Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: tp0x+@andrew.cmu.edu (Thomas Carl Price) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: invoking saints (Re: 'Veneration of the 'Saints'') Message-ID: Date: 6 Aug 90 00:31:53 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 36 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu The dead are asleep in the ground? Do ye not therefore, err, not understanding the Scriptures, nor the power of God? ...And, as concerning the dead that they rise again, have you not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spoke to him, saying: I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Issac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You therefore do greatly err. Mk 12:24, 26-27 Is Christ not the Vine and we the branches? [Jn 15:1-8] Is this such a tenuous relationship that dead cuts it off? _______________________________________________________________________ Who said anything about cutting off the relationship? Heb 11:39,40 speaks of the saints of old not yet recieving the promises -- which, if you recall, included bodily inheritance of the earth. Obviously the promises are inseparable from the Second Coming. The bit you quoted about God being the God of the living was a case of Christ proving the *resurrection* of the dead, and *not* any immortality of their souls. (Show me the phrase "immortal soul" anywhere in the Bible) What about 1 Thessalonians 5:13-18 ? Those who are asleep are to be raised in the resurrection at the return of Christ -- ALL AT ONCE (Dan 12:2). Paul in 1 Thess 5 is comforting the brethren who are concerned about the state of the dead. If they were in heavenly bliss he would undoubtedly have mentioned that. BUT HE DIDN'T. You still wonder what the significance of Christ's words about God as God of the Living, not of the Dead, was, if Abraham & sons are asleep in the ground awaiting the resurrection. May I remind you all of Romans 4:17 -- God speaks of those things which are not (yet) as though they were? Abraham and the other fathers of Israel are as good as alive because they will be raised again. They have to be, in order to bodily inherit the land that they have not yet -- Gen 15:7 . Again, this is the significance of the second coming. TP