same scene in Daniel 7:13-14 is shown in Revelation 4-5 to apply to Jesus Christ, and He receives the same glory and honour and worship that the Father does. 


Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen
Part 2


You're brushing off everything I have said, ignoring it because you have nothing but assertions.

I have asserted nothing. I have added nothing to what the scripture actually states where-as, you are attempting to do just that..  You are now at the -making it up as you go along -stage. 
Maybe you can't see your denial, but I'm sure others can. I spent two fairly long posts listing many points on why I had the correct interpretation of Scripture, and you brushed most off. Let's see how your view makes better sense of the text.

There are umpteen passages that back what I have said.

Nope.  But  there are passages that suggest a physical, bodily return that is observable to every single being on the planet.   A return to establish "his kingdom on earth". Or has the words; 
Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.”

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

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,

[ Jesus Our High Priest ] Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession: Jesus;

who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, just as Moses was warned by God when he was about to erect the tabernacle; for, “See,” He says, “that you make all things by the pattern which was shown to you on the mountain.”

But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.

But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels,

"Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in. earth, as it is in heaven", escaped you?
Yes, His kingdom did come, and His will shall be done on earth as it is in HEAVEN. We, as Christians, are part of a spiritual kingdom, even as we live on the earth. We have been born of the spiritual, and no one can enter or see the kingdom of God without being born again.

And I personally think you go against a wealth of information that is contrary to your belief.

What belief?   The belief that Jesus failed to return?
No, that He did return, just not in the manner you think the Bible said. You think the Bible teaches a literal physical return. I get into that more with the two verses you cited above. 


Your bias is noted and evident.

My difference of opinion, is what you mean.
Really, do you think you are neutral regarding the Bible and Christianity? You have built up an aversion that is evident from your multiple threads. No bias there???


And that is only the first page of the forum threads.

Every English translation worth its weight relies on the koine Greek in which the NT authors wrote. You seem to think that we translate from language to language. That is not true. 

It is [1]  you and your ilk that pull the Greek card at every stumbling block, I am quite happy reading these scriptures in English. [2] Tell me. what does the English word  " "secret" mean or defined as in " koine Greek" ?

[1] No bias? Ad hom. 

[2] Words in different languages have equivalencies, or else communication between two different languages would not happen. Words are symbols that represent the thing discussed. The point I was making is that translating does not lose word equivalencies because it goes from one language to another, not a multitude of languages. It goes from koine Greek to Latin, from koine Greek to German, from koine Greek to English, not from koine Greek to Latin, to German, to English. 

Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen

Not a single thing that you have posted goes anywhere in showing that Jesus returned from the dead and appeared to his apostles or anyone, [1] on a cloud or anything resembling as such after the accession.
Something tells me that you did not read a single thing I wrote,

Oh but I did.  And I have said that offering more unreliable " cherry picked" verses from the same unreliable source does not and will not serve as any type of proof.  
Cherry-picked? The source is the verses and what they actually convey to the primary audience of address, not what you or I read into them. I have pointed out that you paid little attention to the audience of address or the wording in 2 Peter. You failed to note that 'like' and 'as' are not literal but comparison or simile, a comparison of speech to compare one thing with another. To God, a thousand years is like a day, and a day as a thousand years. What does that convey through induction? It conveys that God transcends time. Genesis 1:14-15 tells the reader the purpose of the sun, moon, and stars, to delineate seasons and times for humanity. God created time with the physical Universe, the beginning. 

nor examined the proofs I offered. 

You offer not a single iota of proof. 
You do not understand what proof is in a sense I use it, perhaps? Here is one of the nine meanings of proof:

Noun: Evidence or argument establishing or helping to establish the truth of a statement. 

Why do you keep reading into Jesus' Second Coming as a physical return?

That is how it is written, numerously.  Or are you now attempting to rewrite scripture. Are you telling us that Jesus is in fact not going to return physically.  Or has returned but not physically?
Nope, I am not trying to rewrite but explain or give you an understanding of the biblical sense in which the Second Coming is meant.

Revelation 1:7  Behold, [1] he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, [2] even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.
As I said, "see" can mean physical sight or mental UNDERSTANDING. It is used in Revelation 1:7. It refers to understanding. How could everyone at that time see a physical Jesus? I also pointed out the reference is applied to Israel since that verse conflates the two texts from the OT into one.

[1] Daniel 7:13-14 is HEAVEN, not earth, as also conveyed in Revelation 4 and 5. Here Jesus comes before every tribe of the land/earth in judgment. But besides that, on planet Earth, the tribes of the land (the nation of Israel) will understand that they rejected the Holy One of Israel with the judgment. 

As I said before, coming with the clouds (in the same manner the Father came to a people in the OT) speaks of judgment. As I asked before, and you keep ignoring most of my questions or reply with another question to avoid exegesis of the texts, as per Matthew 16:27, how did the Father come in His glory in the OT? Was it ever disclosed that He came physically to a nation in judgment? Show me that it was. 

[2] Zechariah 12:10 is where this part of Revelation 1:7 is citing.

2 “Behold, I am going to make Jerusalem a cup [a]that causes staggering to all the peoples around; and when the siege is against Jerusalem, it will also be against Judah. 3 It will come about on that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it will injure themselves severely. And all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it. 4 On that day,” declares the Lord, “I will strike every horse with confusion and its rider with insanity. 

Why, because Israel rejected the long-awaited Messiah and all the prophets and saints God sent it leading up to the time of the Messiah.

So, Zechariah 12:10 applies to Israel (specifically Judah), as does most of the rest of Revelation. John's version of the Olivet Discourse (of Jesus) explained in more detail by the revelation given to John. These NT writings also contain the soon-to-be prophetic fulfillment of large portions of OT scripture, especially sections of Daniel, as I pointed out with the scroll's sealing and opening. Daniel is told to seal up the prophecy until the end times, and Jesus, in heaven, is opening the seals of judgment upon Israel for their apostasy and rejection of their Messiah. 

What is the "end of the age" spoken of to Daniel?

Daniel 12:13 But as for you, go your way to the [o]end; then you will rest and [p]rise for your allotted portion at the end of the [q]age.

And what age was Jesus referring to in Matthew 24:3, Stephen?

Matthew 24:3 (NASB)
3 And as He was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the [a]end of the age?”

Tell me, Stephen, how many ages does Jesus refer to, and what age were Israel and Jesus living in with His time on earth? Can you answer that? 

Do you understand the significance of "this age" that Jesus speaks of, or the ONE to come? I want to hear from you concerning this. Tell me how you determine what age it is as applied by Jesus? To which age did He come, per Scripture? How do you figure that out? Hint, to what people did He come to? Who were His own people? What does that mean to you? 

Acts 1:11 And said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
Just as Jesus left in the cloud of glory (i.e., God's presence) so He will come in like manner (in the glory of God). 

Acts 1:9-11 (NASB)
The Ascension
9 And after He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were watching, and a cloud took Him up, out of their sight. 10 And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, then behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them, 11 and they said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.”

A cloud took Him up, i.e., He was in the presence of God. That's how they saw Him leave, in the Shekinah glory of God. 

They will see (understand) Jesus coming in the same manner that He left, in the presence of God. 

How did God come to Israel in the OT? How was His presence seen? 

Exodus 16:10 NASB
And it came about as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the sons of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the LORD appeared in the cloud. 

Did they see the Lord? No, they felt His presence in the cloud. David Curtis makes this plain:

And the LORD said to Moses, "Behold, I shall come to you in a thick cloud, in order that the people may hear when I speak with you, and may also believe in you forever." Then Moses told the words of the people to the LORD. (Exodus 19:9 NASB)

And the LORD descended in the cloud and stood there with him as he called upon the name of the LORD. (Exodus 34:5 NASB)

And the LORD said to Moses, "Tell your brother Aaron that he shall not enter at any time into the holy place inside the veil, before the mercy seat which is on the ark, lest he die; for I will appear in the cloud over the mercy seat. (Leviticus 16:2 NASB)

Then the LORD came down in the cloud and spoke to him; and He took of the Spirit who was upon him and placed Him upon the seventy elders. And it came about that when the Spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. But they did not do it again. (Numbers 11:25 NASB)

That is how God 'appeared' before His people. Even crossing the Red Sea, in His providence, we see the pillar of clouds by day guiding them to the Promised Land.

He did not take away the pillar of cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from the presence of the people.

So, when Jesus says that He will come in the glory of the Father, how did the Father come in glory (see above).

Created:
0
Posted in:
A problem for the Ontological Argument
-->
@zedvictor4
The teaching of scripture is why you are a Christian.

The teaching of other religious texts is why others consider themselves to be  variously and differently theistic.

I wasn't taught to be theistic, so I am not inclined to accept religious texts as  being entirely factual.

The key to perpetual  theism, is in the teaching.
The Christian faith is justifiable and reasonable to believe. See the discussion on No Show. 

I believe that no other worldview is so internally consistent and am willing to discuss such claims after my current debate. 
Created:
1
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen
I have said in another thread of mine that I personally believe Jesus survived the cross and went on to live at least another 40 years and was probably alive,  if not present at the time of the fall of Jerusalem. But I have no proof of that.
And I personally think you go against a wealth of information that is contrary to your belief. Your bias is noted and evident.

But YOU!  In typical fashion of the theist caught on the backfoot , you have ignored what these scriptures actually state.
No, I have not. I went through both 1 + 2 Peter, noting the audience of the address. You ignored any reference to such data.


LOOK>> “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened “Matthew24:25-34.
Mark13:26-30 says the same as does Luke21:27-32.
The error of your thinking is that you think "this generation" can mean another generation other than the one at the time. 

So what was to pass away? 

Matthew 5:17-18 (NASB)
17 “Do not presume that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. 18 For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not [a]the smallest letter or stroke of a letter shall pass from the Law, until all is accomplished!

Not one letter of the Law or the prophets would pass away until everything was accomplished. What do we see in AD 70? We see that what Israel agreed to before God can no longer be met. All prophecy finds its fulfillment by AD 70, including the judgment and warnings that the NT speaks of in probably over one-third of its writing. 

After AD 70, there is no more temple, no more priesthood, no more animal sacrifice to make atonement for sin, no more festival sacrifices, no more genealogies. They have all passed away. The promised judgment on those who killed the prophets has taken place. 

All that is stated in Daniel 9:24-27 meets fulfillment by AD 70. 

Daniel 9:24 
24 “Seventy [a]weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to [b]finish the wrongdoing, to [c]make an end of sin, to make atonement for guilt, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and [d]prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy Place. 

Peter was challenged wasn't he?  But he had no explanation for the no show did he,? So instead just like you he swerved the problem with bullshit : lets see what they said and  Peter's weasley reply.
Sure Peter had an explanation. He said that God is not slow in keeping His promises but does not want any to perish. The time was not yet up. The forty years of grace was not yet over. Although Jesus said they could not know the day or hour, they could know when it was near, even at the door.

Not only that, Jesus promised the disciples that when He departed, He would send the Spirit of truth that would guide them into all truth. That is why John could say about that hour that no one knew about before Jesus' resurrection; the hour was upon them.

Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour.

They asked;
“Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.”2Peter 3:4
Sure, they were skeptics and mockers. I explained why the promise had not yet materialized in the last segment. 

Yet even allowing for all those Jews alive at the time of the promise and living another hundred + years, Jesus simply failed to show and keep his promise. They didn't ask because he had returned, did they you fool.   They asked because he hadn't!       And everything went on the same.  
You're mistaken. You overlook the nature of His Second Coming. He came in the same manner and glory of the Father. I already asked you this in previous posts and you ignored my query. That made me suspect that you only had your own motives in mind, not a fair discussion on the subject. 

For some reason, you seem to think that the two letters were written after AD 70. Jesus had not returned at the time Peter wrote these letters. He was coming soon and Peter emplored them to be ready.  Judgment was near at the time of writing despite the scoffer's doubts. These MOCKERS were trying to rile up the people and turn them away from the Gospel. 

What was Peter's BS response to them:


8 " But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day".

Odd it is that Jesus forgot to mention this thousand years when he promised the generation living at the time of the promise.
As you taking some as literal that is figurative, a simile? 'Like' and 'as' denote figurative language, not literal. What that passage means is that time is insignificant to an eternal God. A day is like a thousand years to Him, and a thousand years is like a day - insignificant. Time is something God put in place for humanity, that they could measure seasons and times. The Messiah was to come to His people at a specific time in history, while the Old Covenant was still in place. That covenant disappeared in AD 70, as Hebrews 8:13 alludes to.  

Odd then isn't it that Jesus forgot to mention they wouldn't pass away because they would all live for another thousand years before they all witnessed his return. 
Rubbish. That is, you read into the text something it does not teach or infer. The thief references of 2 Peter are made clear in other passages. These 1st-century people were being warned not to let the day of Christ's Second Coming take them by surprise but be prepared for the time was near. Do you know how many times in the NT the shortness of time is mentioned concerning these 1st-century Jews? My opinion is that you are ignorant of both the audience of address and time statements. That is how you could develop these fanciful theories, fueled on the backs of other scoffers.

No matter how many verses you post here, trying to tell us that Jesus did return  , they won't alter what the scriptures actually state  and only go further to shown your BS is full of holes.
Not at all. You are mistaken. I suggest you tackle the different verses I mentioned and show how I have misinterpreted them and how you got them right. 

And this is all before we even get on to what all this is supposed to mean in the "ancient Greek language" that you Christians always rely on for another BS excuse for the scriptures failings.
Failings? Garbage. You keep showing a lack of understanding of Scripture through the many threads you have created over the years, Stephen. 

Christians are too dumb to realise that every time they pull out the Greek card, that they render the whole of the Christian bible written in English obsolete and useless as  any kind of theological authority. 

Every English translation worth its weight relies on the koine Greek in which the NT authors wrote. You seem to think that we translate from language to language. That is not true. 
Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen
Continue,

A mother eating her son - (vi:iii:3-4)
She then attempted a most unnatural thing; and snatching up her son, who was a child sucking at her breast, she said, "O thou miserable infant! For whom shall I preserve thee in this war, this famine, and this sedition? As to the war with the Romans, if they preserve our lives, we must be slaves. This famine also will destroy us, even before that slavery comes upon us. Yet are these seditious rogues more terrible than both the other. Come on; be thou my food, and be thou a fury to these seditious varlets, and a by-word to the world, which is all that is now wanting to complete the calamities of us Jews." As soon as she had said this, she slew her son, and then roasted him, and eat the one half of him, and kept the other half by her concealed.

Woes to Jerusalem - Chariots in the Clouds (vi:v:3)
But, what is still more terrible, there was one Jesus, the son of Ananus, a plebeian and a husbandman, who, four years before the war began, and at a time when the city was in very great peace and prosperity, came to that feast whereon it is our custom for every one to make tabernacles to God in the temple, began on a sudden to cry aloud, "A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, and a voice against this whole people!" This was his cry, as he went about by day and by night, in all the lanes of the city.

that this was a sort of divine fury in the man, brought him to the Roman procurator, where he was whipped till his bones were laid bare; yet he did not make any supplication for himself, nor shed any tears, but turning his voice to the most lamentable tone possible, at every stroke of the whip his answer was, "Woe, woe to Jerusalem!"

Now, during all the time that passed before the war began, this man did not go near any of the citizens, nor was seen by them while he said so; but he every day uttered these lamentable words, as if it were his premeditated vow, "Woe, woe to Jerusalem!" Nor did he give ill words to any of those that beat him every day, nor good words to those that gave him food; but this was his reply to all men, and indeed no other than a melancholy presage of what was to come.
This cry of his was the loudest at the festivals; and he continued this ditty for seven years and five months, without growing hoarse, or being tired therewith, until the very time that he saw his presage in earnest fulfilled in our siege, when it ceased; for as he was going round upon the wall, he cried out with his utmost force, "Woe, woe to the city again, and to the people, and to the holy house!" And just as he added at the last, "Woe, woe to myself also!" there came a stone out of one of the engines, and smote him, and killed him immediately; and as he was uttering the very same presages he gave up the ghost.

***
"The SON Is Coming!"(24)
(v:vi:3)
3. …The engines, that all the legions had ready prepared for them, were admirably contrived; but still more extraordinary ones belonged to the tenth legion: those that threw darts and those that threw stones were more forcible and larger than the rest, by which they not only repelled the excursions of the Jews, but drove those away that were upon the walls also. Now the stones that were cast were of the weight of a talent,(25) and were carried two furlongs(26) and further. The blow they gave was no way to be sustained, not only by those that stood first in the way, but by those that were beyond them for a great space. As for the Jews, they at first watched the coming of the stone, for it was of a white color, and could therefore not only be perceived by the great noise it made, but could be seen also before it came by its brightness; accordingly the watchmen that sat upon the towers gave them notice when the engine was let go, and the stone came from it, and cried out aloud, in their own country language, "THE SON COMETH:"(27) so those that were in its way stood off, and threw themselves down upon the ground; by which means, and by their thus guarding themselves, the stone fell down and did them no harm. But the Romans contrived how to prevent that by blacking the stone, who then could aim at them with success, when the stone was not discerned beforehand, as it had been till then; and so they destroyed many of them at one blow…

***

John's Revelation - "Now the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. And great Babylon was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath.” (16:19)

Josephus - “it so happened that the sedition at Jerusalem was revived, and parted into three factions, and that one faction fought against the other; which partition in such evil cases may be said to be a good thing, and the effect of divine justice.” (5:1:1)

John's Revelation - “And great hail from heaven fell upon men, each hailstone about the weight of a talent.” (16:21)

Josephus -  “Now the stones that were cast were of the weight of a talent, and were carried two furlongs and further. The blow they gave was no way to be sustained, not only by those that stood first in the way, but by those that were beyond them for a great space. As for the Jews, they at first watched the coming of the stone, for it was of a white color, and could therefore not only be perceived by the great noise it made, but could be seen also before it came by its brightness;” (5:6:3)

Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen
Not a single thing that you have posted goes anywhere in showing that Jesus returned from the dead and appeared to his apostles or anyone, [1] on a cloud or anything resembling as such after the accession.
Something tells me that you did not read a single thing I wrote, nor examined the proofs I offered. It went in one ear and out the other. 

Why do you keep reading into Jesus' Second Coming as a physical return? You're brushing off everything I have said, ignoring it because you have nothing but assertions. There are umpteen passages that back what I have said.

***

[1] Josephus - Chariots in the Clouds (vi:v:3)
Besides these, a few days after that feast, on the one and twentieth day of the month Artemisius, [Jyar,] a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared: I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals; for, before sun-setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities. Moreover, at that feast which we call Pentecost, as the priests were going by night into the inner [court of the temple,] as their custom was, to perform their sacred ministrations, they said that, in the first place, they felt a quaking, and heard a great noise, and after that they heard a sound as of a great multitude, saying, "Let us remove hence."(35)

Falvius Josephus mentions no raising from the dead of Jesus called the Christ and making a show on a cloud and sitting anywhere , either.
That was not my argument. My argument was that Josephus affirms the signs contained in the Olivet Discourse as happening, the great tribulation, the surrounding of Jerusalem by the Roman legions, the three factions fighting within the city while surrounded, famines, a woman eating her own baby, brother (Jew) fighting against brother (fellow Jew), false prophets leading the people astray, the temple and city fire, the dispersion of the Jews when the city fell, etc. 

Josephus on,
The Great tribulation - (vi:iii:3-4)
3. Now of those that perished by famine in the city, the number was prodigious, and the miseries they underwent were unspeakable; for if so much as the shadow of any kind of food did any where appear, a war was commenced presently, and the dearest friends fell a fighting one with another about it, snatching from each other the most miserable supports of life. Nor would men believe that those who were dying had no food, but the robbers would search them when they were expiring, lest any one should have concealed food in their bosoms, and counterfeited dying; nay, these robbers gaped for want, and ran about stumbling and staggering along like mad dogs, and reeling against the doors of the houses like drunken men; they would also, in the great distress they were in, rush into the very same houses two or three times in one and the same day. Moreover, their hunger was so intolerable, that it obliged them to chew every thing, while they gathered such things as the most sordid animals would not touch, and endured to eat them; nor did they at length abstain from girdles and shoes; and the very leather which belonged to their shields they pulled off and gnawed: the very wisps of old hay became food to some; and some gathered up fibres, and sold a very small weight of them for four Attic [drachmae].

"21 for then {bthose days} ashall be great tribulation, bsuch as there hath not been the like from the beginning of the creation {athe world} bwhich God created until now, and never, {ano, nor ever} shall be. [These words spoken before the event are strikingly verified by the statements of Josephus written after it. "No other city," says he, "ever suffered miseries, nor did any age, from the beginning of the world, ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness that this was." And again: "If the miseries of all mankind from the creation were compared with those which the Jews then suffered, they would appear inferior."


A perverse generation - The Worst Generation (v:x:5)
5. It is therefore impossible to go distinctly over every instance of these men's iniquity. I shall therefore speak my mind here at once briefly:—That neither did any other city ever suffer such miseries, nor did any age ever breed a generation more fruitful in wickedness than this was, from the beginning of the world….

Famines - (v:x:3)
3. It was now a miserable case, and a sight that would justly bring tears into our eyes, how men stood as to their food, while the more powerful had more than enough, and the weaker were lamenting [for want of it.] But the famine was too hard for all other passions, and it is destructive to nothing so much as to modesty; for what was otherwise worthy of reverence was in this case despised; insomuch that children pulled the very morsels that their fathers were eating out of their very mouths, and what was still more to be pitied, so did the mothers do as to their infants; and when those that were most dear were perishing under their hands, they were not ashamed to take from them the very last drops that might preserve their lives: and while they ate after this manner, yet were they not concealed in so doing; but the seditious every where came upon them immediately, and snatched away from them what they had gotten from others; for when they saw any house shut up, this was to them a signal that the people within had gotten some food; whereupon they broke open the doors, and ran in, and took pieces of what they were eating almost up out of their very throats, and this by force: the old men, who held their food fast, were beaten; and if the women hid what they had within their hands, their hair was torn for so doing; nor was there any commiseration shown either to the aged or to the infants, but they lifted up children from the ground as they hung upon the morsels they had gotten, and shook them down upon the floor. But still they were more barbarously cruel to those that had prevented their coming in, and had actually swallowed down what they were going to seize upon, as if they had been unjustly defrauded of their right.

Jerusalem Becomes a Wilderness
(vi:i:1)
1. Thus did the miseries of Jerusalem grow worse and worse every day, and the seditious were still more irritated by the calamities they were under, even while the famine preyed upon themselves, after it had preyed upon the people. And indeed the multitude of carcasses that lay in heaps one upon another was a horrible sight, and produced a pestilential stench, which was a hinderance to those that would make sallies out of the city, and fight the enemy: but as those were to go in battle-array, who had been already used to ten thousand murders, and must tread upon those dead bodies as they marched along, so were not they terrified, nor did they pity men as they marched over them; nor did they deem this affront offered to the deceased to be any ill omen to themselves; but as they had their right hands already polluted with the murders of their own countrymen, and in that condition ran out to fight with foreigners, they seem to me to have cast a reproach upon God himself, as if he were too slow in punishing them; for the war was not now gone on with as if they had any hope of victory; for they gloried after a brutish manner in that despair of deliverance they were already in.



Created:
0
Posted in:
A problem for the Ontological Argument
-->
@zedvictor4
Throughout, I maintain the acceptance of a GOD principle.


The Bible however, is a book about men of Arabia written by men of Arabia.
Some of the writings were written in Asia and Europe. But, so what?


A region heavily influenced by Mediterranean, North African and Asian cultures...... So it's no wonder that a home grown creation hypothesis is GOD based.
How so?

And let's be honest,  hypothetical GODS were  a global tradition......The simplest and most logical  contemporary solution, in the absence of anything better.
How well do you understand the Bible?


So Tales from Arabia, will inevitably be interwoven with the antics of this home grown supernatural creator....As was and is the tradition of creation myths.

Nonetheless the GOD principle is sound, but the accompanying human antics and reverential rhetoric are not necessarily necessary to such a simple hypothesis.

If an actual specific singular GOD does exist......Then it's concerns will far exceed the ramblings and naivety of a few men of Arabia.

The fact that Arabian myths continue to be perpetuated around the Word is a testament to human predictability, rather than a testament to the human ability to understand the GOD principle.
Your thoughts fly in the face of the teaching of Scripture. While you are welcome to believe what you want the biblical God is not hypothetical. 

Sure, to you it is the unknown God. To the Christian, God has made Himself known. The proofs are most reasonable.
Created:
1
Posted in:
No Show.
Part 2

2 Peter is the second letter Peter wrote to them. We should examine what it says to dispel your claims.

3 Beloved, this is now the second letter I am writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of a reminder, 2 to remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles.
[14] The Coming Day of the Lord
3 Know this first of all, that in [15] the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, 4 and saying, [16] “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers [a]fell asleep, all things continue just as they were from the beginning of creation.” 5 For [b]when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, 6 through which the world at that time was destroyed by being flooded with water. 7 But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly people.
8 But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day. 9 [17] The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.
A New Heaven and Earth
10 But [18] the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and [19] the earth and [c]its works will be [d]discovered.
11 Since [20] all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! 13 But according to His promise [21]  we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.
14 Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found spotless and blameless by Him, at peace, 15 and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, 16 as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which there are some things that are hard to understand, which [22] the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction. 17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of [e]unscrupulous people and lose your own [f]firm commitment, 18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

[14] The "Day of the Lord is coming" soon during Peter's time. 
[15] Again, in the last days of the Old Covenant, there are mockers that Peter is identifying. 
[16] These people have been waiting a long time for His Second Coming, almost 40 years, and are growing impatient. Some are mocking the faithful by asking them, when is He coming?
[17] Peter tells them to be patient because God is not slow in keeping His promise (40 years; one generation) but is giving all those who will come a chance to come before He destroys the Old Covenant system of worship and replaces it with a better covenant. 
[18] Peter assures THEM that the Day of the Lord will come like a thief when those who are disobedient will be caught unaware. 
Paul also warns those in Thessalonia of the coming day and not to be caught like a thief, unprepared:

For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord is coming just like a thief in the night.

But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness, so that the day would overtake you like a thief;

[19] The Old Covenant time is nearing its end, and there is a transition taking place between the two covenants. Even as Paul writes to the Corinthians, the glory of the old is fading away, especially take note of verse 18. 
[20] "all these things?" All what things, Stephen? All the things of the Old Covenant are passing away. What their heaven and earth revolved around for centuries was about to pass away. Their old covenant relationship with temple worship and atonement sacrifices, a priesthood, and all its rituals before God were about to be supplanted solely by a new covenant relationship. Between AD 30 and AD 70, the two covenants existed side-by-side. The period of grace to cross into the Promised Land was about to come to an end. 

Hebrews 3
7 Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says,
“Today if you hear His voice,
8 Do not harden your hearts as [d]when they provoked Me,
As on the day of trial in the wilderness,
9 Where your fathers put Me to the test,
And saw My works for forty years.
10 Therefore I was angry with this generation,
And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart,
And they did not know My ways’;
11 As I swore in My anger,
‘They certainly shall not enter My rest.’”
The Danger of Unbelief
12 Take care, brothers and sisters, that there will not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart [e]that falls away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another every day, as long as it is still called “today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14 For we have become partakers of Christ if we keep the beginning of our [f]commitment firm until the end, 15 while it is said,
“Today if you hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts, as [g]when they provoked Me.”
16 For who provoked Him when they had heard? Indeed, did not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses? 17 And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose dead bodies fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? 19 And so we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief.

[21] That would be the heavenly kingdom. If you doubt that, I have a boatload of Scripture that proves the point. 
[22] Now, you too, Stephen, have been taught these things. You are without excuse. 

In every NT writing, I can prove beyond any reasonable doubt that the primary audience of address about judgment is a 1st-century Jewish people. The Scriptural proofs are exhaustive. 

I recommend you read it to familiarize yourself with what actually happened. 

 I have.  As I have the works of Josephus.
Good! Then you know the three factions within the city during the siege. You know of the destruction that took place and how it reiterates Revelation descriptions in many places. You know that these Jews in Jerusalem were taken into slavery and dispersed once the city fell. You know that the OT system of worship was no longer in practice as instructed in the Torah. You know the even Josephus describes this tribulation as the greatest Israel had ever witnessed.



Does a single one of those he made the promise to mention his return "coming on a cloud"? It will be interesting to hear what Christians have to say about this abysmal damp squib of a failure to keep a promise, his promise.

Repeating the biblical verses does not amount to proof that Jesus returned from the dead:  on a cloud or a skateboard.
Again, what does cloud coming signify in the OT? As you pointed out Matthew 16:27-28 and listed it as one of the verses that prove your point, what does coming in the glory of the Father, with His angels mean? Do you know? How did the Father come in glory on the cloud/with clouds in the OT? Do you know? 

Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen
Part 1
Even at his trial he told the priests and the council :“you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.“” Matthew26: 63, 64.     And the no show hadn’t gone nu-noticed by the people either:  2Peter 3:4 “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.”
Yet even allowing for all those Jews alive at the time of the promise and living another hundred + years, Jesus simply failed to show and keep his promise.
The High Priest definitely understood that the Son of Man was seated at the right hand of the Father during the judgment in AD 70. Josephus describes it [the judgment, Jerusalem surrounded by Roman legions] in much detail.

Nice.  Now let us see what you are claiming.

Remember Peter had no answer for them did he? 
He most certainly did. 

In his first letter, Peter addresses them as follows, 

"1 To those who reside as strangers, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen"

So Peter addresses people during the generation he lived in as the PRIMARY audience of address, those to whom the warnings and prophecies would apply. In that letter, as I noted, he told them the coming of the Lord was near and not to be shaken.

1 Peter 1:5 who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation [1] ready to be revealed in the last time. 
6...even though [2] now for a little while, if necessary, [3] you have been distressed by various [b]trials,
10 As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, 11 [f] [4] seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories [g]to follow. 12 It was revealed to them that [5] they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things into which angels long to [h]look.
13 Therefore, [i]prepare your minds for action, [j]keep sober in spirit, set your hope completely on the grace to be brought to [6] you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
20 For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world,  [7] but has appeared [p]in these last times for the sake of you 21 who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.
1 Peter 3:21...through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 [8] who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, [9] after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him.
1 Peter 4:5 but they will give an account to Him [10] who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 6 For the gospel has for this purpose been [e]preached even to those who are dead,
7  [11] The end of all things [f]is near; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of [g]prayer.
17 For [12] it is time for judgment to begin [m]with the household of God; and if it begins [n]with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?
1 Peter 5:13 She who is in [13] Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you greetings, and so does my son, Mark.

Some questions for you, based on those verses.
[1] What does the last time signify? When we turn to other Scripture on that phrase, what do we find?

Hebrews 1:1-2 (NASB)
God’s Final Word in His Son
1 God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, 2 [a]in these last days has spoken to us [b]in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom He also made the [c]world.

First, Hebrews is addressed to Hebrew Christians who were in danger of turning away from their faith in Jesus and going back to the Old Covenant ways that the entire epistle contrasts to what freedom and superiority they already have in Jesus Christ and the New Covenant. And nowhere in Hebrews does the author speak of an already destroyed temple and ritualized system of worship (as the OT was) as already past.

Second, who did God send the prophets to? It was to an OT people, steeped in a works-based system of atonement. 

Third, the writer puts the last days at the time of Jesus' coming to earth where He spoke to Israel for 3 1/2 years before He was crucified. So, the last days are during that generation, as I pointed out before. Try as hard as you like; you can't deny that those passages about this generation I just linked to cannot be anything other than the generation Jesus spoke to for 3 1/2 years. Go ahead and try to deny that, Stephen.  

‘And it shall be in the last days,’ God says, ‘That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and your daughters will prophesy, And your young men will see visions, And your old men will have dreams;

Peter applies those days to the people present at Pentecost. You cannot deny that, Stephen. 

33 Therefore, [ak]since He has been exalted [al]at the right hand of God, and has received the promise of the Holy Spirit from the Father, He has poured out this which you both see and hear.

37 Now when they heard this, they were [ao]pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “[ap]Brothers, what are we to do?” 38 Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

40 And with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on urging them, saying, “[aq]Be saved from this perverse generation!”

Again, the pronouns are important in realizing who the primary audience of address is and who Peter is issuing a warning. 

[2] Now is a time indicator. What does it mean? 
[3] Who does the pronoun you reference?
[4] The times the prophets were speaking of applied to the people Peter was addressing in the 1st-century. 
[5] Peter says these prophets were not serving themselves when they were looking for the time of the Messiah's coming, but these 1st-century people.
[6] These people were waiting for the revealing of the Lord Jesus Christ in glory. They would understand that in AD 70, when the confirmation came, Christ was indeed in His glory, judging Israel. I could discuss the many signs of Matthew 24 as already taking place to make the point further. Perhaps that will be my next course of action. You can't effectively argue against what the Scriptures actually teach without looking foolish. If that was not enough, I could dissect Revelation's teaching, another Olivet Discourse address closer to the actual Second Coming in AD 70.
[7] Again, the last days are mentioned to THEM. What does "the last days" mean? Do you know, Stephen? After I hear your answer, I will explain it to you with the proof, for it deals with the last days of the Old Covenant, the last days of the heaven and earth of that covenant.
[8] Yeshua/Jesus is now, as Peter speaks to these people seated at the Father's right hand waiting to make His enemies a footstool in that generation. 
[9]  The judgment comes in AD 70. Peter is put to death between AD 64-68, so the time is near when he issues these warnings. 
[10] Please note, God is ready at that time to judge the living and the dead.
[11] The end of all things to do with the Old Covenant was near when Peter is speaking to THEM. 
[12] The time for the judgment was near for their generation.
[13] Babylon, for your information, refers to Jerusalem and apostate Israel at that time in which Peter is writing.

***


Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen

Even at his trial he told the priests and the council :“you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.“” Matthew26: 63, 64.     And the no show hadn’t gone nu-noticed by the people either:
The High Priest definitely understood that the Son of Man was seated at the right hand of the Father during the judgment in AD 70. Josephus describes it in much detail. I recommend you read it to familiarize yourself with what actually happened. All the signs of Matthew 24 are present. In fact, you can find many of the fulfillments happening during the forty-year transition. Peter and Paul speak of the Gospel going to the ends of the earth during this period and before they were put to death by Nero between AD 64 and AD 68. Revelation describes the harlot, which is Jerusalem, and they also describe the kings or caesars, of which Nero is the one who is.

and they are seven kings; five have fallen, one is, the other has not yet come; and when he comes, he must remain a little while.

2Peter 3:4 “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.”
Yet even allowing for all those Jews alive at the time of the promise and living another hundred + years, Jesus simply failed to show and keep his promise.
2 Peter 3:4
“Where is the promise of His coming? 

1 Peter 4:7 
7 The end of all things [f]is near; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of [g]prayer.

17 For it is time for judgment to begin [m]with the household of God; and if it begins [n]with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?

Judgment began in AD 70. Peter warned of the thief coming when they were not aware.

[ A New Heaven and Earth ] But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be discovered.

Does a single one of those he made the promise to mention his return "coming on a cloud"? It will be interesting to hear what Christians have to say about this abysmal damp squib of a failure to keep a promise, his promise.

Created:
0
Posted in:
No Show.
-->
@Stephen
From Post 1:
Jesus said said to his followers that some of them would live to witness his return to earth:“Truly I say to you, there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom”. Matthew16: 27-28.
And that happened in AD 70. They understood Jesus had come into His kingdom. The previous verse says,

27 For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and will then repay every person according to his [a]deeds.

1) This verse speaks of judgment, repaying every person according to their deeds. 

2) How did the Father come in His glory in the OT? Did He come in a physical manner? No. Coming in the glory of the Father can mean two things, to my mind, (i) Sharing the the glory that is only God's, and (ii) coming in judgment to reward those faithful and punish those unfaithful. 

Jesus then goes further telling them which “signs” to look out for but this time including the whole “generation” and ending again with:
“Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened “Matthew24:25-34.
Mark13:26-30 says the same as does Luke21:27-32.

So it is clearly Jesus himself states that he will be seen again in that generation of that time and that it was to happen some time during the generation of those to whom he was speaking. It cannot be made more clear to his audience that this event would not be in the distant future, he told them that some of them who were there listening to him would still be alive to see it.
Those "signs" are present throughout the NT after the resurrection of the Savior. I will demonstrate that after I make a few more points. 

First, what is a generation? How does the Bible define it? 

Hebrews 3:9-11 (NASB)
9 Where your fathers put Me to the test,
And saw My works for forty years.
10 Therefore I was angry with this generation,
And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart,
And they did not know My ways’;
11 As I swore in My anger,
‘They certainly shall not enter My rest.’”

Hebrews 3:16-19 (NASB)
16 For who provoked Him when they had heard? Indeed, did not all those who came out of Egypt led by Moses? 17 And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose dead bodies fell in the wilderness? 18 And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient? 19 And so we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief.

Also, your sons will be shepherds in the wilderness for forty years, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness, until your bodies perish in the wilderness.

So the Lord’s anger burned against Israel, and He made them wander in the wilderness for forty years, until the entire generation of those who had done evil in the sight of the Lord came to an end.

There, the definition of a generation is forty years!
Forty years from AD 30 is AD 70. In AD 70 Jesus did come in judgment, just as He promised in Matthew 16:27.  Just as you have the first Exodus with Moses at the helm, so you have the Second Exodus with Jesus at the helm. Where Moses fails (he never led his people into the Promised Land, only to it) Jesus succeeds. He takes His people into the heavenly country. What did Moses say of a prophet like him? 

Deuteronomy 18:15-18 (NASB)
15 “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen; to him you shall listen. 16 This is in accordance with everything that you asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, saying, ‘Do not let me hear the voice of the Lord my God again, and do not let me see this great fire anymore, or I will die!’ 17 And the Lord said to me, ‘They have [a]spoken well. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet from among their countrymen like you, and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them everything that I command him. 

For I did not speak on My own, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak.

Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own, but the Father, as He remains in Me, does His works.

What does Peter say in Acts?

Acts 3:12 
12 But when Peter saw this, he replied to the people, “Men of Israel, why are you amazed at this, or why are you staring at us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made him walk? 13 The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His [d]servant Jesus, the one whom you handed over and disowned in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release Him. 14 But you disowned the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, 15 but put to death the [e]Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, [f]a fact to which we are witnesses...
19 Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; 20 and that He may send Jesus, the [i]Christ appointed for you, 21 whom heaven must receive until the [j]period of restoration of all things, about which God spoke by the mouths of His holy prophets from ancient times. 22 Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your countrymen; to Him you shall listen regarding everything He says to you. 23 And it shall be that every soul that does not listen to that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.’ 24 And likewise, all the prophets who have spoken from Samuel and his successors onward, have also announced these days. 25 It is you who are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God ordained with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ 26 God raised up His [k]Servant for you first, and sent Him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways.” 

What does Peter say? He blames the Jews for the death of the Lord. He says that the Father has received Him until the time of restoration of all things? The restoration of all things is when Jesus comes in judgment of the Jews within "this generation." "This generation" that Jesus spoke of in the Gospels is a period of time in which they live. He is giving them 40 years until the day of judgment, the day of God's wrath, happens to these people. As Peter said,  in quoting Moses, "every soul that does not listen to that prophet (Jesus) will be put to death" and he says it to the generation he lives among. He says that all the prophets spoke of THESE DAYS. And who are the sons of the prophets? They are the descendent of Israel in that generation, Jesus' and Peter's generation. In Jesus, the SEED of Abraham, there is a forty year period of transition and grace in which those how hear His voice may still come into the kingdom and receive/enter their rest.

Next, the kingdom of heaven is a spiritual kingdom, a heavenly country. 

Finally, His coming would be a spirtiual coming. Just like the Father came on the clouds in the OT, so was to be the coming of the Son of Man. When the Father came in judgment of a nation He used another nation to administer that judgment. We see the same thing in Ad 70. The Roman armies surround Jerusalem. 

Jesus, on the Mt of Olives, speaks to the disciples about the signs of His coming and the end of the age. What age, Stephen? Let me tell you. It is the end of the Old Covenant age, the end of that economy, of temple worship and yearly animal sacrifices for sin through the mediation of the Levitical priesthood. That is because Jesus came to establish a better covenant (as Hebrews states throughout), with a better High Priest, a better Mediator, and a better sacrifice, one that only has to be made once for all time. 

Hebrews 9:24-28
24 For Christ did not enter a holy place made by hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; 25 nor was it that He would offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Holy Place year by year with blood that is not his own. 26 Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been revealed to put away sin [w]by the sacrifice of Himself. 27 And just as it is destined for people to die once, and after this comes judgment, 28 so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.

As I said before, there is a forty year transition between the OT and Nt after the resurrection of the Lord. That is the grace period. 

Hebrews 8:13 (NASB)
13 [a]When He said, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is [b]about to disappear.

When the author of Hebrews wrote these verses he describes the Old Testament as obsolete and about to disappear. It did in AD 70.

Created:
0
Posted in:
How can God be both an alpha male and omega male?
-->
@Stephen
@ Stephen

 how much time regarding Jesus' return in using biblical axioms like "who is to come quickly, and soon, the time is near" do we just say, He's just not coming, period!  Thus far, it's been 2000 years plus, where Jesus' return was supposed to be within the time period of Jesus upon earth!  (Mark 30: 25-35).  

All correct as usual Brother. I did a thread on this very point not too long ago, titled, No Show here >. https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/5599-no-show
All correct? What a laugh. The time reference passages in the Bible refer to an audience of address. Who is that primary audience? If you can't identify it from the text, what you do is collapse the context and make it a pretext to suit a foreign context, one you make up. 

Revelation 1:1-4; 7-8
The Revelation of Jesus Christ
1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and [a]communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John, 2 who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, everything that he saw. 3 Blessed is the one who reads, and those who hear the words of the prophecy and [b]keep the things which are written in it; for the time is near.
Message to the Seven Churches
4 John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from Him who is, and who was, and who [c]is to come, and from the [d]seven spirits who are before His throne,

7 Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. [f]So it is to be. Amen.
8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who [g]is to come, the Almighty.”

1) The Revelation is a revelation of Jesus Christ.
2) The communication is with John, a bond-servant. 
3) The message he writes is to seven churches in Asia. 
4) In verse 7, who does every eye apply to? It applies to those who pierced Him. Who are those who pierced Him? They are His own people, the house of Israel. Scripture tells us as much. 

Zechariah 12:10 (NASB)
10 “And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem [a]the Spirit of grace and of pleading, so that they will look at Me whom they pierced; and they will mourn for Him, like one mourning for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.

So John is speaking of the house of Israel, specifically the house of Judah, who pierced Him. 


John 19:31-32
31 So Pilate said to them, “Take Him yourselves, and judge Him according to your law.” The Jews said to him, “We are not [k]permitted to put anyone to death.” 32 This happened so that the word of Jesus which He said, indicating what kind of death He was going to die, would be fulfilled.

Who is the 'them' spoken of? What law is Pilate speaking of? 

John 19:19-24, 28
19 The high priest then questioned Jesus about His disciples, and about His teaching. 20 Jesus answered him, “I have spoken openly to the world; I always taught in [g]synagogues and in the temple area, where all the Jews congregate; and I said nothing in secret. 21 Why are you asking Me? Ask those who have heard what I spoke to them. Look: these people know what I said.” 22 But when He said this, one of the officers, who was standing nearby, struck Jesus, saying, “Is that the way You answer the high priest?” 23 Jesus answered him, “If I have spoken wrongly, testify of the wrong; but if rightly, why do you strike Me?” 24 So Annas sent Him bound to Caiaphas the high priest...28 Then they *brought Jesus from Caiaphas into the [h]Praetorium...

Matthew 26:3
3 At that time the chief priests and the elders of the people were gathered together in the courtyard of the high priest named Caiaphas; 4 and they plotted together to arrest Jesus covertly and kill Him...
47 And while He was still speaking, behold, Judas, one of the twelve, came [s]accompanied by a large crowd with swords and clubs, who came from the chief priests and elders of the people. 48 Now he who was betraying Him gave them a sign previously, saying, “Whomever I kiss, He is the one; arrest Him.”
57 Those who had arrested Jesus led Him away to Caiaphas, the high priest, where the scribes and the elders were gathered together.

11 Now Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor questioned Him, saying, “So You are the King of the Jews?” And Jesus said to him, “It is as you say.” 12 And while He was being accused by the chief priests and elders, He did not offer any answer. 13 Then Pilate *said to Him, “Do You not hear how many things they are testifying against You?” 14 And still He did not answer him in regard to even a single [e]charge, so the governor was greatly amazed...
17 So when the people gathered together, Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release for you: Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?” 18 For he knew that it was because of envy that [g]they had handed Him over...
20 But the chief priests and the elders persuaded the crowds to ask for Barabbas, and to put Jesus to death. 21 And the governor [i]said to them, “Which of the two do you want me to release for you?” And they said, “Barabbas.” 22 Pilate *said to them, “Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?” They all *said, “[j]Crucify Him!” 23 But he said, “Why, what evil has He done?” Yet they kept shouting all the more, saying, “[k]Crucify Him!”
24 Now when Pilate saw that he was accomplishing nothing, but rather that a riot was starting, he took water and washed his hands in front of the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this Man’s blood; you yourselves shall see.” 25 And all the people replied, “His blood shall be on us and on our children!” 26 Then he released Barabbas [l]for them; but after having Jesus flogged, he handed Him over to be crucified.

As you can see, the 'them' and 'they' refers to the Jews, especially the religious leaders, who handed Jesus over to be crucified instead of Barabbas. Thus, once again, Scripture reveals who was guilty and instrumental of His death, and those who had Him pierced and treated a righteous/innocent Man as a criminal.

5) What does coming with or coming on/in the clouds reference in the OT? Do you know?
6) 'All the tribes of the earth/land' signify the twelve tribes of Israel. In fact, the whole of Revelation is concerned with a soon, quick coming judgment upon Israel. That fact can be demonstrated repeatedly throughout the Revelation. More passages reference or quote the OT than any other NT writing. What is more, Revelation is John's version of the Olivet Discourse. That, too, can be logically and reasonably demonstrated. Any other take/interpretation is weak in comparison.  
7) The ONE who is to come describes Himself as the Almighty. He uses the phrase alpha and omega about Himself; the same phrase used to describe Jesus in Revelation 22. What is more, Chapter 22 draws even more on Isaiah as a reference to the "first and last, the beginning and end."
8) 'The' (singular) signifies ONE. 

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

Then He said to me, “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give water to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life, without cost.

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”

8) a) How many first and lasts can there be? If you are first, are you also second, third, and fourth? If you are last, does that mean that others are behind you? 
8) b) The Alpha and Omega is applied to God in verse 1:8 (the Almighty). The Almighty is coming soon. The alpha and omega are applied to Jesus in Revelation 22:13.
8) c) The Alpha and Omega is the One who offers water to quench the soul. He is the living water that gives eternal life.
but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never be thirsty; but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.” 

Notice in Revelation, God gives the waters of everlasting life. In John 4:14, it is Jesus who gives the water. What is true of the Father (as God) is true of the Son (as God).  Over and over, we understand this in the NT writings. God gives Israel bread or manna from heaven in the OT. In the NT Jesus is the bread of heaven. What is applied to God the Father in the OT is applied to Jesus Christ in the NT. There is one Redeemer, the only Saviour, God in the OT; Jesus in the NT. I could list hundreds of examples that speak of God in the OT that speak of Jesus in the NT. Not only this, I could show you that most pages of the OT are a typology of the Lord Jesus Christ, a foreshadowing of what was to come, the spiritual and greater truth. Thus, the physical historic people, places and events of the OT are a foreshadow of a greater spiritual truth.  

***

BrotherD is ignorant of what Scripture teaches, nor will he debate me after several attempts I have made to make him own up to his charges against me. IOW's he is not willing to put up but maligns me with ad hominem and slander. This is the person you chose to side with, and say is correct, who can't justify what he says, who never sticks to a thorough exegesis of a passage but changes the subject. Thus, it is pointless engaging with him.   

***

I will address your posts on that thread you mentioned now that I am aware of it.

Maybe the words "  "who is to come quickly, and soon, the time is near" actual mean something else entirely, in ancient Greek?  maybe it means - ` I have no intention of returning to this shithole "y'all" call home, so don't wait up you clowns'? 
They are a plain narrative. As soon as you suggest that maybe they mean something other than what they say in a context, you create an eisegesis unless you can demonstrate and support such a claim from Scripture. Again, this shows the length people will go to make Scripture say something more than it conveys.  
Created:
0
Posted in:
How can God be both an alpha male and omega male?

@ RationalMadman:

Where is it proven that Jesus is the one it's referring to and not God?
Revelation 1:8 says the One who was, who is, and who is to come is coming quickly, and soon, the time is near.

Thus, Revelation 1:8 reveals One who is coming. Who would that be? Revelation 22: 7, 12, 20 also speak of the ONE coming, and that is revealed as the Lord Jesus Christ (verse 20). So, the answer to who is coming, who is the Alpha and Omega, is that it is Jesus.

Notice, at the beginning of the Revelation, verse 1 (things which must soon take place), verse 3 (the time is near), verse 4 (John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace from Him who is, and who was, and who [c]is to come), verse 7 (Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him), with Revelation 22:7 (“And behold, I am coming quickly), verse 12 (“Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to reward each one as his work [h]deserves. 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”), and verse 20 (He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming quickly.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus). 

So, the Alpha and Omega, the ONE who is to come, the ONE who was pierced, is the One who is called the first and last, beginning and end, the Alpha and Omega of Revelation 22, the ONE who is coming soon, quickly, for the time is near when the Revelation was given to John, not 20 centuries later - QUICKLY.  The ONE in Revelation 1:8 was pierced by His people, the same One who is yet to come and comes in Revelation 22.
Created:
0
Posted in:
How can God be both an alpha male and omega male?
I am the alpha and the omega and you will bow before my alpha self while suspecting and doubting my omega self.

Woo, also I am the masculine ruler of all reality that is referred to as 'he'.

No gender... Kappa...
In answer to RationalMadman's post, who has blocked me, for anyone interested:

Yet RationalMadman (RM) conflates the three verses that refer to God in such a manner as alpha and omega. What do the Greek words mean? They are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, showing the supremacy of God in all things, showing that He is the beginning and end of all things, that all things owe their existence to Him. Show me this alpha male thing is a notion brought into the mix at the time of writing and not long after the fact. Go ahead. 

The three occurrences of the words alpha and omega:

1)

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

Here Jesus is explaining that He is the God of the OT, calling Himself the One who was, who is, and who is to come. 

The question to be asked here is who is coming? In the OT, God reveals Himself as the first and last, yet here the first and last are applied to Jesus.

Read the verse in its greater context.

Revelation 1:7-9 (NASB)
7 Behold, [1] He is coming with the clouds, and [2] every eye will see Him, even [2] those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. [a]So it is to be. Amen.
8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who [b]is to come, the Almighty.”
The Patmos Vision
9 I, John, your brother and fellow participant in the tribulation and kingdom and [c]perseverance in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.

Do you, RationalMadman, know where this verse comes from in the OT and who it applies to? Do you know the significance of the phrase, 'coming in the clouds?' It references two verses in the OT. Who is the 'He' coming? Here are the OT verses referred to:

[1]
Daniel 7:12-14 (NASB)
12 As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but an extension of life was granted to them for an appointed period of time.
The Son of Man Presented
13 “I kept looking in the night visions,
And behold, with the clouds of heaven
One like a son of man was coming,
And He came up to the Ancient of Days
And was presented before Him.
14 And to Him was given dominion,
Honor, and [a]a kingdom,
So that all the peoples, nations, and populations of all [b]languages
Might serve Him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
Which will not pass away;
And His kingdom is one
Which will not be destroyed.

Thus, the One who is coming is God the only begotten (not made) Son --> Jesus/Yeshua! Just as in Revelation 5, the Son is given dominion and a kingdom that will never perish.

[2] 
“And I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and of pleading, so that they will look at Me whom they pierced; and they will mourn for Him, like one mourning for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.

Who are those who pierced Him? Who handed Him over to be crucified? It was the house of Israel, the Jews? They handed their King over to be crucified, thus, "coming in the clouds of glory" signifies judgment. The prophets in the OT who kept warning the Jews to turn from false idols or else they would be judged pointed to Jesus coming in judgment. And how did He come in judgment? The same way the Father God always came in judgment, riding on the clouds of judgment. Clouds are symbolic of God's judgment. And how did God judge the nations when He came in judgment? He used other nations, just like Jesus used the Romans to judge His people. What is revealed in the OT is a typology of a greater truth. What is applied to God in the OT is applied to the Son (Jesus) in the NT. 

Luke 21:20-24 (NASB)
20 “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then [a]recognize that her desolation is near. 21 Then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains, and those who are inside [b]the city must leave, and those who are in the country must not enter [c]the city; 22 because these are days of punishment, so that all things which have been written will be fulfilled. 23 Woe to those women who are pregnant, and to those who are nursing babies in those days; for there will be great distress upon the [d]land, and wrath to this people; 24 and they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.

The desolation of Jerusalem happened in AD 70.

***

2)

Then He said to me, “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give water to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life, without cost.

Here Jesus is explaining that He is the beginning and the end of God's creation. He is able to give eternal life to those who come to Him, as prescribed by the Father. 

As applied to God, the first and only God and the last and only God, so it applies to Jesus -  thus God is being revealed in Revelation as Jesus. He receives the same worship as the Father.

In Daniel, we read of the heavenly kingdom and what is spoken of in Daniel 7 (and elsewhere in Daniel, ie., Daniel 12 as one example), especially verses 13-14 is spoken of in Revelation 5. It is the same revelation. What is sealed up in Daniel 12 until the end of the ages, is revealed in Revelation 5 to Israel in AD 70. 

Revelation 5 (NASB)
The Scroll with Seven Seals
5 I saw [a]in the right hand of Him who sat on the throne a [b]scroll written inside and on the back, sealed up with seven seals. 2 And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and to break its seals?” 3 And no one in heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it. 4 Then I began to weep greatly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. 5 And one of the elders *said to me, “Stop weeping; behold, the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome so as to be able to open the scroll and its seven seals.”
6 And I saw [c]between the throne (with the four living creatures) and the elders a Lamb standing, as if slaughtered, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are [d]the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. 7 And He came and took the scroll out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne. 8 When He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each one holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the [e]saints. 9 And they *sang a new song, saying,
“Worthy are You to take the scroll and to break its seals; for You were slaughtered, and You purchased people for God with Your blood from every tribe, language, people, and nation.
10 You have made them into a kingdom and priests to our God, and they will reign upon the earth.”
Angels Exalt the Lamb
11 Then I looked, and I heard the voices of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was [f]myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands, 12 saying with a loud voice,
“Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power, wealth, wisdom, might, honor, glory, and blessing.”
13 And I heard every created thing which is in heaven, or on the earth, or under the earth, or on the sea, and all the things in them, saying,
“To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be the blessing, the honor, the glory, and the dominion forever and ever.”
14 And the four living creatures were saying, “Amen.” And the elders fell down and worshiped.

So, the heavenly scene in Daniel 7:13-14 is again reiterated in Revelation 5, applying to Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God. He is found worthy to break the seals and open them after His crucifixion when He appears in the heavenly kingdom. As in Daniel 7, in Revelation 5, the same glory and worship are given to the Son as given to the Father. And the rest of Revelation is the further opening of the seals in detail, and it is a revelation to the people of Israel in the 1st-century. What they had waited for all their lives, for centuries, comes to fruition in Jesus Christ, the Messiah.

***

3) 

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”

Now the question of who is coming is revealed from Revelation 1:8.

Notice verse 6 

And he said to me, “These words are faithful and true”; and the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent His angel to show His bond-servants the things which must soon take place.
7 “And behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is the one who [e]keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.”

12 “Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to reward each one as his work [h]deserves. 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”

20 He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming quickly.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

He who is coming is the Lord Jesus Christ. He came in the judgment of Israel in AD 70, per Luke 21:20-24, as the OT promised would one day happen. 

In the OT, God said, 

Who has performed and accomplished it, Summoning the generations from the beginning? ‘I, the Lord, am the first, and with the last. I am He.’”

In the NT Jesus is the first and last spoken of as God in the OT. What is true of God the Father is true of God the Son.

“This is what the Lord says, He who is the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of armies: ‘I am the first and I am the last, And there is no God besides Me.

The verse here signifies that God is the only God, the first God and the last God, that there is no other God but Him. The same is true of the Son, who took on an additional nature, that of human (the Second or last Adam), to redeem humanity from the curse of Genesis 3. Jesus restores the union or fellowship lost in the Garden between humanity and God for all those who will believe. What is revealed in the OT as a physical reality, the Garden of Eden, the first human - Adam, is symbolic and typological of a greater truth, a spiritual truth taught in the NT. The NT takes from the OT history and makes known a greater truth. The physical comes first, then the spiritual truth the physical represents.

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

These are things the natural human overlooks because they have not been born again of the Spirit of God. 

Created:
0
Posted in:
A problem for the Ontological Argument
-->
@zedvictor4
Christianity does not purport to offer such flimsy proofs regarding the biblical God and definitely does not present Him as a myth but reality. The disciples/apostles and the NT writers claim to either be eyewitnesses of the Lord Jesus Christ, who they believe is God incarnate or those who are not apostles investigated such accounts from those eyewitnesses, such as Mark and Luke. Unlike so many of these other beliefs, Christianity is steeped in recorded history, a history that includes people, places, and events that exist (in the case of places) or existed (in people and events). Many non-biblical writings confirm the historical nature of Christianity. Christianity traces its roots back to the Old Covenant and God's relationship with Israel. There is prophetic evidence that is extremely credible that most people on this social network of debates and discussions fail to discuss or investigate or fathom. Instead, they go along with the crowd of unbelieving naysayers. There is a unity in the 66 writings we call the Bible that is not found in other religions. Every OT writing has a typology or picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. Every OT writing points towards and reveals the Lord Jesus Christ. What is applied to God in the OT is also applied to Jesus in the NT! It is a very profound study. Finally, the biblical teaching is that there is only one true and living God, not a myriad of such gods. So, A does not equal B or C or D... These other gods, the Bible claims, are idols constructed by human beings. So, I see such statements above as nonsense due to ignorance and prior commitments. I believe you refuse to examine the proof mainly because of intellectual worldview biases and alternative commitments you want to justify as true. I find worldviews in opposition to Christianity are inconsistent. IMO, and from my experience, those who make such noise against Christianity run from the proofs. Those who don't want to hear the proofs show their insincerity in their inquiries and challenges, IMO. Thus, they cannot be convinced no matter how reasonable the evidence.

Then, of course, we haven't even touched on the philosophical arguments for God's existence, of which I believe the moral argument is devastating to the unbeliever. 

Convince a man against his will he remains the same unchanged still. So, I can offer the proofs but do you really want to investigate them or do you want to decry Christianity? There is a time when a person's sincerity or lack thereof becomes apparent as to their willingness to have a reasonable discussion on the issues. 

Yeti, Bigfoot, and the such, are steeped in folklore and myth. They fail on a historical basis. The claim for such gods is unreasonable. 

Well.

That's all the same old argument, that achieves no conclusion.
How do you reckon that? Perhaps you think that your reasoning ability is greater than the God revealed in the Bible?

And I thought that we were discussing a philosophical  argument.....An argument that I as a non-traditional theist, find neither morally relevant nor devastating.
The written Word supplements the argument from being. These other mythical gods you mention do not reveal themselves in such a manner. Throughout the 66 writings, the biblical God speaks to His creature, the human. He reveals His nature as well as that of the human being. He discloses the problem of rebellion against what He has said is good by such a limited being, thus creating the problems that plague the world --> sin. He reveals why humans are different from animals (we are created in God's image and likeness but to a lesser extent); thus, the supposed macroevolution theory conflicts with such a God, and it does. We read that we are created to our own kind, thus if true, Darwin's theory is at odds with such a revelation and false. 

And the Bible isn't steeped in folklore and myth?........That's not the way I see it.
And why should I value your opinion? What do you know of the Bible? How well have you studied it and researched its writings? What presuppositions do you bring to the table before you read it? Who has influenced your thinking? Have you ever understood it from the viewpoint of God speaking to you indirectly through the culture of the times? 

Hebrews 11:6 (NASB)
6 And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for the one who comes to God must believe that He exists, and that He proves to be One who rewards those who seek Him.

If you do not believe in such a God and His existence, why would you ever trust His Word and be rewarded by seeking Him out? And his nonsense that there is no evidence of Him existing is an excuse perhaps because He is not the god you would have fashioned, one made in your image and likeness. 

IMO, you do not see it as from God because you do not trust the biblical revelation as being from God, a supernatural being. Are you looking for a super sophisticated science book? Do you not believe that such a being as God can do things that go beyond the natural? Do you limit God? Yes! You perhaps think that because the biblical account speaks to people throughout time, including those in an agrarian ANE culture, in plain language that they can understand that it cannot be from the maker of the Universe. You do not think that such a being would allow another lesser spiritual being, taking the form of a serpent to speak a human being.
Created:
1
Posted in:
How can God be both an alpha male and omega male?
-->
@janesix
It is not our fault you can't see beyond the exoteric. Typical of most people, religious and atheist.
Oh, how is that? Also, do you feel you rate better? If so, why?
Created:
0