| Author | Message | ||
| Carracio Registered user Username: Carracio Post Number: 29 Registered: 3-2014 |
Hi all.. Me and my wife have are having trouble with Soul Sleep. What do you all think about Soul Sleep, is it Biblical or not? | ||
| Ric_b Registered user Username: Ric_b Post Number: 2120 Registered: 7-2004  |
First I will throw out the idea that SDAs do not believe in soul sleep. They believe that the soul and body are part of one holistic unit. The soul and body die. The idea that the soul and body are one holistic unit is NOT biblical. See for instance Matt 10:28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. In the SDA teaching about the soul, Matt 10:28 is impossible. | ||
| Resjudicata Registered user Username: Resjudicata Post Number: 75 Registered: 4-2014 |
I think soul sleep is primarily yet another transparent attempt to buttress the similarly unbiblical Investigative Judgment doctrine, which itself was devised to save face after the 1844 fiasco. Here's an earlier thread on the same issue: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:3U-LzL80Lw0J:www.formeradventist.com/discus/messages/11/12794.html%3F1365862780+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us Once you lie once, you have to keep lying to cover up the first lie. I just had a brief fleeing pang of pity for those Adventist pioneers....what a horrible thing to go through. And then they made it worse by papering over it with the IJ, which had to have both the Sabbath and Soul Sleep....and on and on it goes. | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 14835 Registered: 12-2003  |
Consider also 2 Corinthians 5:1-10 and Philippians 1:22-23. Those words have to mean what they say. We can't interpret them to mean "the next thing we know..." If Paul says it is better by far to depart and be with the Lord, he means those words. If we doubt the clarity of Scripture, we have nothing but our own minds to trust. And how dependable are our own minds?? God did not accidentally communicate something deceptive. His word is His, and He protected the people through whom it was recorded as they received it from Him. Jesus told the thief next to Him that he would be with Him that day in Paradise. Those words, grammatically, have only one meaning: "Truly, truly I say to you; today you will be with me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43). I just have to recommend an amazing, small book that I'm reading for Elizabeth Inrig's summer class for women. It's by Kevin DeYoung, and it's entitled, "Taking God At His Word". It's an amazing, clear book. I heartily recommend it! Colleen | ||
| Iamfree Registered user Username: Iamfree Post Number: 17 Registered: 3-2014 |
I was just recently studying this same subject. I am new to the idea of non-soul sleep but I think it is interesting that when Adventists talk about the thief being in paradise, they say the comma has been misplaced. They also use the same argument when it talks in the New Testament about being absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. In one of the Sabbath School lessons on this topic, it was presented as yet again a comma issue, indicating that he was speaking of sometime in the future being present with the Lord. So my question is this, "Is God so small that He can't make a comma appear in the Bible where it should appear? He really has no power, and is totally at the mercy of the translators who just accidentaly put the comma in the wrong place? If that is the case, how much of the Bible can we really trust. I decided about 8 months ago that I would read the Bible and believe what it said, without trying to fit in into the box of how others have interpreted it for me in the past and it has been a wonderful journey! Anyway, my belief at this point, which needs more study for sure, is that the Old Testament writers were speaking of death from the perspective they had at the time, they didn't have all the answers and it was before Jesus had actually conquered death. With the exception of the story about Samuel coming back to speak with Saul, there are some verses that might indicate a type of soul sleep (but there are also arguments that when those verses are put in context, they were not talking about soul sleep) I believe as a New Covenant Christian that the New Testament is the revelation of what the whole Old Testament was talking about which was the birth, life, death and resurrection and Jesus Christ. So when the New Testament says: "Truly, I say to you, today you shall be with me in paradise"(Luke 23:43). "Verily, Verily I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life" (John 5:24) "So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at hom in the body we are absent from the Lord. 7 For we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord"(2 Corinthians 5:6-8 "I am hard pressed betwen the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better" (Phil 1:21) "For is we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus" (1 Thess 4: 14) "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?" (John 11:25-26) "Most assuredly I say to you, if anyone keeps my word he shall never see death" (John 8:51) And of course the Rich man and lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) I believe it! When I asked God to take off the filters/blinders and to allow me to be able to read His word for what it said, not what I had been taught, the verses about death jumped out at me in a new way. I read them and experienced great comfort, my lifelong fear of death was gone. I went back and read the old-testament texts. I read the text in Isaiah 14: 9-11 where it says "Hell from beneath is excited about you, to meet you at your coming, it stirs up the dead for you, all the chief ones of the earth; It has raised up from their thrones. All the kings of the nation. They shall speak and say to you; Have you also become as weak as we? Have you become like us? Your pomp is brought down to Sheol, and the sound of your stringed insturments; The maggot is spread under you, and worms cover you. This was a far cry from the dead know nothing text that I had referred to for years. Then I read 1 Samuel 28:3-25. When I read verse 15, "Now Samuel said to Saul, "Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?". and then again in verse 16 "Then Samuel said.... First of all, I guess I was a little suprised that no where did it say the deceiving spirit masquerading as Samuel, it simply said "Samuel said". Also it seems a little strange that God would use a deceiving spirit to impersonate Samuel and send Saul a message. And why was the witch so suprised at the sight of Samuel? I'm sure she was used to doing this all the time, unless of course this was not a deceiving spirit that she was dealing with. Anyway, I still have lots of study to do but I feel that the overall view of death in the New Testament is different from what I had been raised to believe. The one thing that soul sleep did in my life was to cause me anxiety over being separated at death from Jesus. Now I understand when it is said that "nothing" will separate us from the love of God, even death. I was grateful for the reassurance that we will never be away from him not in life or in death. Soul sleep does make the investigative judgement work, first of all, it keeps all the people throughout history in the grave so they can be judged by God when their name comes up in the IJ (which of course we never know when that might be). Then it makes sure that no one gets to be with God until they have proven beyond a doubt that they have been found worthy, which of course takes a lifetime of worry, anxiety and lack of assurance. At this point in my humble opinion (and it is definately humble because I am not an expert in this area at all) I don't believe that Soul Sleep is biblical. | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 14859 Registered: 12-2003 |
Iamfree, what a wonderful post! I completely agree with you. In fact, I have come to believe that the Adventist (and JW, I might add) belief that humans have only their breath for spirit is the underlying heresy that shapes the entire Adventist worldview. This misunderstanding alters the nature not only of man but also of sin (making it physical/genetic instead of spiritual death), of salvation (making it about eliminating sinful behaviors and incorporating right-doing), and most importantly, the nature of Christ, making Him fallible and spirit-less, removing his innate LIFE by making him body plus breath just like we are. This view would mean Jesus' sinlessness was about AVOIDING sinful behavior, overcoming genetic predispositions he had inherited from Mary. This view would mean He BECAME our Savior by succeeding in being perfectly obedient. Scripture, however, states that He is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the earth, and He came because He IS our Savior...and Creator and Sustainer. He did not cease to exist at death; He wasn't non-existent during that Sabbath when His body was in the tomb. His spirit was in paradise with the Father. All reality looks different when we realize we have spirits that survive the body. Colleen | ||
| Islander Registered user Username: Islander Post Number: 12 Registered: 4-2014 |
This post is just sort of on this topic but I don't want to start a new thread. Have any of you been to SDA funerals? Don't you agree they are about the most depressing ordeals to go through? The only funeral I have ever attended that was more of a downer was a JW funeral. | ||
| Mjcmcook Registered user Username: Mjcmcook Post Number: 1486 Registered: 2-2011  |
Yes~ I have attended adventist funerals~ They are heart-breaking on so many levels. No assurance of salvation is terrible~no peace. ~mj~ | ||
| Asurprise Registered user Username: Asurprise Post Number: 3423 Registered: 7-2007 |
The thing I don't get is how Adventist pastors can be honest and yet have studied the Greek that all pastors have to study. First of all, the word "spirit" is "pneuma." Second, Ellen White said that the Holy Spirit is a Person, (not some "force.") Third, both the Holy Spirit and man's spirit are "pneuma" in the Greek. (I took a beginning Greek class and was astonished to learn this.) Yet, Adventists preach that "spirit" is simply "air" and use the word "pneuma" (and words like pneumatic and pneumonia to make their point.) But by their definition, 1st Corinthians 2:11 would have to read: "For who knows a person's thoughts except the breath of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Breath of God." Or are Adventist pastors not deceived, but are really dishonest? | ||
| Islander Registered user Username: Islander Post Number: 13 Registered: 4-2014 |
My semi-SDA mother explained to me The Holy Spirit is God's spitit as only God is holy thus only he has a holy spitit. Therefore no person can be privy to The Holy Spirit until after the resurrection and we are in the presence of The Holy Spirit. Clear as mud? I also was taught we can use the word "trinity" if we want but really God is like a family. Being an only child made it easy for my mother to explain this to me. She told me God the Father is like my daddy, the head honcho of our family, the boss and follow his lead and because he loves us so much we can be sure his leading is in our best interest. My mom was like Jesus. There to show me how best to follow Daddys rules, etc. and I the child came along later as the Holy Spirit did at Penticost. Thank The Good Lord that my parents let me go to Sunday School with my Lutheran cousins. | ||
| Resjudicata Registered user Username: Resjudicata Post Number: 109 Registered: 4-2014 |
"I also was taught we can use the word "trinity" if we want but really God is like a family." That is absolutely NOT what the Trinity means. It is totally outrageous that Adventism thinks it can take a theological term, define in their own way, get the persistent cult-hunters off their back, and then pretend like they are orthodox Christians. In order to deceive biblically and historically illiterate Christians into thinking Adventism is not a cult. "Historic" and "Last Generation Theology" Adventism could not be more clearly a cult. Adventism is rampant with members who believe in a clearly Arian view of Christology. The Trinity means what Christianity says it means, and what it has meant since 325 AD. If Adventism teaches that the Trinity is "like a family," then they need to remove their Fundamental Doctrine that states they believe in the Trinity, because they do not. What they believe in is more honestly "Tri-theism." | ||
| Flyinglady Registered user Username: Flyinglady Post Number: 10148 Registered: 3-2004  |
I was also taught the same thing about the human family being representative of the Trinity. What trash!! It is blasphemy! Diana | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 14862 Registered: 12-2003 |
Totally agree! Colleen | ||
| Leifl Registered user Username: Leifl Post Number: 34 Registered: 3-2014  |
Here is a good article about the intermediate state: http://bereanmind.blogspot.ca/2010/09/state-of-dead-bible-study-part-i.html | ||
| Leifl Registered user Username: Leifl Post Number: 35 Registered: 3-2014 |
There are ways that the human family does resemble the Godhead. Thus the common use of "Father" and "Son" in Scripture - these express intrinsic differences of personality within the Trinity. There is an order of authority, but equality of divine nature. This has always been clearly expressed in the creeds, starting with the Nicene creed. I'm afraid that the often expressed modern concept of the Trinity have been influenced by the feminist movement, where equality=having identical roles in a relationship. The Greek fathers had no such concept. Again, I refer to the Nicene creed; for those unfamiliar with it, read it carefully. |
