Thursday, July 25, 2019

You Believe In A Liar.


For just a moment, because for it to be more than a moment it may be too much for some to bear… contemplate the fact of your deceased loved one is NOT in heaven but in a place of eternal torment.

Did you imagine it? Did you want to stop imagining it? Did your mind automatically discard the very idea of your loved one suffering now that they are no longer here on our sin-inflicted, disease ridden, sickness and accident filled world?  We tend to believe people suffer enough in life here on earth and we long to believe the people who die have passed on to a better place. Even the most wicked, sin-embracing, sin-loving, God hating, God discarding person somehow seems to make it to a better place according to those who have affection for that person.

Why have I brought this up? Why did I want you to imagine your beloved absent friend, loved one, family member in torment?  Because there is a very good chance, in fact more of a chance that they'll eventually enter that supposed eternal torment than they'll enter heaven. 

FEW there be that find it. (Matthew 7:14)

I know, I know! You want me to shut up, but I can't. Rest assured, I DON'T believe your loved ones are in eternal torment right now. I believe (Biblically based) that they are unconscious, sleeping if you will- suspended in time protected and reserved by God until Jesus returns.

FEW there be that find it. (Matthew 7:14)

See, right there we are told the odds of a person aren't very good for obtaining eternal peace in heaven and yet ask the majority of people where their dead loved one(s) is(are) right now and they'll tell you - in heaven.

Why do they tell you that? Because to believe they are not in heaven means believing they are in eternal torment, or simply non-existent, or lost in some cycle of rebirth no one is ever conscious of in reality- in either an animal or another person. 

It's factual that most will say their dead loved one is alive in heaven. This unproven supposition (even Scripturally) gives a sense of extremely false and deceptive hope to people, as a way of coping with the loss they feel making it somehow better. This belief soothes the sorrow stricken person with a measure of peace, sometimes just enough to keep a person from ruining their own lives with grief. Better to believe in fantasy than reality. Better not to ask ourselves if our loved one truly is one of the few among the many. Much better to not believe there even exists a heavenly lottery where most lose and only a few win. As long as we hold fast to our delusions we have hope for ourselves, truthfully isn't that why we hold onto the falsehood and refuse to delve into deep Bible study over it?

The Biblical truth is our first death (for there are claimed to be two of them for some in the Bible), our first death is a simple passing into a death sleep while our breath and our unconscious essence of who we are returns to God to await the day of resurrection- some to life, and some to the second death.

Yes, that's scriptural, I did NOT make it up on my own.

And why do we have such trouble with believing our first death is a sleep with unconscious awareness?  Because we do NOT want to believe we actually cease to live in full awareness after death claims us. We want to believe death here and now means not only an end to the suffering we do here and now, but a reward of joy and peace, and painlessness is now ours. We want to be rewarded for our life of suffering. We want our loved ones rewarded, especially those whose deaths are horrific. They, or we, go through something so incomprehensible awful that our solace is the joy they must now have, and the joy we have to look forward to.

Don't get me wrong, those who are God's will have that joy to look forward to, that great reward we can't even fully imagine, an eternal life with our God, with our Savior.

I'm just hoping one single person who reads this may see their way through the deception that began in the Garden of Eden with the serpent saying to Eve- "You surely won't die…"

If most people truly believe they live immediately after death- they 'aren't surely dying', are they? They've just jumped into another- much better way of living. 

Lies from the father of lies.

May God help us find truth in God's word and live by the truth so we are not caught up in Satan's lies. And if you think believing in this lie is harmless because in every other way you are living for Christ… remember… many are going to think they are living for Christ only to find out they've been deceived. No lie of Satan's is harmless and to be easily dismissed as being inconsequential.
Eve believed Satan's lies and they were far from harmless.

God help us all!

Click on the following link if you want to know Biblically what death is…


(Excerpt Continued…)

There are two kinds of sorrow for sin: a “godly sorrow,” and a “sorrow of the world.” 2 Cor. 7:10.

2Co 7:10  For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death. 

The first is that of the penitent, sorrowing that he has violated a holy law and grieved a holy God. The other is that of the worldling, sorry that he is detected in crime, or in danger of punishment. No one doubts that the sorrow of the God-fearing penitent is deepest; that his remorse is the keenest. Yet the nearer he is to God, the finer his sensibilities, and the deeper his hatred of sin, the stronger will be his remorse for his sin. Therefore, if this be part of the penalty of the law, it is evident that this part is inflicted more severely on the penitent than on the impenitent and incorrigible.

Again, Paul speaks of those whose conscience is seared with a hot iron. 1 Tim. 4:2.

1Ti 4:2  Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron

That is, they run to such lengths in sin that their sensibilities are blunted, and they feel little or no remorse of conscience.

Now, both reason and revelation teach us that the punishment must be proportioned to the guilt; but if remorse of conscience be a penalty, it is executed by inverse proportion; that is, the punishment decreases according to the increase of crime. But we are led to inquire, Where did Dr. Barnes (or any other person) learn that remorse of conscience is a part of the penalty of the law? Does the Bible say so?

It does not; there is nothing in the Bible which gives the least sanction to such an idea. Why, then, do men say so? Where did they get authority for such a declaration? As it is the duty and sole prerogative of the governor to reveal his law, so he alone can define the penalty. This He has done in his word: “The wages of sin is death.” Any effort to evade this plain truth, or to make it anything but a plain truth, involves difficulties and contradictions. For it will not obviate the difficulty to spiritualize the term death, so as to make it embrace remorse of conscience; for if that be included in death, whatever will remove the remorse will remove so much of the penalty, or of death, and bring a proportionate degree of life. But sin does this, as the apostle shows; therefore, according to that theory, sin removes a portion of its own penalty, which is absurd. Dr. Barnes asserts that Christ did not suffer the penalty of the law, but something substituted for the penalty. There is no cause for such

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a declaration, except it be found, as before said, in the  necessities of a theory. In the teachings of the Bible there is no uncertainty in this matter. They plainly inform us that “the wages of sin is death;” and that “Christ died for our sins.” Rom. 6:23; 1 Cor. 15:3.

Rom 6:23  For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

1Co 15:3  For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures

As sin is the transgression of the law, death, the wages of sin, is its penalty; and as Christ died for our sin, the penalty was laid upon him for our sake.

 Now that “Christ died” is not only plainly declared in the Scriptures, but it is a fundamental truth in the gospel system; for it is easy to show that, if Christ did not die, there can be no atonement and no redemption.

It appears evident, then, that those who assert that Christ did not suffer the penalty of the law, do not so assert because the fact is not revealed in the Bible, but, as before intimated, because of certain difficulties supposed to lie in the way of that fact. These difficulties are concerning the nature of the penalty, death. It is assumed that death, the penalty of transgression, is three-fold in its nature, consisting of temporal, spiritual, and eternal death. If this assumption were true, we should at once give up the Atonement as a thing impossible. Yet it has been advanced by men of eminence, and incorporated into works recognized as standard. Let us examine it.

1. The death of man is temporal only by reason of a resurrection. But the resurrection belongs to the work of Christ, and as his work was not necessary or a subject of promise till after the transgression, it cannot have any place in the announcement of the penalty. When death was threatened to Adam, it was not said that he should die temporally, spiritually, and eternally; nor that he should die a first or second death; nor the death that never dies; but that he should surely die. It was death—simply death. Had not a promise been given afterward, of “the seed” to bruise the serpent’s head, it would necessarily have been eternal death. But Christ, introducing a resurrection for Adam and his race, causes it to be temporal. But since this time, this death, temporal, has not been the penalty for personal transgression. This is evident for two reasons: (1) Infants die who never have transgressed; and (2) In the Judgment we stand to answer for our deeds, and the second death is inflicted for

- 67 - J. H. Waggoner

personal sin. But on those who are holy, “the second death hath no power;” the penalty does not reach them.

So it appears the death we now die is occasioned by Adam’s transgression, and is rendered temporal by the second Adam, and comes indiscriminately upon all classes and ages, thus precluding the idea that it is now a penalty, except as connected with that first transgression, in which we are involved only by representation.

2. Spiritual death cannot be a penalty at all. A penalty is an infliction to meet the ends of justice. But spiritual death is a state of sin, or absence of holiness; and to say that God inflicts unholiness upon man is not only absurd, but monstrous. That is confounding the crime with its punishment. God does not make man wicked or sinful as an infliction; but man makes himself wicked by his own actions, and God punishes him with death for his wickedness. Again, there will be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust; for as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. Now if the penalty upon Adam included spiritual death, the resurrection through the second Adam would be to spiritual life, or holiness; and if all were restored to spiritual life through Christ, there would be none to fall under the second death, for it falls not on the “blessed and holy.” The text above quoted, 1Cor.15:22, “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive,” has been “spiritualized” so much that it has been fairly conceded to the Universalists by many who call themselves orthodox. But it does not at all favor Universalism unless it is perverted, and made to conflict with other scriptures. Jesus says, all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and come forth; they that have done good to the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil to the resurrection of damnation. The text in question (1 Cor. 15:22) says no more than this, that all that have died shall have a resurrection; but if some are unjust, and have a resurrection to damnation, that affords no help to Universalism. But if death here means spiritual death (as we say it does not), then the Universalists must have the truth; for to be made alive from spiritual death is to be made spiritually alive, which is none other than a state of holiness. This conflicts with the words of

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Christ just quoted, of a resurrection to damnation. Death is simply the absence of life; all die and go into the grave, and all are raised again from the grave, without respect to their character or condition. There will be a resurrection of the just and of the unjust; one class to eternal life, the other to the second death. The death of Adam became temporal by reason of a resurrection, so we may say that the infliction for personal sins, the second death, is eternal, because no resurrection will succeed it.

Thus, it appears plain that from the beginning death was the penalty of the law of God, circumstances determining the duration of it. This view, which is in strict harmony with the Bible, really removes all difficulty in regard to Christ having suffered the penalty due to sin.

But still another difficulty is presented to us by giving an extraordinary definition to death; it is said to mean eternal misery. But on examination of this, the difficulty will be entirely on the side of those who present it. If, however, the definition is correct, there is an insurmountable difficulty, involving the whole doctrine of the atonement, and making it utterly impossible for God to be just, and also the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.

First, then, if the signification of death is “eternal misery,” Christ never died at all; and then all the scriptures that say he died are untrue; and thus the atonement would be proved impossible, and further consideration of it would be useless. But admitting the Scripture testimony, that the wages of sin is death, and that Christ died for sin, and we have the scriptural view of the term death, utterly forbidding such an unnatural and forced construction of a plain declaration.

Secondly. If the correct definition of death is eternal misery, the relative terms, first and second, as applied to death before and after the resurrection, are used absurdly. For how can there be a first and second eternal misery?

Sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and death passed upon all men. But the very fact that man may be resurrected, released from death, as the Scriptures teach, clearly proves that the Scripture use of the term death is entirely different from the “theological use,” as given above.

- 69 - J. H. Waggoner

And, thirdly, If death means eternal misery, then that is the penalty of the law; but Christ did not suffer it, and the redeemed will not suffer it, so it follows that justice is never vindicated by the infliction of the penalty, either upon them or a substitute; and thus justice is suspended, not satisfied; and Christ’s death (if it could with any reason be called so) is not truly vicarious.

As before considered, justice demands the infliction of the penalty of a just law; and as God is unchangeable and infinitely just, the penalty will surely be inflicted upon the transgressor or his substitute. But the above view makes it impossible. According to that, mercy does not harmonize with justice, but supersedes it, and God’s justice is not manifest in justifying the believer. The sum of the matter is this: that if the penalty be eternal misery, then all that have sinned must suffer it, and be eternally miserable, or else the demands of the law are never honored. But the first would result in universal damnation, and the other would degrade the Government of God, and contradict both reason and the Scriptures. This definition of death has been adopted of necessity to conform to the popular idea of the inherent immortality of man; yet it involves a contradiction in those who hold it. For it is claimed that the wicked are immortal and cannot cease to exist, and therefore the death threatened in the Scriptures is something besides cessation of existence, namely, misery.

But immortality signifies exemption from death; and if the Scriptural meaning of death is misery, and the wicked are immortal, or exempt from death, they are, of course, exempt from misery! The advocates of this theory do not mean to be Universalists, but their position necessarily leads to that result. It was well said by that great Christian philosopher, John Locke, that “it seems a strange way of understanding law, which requires the plainest and most direct terms, that by death should be meant eternal life in misery.” Life and death are opposites; the first is promised to the justified, the second is threatened and inflicted upon the unjust. But life and misery are not opposites; misery is a condition of life. In everything but “theology” such a perversion of language would not be tolerated, as to make eternal misery and death, or even misery and death, synonymous. Were I to report that a man was dead because I

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knew him to be suffering in much misery, it would be looked upon as trifling—solemn mockery. With a cessation of life every condition of life must cease.

(To be continued)

(Excerpt from-) THE ATONEMENT PART SECOND:
THE ATONEMENT AS REVEALED IN THE BIBLE
  (1884)

BY   ELDER J. H. WAGGONER


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