The word "return" is not used in the KJV in association with Christ's second coming
Well first of all I'd strike out the word "second" in this sentence regarding Christ. And secondly the word "return" where it is used regarding Christ coming is correctly used. But it is used in parables. A bigger ball game so to speak. And much depends on how open a person is to letting God show the interpretation of it.
I hadn't thought about the word "second" at all. Thanks for the tip.
I've been thinking through and re-thinking Christ's next coming, the Gathering Together, the Return, and other related nomenclature from as many angles as possible. I'm also re-examining all my mind pictures regarding our hope.
We were taught much about how people 2000 years ago were seriously sidetracked by erroneous expectations and/or mind pictures, not only regarding his coming but in many other areas too. We were taught how easy it was to lean on error filled tradition and how many people do it. But how many of us ever thought it could happen to us too?
In many debates with trinitarians I often wondered how I'd fare if I were in their shoes. I could see that they usually would depart from all logic and reason when the great discomfort of walking away from their cherished beliefs was presented to them from the scriptures. I often would ask myself if I could expect that from them, not knowing how I'd react. Well, the time finally came when I had to face many of my own cherished errors, and after many years I now am in the habit of challenging myself on things like this.
Whether we call it return, or second coming, or gathering together, or whatever, thinking this subject through from top to bottom is now a high priority of mine. And yes, of course, it has a lot to do with the why's and wherefore's behind Dr's often instructing us to master written PFAL. And yes, that's why I took the time to post on it. I think you all knew that anyway.
I expect you think this a one time event for all and for all at once. If you would take the time to go back to even 10 of my posts you might see that I think differently.
There are many phrases that are not biblically based concerning the coming of Christ.
Nevertheless a doctrinal study of the subject will only add tips as you so well put it.
It is a matter of the heart really wanting to see it. And the courage to be selfless, fearless and spread the wings of the Spirit of God that was never lost from the beginning.
For Christ is that Spirit and has never been separated from God ever.
And so the old testament prophets had the Spirit of Christ as Peter says. But the fullness of the Spirit is a new testament built upon the old.
Yes the fullness of it brought back by the act of a selfless man who loved and loved not his own life all the way to the death of the cross.
The significance of this is beyond what normal human language can express....
And it seems as though you are searching.
May God direct your path into his Love and Holiness.
It is a different understanding and there is change involved. Some things will be solidified, others will melt away.
Perhaps "The Return of Christ" is a misnomer, as Christ is very real and present both in body and in spirit. Perhaps what they mean is "The Appearance of the Lord". But as to how the Lord will appear is uncertain, and could very well be anything but what we expect it to be.
CK,
Check out Matthew 24 and 26.
"At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory."
All the nations! And this includes....yes...the good ol' U.S.A.
Make no mistake about it, the lady will fall someday, and it will happen before any Christ returns. (Keep watching CNN, MSNBC, etc. 9/11/01 is only a wakeup call!!!!)
Back to the original point of this thread: "Awaiting the Return" is indeed Way-Speak. And, Raf, I actually appreciate what you said about this being nit-picky. You're right. In fact, your comments motivate me to work on not letting mere words make me so angry. You see, Way jargon is a sort of Trigger Point for me, another reminder of TWI, which jolts me out of my relatively peaceful lifestyle, and re-locates my thoughts back to the Way. My counselor calls it PTSD. I'll get over it.
Still, I believe so much of TWI doctrine omitted information about Jesus Christ, and the phrase "Awaiting the Return" is one example. The return of whom? I could give so many examples.
I was reading in Matthew today, the chapter containing the Lord's Prayer, and in the margins of my Bible I have notes that I wrote years ago, claiming that the prayer no longer applies, because it is Old Testament, that we don't need to "forgive our debtors" in order to be forgiven, because we are already forgiven, and so forth. Leave out Jesus / reject the Lord's prayer.
LCM wrote that book about Acts, and VPW focused so much on the epistles. Did any of you ever take a TWI class or read a book about the gospels? JCOPS referred to the gospels a lot, but the flavor of that book seemed to be a condemnation of modern day Christmas, yet another nudge to avoid Christ.
Oh well, whatever, lots of directions this thread could go in. But, Mike, try to not talk about yourself, OK? This is the "Doctrinal" section. And Raf, be nice. Love you guys. -X
The word "return" is not used in the KJV in association with Christ's second coming. It's totally Wayspeak. It might also be used by other ministries, but not the KJV.
"The Rapture" I believe is the term most frequently and typically used by other ministries. The word: "Rapture" is certainly not in the KJV, but there is a logical explanation for the usage of "Return" when speaking of the second coming of Jesus Christ.
The use of "Return" was introduced in ATDAN when dealing with the subject: "Is Death a Gain" (p29-35). On p35 of ATDAN the word that is used in II Timothy 4:6 for "departure" is the Greek noun analusis and it means "returning" ... the words translated "depart" occur around 130 times in the New Testament ... translated from no less than twenty-two different Greek words. But the word analuo occurs only twice: in one verse it is rendered "depart" (in: Philippians 1:23) and as "return" (in: Luke 12:36) "when he will 'return' from the wedding".
Philippians 1:23 says: (Paul) is in a strait bewtixt two, having a desire to "depart" (analuo - return) and to be with Christ; which is far better:. This is how TWI (I believe) came to refer to someone who is waiting the second coming of Christ as: "Awaiting the Return". Making a case there is more validity for refering to the second coming of Jesus Christ as in: "Awaiting the Return" over using the term: "Rapture" only depends if one prefers the biblical usage of a term over the contemporary use when one is refering to the same event.
I'm no longer a Christian, but I still remember a thing or two about Christian doctrine and the Bible.
It's pretty standard Christian doctrine that the Christian Church and individual Christians, whether alive or dead, await the return of Christ. Using "awaiting the return" to mean "dead" may not be unique to TWI but the only people I've ever known to use that terminology are current or former TWI folk. I can see why it would bother ex-TWI folk both because it's "Wayspeak" and because it really doesn't make much sense. Dead Christians don't await the return of Christ any more or any less than living ones.
Quibbling over the word "return" is another matter. No matter what particular words are used in the Bible, the concept that Christ will return is Biblical. John 14 and Acts 1 are two examples that immediately come to mind. In the first, Jesus foretells that he will go prepare a place for his followers, and come again (return) to receive them. In Acts, Jesus ascends and angels (or two men in white apparel) foretell that he will "so come [return] in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven."
i am assuming someone is going to see this and that they will read this. hoping that my posts are not simply being deleted automatically,which would make the pop up following my last post a lie.
my ability to post seems to have been taken from me.would someone please PM me and explain why? thank you.
You wrote: "Back to the original point of this thread: "Awaiting the Return" is indeed Way-Speak."
I agree, however, with qualifications.
I think WordWolf's initial assessment was fine in that the IDEA of "awaiting the return" is right on with the scriptures. Sure, there's no conscious awareness in such "waiting" but no one ever asserted there was. Inanimate objects can passively wait on the actions of conscious beings, and so can dead people.
I don't believe all Way-Speak was/is bad. I've posted tons here how I see in our TWI past an evil, counterfeit verbal tradition, but not ALL in that spoken set of doctrines was corrupt. A clever counterfeit will have lots of good, otherwise it's too easy to spot as wrong. The TVTs (Twi Verbal Traditions) started out pretty accurate but slowly drifted into many errors as time progressed.
What I was pointing out with the specific word "return" is that the meaning Dr affixed to this word in his teachings is extra-biblical. I believe God gave Dr revelation in his use of the word "return" to explain an aspect of the Gathering Together that we cannot find in the ancient scriptures. It's only in PFAL.
***
In both your initiating post and in your second one you indicated a belief that Jesus Christ was often squeezed out of our consciousness. You mentioned JCPS, but minimized its ability to inspire you. Might I suggest "Jesus Christ Our Passover" as an excellent view of the Gospels and Jesus' life on earth? It's also the case that "Jesus Christ Is Not God" has two long chapters on who he IS.
I know of what you speak when you say that Jesus Christ was avoided in our TWI experience, but I see that this avoidance was totally in the actions of leadership and not in Dr. Wierwille. There are many times when Dr tried to address this void in the ministry, but in his later years much of what Dr said was totally ignored. I have much documentation of his attempts to get us to "turn your eyes upon Jesus" as the song puts it.
I see Jesus Christ in the Epistles of Paul. Paul got his revelations for those epistles from him. When we look at the Epistles we see a greater ministry of Jesus Christ, the one at God's right hand, than we can see in his earthly ministry as depicted by the four gospels.
Yes, Jesus was absent in the minds of leadership, but not in Dr's. He taught us much that we just blew off. I want to set the record straight on this.
Instead of attacking me, or my manner of posting, let's focus on the ideas that are presented, ok?
Why don't you focus on the ideas? Last I checked, your preciousssss was not the thread topic. Your insistence that PFAL is God-breathed and that God showed Wierwille an updated revelation to succeed where the current Bible has failed was not the thread topic. So why don't you focus on the thread topic instead of contaminating every thread you're on with your idolatrous lunacy?
I agree with ya Raf-it is hijacked and since it is, I'll be quite blunt-
Wierwielle was anti Christ
I believe he got a glimpse of some truth
but has since worked against it
using other men's words and his own
to promote his own selfish anti-Christ stand
while there is some truth in pfal-i think even wierwille was so blinded that he didn't even see it himself
Now Christ changes a person sooner or later
In Wierwille's case it was later...
Gathering together-there's more then one way to see it-the coming of Christ is an individual occurence-the gathering will take on new meaning
and not to say anyone else is any better or worse cause we will all see for ourselves the fall of that man of sin within ourselves, and i plan on breaking out the marshmellows with the Lord and watch it burn and believe it or not - transform
Love Always
And God Bless VPW for what good he did do...
Mike-as it says, watch and be ready, cuz you don't know when he is coming
5Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD. 6For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited. 7Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. 8For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. 9The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? 10I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.
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CM
Well first of all I'd strike out the word "second" in this sentence regarding Christ. And secondly the word "return" where it is used regarding Christ coming is correctly used. But it is used in parables. A bigger ball game so to speak. And much depends on how open a person is to letting God show the interpretation of it.
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Mike
CM,
I hadn't thought about the word "second" at all. Thanks for the tip.
I've been thinking through and re-thinking Christ's next coming, the Gathering Together, the Return, and other related nomenclature from as many angles as possible. I'm also re-examining all my mind pictures regarding our hope.
We were taught much about how people 2000 years ago were seriously sidetracked by erroneous expectations and/or mind pictures, not only regarding his coming but in many other areas too. We were taught how easy it was to lean on error filled tradition and how many people do it. But how many of us ever thought it could happen to us too?
In many debates with trinitarians I often wondered how I'd fare if I were in their shoes. I could see that they usually would depart from all logic and reason when the great discomfort of walking away from their cherished beliefs was presented to them from the scriptures. I often would ask myself if I could expect that from them, not knowing how I'd react. Well, the time finally came when I had to face many of my own cherished errors, and after many years I now am in the habit of challenging myself on things like this.
Whether we call it return, or second coming, or gathering together, or whatever, thinking this subject through from top to bottom is now a high priority of mine. And yes, of course, it has a lot to do with the why's and wherefore's behind Dr's often instructing us to master written PFAL. And yes, that's why I took the time to post on it. I think you all knew that anyway.
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CM
I expect you think this a one time event for all and for all at once. If you would take the time to go back to even 10 of my posts you might see that I think differently.
There are many phrases that are not biblically based concerning the coming of Christ.
Nevertheless a doctrinal study of the subject will only add tips as you so well put it.
It is a matter of the heart really wanting to see it. And the courage to be selfless, fearless and spread the wings of the Spirit of God that was never lost from the beginning.
For Christ is that Spirit and has never been separated from God ever.
And so the old testament prophets had the Spirit of Christ as Peter says. But the fullness of the Spirit is a new testament built upon the old.
Yes the fullness of it brought back by the act of a selfless man who loved and loved not his own life all the way to the death of the cross.
The significance of this is beyond what normal human language can express....
And it seems as though you are searching.
May God direct your path into his Love and Holiness.
It is a different understanding and there is change involved. Some things will be solidified, others will melt away.
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CKnapp3
As you can see, I'm awaiting the return of Bugs Bunny
:D--> 
:D-->
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Mike
The reason I yearn to earn crowns is because I learned my Father yearns to give them.
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CKnapp3
All the nations! And this includes....yes...the good ol' U.S.A.
Make no mistake about it, the lady will fall someday, and it will happen before any Christ returns. (Keep watching CNN, MSNBC, etc. 9/11/01 is only a wakeup call!!!!)
Feel free to take this as prophecy
:)-->
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CKnapp3
Good Luck!
:)-->
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Xena
Back to the original point of this thread: "Awaiting the Return" is indeed Way-Speak. And, Raf, I actually appreciate what you said about this being nit-picky. You're right. In fact, your comments motivate me to work on not letting mere words make me so angry. You see, Way jargon is a sort of Trigger Point for me, another reminder of TWI, which jolts me out of my relatively peaceful lifestyle, and re-locates my thoughts back to the Way. My counselor calls it PTSD. I'll get over it.
Still, I believe so much of TWI doctrine omitted information about Jesus Christ, and the phrase "Awaiting the Return" is one example. The return of whom? I could give so many examples.
I was reading in Matthew today, the chapter containing the Lord's Prayer, and in the margins of my Bible I have notes that I wrote years ago, claiming that the prayer no longer applies, because it is Old Testament, that we don't need to "forgive our debtors" in order to be forgiven, because we are already forgiven, and so forth. Leave out Jesus / reject the Lord's prayer.
LCM wrote that book about Acts, and VPW focused so much on the epistles. Did any of you ever take a TWI class or read a book about the gospels? JCOPS referred to the gospels a lot, but the flavor of that book seemed to be a condemnation of modern day Christmas, yet another nudge to avoid Christ.
Oh well, whatever, lots of directions this thread could go in. But, Mike, try to not talk about yourself, OK? This is the "Doctrinal" section. And Raf, be nice. Love you guys. -X
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Raf
Xena,
Thanks for understanding what I was trying to say.
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What The Hay
"The Rapture" I believe is the term most frequently and typically used by other ministries. The word: "Rapture" is certainly not in the KJV, but there is a logical explanation for the usage of "Return" when speaking of the second coming of Jesus Christ.
The use of "Return" was introduced in ATDAN when dealing with the subject: "Is Death a Gain" (p29-35). On p35 of ATDAN the word that is used in II Timothy 4:6 for "departure" is the Greek noun analusis and it means "returning" ... the words translated "depart" occur around 130 times in the New Testament ... translated from no less than twenty-two different Greek words. But the word analuo occurs only twice: in one verse it is rendered "depart" (in: Philippians 1:23) and as "return" (in: Luke 12:36) "when he will 'return' from the wedding".
Philippians 1:23 says: (Paul) is in a strait bewtixt two, having a desire to "depart" (analuo - return) and to be with Christ; which is far better:. This is how TWI (I believe) came to refer to someone who is waiting the second coming of Christ as: "Awaiting the Return". Making a case there is more validity for refering to the second coming of Jesus Christ as in: "Awaiting the Return" over using the term: "Rapture" only depends if one prefers the biblical usage of a term over the contemporary use when one is refering to the same event.
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Raf
The Rapture and the Return are far from synonymous. Christians who do not believe in a Rapture the way we do still speak of the Return of Christ.
And they did so LONG before ATDAN was written.
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def59
Then there's some of us who believe in a pre-wrath Rapture.
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LG
I'm no longer a Christian, but I still remember a thing or two about Christian doctrine and the Bible.
It's pretty standard Christian doctrine that the Christian Church and individual Christians, whether alive or dead, await the return of Christ. Using "awaiting the return" to mean "dead" may not be unique to TWI but the only people I've ever known to use that terminology are current or former TWI folk. I can see why it would bother ex-TWI folk both because it's "Wayspeak" and because it really doesn't make much sense. Dead Christians don't await the return of Christ any more or any less than living ones.
Quibbling over the word "return" is another matter. No matter what particular words are used in the Bible, the concept that Christ will return is Biblical. John 14 and Acts 1 are two examples that immediately come to mind. In the first, Jesus foretells that he will go prepare a place for his followers, and come again (return) to receive them. In Acts, Jesus ascends and angels (or two men in white apparel) foretell that he will "so come [return] in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven."
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think fish
did i inspire this thread?
-->
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think fish
i am assuming someone is going to see this and that they will read this. hoping that my posts are not simply being deleted automatically,which would make the pop up following my last post a lie.
my ability to post seems to have been taken from me.would someone please PM me and explain why? thank you.
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DooWap
Think Fish,
Check your private messages.
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CM
i do like think fish's original post on this subject from another thread
"the return of what"
although he may have meant it differenly
it is a good question
nowhere in the new testament from acts 2 is the "return" mentioned
"even so Lord come" is one powerful statement in John
to fully see and comprehend what has already been done for us and in us will be welcome
sitting there like a baby in the womb like year has said so many times
we each have our insights, to see them and consider is enlightening
people talk about the wrath and vengeance of God...pffft
if you haven't experienced it, then you don't know what you are talking about
i have in part and it'll be different for each person
and i look forward to "even so Lord come"
it is about love and hell and heaven
it would be wise to stay with what we know and then the lights will turn on as we hunger and search imo
all the guessing about what the scriptures mean and say...i believe you will know when it is shown to you by Christ...no need to guess
and it can't be explained to someone else
by doctrinal debates
they will have to see it for themselves
i don't want to bust anyones bubble but
we each have some "reality"
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Mike
Xena,
You wrote: "Back to the original point of this thread: "Awaiting the Return" is indeed Way-Speak."
I agree, however, with qualifications.
I think WordWolf's initial assessment was fine in that the IDEA of "awaiting the return" is right on with the scriptures. Sure, there's no conscious awareness in such "waiting" but no one ever asserted there was. Inanimate objects can passively wait on the actions of conscious beings, and so can dead people.
I don't believe all Way-Speak was/is bad. I've posted tons here how I see in our TWI past an evil, counterfeit verbal tradition, but not ALL in that spoken set of doctrines was corrupt. A clever counterfeit will have lots of good, otherwise it's too easy to spot as wrong. The TVTs (Twi Verbal Traditions) started out pretty accurate but slowly drifted into many errors as time progressed.
What I was pointing out with the specific word "return" is that the meaning Dr affixed to this word in his teachings is extra-biblical. I believe God gave Dr revelation in his use of the word "return" to explain an aspect of the Gathering Together that we cannot find in the ancient scriptures. It's only in PFAL.
***
In both your initiating post and in your second one you indicated a belief that Jesus Christ was often squeezed out of our consciousness. You mentioned JCPS, but minimized its ability to inspire you. Might I suggest "Jesus Christ Our Passover" as an excellent view of the Gospels and Jesus' life on earth? It's also the case that "Jesus Christ Is Not God" has two long chapters on who he IS.
I know of what you speak when you say that Jesus Christ was avoided in our TWI experience, but I see that this avoidance was totally in the actions of leadership and not in Dr. Wierwille. There are many times when Dr tried to address this void in the ministry, but in his later years much of what Dr said was totally ignored. I have much documentation of his attempts to get us to "turn your eyes upon Jesus" as the song puts it.
I see Jesus Christ in the Epistles of Paul. Paul got his revelations for those epistles from him. When we look at the Epistles we see a greater ministry of Jesus Christ, the one at God's right hand, than we can see in his earthly ministry as depicted by the four gospels.
Yes, Jesus was absent in the minds of leadership, but not in Dr's. He taught us much that we just blew off. I want to set the record straight on this.
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Raf
The hijacking has begun.
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Mike
Raf,
Instead of attacking me, or my manner of posting, let's focus on the ideas that are presented, ok?
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GarthP2000
"Take this thread to Cuba!"
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Raf
Why don't you focus on the ideas? Last I checked, your preciousssss was not the thread topic. Your insistence that PFAL is God-breathed and that God showed Wierwille an updated revelation to succeed where the current Bible has failed was not the thread topic. So why don't you focus on the thread topic instead of contaminating every thread you're on with your idolatrous lunacy?
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CM
I agree with ya Raf-it is hijacked and since it is, I'll be quite blunt-
Wierwielle was anti Christ
I believe he got a glimpse of some truth
but has since worked against it
using other men's words and his own
to promote his own selfish anti-Christ stand
while there is some truth in pfal-i think even wierwille was so blinded that he didn't even see it himself
Now Christ changes a person sooner or later
In Wierwille's case it was later...
Gathering together-there's more then one way to see it-the coming of Christ is an individual occurence-the gathering will take on new meaning
and not to say anyone else is any better or worse cause we will all see for ourselves the fall of that man of sin within ourselves, and i plan on breaking out the marshmellows with the Lord and watch it burn and believe it or not - transform
Love Always
And God Bless VPW for what good he did do...
Mike-as it says, watch and be ready, cuz you don't know when he is coming
5Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD. 6For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited. 7Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. 8For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. 9The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? 10I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.
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CM
no watch Mike...
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