My opponent’s response to my first affirmative reminds me of contestants on “The Family Feud”. One family member gives an incredibly ridiculous answer to the poll and the other family members will be jumping up and down and clapping and yelling, “Good Answer, Good Answer”, while everyone else in America are shaking their head and saying, “What is that all about?”
I’m going to state my affirmative arguments again and this time I’ll be more to the point. In the passages below I want my opponent to tell us if they are figurative or literal. I don’t want him to explain them away using Old Testament scriptures. If he will just identify these few passages as literal or figurative, I will gladly fly to Israel with him and let him show me the sights.
I want him, just for right now, to look at these passages, just in their immediate context and tell us whether each one is literal or figurative. I don’t want him to talk about the dilemmas of futurist and our preconceived ideas and the millions of our shortcomings. I just want him to tell us up front whether each one of the passages below is figurative or literal. After we get his answers on just that one point, then we can go wherever he wants to take us.
I don’t want him to talk about grammar, syntax or income tax. I don’t want him to talk about our mixed up paradigms, mistakes, blunders and misunderstandings. I just want him to look at these passages and just tell us if they are literal or figurative. These are the passages below:
Acts 1:9 “And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.
10 And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel;
11 Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go.”
Are these three verses literal or figurative? If he says they are figurative, I want him to please tell us what word or phrase, in these verses, forces him to make them symbolic of something else.
I Thessalonians 4:15 “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.
16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”
Are these three verses literal or figurative? If he says they are figurative, I want him to please tell us what word or phrase, in these verses, forces him to make them symbolic of something else.
John 5:28 Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice,
29 And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.
Are these two verses literal or figurative? If he says they are figurative, I want him to please tell us what word or phrase, in these verses, forces him to make them symbolic of something else.
II Thessalonians 1:7 “And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels,
8 In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:
9 Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power;”
Are these three verses literal or figurative? If he says they are figurative, I want him to please tell us what word or phrase, in these verses, forces him to make them symbolic of something else.
II Peter 3:10 “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.
11 ¶ Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,
12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?”
Are these three verses literal or figurative? If he says they are figurative, we want him to please tell us what word or phrase, in these verses, forces him to make them symbolic of something else.
The reason that I put so much emphasis on this one point and put so much pressure on my opponent is because he has broken a primary rule of properly understanding the Bible and he can’t see it…or maybe he can see it and is trying to run from it. The rule he has broken is this: YOU MUST TAKE A PASSAGE LITERALLY UNLESS THE CONTEXT FORBIDS IT. You cannot take a figurative passage and build a doctrine on it. You cannot take a figurative passage over a literal passage.
I already know that he won’t comply; he really can’t comply with this request. Actually it is possible for him to comply, but he cannot comply AND hang on to his false teaching. He knows where these admissions will take him. His hippopotamus is cooked either way he goes. If he answers one way, then the rest of his doctrine falls apart and there will be a mass suicide of straw men. If he answers the opposite way, then his deceit and foolishness is going to be made apparent to us all; it already is to most of us. This is what the Apostle Paul says about those in my opponent’s position:
II Timothy 3:7 “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
8 Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.
9 But they shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men, as theirs also was.” (Emphasis Mine)
This is my opponent’s life in the pickle barrel. There is no way out for him. If he answers one way, he admits to being dishonest and deceitful. If he answers the other way, then he is going to be kicked out of the Preterist camp. Spiritually speaking, he is going to be living in a refrigerator box under a bridge in Limbo Land, unless he has the courage and humility to admit the truth and repent of teaching a man made doctrine.
I want all those who are following this debate to know right now; he will not answer whether or not they are figurative or literal. He won’t do it! Instead of saying, “These three verses are ‘literal’ or ‘figurative’ ’’, he’s going to take us back to Old Covenant Israel, or Rachel’s tent or Shadrach’s living room, and attempt to explain away the simplicity of the question. Roy, we don’t want to follow you around the walls of Jericho fifty times while you blow your trumpet, we just want you to answer the question.
Now I am going to deal with his six questions:
My three questions for Patrick:
1) Were baptized believers (Christians) on Pentecost and there afterwards considered to be, and called "sons of God."
Pat’s answer: Yes.
2) If Paul's doctrine of the resurrection at the day of the Lord coming like a thief in the night was what you have espoused in your Affirmative, tell me how the false teachers/apostles such as Hymenaeus and Philetus were successful in convincing "some" that the resurrection had already passed, and the day of the Lord had already arrived? (2Thess.2:2; 2Tim.2:4ff and 17f)
Pat’s answer: The same way that YOU do it today. You are committing the very same sin as they did. You have been doing a lot of babbling and are profaning everything that is Holy. You are also striving about words to no profit and subverting the hearers. In fact, it’s the very same false doctrine that they were guilty of in the first century. Those “some”, mentioned by Paul, those who had been tricked by Hymenaus and Philetus were gullible, naïve and unstudied Bible students. Do you ever stop to think about these questions before you write them down?
Does the fact that someone teaches a false doctrine and someone else believes it, demand that the false doctrine has its roots in truth? That is what your question implies. They were deceived per your quote of II Thessalonians 2:1-3 (my addition, Pat) and if you would look at the few verses before II Timothy 2:17, you will see that Paul is saying that Hymenaus and Philetus were profane and vain babblers whose words were like gangrene. I suppose this would be the short answer to your question. Why don’t you read II Peter 2:1-3 and ask that question again? Error is not truth; I would have thought you knew that.
3) Since Holy Spirit knew the Divinely appointed time of the second coming, the resurrection, and the judgment, why did He use the language of imminence (soon, near, at hand, shortly, quickly, etc.) if these events were not near and not soon to take place?
Pat’s answer: The Holy Spirit doesn’t know when the second coming will occur. Matthew 24:36 teaches that only the Father knows. You assume that He knows, but you can’t find any proof for your assertion.
2Pe 3:4 “…Where is the promise of his coming?...”
2Pe 3:5 “…For this they willingly are ignorant of,…”
2Pe 3:8 ¶ “But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”
To an eternal spirit being, 2000 years is nothing. Preterist and the JWs are willingly ignorant about that fact. The Psalmist says of God:
Ps 90:4 For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.
Ps 50:10 For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.
God is not on our timetable. He’s not wearing a watch on His arm that has been synchronized with ours. He doesn’t mark days off a Calendar. He is eternal, and if He says something is imminent, are we going to use His timetable or someone who is alive in 2020? No one has the right to decide how much time is going to pass or how long or short a coming event is. God is not interested in our thoughts for something to be imminent to us.
I ask my worthy opponent how many hours, days, weeks or years is required to pass for an event to be imminent in the eyes of God? We want you to give us an answer. What do you say Roy? What is your number? And what about those cows on hill 1,001? Who do they belong to?
Pat continues: Roy’s questions from his first affirmative: I did answer questions 2&3; you didn’t like my answers but I answered them. However; I will admit that I didn’t answer question 1; I wasn’t trying to avoid it, but it is true, I didn’t answer it. I am sorry about that, so let me answer it now.
Roy’s first question for me in the previous round:
1) Were the children/sons of the kingdom cast out in the first century?
Pat’s reply: No
My questions for my opponent:
1. Are the passages of Acts 1:9-11; I Thessalonians 4:13-18; II Thessalonians 1:5-9 and II Peter 3:9-12 literal or figurative?
2. If you classify them as figurative, what makes them so? What word or phrase in the passages causes them to be symbolic of something else?
3) If you have an “undeniable figurative passage” and it’s not in harmony with an undeniable Literal passage, which one trumps over the other one. Which are you going to take first and build on; the figurative or the literal?
Roy asks: “…Was Jesus, Peter or Paul wrong for shoving an OT passage in there…”
Pat replies: No; they didn’t have to shove. They were inspired.
Roy asks: “,,,the OT passage is inherent in the context.
Pat replies: “Wwwwhhhhaaattt? No it is not.
Roy writes: “…Patrick, show me what NT passage Jesus was quoting?...)
Pat replies: It’s not mandatory for the Son of God to quote Old Testament prophecy to make His own Prophecy. You show me what Old Testament prophecy He was quoting when He was instituting the Lord’s Supper. When Jesus turned the water into wine, what Old Testament prophecy was He fulfilling? What is Jesus talking about when He says, “You have heard it said by them of old time…, but I say unto you.”
What did God mean, when He said at the transfiguration, “Hear ye Him…” Matthew 17, who was God telling them not to listen to?
Pat continues: Roy, a lot of your diatribe in most of your questions is a misunderstanding of just how Powerful God is. CHRIST DID NOT HAVE TO HAVE A PROPHECY BEHIND EVERYTHING HE SAID! Wow. I wish you could wrap your mind around that. I’m going to answer a lot of your questions with this passage:
Hebrews 1:1 ¶ God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
2 Hath IN THESE LAST DAYS SPOKEN UNTO US BY HIS SON, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; (Emphasis is mine)
Pat sums up: I don’t know why you keep screaming, “SHOW ME IN THE SCRIPTURES WHICH PROPHECY JESUS WAS QUOTING…” He didn’t have to quote from anyone. He was a prophet. He is the Word. Why can’t you see that? What if I screamed at you in every one of our exchanges, “SHOW ME IN THE SCRIPTURES WHERE THE GIRAFFES WEREN’T THE FIRST ANIMALS ON THE ARK...”
Christ and the apostles were inspired, II Timothy 3:16-17, They did not have to refer back to Daniel 12 for everything they said or did,
Roy told Pat: You ignore the flow of the text in Acts 1:9-11:
Pat replies: I’m not going to repeat what Roy wrote about these verses in his first negative. I tried, but my computer started smoking and kept repeating, ERROR, ERROR, ERROR…so to save my computer, and my sanity, I will just refer you back to his comments under the above heading. Get your abacus out and a slide rule and take some aspirin before you delve into it.
Pat continues to reply to this nonsense: Roy, I am so glad you wrote those last 8 paragraphs, because if I told someone that you said them, they wouldn’t believe me. Since they are in print, now the whole world can see your desperation, folly and bias. These are the most ridiculous statements I’ve ever read. What did you use for a commentary, “THE CAT IN THE HAT”, by Dr. Seuss? According to Roy Runyon, these verses are now saying just the opposite of what they say. Roy, since you know how long “imminence” is; tell us how high Christ had ascended before the clouds obscured Him from view. Give me a number to work with.
Roy asks this question: “…The Jews trusted in Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, etc., as being their fathers. Did Jesus just arbitrarily make up stuff during His ministry that was not in their foundational data base of Moses and the prophets?...”
Pat replies: What in the world is a “foundational data base of Moses and the prophets?” And NO, Jesus did not arbitrarily do anything. He didn’t have to make stuff up. He is THE WORD.
Roy writes this: “…Observe the same literary pattern in John 5:25ff, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, AND NOW IS, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall LIVE. For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself; And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice... Patrick, what do you call it when the dead LIVE? Is that not resurrection? Did Jesus not clearly say the hour is coming AND NOW IS for the dead to live? Isn’t that resurrection? Just because you presuppose “the RJUJ” to be literal-physical-visible in our future is not proof!...” (All emphases are Roy’s)
Pat replies: In fairness to Roy, I want to state that he wrote a lot more on John 5 which I did not present here. I would encourage all to go back and read it, in its entirety. I don’t have enough words left to answer this question and do it justice. However; God willing, I will spend a lot of time and words on answering this question. I would urge my opponent to go back and read the passage again and consider the context, but this time start in John 5:24ff instead of John 5:25ff.