A QUESTION FOR THE CHRISTIANS ON THIS BOARD

vitty

What is the second comming of Christ, I mean what will happen...............armageddon?????????? destruction for anyone who isnt a Christian ?

He he going restore paradise on earth ????????

I would really like to know the christians view

Thanks

Narkissos

Seems like the "rapture" just occurred...

LittleToe

A QUESTION FOR THE CHRISTIANS ON THIS BOARD

Another one??? LOL

Christian views are diverse, because most are concentrating on each and every day, rather than a potential future event from an archaic and obscure book of the Bible. That having been said, I'll offer mine.

What is the second comming of Christ, I mean what will happen...............armageddon?????????? destruction for anyone who isnt a Christian ?

I take the stance of a modified Preterist, which basically means that I believe that the events of Revelation were an encrypted message for Christians at the end of the first century. I modify that basic Preterist view in that I also hold that there is symbolic meaning that can also be taken from the book that applies in the life of every believer. We each face our "dark night of the soul" and purgation by "fire", with Christ reigning in our lives and a battle with sin, etc.

He he going restore paradise on earth ????????

If (and that's a big if) that text is to be taken literally in the sense you mean it then how do we explain Peter's words that the world will be dissolved in heat? Also, what about our sun's eventual collapse in about two million years from now? Every sun eventually runs out of gas and dies.

I do know that some Christians hold that there is to be a resurrection of the body and a new heavens and a new earth, and that since we are to have a physical body then why not something physical to stand upon? However if you are to read that literally then there is to be no more sea or sun, etc. Personally I like sunbathing on the beach, but apparently that isn't part of the plan for the new earth

Terry

Concerning the 2nd Coming of Christ I'll say this.

Nobody understood the first coming. What makes you think those people knew anything AT ALL about a 2nd coming? If any part of the bible messege wasn't garbled it's clear the apostles and 1st Century Christians who should have/might have been privvy to information of this nature didn't know squat! They thought it would happen in THEIR LIFETIME!

Think about it--all the so-called "signs" making up clues about an advent of a 2nd coming have been misinterpreted by the GREATEST minds of EVERY century since that time!! Every last one of them were DEAD WRONG. (They were wrong and now they are dead.)

The so-called "signs" are ambiguous for a reason. Nobodyknew what they were talking about when they spoke/wrote them.

The 2nd coming, I believe, is part of the carrot and stick program of the Christian church. Heaven/Paradise/Reward is the carrot and the 2nd coming/Armageddon is the stick.

I don't think that the book of Revelation is worthy of attention and neither did Martin Luther! The ravings of obsessive/compulsive religious fanatics were everywhere in the first 3 centuries (as they are today). The fact that this particular lunatic fringe horror story became bible canon is a quirk of history/politics. Like so many other myths, legends, Jesus stories and predictions, the events depicted in Revelation are not a road map to reality. They are more like a bad LSD trip.

Basing the brief life you have now on tales spun by people without anything better to do who were overwrought by religious indoctrinations is a waste of your time, effort and attention.

Absolutely NOBODY knows anything at all about the bible, the 2nd coming or anything else related to God. It is all fervent OPINION and nothing more! History consistently proves this over and over and over. You could compile a very long list of sacred pronouncements about End Times that could be flushed down the toilet because they never happened EVEN THOUGH THE AUTHORITY BEHIND THOSE PREDICTION were absolute and convinced.

When something is true it is verifiable by persons of diverse backgrounds and varied locations. I'm talking facts here. Bigfoot, Elvis sightings, UFO abductions cannot be proved because they are merely CLAIMS. The bible is in this category. It consists of CLAIMS unverifiable and subject to opinion, interpretations and fanaticisms.

None of the major religions has a unity of agreement among its constituents because no religion is subject to being verified the way FACTS are verified. Opinions differ. Facts are demonstrable.

Christianity has to have "something" to live for that is in the immediate future or else it would vanish from feckless over-exaggerations like quack medicine that promises cures that never happen.

The Muslims are waiting for their "hidden Imam". The Jews are waiting for their Messiah. Christians are waiting for Jesus Pt.2, etc. etc. These religions have to have a future event to wait for, pine for, hope for and look forward to.

Don't fall into this trap and waste your life waiting for Godot!

Do you know how many faithful kind-hearted and intelligent people have spent their lives in anticipation of such events which did NOT happen? They could have had a more meaninful, full and rich existence, but, they squandered it on false opinion and exaggerated sales pitches.

Worship God in your mind where he actually lives. Worship God in your heart where he can be felt. But, don't waste your actual moments of existence fretting over an arrival that has been "any minute now" for TWO THOUSAND YEARS!!

When will we ever learn????

Justahuman24

Well, someone *Terry* is disillusioned with religion. You need help buddy!

One thing is to express your opinion; another is to try to persuade someone else to agree with you or not to belief something because you don't think it's true. You sound angry and frustrated. Get help! Maybe a Bible Study will help you LOL (the BS part was a joke).

I'll say this though: It's true that no one knows when it's going to happen but I do believe what the Bible says about Jesus, death, resurrection, etc. Don't know when it will happen but it will. About the creation of a new heaven and a new earth - well, just bcz the Bible doesn't say God will create a new sea and a new sun, etc, doesn't mean it's not included. Gen. 1:1 says that God created the "heaven and the earth". That sure included the starts, sun, seas, galaxies, etc. They weren't mentioned but "heaven and earth" should be taken as a general wording or else, it would've taken hundreds of pages if Moses had included every star by name and every galaxy.

justahuman - but super nonetheless

Narkissos

It may sound as a technical detail, but the earliest Christian (as well as Jewish) apocalypticism did not expect a second coming in the sense of the Messiah coming twice. The coming (or parousia) of the Son of Man in the oldest synoptic sayings was a unique and still future event. Only when the Son of Man came to be fully identified to an already long past earthly Jesus did this future event look as a second coming.

LittleToe

Terry:

The 2nd coming, I believe, is part of the carrot and stick program of the Christian church. Heaven/Paradise/Reward is the carrot and the 2nd coming/Armageddon is the stick.

I'd just like to qualify your comment. Not all denominations wield the Armageddon stick. Most never talk about it.

Basing the brief life you have now on tales spun by people without anything better to do who were overwrought by religious indoctrinations is a waste of your time, effort and attention.

If only it were so easy. Most of what we believe is contructed of paradigms. Most think that electricity flows from positive to negative terminals, but the reality is the other way around, but it would be too difficult to unravel decades of belief and electrical science texts. While we know the effects of gravity, noone actually knows how or why it works, and so our best effort is summed up in Newton's apple (regardless of whether or not the story is actually true).

My point? Simply, don't be so eager to dismiss the tapestry of common belief, just because excerpts of it aren't to your taste

M.J.

An perspective which may be gaining momentum is found in a best selling evangelical book called "Heaven" by Randy Alcorn. He advocates the idea of a cleansing by fire and restoration of the earth (not final destruction), followed by "heaven" coming down to earth to form a unified kingdom under Christ (citing Rev. 21:2 & Eph 1:10). So the "eternal heaven" where humans will ultimately dwell in resurrected bodies (as opposed to the "intermediate heaven", where Christians immediately go upon death) is in fact the physical New Earth.

I think this really is the theological position of many churches, but in a lot of cases hasn't been much of a point of emphasis.

JeffT

As Little Toe said, there are too many Christian opinions on this topic to summarize them all. The church I've been going to since we got out in 1989 does not concern itself with the matter to any great extent i. e. I've heard it mentioned a few times, I don't think I've ever heard a sermon built around the subject.

The opinion of this Christian is that we'll find out when we get there.

It is not true that EVERY intrepretation of the sign of the end is wrong, as there is one body of opinion that the "Sign" was that there isn't a sign. Jesus comment that there would be wars and reports of wars, but don't be alarmed the end is not yet, is seen to mean that human history will be full of all manner of bad things, none of which mean anything. This is the basis for all the comments about the theif in the night etc.

M.J.

The opinion of this Christian is that we'll find out when we get there.

The point was brought up earlier in this thread how no one had it quite right about what would happen when Christ came around the first time...and it was okay. In fact it was the people who were pig-headed about their pre-conceptions who were condemned.

A QUESTION FOR THE CHRISTIANS ON THIS BOARD

Share this