What Does the Second Coming Entail?

But it is he (the owner) and he alone who decides whether it is yours "by right". If he gives it to you, it is yours, by right. That's what a gift is. That's the part of the analogy (and the theology) that makes no sense.The nightclub owner didn't take money out of the till and give it to you to spend however and wherever you chose. He made you a guest in his establishment. The money in the till is utterly irrelevant.Similarly, God didn't give you the gift of eternal life to spend however and wherever you choose. He made you a guest in His home. The "payment" (Jesus' death) is utterly irrelevant.Making a show of taking the money out and putting it back in is the same as God making a show of "killing Himself" for your sins. The nightclub owner wouldn't do that - he'd just say, "Come in as my guest." Similarly, God wouldn't put on such a silly charade - He'd just say, "Come in as my guest."As for the "second coming", that would be like the nightclub owner calling you the next day to ask if you had a good time, if you got home okay and when you can come back and be his guest again.

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The price of admission has not been "paid" - it has been waived. The flim-flamery of pretending to "pay" for you is what makes no sense.The issue is hospitality.Consider the prodigal son: he turned away from his father and it didn't work out. He returned home, hoping for a handout, but instead was received as the proverbial "long-lost son". Similarly, the nightclub patron expected to have to pay, but he received more than he expected - his entire evening was comped. The father/owner freely gave what was not expected.Compare:

quote:

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Joh 14:3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

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Notice that Jesus will "receive" us unto Himself - much like the prodigal son's father, or the nightclub owner. The "second coming" is not necessarily about Jesus moving from A to B. It's more about us being together, as the family He wants us to be.

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Trust has to be earned. When we start hearing rumours that Bob has mob connections and that a lot of his former "friends" are wearing concrete overshoes, we might not be so eager to buddy up with him.Bob's button-man, iano, is essentially telling us, "Be Bob's friend, or else." What happens to people who turn Bob down?

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But, as others have already pointed out, we don't get to "meet" Bob until it's too late. When he meets you, Bob decides whether you're his "friend" or fish-food. But Bob's reputation is the problem. He had a penchant for drowning people in the past. Now his henchmen are threatening to necklace anybody he doesn't like. Bob's people need to downplay his reputation, not brag about it. But Bob wrote in his diary, "By their fruits ye shall know them." The only way we know Bob is by the people who surround him. We have East-Side Phat smiling and inviting us to the club, and Bent-Nose Iano jamming a gun in our ribs. What does that tell us about Bob's ability to choose his employees?When Bob comes knocking on the door (for the second time), he has an uphill battle to convice anybody that he's just a "legitimate businessman".

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Huger's point would be: if nothing is impossible with God, then He could save us with or without our cooperation. Zap! You're saved!Saying that He can't do it unless we accept Him diminishes His power.

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Have you ever been to Bob's place up at the lake? Much nicer than that dive. Much nicer class of people. I like to watch the ducks.By the way, I bet iano didn't think of the imagery of a "smokin' hot-spot" when he thought up that analogy. ("Free brimstone for the ladies during Happy Hour.")

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Suppose you go down to pay your gas bill and the clerk tells you it's already been paid. You can believe it or not - it doesn't matter. Your "acceptance" of the gift is not even an issue.You can't even refuse to accept it - it's a done deal. The debt is off the books - there is no way to put it back on.

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I have always said that salvation is a done deal. My point here was that your belief in your salvation is irrelevant. You are "saved", whether you believe it or not.That has no effect on the fact that we must behave correctly.Back to our analogy: Suppose you leave the gas company office firmly believing that your bill is not paid. At home, you don't bother to turn on your furnace because you think the gas is turned off. You shiver through the night and two days later you're found frozen solid.Your belief has no effect on whether or not your bill is paid. But your actions determine your fate.Conversely, you can fervently believe that your bill is paid, but if you don't turn on the furnace, you'll still freeze to death.

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And I'll pass on juggling flaming chainsaws, if you don't mind.I'm about as good at that as you are at analogies.

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I'm not sure that the "second coming" has to entail Jesus beaming down to earth again. Do you think He's going to be laid in a manger again? In Bethlehem again?More important than a physical movement from A to B, I think the second coming means a reunion with Our Father, in the manner of the prodigal son's return to his home. Who does the returning is secondary. It is a second coming together rather than an apparition.

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Not really. The Christian life may be difficult, but the Christian message is simple.Those who struggle with the Bible do so because their dogmatic preconceptions just don't fit the words. Hence, the incredible contortions that we see here every day.

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The key to understanding a communication is to filter out what is not "message". Once the central theme is clear, the details can be brought in to amplify it.The "fundie" approach, which I was refering to, is the opposite: Look at the communication as a whole and try to patch every detail together into a "coherent" whole.That is where iano finds his struggle, it seems. Since it was never intended to be a coherent whole, his attempts to make it so are inevitably futile.

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That's what I said (or tried to say ). They want to put the message in instead of taking it out.(Am I to blame for steering this thread off-topic yet again? )

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Everything emanates from God. That's kinda the definition of "God".

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And man - incorrect or otherwise - emanates from God. QED, as they say.

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