Greetings,

This seems like an afterlife topic to me. 

If you take out the word 'simultaneously' from the first paragraph, the rest sounds like what NDE's and afterlife discarnate explorers have 'sampled.'  Perhaps the simultaneous arising is for folks who like to do things together, rather than  to explore more freely -- Like a tour busload as compared to a hiker? 

Then that second paragraph contains and /or infers the "development' of ideas. I'm suspicious when I see that word. It seems to mean that God's word is being tampered with. Usually when that happens I don't pay attention to it.

Bets

recoverer wrote on Feb 5^th, 2008 at 2:01pm:



  Hey, what are talking about, a very Rapturous event DID happen in 1980...  I was born!



  On a more serious note (D minor?), the beginning of the physical, astronomically measurable Winter Solstice Sun Galactic Center alignment started in that year, which is a pretty big deal in regards to the Changes.    But yeah, i get the point that nothing immediately world changing happened in that year, as in the whole Christian Rapture thing. 

Alan,

A Bible teacher in our community asked me about your topic and I gave him a book by a respected Bible scholar, "Robert Jewett, "Jesus Against the Rapture."  The Bible teacher found Jewett's refutation compelling.  It doesn't seem appropriate to engage in a lengthy Bible study on this issue.  So I will simply offer 4 relevant facts for your consideration.

(1) The book of Revelation envisages a "new earth" without a sea after our earth 'has passed away (21:1)."  This "new earth" is probably a spiritual plane in Focus 27, not a physical replacement for our earth.  If so, Jesus' "coming" can occur for each of us after our death.

(2) The bibilical image of the "last trumpet" is usually construed as an event that happens above our earth at the end of the age.  But it could just as easily be a signal that is heard by the deceased who are about to encounter the glory of Christ's presence.  Robert Monroe didn't even believe in Christ; yet he repeatedly witnessed an awesome "Son of God" figure visit various spirit planes with musical fanfare.  All the denizens of those planes, including Monroe,  always lay in "belly up" reverence for Christ (my identification of this figure) as He passed through to retrieve some soul.  In my view, this often repeated phenomenon might be the true meaning of the so-called "rapture."  in 1 Peter 3:18-19 and 4:6, Peter tells us that Christ engages in such retrieval visits to "the spirits in prison" [= heelsih planes].

(3) The doctrine of the 2nd coming of Christ is originally based on Daniel's vision of "one like a Son of Man" coming on "the clouds (Daniel 7:13-14)."  But in the poetry of this vision, the "clouds" are not earthly clouds; they are a poetic magic carpet that carries this lofty figure up to God's presence.  The Son of Man figure receives the kingdom of God in heaven and never comes to this earth to retrieve the saints!  Many conservative Chrstians have overlooked this detail. 

(4) As Paul experiences progressive revelation, he gradually realizes that we survive fully conscious at death and initially ideally go to Paradise.  In the early stages after his conversion, Paul still embrace the traditional Jewish view that the body and soul are inseparable and we cannot survive death without a bodily resurrection.  When he abandons this view, he also abandons the need for a 2nd coming of Christ that only transpires at the end of the age.  Thus, what remains is the neglected implication that Christ comes for us (as the Being of Light?) soon after death.

Don