Paradise and Stuff

Hey there! Please cast your minds back to when we last had getting ready group (VERY far back as this post is ridiculously late, sorry folks!) when we had a wee look at mentions of 'Paradise' in the bible - although, being naturally deviant and chaotic people, or discussions led elsewhere also!

Which is why we started with Lucifer in Isaiah 14:12 instead!

The verse reads:

"How art thou fallen from heavan, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!"

Now, with a little closer inspection, this 'Lucifer', which is only mentioned ONCE in the bible, can be seen to be something other than a supernatural devil. 'Son of the morning' implies that a metaphor is being made using nothing other than the morning star, Venus! In verse 16 the word 'man' is used - whereas the supernatural devil is not seen to be a man, but a fallen angel with close to god-like power. In fact, the context indicates that this 'Lucifer' is none other than the King of Babylon! Falling from 'heaven' can be more accurately translated as falling from a high place, i.e. falling from power. This is also the case in Luke 10:18 and Isaiah 34:4. So rather than this being a fallen angel, Isaiah is simply talking of the King of Babylon falling from power and metaphorically describing him as the morning star!



We then looked at Luke 10:15:

"And thou, Capernaum, which are exalted to heaven, shalt be thrust down to hell."

The idea of condemnation in the sense of heaven/hell after death is unlikely here, as we know that we are individually judged, and not as a city.



Then we had a little digression and discussed whether the disciples were given the Holy Spirit during Jesus's lifetime or only after he died. We resolved to discuss this next time along with the Holy Spirit and Spirit Gifts.



The next point we discussed was Luke 23:43.

"And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day thou shalt be with me in paradise."

There were a few possibilities here. One of them was that as there is no punctuation in the original Hebrew, the verse could have actually read:

"Verily I say unto thee today, thou shalt be with me in paradise."

Another point is that in Genesis 2:17, God tells Adam and Eve that they will die the same day that they eat the fruit - this does not happen, but when they eat the fruit, that day it becomes a reality and a certainty that they WILL die! Therefore the same could be argued in Luke: that Jesus was saying in that day it had become a certainty that the thief would be in 'paradise' with him! From Revelation 2:7, we can see that 'paradise' seems to mean 'Eden'. As we know the kingdom will be just like before the fall of man (i.e. Eden) then we can see that Jesus is telling the thief that today it has been decided that the thief will be in the kingdom with him! Another point is that once the thief had died, it would feel like the same day when he was resurrected, as we know nothing when we die.

Another point we looked at was the 'third heaven' in 2 Corinthians 12:2-4:

"I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one cought up to the third heaven."

Perhaps the third 'heaven' indicates the third order of things, or way in which the world works - i.e. before the flood, after the flood, and in the kingdom.

The next thing we looked at was on old favourite, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-21.
The first point we had was that neither 'heaven' nor immortal souls are mentioned in this parable. Souls are supposed to be insubstantial - yet Lazarus is 'carried', so it must be talking about an actual body. Also in v 26 we read that there is a big gulf between where the rich man is and where Lazarus is. Yet they speak to each other! Also Abraham is mentioned in Hebrews 11 - a chapter of people of faith who haven't yet received their reward. If he hasn't received his reward, he must be dead and in the ground - meaning he has no body and no bosom! We can conclude that this is a parable, and should not be read simply and taken literally - we don't take any of Jesus's other parables literally, why should we do that with this one? The lesson the parable conveys is far more important than the literal story. In this case, the lesson is that we should care for those around us in need, because we would want them to do that for us if our situations were reversed.

Lastly, we had an addendum to last week about eternal fire -

In Jude v7, Sodom and Gomorrha are said to be suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. But we know that they are under the salt sea and definitely not on fire! Therefore they are not everlastingly on fire, but were everlastingly DESTROYED by fire! Which ties in with the explanation we had for eternal fire we had last week!

Ta for reading folks! I may mave missed things out, so any additions, questions or general annoyance, please post on this very forum!