Featured Tracing the Origins of Coming on the Clouds

You don't mind if I roll all your replies into one do you John

And, finally my dearest young Padawan—if I was going to write a reply for you to prove that you are a one trick pony and hopelessly out of your depth when not regaling us with your ability to channel the greek authors—I couldn’t have given any stronger testimony against you than you did to convict yourself in this post.

After the obligatory dog and pony show of your greek talents you have utterly failed to grasp the general concept of God and His relationship to sinful man.

That is your main problem my young Padawan—it’s not about getting lost in the details of greek translation—it’s about our relationship with God.

Feel free to use any term you want to describe Elijah and Enoch being carried into heaven. Heaven here can’t mean heaven as in the place where God dwells because until the atoning work of Christ is complete the sinful nature of man would prevent them from entering into God’s presence.

It’s laughable that you think you can bedazzle me with your greek skills to prove Enoch went to heaven before death while you conveniently ignore Hebrews 11:13 that says all these died after mentioning Enoch just a few verses before.
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You are making my point for me when you cite the pagan god Baal being associated with controlling the weather and the related references such as cloudrider, chariot in the clouds, coming on clouds etc does not mean a literal, physical, historical appearance of a deity Christian or pagan being seen flying through the sky. Such being the case when the bible uses the term the Son of man coming on the clouds there is no precedence to believe Christ will be literally seen in the sky above.
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Is it possible that you actually believe that the way you cherry pick verses out of Acts 1:1-11 and selectively apply meaning to them in order to twist them into meaning that Christ will physically, literally, and historically fly back down through the sky validates your supposition. Acts 1:1-11 taken as a whole doesn’t support that conclusion. The balance of the bible doesn’t support any such notion. Only someone who fixed the conclusion before reading the scripture could claim such an interpretation. LOL 2x.
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First of all you quote me:

As for Christ accession every preterist I know of here repeatedly tells you we believe in the literal accession—you just don’t want to allow us to believe it.

Then you say “Please be clear. Do you believe in a literal, physical ascension of Christ to Heaven, or do you not?”

What language do I need to say it in for you to accept it? Futurist don’t own a literal ascension of Christ. I know Tom told you so and I have said it before but you only hear what you want to hear. You are a hoot John—you quote me on something then turn around and ask if I was saying it—do you think little green men hacked the BB and wrote my post for me? LOL 2x

I’ll close by saying thank you to all for your time and devotion in your posting here today.

 

Make the third time a charm

Three days and three threats to leave, LOL. I’ll believe it when I see it.

 

OR,

Your lack of a counter argument based on scripture is tantamount to conceding you don’t have a counter argument.

It is most interesting that you don’t like to say that Jesus flies across the sky as futurist are so fond of telling us is what happens in Rev 1:7—does that mean you concede the point that Jesus is not being seen by every eyeball in Rev 1:7? Does that mean you don’t think there is a literal and physical return of Christ—you seem to back yourself into advocating a preterist position quite nicely!

The Great Word-1

 

Today's lesson for a Young Padawan

My Dear Young Padawan,

You ever so slightly misunderstand me—when I point out that you are a one trick pony—I’m not criticizing your greek skills—I’m merely pointing out your lack of other skills. You gots a greek hammer and every issue to you is a greek nail to be hammered.

But I’ll have to say reading your posst you do have a talent for putting words in people’s mouths that they didn’t say then debating the words you put in their mouths. And, you make comparisons they didn’t make and criticize the comparison you imputed to them for being wrong—surely that must count as a talent.

You make a truly curious argument. You don’t deny that when Hebrews 11:13 states these all died and Enoch is one of the specific people mentioned in that group. Since we know an unclean Enoch not yet washed in the blood of Christ’s atonement couldn’t possibly have entered the presence of God—you are making an argument that God transported a dead body to heaven. A bit weird if I do say so myself.
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Here is one of the weird comparisons that you put in my mouth—that Baal and Christ are similar—I have to chuckle at how if you can’t get the words out of me you want you are quick to just post them for me and proceed to argue against them. LOL.

Why don’t you copy and paste where I said they were alike, umm?

What you refuse to under any circumstances and all posts is to support the notion that coming on the clouds (or cloud riding, or riding the wind, or the chariots of heaven etc., etc.) can be associated with anybody claiming it meant a physical, embodied deity being literally seen in the sky. It never happened in the NT, or the OT, or any pagan writings that predated the Jewish manuscripts. Only in the minds of modern day futurists does it mean something that it never meant before.

I’ve never known the first preterist who had any sore points about saying Jesus had a physical body at least part of the time after the resurrection while he was on earth. It wouldn’t be logical to say he had a physical body all the time since he passed through closed doors and walls. Further, at his ascension he left earth in his physical form, but somewhere along the way he transformed into a spiritual body to enter heaven.
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You get all your notion that Christ returns physically by limiting your view to one verse where it says come in in the same manner and pick your meaning for come in. You don’t like to make your cherry picked verses consistent with the balance of the bible since it would ruin your pet theories.

When Christ says His kingdom is not of this world in John 18:36 and luke 17:20 that it does not come with observation the balance of the bible ruins your desire for physical return so you tear these verse out of the bible.

Since verse 1:9 says he disappeared into a cloud you ignore it as well.

Taken as a whole the scene in Acts 1:9-11 does not even deal with His return since as you so often love to point out Christ was going up—he came in to heaven—since the Apostle couldn’t see him come into heaven since he was out of their view(an inconvenient fact of verse 9)—the angles testify that he will come into heaven in the same manner as the apostles saw him ascend until he passed out of their view.

You can’t attach the scene in Acts to Rev 1:7 and say every eyeball will see him return by flying across the sky since we have already established that coming on the clouds has never meant anybody would see a deity embodied and literally flying across the sky.

The Acts ascension merely gets Christ into heaven and leaves the time and nature of his return to other parts of scripture. You can claim otherwise till you are blue in the face and you can have a temper tantrum screaming your one verse means He comes back physically—the one thing you can’t do is square it with the balance of scripture.

Of course your debunked theory about a physical return would run into a whole other problem with the timing since the bible tells us over a hundred times His coming will be soon and two thousand years later isn’t soon. Only the coming in judgment against Jerusalem squares with the timing requirement.

You see my young Padawan—when it comes to bible exegesis you are still low on the learning curve. To advance past beginner level you must get past putting words in other people’s mouths, making faulty comparisons, ignoring how the balance of the bible relates to your cherry picked verses, and square your theories with the timing requirement.

Futurism has been a failure for 2,000 years and preterism has been right for 2,000 years. A fact you can’t exegete your way around.

Your welcome in advance.

 

You are dresses like a Young Padawan...Sir Good Sir Knight

I’m confused OR who are you criticizing for SW references? Does it bother you all that much that JOJ is dressed like a young Padawan in his picture?

Don’t be so hard on him—he is probably like the poor woman in MP and the Holy Grail when the mob seized him and dressed him like a Young Padawan. I’m sure he would tell us “they dressed me like a young Padawan.”

There are ways of telling if he is a young Padawan…. Sir Bedivere

 

In for a penny in for a pound

Don’t be so hard on yourself Thomas. Where else are you going to see post this exciting and the struggles of futurism so blatantly laid bare for all to see.

Tomorrow you can make it 5 for 5. Let me welcome you back in advance. Have a good day my friend.

 

Your bible must light to carry around after you tear out the verses you don't like

You have yet again proved my point about Acts 1:9-11. You see the verses you want to see and ignore those next to it so you can construct your view of the bible with utter disregard for verses you don’t like just like you do in Hebrews 11 taking verses close to one another clinging to what you choose to like and ignoring verses that don’t fit your personal theology.

This is called cafeteria Christianity. Just pick and choose what you like from Christianity and ignore the rest. This does explain a lot my young Padawan.

A curious statement for one who takes passages from Acts and Hebrews and readily ignores verses close to one another while building his theology around nearby verses he likes. It points out how futurism is like Cafeteria Christianity on steroids.

Quickly is merely one of the soon coming statements about Christ’s return. Coming in the life time of those in the audience can easily be referred to as quickly relative to extending His coming thousands of years in the future. You again completely ignore the 100 plus time statements in the bible about his soon return by trying to schmooze over them. Again you simply ignore all the verses that are inconvenient to you and pretend they aren't there.

The timing statements alone prove futurism is bogus. Since you can’t deal with them you just ignore all 100 plus of them.

 

Drum Roll Please...JOJ is about to do something most interesting

My Young Padawan I’m not spending too much time pointing out your failures in the previous posts tonight because I’m just dying to hear your theory on why would Christ return in a physical, literal way!

The bible clearly establishes He isn’t going to establish a kingdom on earth in John 18:36—my kingdom is not of this earth—unless you are going to call Christ a liar.

Since Christ says Himself He isn’t going to establish a kingdom on this earth—what would be the point in His coming back in a literal, physical, historical manner?

There are no verses that suggest what he would do if He came back in a literal, physical way. The apostles don’t say He is coming back literally nor do they suggest a reason for Him needing to.

I really can’t wait to hear you exegete what His purpose would be in coming back literally…could you please explain based on verses that are in the bible!

This ought to be fascinating.