Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohio
Could we say more specifically that outer darkness is separation from God during the wedding dinner of His Son?
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sons to Glory!
Wedding feast = 1000 year reign?
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The important thing for me as a Christian is to separate what is "truth" with what is "interpretation".
What is objective "truth" for the Christian believer: 1) God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day; 2) God loved the world so much that He sent His only begotten Son; 3) If you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, you will be saved; 4) &c, &c, &c.
To me that is "Truth". A teaching, or interpretation, is on the meaning of a parable, or the "rapture" versus the "tribulation". Those are our hermeneutical or narrative overlays.
Even my "There are 3 falls in scripture" (post #329) is an interpretation. There maybe more than 3 falls. . . and the Genesis 6 story, even though seemingly alluded to in Jude v.6 and 2 Peter 2:4, is not necessarily the same as the "one third of the stars" swept down by the dragon's tail in Revelation 12:4. We may connect the proverbial dots, or find 'correlation' as
Evangelical says, but that is our personal interpretation, not truth.
I've already said why I think the "1,000 years of darkness" is unsatisfactory for me.
Evangelical admits it's a theological bandage to bridge the gap between "OSAS" and "Arminianism". Arguably preferable to either of them, but "recovered truth"? A stretch. My main issue is that the two NT sections (Hebrews 2 & 1 Cor 10) covering the fall of the Israelites in the Wilderness doesn't answer what happened to Moses. If falling in the Wilderness means eternal perdition, why is Moses on the mountain with Jesus in the gospels? If it means "dispensational punishment" then why does Moses skip the 1,000 years of "summer school"? God is not a respecter of persons; if Moses gets transformed by the age of the gospels, then others may be as well. And if the OT Israelites are, why not the Christians?
Secondly, 1,0000 years of "wailing and gnashing of teeth" seems somewhat arbitrary and not like the God seen in the Bible.
Evangelical says "same time, different severity" for the punishment. Perhaps, perhaps not. That is an interpretation, not truth.
And
Drake says that I'm supposed to offer an alternative. No, I'm not. I'm not supposed to give a definitive interpretation of every Bible verse. I've already stated what I believe to be the truth - see above. To some extent I'm willing to live with the unknown. And that doesn't mean we "disregard judgment" if we say that we don't have to systematize our parables. It just means that we want to make up our own mind, our own way. Why did Nee get to read all those books and pick his understanding, and we don't? What if we don't want to be spoon-fed someone's private interpretation as our 'reality'?
On to Lazarus and the Rich Man, and Outer Darkness. Interestingly, the Rich Man is "in torment" and yet we're told that "he lived luxuriously" on earth. How are those commensurate? Because in both, the RM was separated from God. His wining and dining was to cover the fact that inside he was miserable, separated from his Creator. When he was dead, the wine was gone and bare torment was left. In both cases (alive on earth and dead in Hades), the separation and darkness was the same.
And it makes no difference to me whether the Lazarus and the RM is a "true story" or a "Parable". In either case there is a message. And the message of Scripture is consistent.