UR evokes many emotions

[jriccitelli]

I am thinking those are books of works, but I was advised once that it was the Quad, or the Book of Mormon and it’s apocrypha.
I was going to respond to your post first but I thought the 'book' and some of it's contents blotted out should be responded to, so I will address my post to both of the Steve's;

Steve's, What about the word wiping, as in wiping away their sins, and blotting them out as in;
“But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. 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” (Acts 3:18-19)
“I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, And I will not remember your sins’ (Isa. 43:25)
I pointed out before how Peter (Acts 3:23) elaborates on a judgment from Duet 18:19, and how Peter had quoted the curse from Duet 18:19, but I also noticed that Peter seems to have Isaiah 43:25 in mind in Acts 3:19.

The word for wipe, wipe off, blot seems to be ‘moheh’ in Isaiah, and Exaleipho in Acts 3:19.
This word, as you know, is used often in three general senses the first; wiping ones mouth, wiping away all our tears, or a dish (2Kings 21;13), quote;
2; As when God wipes away all our sins, approx. 5 instances.
3; When God wipes or blots out a name from his book, approx. 12 instances.

‘The LORD said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against Me, I will blot him out of My book’ (Ex 32:33)
“The LORD shall never be willing to forgive him, but rather the anger of the LORD and His jealousy will burn against that man, and every curse which is written in this book will rest on him, and the LORD will blot out his name from under heaven’ (Deut 29:20)
You have rebuked the nations, You have destroyed the wicked;
You have blotted out their name forever and ever. (Psalm 9:5)
Yet You, O LORD, know all their deadly designs against me; Do not forgive their iniquity, Or blot out their sin from Your sight. But may they be overthrown before You; Deal with them in the time of Your anger! (Jer. 18:23)
This book seems to be the same book referred to in Revelation 20:21;
‘And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire’

(I will note that it is from the same word as ‘Emheh’ (from the Strong’s hebrew 4229 ‘Machah’), and emheh is the same word used in Genesis 6:7; 7:4, 7:23 and Exodus 17:14; 32:32-33, Psalm 9:5, 51:1-9, 69:28, 2Kings 21:13…)

[jriccitelli]

Speaking of walking out of the LOF and walking into Rev 22, verse 22:10-16 specifically.

I think there is alot more reflection and looking back over scripture in that short paragraph than anyone could unravel completely, so I didn’t want to make a simplistic response. 22:10-16 certainly is a looking back as the Spirit normally seems inspired to do, note especially when it comes to reflecting on Genesis 1, like John does in His Gospel, and his letters. I don’t know if it is John or the Spirit that influences his inspiration the most, but I remember Henry Halley made a chart listing the similarities of Rev.21-22 pointing out the similarities to Genesis 1 and 2, I only note that because Johns books do a lot of looking back and pulling in from previous books and statements (as do all) so Rev.22 is likely an assembly of many previous thoughts John and the Spirit pull together.

John makes an opening statement ‘before’ going into the Visions (1:1-10), and the style is to make a closing statement ‘after’ finishing the description of the visions at the end of the book also, as do other Biblical writers noting especially the similarity to Daniels statement made ‘after’ describing his vision. Closing with a doxology is common, and in a sense fitting. The Vision ‘description’ is clearly wrapped up in 22:5. Note that the angel gives the whole eschatological vision after Jesus finishes His letters to the churches from 1:11-3:22 and does not speak again (narrate) until Rev. 22:6, the Angel then gives his witness to the words, says these words are true and the angel talks of not sealing up, another indication that the description of the vision is finished (note Daniel). He then gives a number of blessings and warnings to the readers of the prophecy related to ‘heeding’ the vision that has ‘already’ finished being described. Note then that the lines in vs.11 and 12 seem to speak ‘to the readers and hearers’ also reflecting back to the ‘prevision’ statement of 1:8.

Now vs.22:14-15, the spirit is speaking through the angel using the ‘language and pictures’ just described in the ‘finished’ vision (and reflecting on all of scripture as is the Spirits style), and he gives another blessing and warning (sort of a benediction) to those on this earth, that is on this side of the Judgment; blessed are those who wash their robes” seems to be an encouragement to those who believe, or ‘will’ believe (as in Jesus’ statement to Thomas). “Outside are the dogs” certainly is a warning, reflecting on a lot of scripture, but interestingly enough (as Steve mentions in his book, see I did read abit of it) similar to 1Cor 6:9-10. Gal 5;19-21;

1 Corinthians 6:9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10 nor thieves, nor [the] covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.
Galatians 5:19 Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, 21 envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

I have run out of time but I note that the bride is still a bride, not a wife ‘yet’, and Jesus has not come yet, as in the vision, since they are both calling Jesus to hurry and come, meaning they are not speaking ‘from in’ the vision. And they also beg and encourage others to come also, as in hurry before Jesus comes. So ‘going into the gates of the city’ of verse 14 seems to be a way of reflecting back on the vision and making a relevant appeal using the same language that would have a lingering effect on the reader who has just heard the vision. Saying in effect; think on the 'previous' vision and take heed and ‘believe so that you may’ enter the city, the city being the family of God (the city being metaphoric, yet a 'future' reality).

[steve7150]

I have run out of time but I note that the bride is still a bride, not a wife ‘yet’, and Jesus has not come yet, as in the vision, since they are both calling Jesus to hurry and come, meaning they are not speaking ‘from in’ the vision. And they also beg and encourage others to come also, as in hurry before Jesus comes. So ‘going into the gates of the city’ of verse 14 seems to be a way of reflecting back on the vision and making a relevant appeal using the same language that would have a lingering effect on the reader who has just heard the vision. Saying in effect; think on the 'previous' vision and take heed and ‘believe so that you may’ enter the city, the city being the family of God (the city being metaphoric, yet a 'future' reality).[/color





I have on occasion called a wife of a friend a bride even if they are married for decades like "how is your lovely bride" though they may be married for thirty years

Anyway in Rev the way "bride" is used seems to mean "glorified church" which means it's after the close of this current evil age.

"And i saw the holy city , new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband." Rev 21.2

So the invitation to "Anyone" in Rev 22.17 from the Spirit and the Bride is to the only people still left, those in the LOF, IMHO.

[jriccitelli]

I have on occasion called a wife of a friend a bride even if they are married for decades like "how is your lovely bride" though they may be married for thirty years

How scripture and people at the time used the word would be of more concern than how we use it. But even today, although I would not normally call a friend’s wife a bride, if I did it would be ‘tongue in cheek’. Although bride reflects a fond or cute way of referring to a wife, I think it is a bit confusing and informal for a third party to refer to someone as such (and this coming from someone being infamous for puns and such, to my own destruction sometimes. It is a cute comment I could see making if it would be ‘clear’ to the person or small group I was speaking among, but among a larger group or audience I’m sure I would have people ‘wondering’ if I was sane or knowledgeable about the wife’s marital status).
Anyways I think the scripture’s inspiration (the Holy Spirit), especially at this late crucial point in writing, is going to be very sure and deliberate in using words, and most likely we would expect a formal approach of writing at this point.
The word bride in scripture never elsewhere describes a wife. Note also the idea of bride is associated with bride bed, bride chamber, bride tent, bride feast, bride price, bride song, bridesmaids, and bridegroom, all these terms would only be appropriate or sensible before or during a wedding.

Revelation 21:9 uses the word wife and bride together, so two words 'are' available. Vs. 21:9 does put them in order, bride before wife, just as 21:2 is the bride coming down (like in down the isle) and at vs. 21:3 it seems the marriage is a done thing (consummated), Jesus and His bride are together and she is now his wife.
Note 21:6 says “It is done”. (I remember the time as we walked together back out of the church up the isle, how glad I was to be able to call my wife ‘wife’)

Revelation 21:9 begins again with the bride and a description of the brides adornment in detail, and at vs. 21:22 Jesus is again with His Church.
And note again vs. 21:27 adds that “no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life”

‘Anyway in Rev the way "bride" is used seems to mean "glorified church" which means it's after the close of this current evil age’

Yes after the close of this current age, but not before the marriage.
References to the bride are before the marriage, but ‘after’ the Judgment.
We are the bride of Christ ‘now’, since we are the ekklesia now. The bride is glorified in the ‘future’ in the sense that we are made ready, purified, as a bride adorned for her husband and coming down from heaven.
Verses 22:1-5 describe the post consummation glory of God and eternity, and doesn’t it seem here then that the descriptions of the vision are finished in 22:5?
The angel then in 22:6 gives his testimony to the truthfulness of the words, Jesus gives a blessing on the words in 22:7, then John also gives a testimony to the prophecy in 22:8, the angel then speaks of already heeding the words of the prophecy in 22:9, the angel then says do not seal up the words of the prophecy in 22:10, so it seems then that the prophecy is finished.

It seems obvious to me that the vision description is over. When Jesus says in vs.22:12 “behold I am coming quickly” it is present tense, and it has to be ‘before’ Jesus returns to receive his bride.

So to say vs.22:14-15 is after The Marriage, after The Judgment, and after the LOF would not fit the context. You could say’ verse 22:15 jumps all the way ahead past these events with no indication, but you then still have the ‘bride’ and the Spirit in verse 22:17 saying to Jesus ‘come’.
You could argue that Jesus is the Spirit in vs.22:17 but in these contexts it is always Jesus 'who is coming' and us who ask Him to come, just as it reads in 22:20;
“He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming quickly.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus”

(I think I will post the rest of my response to Rev.22:15 under the 'The Logical Fallacy of Christian Universalism' thread)

[jriccitelli]

From the Logical fallacy of Universalism thread;

We don't necessarily need to agree on terms, so much as we simply need to understand what others mean by them, and what they actually believe, and why. Backwoodsman pg.11

I can understand what UR thinks these terms to mean, and I can understand what CI understands the terms to mean, the problem is I cannot say ‘saved’ any easier than you can say ‘saved’ without two different interpretations behind them.
We all would like to understand what ‘scripture’ defines these terms to mean, thus the objective.

This is where both you and Breckmin could really help yourselves out a lot -- by educating yourselves a little on the evangelical universalist position. Are you starting to understand now, why we've been trying for so long to tell you that you don't understand the position against which you're trying to argue?

I could say the exact same sentence back to the UR;

This is where both you and UR could really help yourselves out a lot -- by educating yourselves a little on the CI and annihilation position. Are you starting to understand now, why we've been trying for so long to tell you that you don't understand the position against which you're trying to argue?
(I wouldn't have said this, but I would say the UR position doesn't believe what we are saying, anymore than i believe what the UR position says)

When I say dead, CI means dead, and in my opinion that is what scripture teaches, first the flesh then the soul. That does not seem to sink in among UR proponents. It is eternal punishment and it is the effect that makes it eternal. When I say fire it means everything it has done in the past; destroy, reduced to nothing but ashes.
But understandably there is difficulty as CI does not stick to a strict doctrinal creed, and neither does UR agree on a set of terms. As the UR position can fluctuate between a hell that is purely a time to discover Jesus, to a gentle form of torment, to one that is torment, or something that happened in 70ad, it seems it just matters who you are talking to.
My position is not so much the agony of it, but the finality of it.
As some CIs believe in immediate corporal annihilation, I hold to degrees of punishment then an a annihilation, for some…

Although it is hard for either side to believe the others view, never the less even if I understand it, it is good to try to boil it down to see the actual ‘details and implications’, like turning up the heat. Call it a refining process.

[steve]

I could say the exact same sentence back to the UR;

Huh?

Are you saying that UR people have misrepresented the conditionalist position due to their failure to understand it? What is there to misunderstand? It is a very simple viewpoint. Which of the UR people here have misrepresented it?

I am not UR, and I have about as much command of the conditionalist arguments as I have of those for the other two positions (I could argue any of them about as convincingly as most of their advocates do).

It is plain that you have misunderstood the UR view in many of your posts. Are you aware of anyone here who has misunderstood your view?

[jriccitelli]

I may not know exactly ‘how’ you reach your conclusions, but that ‘we have different conclusions’ that I do know.
I know you must have already interpreted these passages to mean such, but I am interested in what reasoning you have used to reach your conclusions. We cannot presume to know how Bob and Larry reach their conclusions but from my research I have found the Universalist reasoning I’ve read so far rather, lets say slim.

That’s kind of omniscient to think anyone knows why ‘I’ believe such and such. I did say I would ‘not’ say something like that.
I ‘could’ but it is presumptuous. I repeated the post back so we would see the folly in thinking we know everything about another persons position. I have been incorrectly interpreted as being a Calvinist, an Arminian, a Traditionalist, a Legalist, a big meany, and criticized for not interpreting everything like a Preterist. I started listening to your broadcasts and listening to your lectures because I liked them, I visited this forum and still had no idea you were defending Universalism. I don’t dislike or have animosity towards anyone with a different view (I have loved ones who are atheists, anarchists and artists). I have been admittedly a bit astonished by the results of collating of UR with Preterism.

I see many passages in the Bible describing the ‘final and eternal’ fate of unrepentant sinners.
When I read a passage that describes the Judgment and fate of the unrepentant, the Bible says they are punished and destroyed. UR thinks they suffer different degrees of opinions, then they all repent, how each of us deduce this from the same passages is interesting to say the least.
Would someone surmise that if I’m wrong, then I don’t ‘understand’ UR?
Or, could it be, if I am right, then UR does not understand Gods Judgments are descriptive of the final end?
But I’m not here to banter.

If I quote a passage from Isaiah or Psalms the response is that they cannot be allowed as evidence because… why?
Remember I believe all Gods judgments were ‘descriptive examples’ of what will happen to any unrepentant person. The fact that God has done it once, twice, three times already does not exhaust His warnings that it will not happen again, and ‘eventually’ this is all descriptive of the ‘final’ fate of the person, not just the body.

[Singalphile]

This should be addressed in a Revelation thread, and jriccitelli already responded here and here, but I want to comment briefly.

All quotes are from steve7150. All verses are NASB.

I read this as the "second death" is the lake of fire and i read that death was thrown into the lake of fire.

Rev states that the lake of fire is the second death. (Rev 20:14, Rev 21:8 = "... their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.")

So for me the question is what may happen in the lake of fire.

I think that is easily answered: the second death. The question is, what will the second death entail. I am not certain, but we can rule out and rank certain explanations.

Also interesting is that besides the "book of life" being opened there were other books opened right before that. It's presumed to be a book of a person's deeds but the phrase "books" in the plural was used so it could be the gospels or the books of the bible being preached to the sinner before he goes into the LOF. If that is the case then it must be toward an opportunity for postmortem repentance culminating in Rev 22.14-17.

"... and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds." (Rev 20:12) In the vision, the books contain information used to pronounce judgement. There are many people, so there are books, plural. Anything else is pure speculation/imagination/eisegesis, I think.

So the invitation to "Anyone" in Rev 22.17 from the Spirit and the Bride is to the only people still left, those in the LOF, IMHO.

This is not a tenable opinion, though. jriccitelli went into some depth about it, so I needn't. It's not difficult, is it?

[steve7150]

So the invitation to "Anyone" in Rev 22.17 from the Spirit and the Bride is to the only people still left, those in the LOF, IMHO.


This is not a tenable opinion, though. jriccitelli went into some depth about it, so I needn't. It's not difficult, is it?







It's not tenable if you agree with JRs opinion. It may symbolically be an invitation to everyone who has ever lived but i see no reason to exclude those in the LOF.
There were verses before, that clearly identified folks included in the "bride" group and others clearly in the LOF and i see nothing excluding the invitation from the folks in the LOF after they repent and undergo whatever God had in mind for them.
If God had instead called the LOF a sealed abyss from which no one can ever leave, then i would have no leg to stand on but curiously he didn't.

[Singalphile]

It's not tenable if you agree with JRs opinion. It may symbolically be an invitation to everyone who has ever lived but i see no reason to exclude those in the LOF.

I meant that the idea that, "the invitation to 'Anyone' in Rev 22.17 from the Spirit and the Bride is to the only people still left, those in the LOF, [emphasis added]" is untenable, which is true whatever jr or anyone else thinks if I'm correctly understanding what you're saying. To quote from page 500 of Steve's book about Revelation 22: "Verses 6 through 21 form an epilogue to the book of Revelation. The prophecy and the message of the book has been given in completeness, ...."

That is, the invitation in verse 17 is not a part of any of the previous visions as if (as you seemed to be saying) chronologically given after the future judgement, second death, and the new heavens/earth. It was given to John in the present and, by extension, to his hearers/readers in the same way that the warning about adding words to the prophecy was given.

I apologize if I'm misunderstanding your statements. You mentioned the same sort of idea in some other thread recently and I didn't have the chance or desire to respond then. You could still argue that the invitation isn't limited to the time on this earth. You could also try to make your point (as I understand it) using Rev 21:6 with more plausibility, I think.