There is no evidence that either of you were being “nice.” Clearly, neither of you believe the stories in the Christian gospels. No problem with that.
However, wandering into a thread that is a discussion of those beliefs for the sole point of claiming that you do not believe them is pointless. The thread is intended as a discussion of a belief, using the internal systems of believers. You are welcome to point out the logical inconsistency of any proposed argument, but you are not welcome to simply declare that the basis for the belief is false any more than you are welcome to wander into a Cafe Society thread discussing the motivation of Aragorn or Frodo and declare that it is “just” fiction.
I do believe that Jesus has come back many times. The Bible goes into things like the harvest of the earth by angels and this as a cyclic nature, not one off. For people who will reach the conclusion that they were never intended to make it without God and need God, and cry out to Him, Jesus will return to get them on those intervals, or that person may ‘fall alseep’ meaning to die and rest while waiting for that resurrection.
The waiting period is the time Jesus needs to readjust their hearts so that the person being saved will be able to function in the Kingdom of God.
The theif in the night reading, Jesus is saying God’s judgement willc ome when people have lowered their guards and forgotten about him.
If the servants knew when the master was coming they would wait carefully for him, but since they do not know, they could get careless, and that would be the real test.
And as for Jesus leaving, the idea was also that the Holy SPirit would be with us (I think this was mentioned when Jesus ascened, or during pentacost when the Holy Spirit came down on the apostles)
Tim R. Mortiss has the standard theological answer in the 2nd post: The only thing left for Jesus to do is the Last Judgment, and (as FriarTed notes) the Last Judgment is described by Jesus himself as a future event (e.g. the passage in John indicates he will leave and the Holy Spirit will come first).
The physical departure of Jesus is rather vividly described in the first book of Acts (and in the Gospels, but that leads to a theological and exegetical digression). Those who accept the historical (but not the supernatural) portions of the Jesus story obviously do not accept his Ascension; the Jesus Seminar, for example, sees it as a pre-emptive move to eliminate the legitimacy of future “appearance stories”.
I’ve heard 7th Day Adventists say that Jesus is in the process of compiling a list of who all will get into heaven and preparing a temporary heaven for them to go to while the unpleasantness of Armageddon happens on Earth.
That’s a fairly creative interpretation of the Book of Mormon. It’s been a long time since I read it but as I recall Jesus was warmly welcomed and the resident population stayed righteous for about 600 years after he left. But there was never any point where Jesus said “If the Indians reject Me, you white folks over here feel free to wipe them out.”
Agreed, exactly as i said.
Having transcended the physical reality, passed thro death, He was not bound by its ( physical ) rules, could move between realities at will. physical and spiritual
Even Visit Hell, come back, ascend etc etc.
as another poster has said, that the Holy Spirit could come.
Now, i interpret this as Spirit as ‘Universal Consciousness’ which is a forgotten natural birthright of man.
In fact, i think every molecule and atom that exists is God, temporarily experiencing the confines of both physical reality and the illusion that time is resolute, fixed, limited to the here and now.
Whereas
In the beginning was the word… etc.
IE, nothing existed except thought, pre the beginning of time and physical reality, which is all that will remain when the physical reality and time ceases to be… thought, Consciousness,
Some call it death, this body dying.
I personally don’t think there is any such thing as death.
Molecules change shape and form. dust to dust etc…
thought remains…
A more important question you could begin with asking, are, such as, “am i my brothers keeper?”
If the reality is that all that exists is in fact God, then the answer will be yes.
I am my brothers keeper because "i am’ My Brother, He is Me,
we are all one together…
the rock, plant, animal.
the same… an extension of US
its just that we have forgotten…
next question, if the above is true, why do we continue to try to dominate our brother, exterminate Him…?
pollute our Planet?
Deny who we are, ???
random thoughts, curious ones…
Your summary is a lot more accurate than Mozart1220’s, but still not quite.
An early character in the BoM (600 B.C.-ish) sees a vision of the future in which all of his descendants have rejected the gospel and eventually get displaced by European settlers. Not really permission for the white folks to wipe them out, but maybe it implies that their disbelief and their depravity led to their destruction by the white men.
Then Jesus dies, is resurrected, and converts pretty much everyone in America. They live as Christians for several generations and then eventually divide into tribes again, with the non-Christian tribe completely wiping out the Christian tribe in 425 A.D.
Okay, since you asked for a Scriptural evidence, I will try to provide.
FriarTed mentions John 14-16, but I can be a little more specific:
John 14:3 (KJV):
Apparently Heaven isn’t ready, and Jesus has to prepare it.
John 16:5-10 (NIV):
Now, the Counselor is usually interpreted to be the Holy Spirit. And it is because of the power shown by the Holy Spirit after Pentecost that the Gospel was able to be spread. Not only were the disciples now able to perform miracles like Jesus did, but they were bolder, and better equipped to talk to God.
I’m kinda surprised a member of the Assemblies of God like FriarTed did not want to point this out–it’s a key part of our theology. One needs the Holy Spirit in order to spread the Gospel and do whatever other works God wants.
This makes the previous quote make sense–Heaven won’t be ready until everyone who is supposed to go there can.
BTW: Zanthor seems to be taking a fairly Gnostic view–that Jesus did not rise bodily, but only appeared to do so to those who were allowed to see him.
I believe this is the major part of it. We need the Holy Spirit to stay in the Kingdom, and not able ‘fall off’ like Adam and Eve. With the Holy Spirit you are one with God, you are part of God, you are one with the Father, just as Jesus is.
I believe the harvest (people taken into the Kingdom of God), happens throughout time and Jesus has come back many times and taken His people home. Which is the basis for:
And the churches being told that Jesus is coming soon. Jesus has come back and will. The people have to be refined, knowing who they are, a child of God, and therefor part of God. That comes with self discovery through the Holy Spirit. If it was not for this period of learning that we too are one with the Father, we would never know our full potential which would be a loss to the Kingdom. Jesus wishes to empower us as He is empowered.
According to Matthew:16/27-28,also in Mark, Jesus is quoted as saying he would return in His father’s glory, with all His angels while some of them standing there were still alive. That would have been His second coming. he also stated that when asked when the world would end, that that generation would not pass away until all things were accomplished. The RCC translates that to mean the word generation was not the same as we think of it, yet Matthew also uses the word generation the same as we do today, when he wrote:" there were 14 generations between David and Jesus.
The Bible states, that Jesus said He had to go and make a place for the people who followed Him, and that may be an explaination of why He didn’t stay on earth.
Generation, to me is our family in the kingdom of God - not earthly generations. Our generation is our siblings, brothers and sisters in Christ. We all all children of one generation, and have a parent generation, and we will parent our next generation. Jesus spoke of His disciples as His sisters, brothers and mother (and the mother was not Mary), He was talking about the generation in the Kingdom, His siblings and parent in the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is a family.
The harvest (second coming) for that generation will happen after the last person of the generation is born. Jesus will transition these children to the Kingdom of God, though they might have a ‘shadow life’ on earth, so unbelievers will see no difference, no second coming on the media.
Our galaxy has a few billion stars in it and it’s one of a few billion galaxies, I’d do the math, but the number of stars (potential suns/solar systems) is way too large for me to comprehend. Keeping that in mind…
I’ve seen pictures from the Hubble telescope of areas in space where stars are forming. Star nurseries they call them. Stars are still being created. New worlds too possibly.
I ask myself, If God created the earth, then he also created the billions upon billions of other stars/solar systems/worlds, surely he did it right on at least a few of those. Why in the world would God, or Jesus for that matter, hang around here?
If I were God/Jesus, I’d have written us off long ago for greener pastures. That’s my answer.
In scriptures angels are stars Rev 12 described Jesus’ birth to ‘mother earth’. There is unquestionably life on other planets, as the planets are the wombs of angels, and God desires family.
It is the reason that we are family, all interdependent and interrelated that Jesus had to come back for us, It would have been too painful for His to live with a broken family.
Revelation 1:20
The mystery of the seven stars that you saw in my right hand and of the seven golden lampstands is this: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands are the seven churches.
Christ’s return isn’t synonymous with the Resurrection and the Final Judgement. The Book of Revelations says that first Christ will return to put down the reign of the Antichrist and then maintain a thousand-year “occupation” of the Earth to prevent his resurgence- what’s usually called the Millenium. Revelations does mention a “first resurrection”: those that were martyred during the reign of the Antichrist get resurrected and serve as Christ’s governors during the millenium, but the second resurrection where everybody gets resurrected and judged only comes after.