Originally posted by utherpendragon===================================
For me I do not consider the body "me". Its is a shell ,not eternal. I believe we are all eternal,which is "spirit". I consider the "soul" The same as the "spirit". You say they are two separate things? If so ,why?
For me I do not consider the body "me".
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But if I were to stand beside you and sock you with my fist on your shoulder, I bet you would say "Do not hit me !" I don't think you would say "Do not hit my shoulder!"
Hitting your shoulder would be hitting you, wouldn't it?
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Its is a shell ,not eternal. I believe we are all eternal,which is "spirit". I consider the "soul" The same as the "spirit". You say they are two separate things? If so ,why?
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I follow the revelation of the New Testament. And soul and spirit are distinct - Hebrews 4:12.
The spirit is the "organ" which communicates with spiritual reality, especially God the Spirit. The soul communicates with pcychological world - other minds, other emotions, and other wills.
We are a three part being - spirit and soul and body according to 1 Thess 5:23:
"And the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Thess. 5:23)
It was a great relief and revelation to me to discover that Christ's salvation included my entire being and not just my immaterial being.
Before I envisioned eternity as being some kind of cloud or vapor of light kind of heavenly existence. Then I read more carefully the New Testament. I discovered that Christ's salvation is exceedingly practical.
It involves the saving of the entire soul and spirit and body of the redeemed. He thus preserves us "wholly". Resurrection and glorification are a part of His loving salvation which includes not only our soul or spirit but our body also.
Originally posted by FMFnow ,now FMF dont get testy.This person has been around about a month.As long as you have been around Im sure you've heard every topic under the sun in the spirituality forum. 🙂
God. I wonder how come no one ever thought of asking this question on the Spirituality Forum before!
Originally posted by jaywillI take it your saying the body goes to heaven?
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For me I do not consider the body "me".
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But if I were to stand beside you and sock you with my fist on your shoulder, I bet you would say "Do not hit me !" I don't think you would say "Do not hit my shoulder!"
Hitting your shoulder would be hitting you, wouldn't ...[text shortened]... ng salvation which includes not only our soul or spirit but our body also.[/b]
Originally posted by utherpendragon======================
I take it your saying the body goes to heaven?
I take it your saying the body goes to heaven?
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The popular idea of God's salvation consisting of people "going to Heaven" is overblown and not very scriptural.
The saved are really going into God Himself. This is a profound concept and the natural mind reads this as "going to Heaven".
This is not to say that there is no heaven. And this is not to say that the some saved are not raptured there on a brief stint before they come down to take the earth with Christ.
This is to say that God's eternal destiny should not really be thought of as "going to heaven to live forever in heaven". It is rather growing into a union and mingling with God to become a entity called The New Jerusalem. New Jerusalem is the mingling of God and man.
Think of salvation as of Christ being mass produced in millions of people.
Now, if you read chapters 4 and 5 of Second Corinthians you will see that the Apostle Paul taught that to be in Heaven without a physical body is to be found naked and is to be "unclothed". This is not natural or desireable.
The physical body is transfigured and glorified to be some kind of glorious spiritual body. It has not happened to me yet so I cannot tell you of what nature that body is.
But to be before God without the covering of a body is to be found "naked" and "unclothed" before God which He does not want.
Does this help ?
The war between God and Satan is over the EARTH.
If all of God's saints escape and go live forever in Heaven this is a defeat to God. The war is over the planet earth.
When I was younger and read the book of Revelation it seemed that at the end of the Bible Heaven comes down to earth. Or it seemed to me that Heaven and Earth became one.
Actually, with further study and experience I realized that what was really being depicted there is God and man becoming one. [/b]
In this union God remains the Head of the union. But His redeemed people become the Body of this entity. The salvation is man and God being mingled together.
But as a more naive reader I saw either people "going to" Heaven or at least Heaven and Earth becoming one together.
The eternity future consists of a new heaven and a new earth. And as the capital of this new universe there is a entity, a "city" called "New Jerusalem".
She is the mingling of God and man. Think of it this way - All the saved become conformed and transformed to be like Jesus Christ - the God-man.
The millions or billions of saved sons of God do not become an object of worship. But they become God in life and in nature but not in His Godhead.
To my opinion, Greek Orthodoxy saw this more clearly then Western Roman Catholicism. But I have to be careful because the hallmark of Romanism is that somewhere down there they contain everything.
It is a mixture of pagan ideas with the Gospel. There is always something of the truth down there mixed with error.
But New Jerusalem is the corporate, aggregate, and collective embodiment of God in millions of sanctified and transformed forgiven sinners who have become sons of God.
Originally posted by jaywillWhat about people who are cremated?
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I take it your saying the body goes to heaven?
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The popular idea of God's salvation consisting of people "going to Heaven" is overblown and not very scriptural.
The saved are really going into God Himself. This is a profound concept and the natural mind reads this as "going to Heaven" ...[text shortened]... d "naked" and "unclothed" before God which He does not want.
Does this help ?[/b]
Originally posted by utherpendragon=======================
What about people who are cremated?
What about people who are cremated?
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It makes no difference if your body is cremated. The hairs on your head are numbered according to the Bible. God knows all of the billions of stars it says.
He saw you in the soil long before your molecules came together in your mother's womb. If you are cremated or turn to dust and the dust is scattered, God knows where you are.
It is nothing for God to assemble your molecules together again and resurrect you from the dead.
People who cremate themselves in a hope to avoid resurrection and judgment are in for a bitter disappointment. Yet the believers are in for a glorious future of resurrection from the dead regardless of what happens to your physical body.
Concrning cremation again -
David said that God beheld his substance in the ground before he was born -
"For it was You who formed my inward parts; You wove me together in my mother's womb ... My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret skillfully fashioned in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance; And in Your book all of them were written. The days that were ordained for [for me], when not one of them was yet." (See Psalm 139: 13,16)
God is almighty. It is nothing for Him to assemble and resurrection your entire being when He wants to.
Since His knowledge is so great we can see why we need forgiveness. He forgets NOTHING. That is He forgets nothing until it is covered in the blood of Jesus through our confession and believing in the Savior Jesus.
Where you are too tough on yourself, God knows everything, and the facts of which you are unware. Perhaps He would not be that tough on you. Yet in other instances your guilt is greater than you realize. For God knows everything.
We need His forgiveness and redemption. And we need His great love in Christ. His salvation reaches our spirit, our soul, our body, and our very environment.
I will never forget the evening I first grasped that I was not some kind of accident. God was my Father and He prepared this world for me.
I went down to a pond at dusk. I heard the frogs chirp and the birds sing. Then I understood - "My Father created these things. God, my Father created this world."
And I not only a body and a soul. I have deep within me a spirit that can pray and call on the name of Jesus and touch God.