Friday, November 27, 2015

Dialogue on Mortality (Secunda Secundae Partis)

Interlocutor:
I'm familiar with Hebrews. It definitely presents the Abrahamic hope, not a new hope:

Heb 11:
39 And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise:
40 God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect. {provided: or, foreseen}

Edgar:
"For the Law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in besides of a BETTER HOPE did, through which we are drawing near to God" (Heb 7:19).

Interlocutor:
Notice that the writer of Hebrews hopes for a renewed Earth:

Heb 10:
22 But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,
23 To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, {written: or, enrolled}
24 And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and
to the blood of
sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of
Abel. {covenant:
or, testament}
25 See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if
they escaped not
who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not
we escape, if we
turn
away from him that speaketh from heaven:
26 Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath
promised, saying,
Yet
once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.
27 And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the
removing of those
things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that
those things which
cannot be shaken may remain. {are shaken: or, may be shaken}
28 Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be
moved, let us have
grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with
reverence and godly
fear: {let.: or, let us hold fast}
29 For our God is a consuming fire.

Edgar:
Could you explain, in a sentence or two, how you extract the idea that the writer of Hebrews looked forward to LIVING on a renewed earth, from the passages you just quoted? Yes he hoped for a new earth. But this fact does not mean that he planned to live on it.

Interlocutor:
Notice that in Revelation the "heavenly Jerusalem" descends from heaven to earth:

Revelation 3:12 Him that overcometh will I make a
pillar in the temple
of
my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write
upon him the name
of
my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is
new Jerusalem,
which
cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will
write upon him my new
name.

Revelation 21:2 And I John saw the holy city, new
Jerusalem, coming
down
from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned
for her husband.

Edgar
:
More reading into texts, my friend. John says nothing about the New Jerusalem (not heavenly Jerusalem) coming down to earth. Since you have such a literalist hermeneutic, please show me explicitly where John said these exact words. You are again reading your own ideas into Scripture instead of extracting meaning from Holy Writ.

Addendum: I have since written that one might infer that New Jerusalem descends to earth, but Revelation 21:1-2 never makes that exact claim. Even if the city descends to earth as my interlocutor suggested, I believe that the descent would be metaphorical.

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