(September 18, 2013 at 1:03 am)max-greece Wrote:(September 17, 2013 at 10:57 am)Godschild Wrote:
Matthew 16:24-28 are the verses that go together, Jesus is describing salvation which brings people into the Kingdom. Without the people there would be no Kingdom, an empty Kingdom is no Kingdom at all. The people are the church and the Kingdom is the church ie. the people.
GC
These are the verses you mentioned:
24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life[a] will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.
28 “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.”
Now I know you guys are much better at this than me but it would appear to me that Jesus is saying that he will return (with his angels) and do the rewarding - as in down here on earth, personally,
I'd say the context supports my interpretation more than this referring to the establishment of the Church.
Late Edit:
I just want to try to illustrate what I am saying a bit better here:
To me this says Jesus was expecting to return (end of the world type stuff) within the lifetime of the disciples and that didn't happen.
Imagine the Church was never set up. Would you read it as "Bugger me - there was supposed to be a Church!"
It seems to me that you are equating what was predicted with what actually happened and then making the tenuous link merely to keep consistency even though it really doesn't seem to fit properly.
As we have discussed before I'm not one who lives by nor attain truths by suppose, suppose did not happen so let's take it as it is.
I went and studied these verses and the same in both Mark 8:31-9:1 and Luke 9:21-27. This is what I've been trying to get across when I've said the scriptures need to be studied to find the reality within them, I was guilty of not taking my own advise in this case.
The verses you put in bold and the same in Mark and Luke are about Christ's return in the future. However the last verse in all three passages of each book is speaking of the resurrection and ascension. Like I said before, the Kingdom is the church, this is why some would not see death before it came into it's power. The church grew rapidly after the Pentecost, the receiving of the Holy Spirit. Christ had to rise from the grave before the church, Kingdom, could begin, this is what Christ meant in the last verses of each passage, He would rise into His Kingdom.
Matthew 24:36 Christ says"However, no one knows the day or the hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows. This is probably after His statement in Matthew 16, Mark 8 and Luke 9, but whether it's before or after Christ would not contradict what He said. And for those who believe the writers made an error, well IMO they couldn't be that dumb, remember these passages were translated many times don't you think people would have noticed such mistakes if they occurred.
GC
God loves those who believe and those who do not and the same goes for me, you have no choice in this matter. That puts the matter of total free will to rest.