Christianity and the End Times

What you fail to take into account is that it is God who authored the scriptures, Paul was merely one of His instruments.

Very strange idea that anyone could have invented a cult BEFORE making use of the scriptures. Sorry, we derive our beliefs from the scriptures, there is no other way it could have happened whether you agree with us or not and your way of reading the Bible is bizarre anyway; and saying that I personally made it up is of course ridiculous since I take my cue from lots of sermons I've heard and books I've read over the years.

Knowing good and evil IS the Fall, you just refuse to understand what scripture means by that. They didn't lack simple knowledge of what it was before that, first of all, but the knowledge they now had after their sin was an experiential knowledge of what evil really is because they had committed it themselves and would now also experience its evil consequences.The heathen only "got it right " about blood sacrifice to the extent that they remembered what great grandfather Noah told them, who got it from great great grandfather Adam, about the necessity of sacrifice for the purging of sin, and in fact a lot of the heathen religions show a distorted memory of the idea of the coming Savior as they seem to be trying to create him before his time.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

He can't change the MORAL nature of the universe, same as He can't be anything other than He is either; It may be possible that He could make many different universes in the physical sense, but I'm not sure about that.

Deciding that scripture doesn't mean what it says is a dangerous road to go down. What it says is that Adam and Eve became more like God. Only a really perverse mind could make a bad thing out of that. Of course, we would expect you to say that knowledge is a bad thing.By the way, I looked into the bit about God promising Adam and Eve a Saviour. Surprise surprise, Google took me to Answers in Genesis - and surprise surprise, as per usual, they got it wrong.What Genesis 3 says is that Eve's seed will bruise tbe serpent's head and the serpent will bruise the heel of Eve's seed. AiG - and presumably you by proxy - stretches that to Eve's seed being Jesus. It seems odd that Jesus would be called Eve's seed instead of Adam's or, even better, God's. But in any case it doesn't make any sense because it's depicted as a mutual bruise-to-bruise animosity - i.e. there is no winner - i.e. no saviour.

Why not? Isn't He supposed to be the source of morality? Poof! Moral. Poof! Immoral. What's the problem?

No, they created your cult by perverting and misusing and misrepresenting what is actually written as I have said repeatedly. Yet what is actually written in the Bible stories refutes your beliefs which is why your and your cult take passages out of context and misrepresent what is actually written. Yes, you do seem to take your cues not from the Bible or what is actually written but rather from the cult dogma marketers you read and listen to.

It's pretty famous as the first prophecy of the Savior: Please don't get silly on me and make a big deal out of the fact that this was literally said to the serpent rather than to Adam and Eve. They got the message, and so did all their descendants, up to a point anyway, since it was only the righteous who held on to it and passed it on intact.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

He's good, He can't become evil. He is "the same yesterday and today and forever," He cannot change Himself, and blessed are we that He is forever and always good.He made creatures with the capacity to do evil though, and therein lies the whole drama of the Creation and the Fall and Redemption.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

He creates evil. (Please don't waste everybody's time by trying to deny that.) That's cute sound bite but it doesn't fit the text. He changed His mind about the creation and decided to destroy it with a flood. He changed His mind several times about destroying Sodom and Gommorah. There doesn't seem to be a very solid reason for Him to be incapable of changing His mind again, say about the "need" for blood sacrifice.Edited by ringo, : I swear the submit button jumped up and hit my finger before I was ready.

You misread that. What "He creates evil" means is that He creates calamity. It is not meant in the sense of sin, which is specifically denied in scripture. He cannot sin, He cannot lie etc etc etc, but he does create evil in the sense of calamity.And you also misread the idea of God's changing His mind, which He only does in response to changed attitudes of ours. If we change from sin to obedience He changes His mind about judging us. But it's a way of talking for the sake of our understanding, since in reality He had all of it in mind long before any of it happened.The need for blood sacrifice is built into the nature of the Creation and the Moral Law that runs the universe.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Of course God can not sin. Sin is an offense against God. He can easily choose not to be offended by His own actions.But the distinction between evil and calamity is entirely bogus. God CAN choose not to send calamities against us, can't He? He COULD choose to waive the blood sacrifice, couldn't He? So He CAN change His mind, as I said. His policy on when to change His mind is completely irrelevant to the fact that He can and does change His mind, as I said.

If WE change and no longer deserve judgment He can call off calamities we would have deserved.No, He can't change the blood sacrifice, it's the only atonement for sin, the only way sin can be absolutely wiped out. If He called it off we would be left in our sins deserving eternal punishment.Well, it's not irrelevant why God changes His mind. He blesses or curses based on human behavior, so if our behavior changes His response changes.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

So He's a slave to our foibles. So what? If He doesn't mind and we don't mind, no harm, no foul.

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More to the point providing contrary evidence is liable to persuade others that you are wrong.

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You were mentioning "bluster" ?
So let's see your efforts below.

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That’s your explanation of why your preferred interpretation is better you find it more convincing but can’t offer anything actually convincing ?

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Nope.
But I'm waiting for backup to your bluster. So far you did the easy part. You bragged about it.

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Do you have some inability to follow a discussion ? Obviously what I mean is that it does not help your argument.

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The medium sometimes a challenge to follow without a lot of back up and double checking.Your real conclusive comments, I'm keeping an eye out for, after I get through some of this preliminary remarks.We have a number of points I expect you to offer better biblical analysis of.
You requested "Bible Study" in your OP I think.

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As I have already pointed out there is no reason to think that they overcame him refers to the manchild.

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Yes. And your comment is worthless to me.
Who ELSE in the chapter qualifies as a better referent to those who OVERCOME the Devil?The angels mentioned don't need the redeeming blood.
The symbolic woman fleeing seems to be harassed rather than overcoming.
The angels do not DIE or need to deny themselves UNTO death.The best referent to the proclamation is the THEY of the manchild.OF course the Apostle Paul said that the God of peace would also crush Satan under the feet of the prevailing disciples. So we have plain teaching that the saints will overcome Satan.
And we have symbolism to the same effect.You not only miss the big picture but possibly have a some ignorance or possible unbelief that the saints of Christ not be overcoming. Revelation 12 reveals that a remnant, a minority WILL, and that for the sake of the whole Body of Christ.So the Woman of universal light has within her a stronger component - a corporate Manchild.Also the angels going to war with the Devil and his angels in verse 7-9.
The angels are ministering servants of the human saints who are to inherit salvation. So they, on behalf of the overcoming saints, are just doing their job. This is all reminiscent of the angelic forces siding with Daniel as he stood in the gap of petition and prayer on behalf of God's people.We await your better explanation of the Manchild.You don't get the big picture at all. Jesus wants PARTNERS to follow Him in His carrying out of God's will. In fact part of His redemptive death is that He would reproduce Himself in others to be LIKE Him. The big picture of the New Testament is that Christ died not only a redemptive death but a duplicating death. That is that HE as a Son of God, would not abide ALONE.The very next verse indicates that the believers follow Him with denying their soul-life to follow Him instead. If you had any heart to see the larger picture you would see that His plain teaching in John 12:24,25 is symbolically indicated that He WILL obtain at least a remnant of those who do not love their soul life to overcome God's enemy and bring in the kingdom of God. Now, to follow the discussion more closely, I will end this post here.
Its bottom line is that I doubt you have a better referent to the overcoming ones in chapter 12 than a collective army of saints, depicted as a Man-child. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.