BELIEVE OR DIE

Hi Webber,

Sorry I have dominated this topic with my long posts.

However, about half way down on Page 3, in response to your post, Nirvana asked:

"What does the Bible say about prayer?"

Placid wrote: Hi, The last long post lists two resurrection of peole from the time of Jesus death, who were translated to heaven. They did not have to wait for a final judgment, because they were already judged as being righteous.

which two people?

Hi Nirvana,

The point of the first post that you are referring to is that when Jesus spoke of His �death, burial, and resurrection,� --- no one really understood what He was telling them --- so, the story of Lazarus dying, and being dead four days before being resurrected, --- had happened just two or three weeks before the Passover, when Jesus went through death, and after three days was resurrected.

In your title �Believe or die.� --- Either �believe� and be resurrected to eternal life, or disbelieve and be separated from God for eternity.


Lazarus was restored to physical life,
Jesus was resurrected in a Spiritual body, --- and in the sight of the disciples was later caught up to heaven.

Hi Nirvana,

There is one last passage of Scripture that I want to add concerning the resurrection.
If you say, you don�t believe in any Scriptures, --- then you don�t have to believe in these either.

--- I want to mention first, --- the word �infallible,� is not found in the Quran, nor in the Old Testament.
It is only found ONCE in the New Testament, and it doesn�t refer to any man being �infallible.�
It was written by Luke, who was a medical doctor, and a historian, but it is not in the Gospel of Luke.

--- In his Gospel account, Luke, who was Greek, addresses it to Theophilus, and says this in Luke 1:
1 Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us,
2 just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, delivered them to us,
3 it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus,
4 that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed.

--- Then Luke became a companion of Paul on some missionary journeys, and accompanied him to Rome, and wrote an orderly account of �The Acts of the Apostles,� --- where he says again in Acts 1:
1 The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach,
2 until the day in which He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen,
3 to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many �infallible� proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.
--- So these proofs of the resurrection of Jesus Christ to eye witnesses, --- were the �infallible' proof.

This evidence is given in 1 Corinthians 15:
3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,
4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,
5 and that He was seen by Cephas (Peter), then by the twelve.
6 After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present (the time of writing), but some have fallen asleep.
7 After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles.

And this is the Scripture that I want to present from 1 Peter 3:
18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit,
19 by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison,
20 who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.
21 There is also an antitype which now saves us�baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,
22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him.

--- I am not going to say I understand the depth of these verses, but the truth of Scripture does not depend on us understanding it, but rather, whether we believe it as a message from God, --- which gives us the hope of resurrection, --- and eternal life for believers, as both the Bible and the Quran promise.

However, --- it speaks of the flood where (8 souls) Noah and his wife and their three sons and their wives, were carried in the Ark above the flood waters.
But it speaks of another group who were, �disobedient,� --- and were lost in the water. But their �souls� (or as it says in v19, their �spirits�) were kept in �a prison of death�

--- The physical body of Jesus had to die, but because He was �without sin� He could not be held in this �prison of death,� --- but rather He (in the Spirit) preached (gave the message of God�s salvation for believers) to these �disobedient� ones, whose lives were cut short in the flood.
--- If they had been �believers� by having �a good conscience toward God� (though disobedient), they would be �released� and taken to heaven. --- (This would have happened during the three days that Jesus� body was in the tomb.)
--- So here we have �victory over death� for this group from the time of Noah, --- and the �victory over death� in Matthew of the �saints that rose from their graves� when Jesus died on the cross.

And again it says in 1 Corinthians 15:
20 But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
21 For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead.
22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive.
53 For this corruptible (physical being) must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
54 So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: �Death is swallowed up in victory.�]
55 �O Death, where is your sting? --- O Hades, where is your victory?�
56 The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.
57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

--- (The symbol of Baptism in v21): --- A person has to be a believer before the symbol has any meaning.
--- They are taken into the water, (either open water as a river, or a Baptistry) and they are lowered under the water so that the water closes over their face, --- then they are raised up again in the water. --- the symbolism is that they are �buried' (as with Christ) under the water (as Jesus was buried in the tomb) and they rise again (as Jesus was resurrected) --- which is a testimony of their �new life� in Christ.

So this is the wonderful Message of the Gospel. --- People may choose not to believe it, --- but just so they know this is God�s plan of salvation, --- and that it is there for those who will believe.


Placid