Christendom Astray
Lecture 7
By Robert Roberts
The Devil Not A Personal Super-Natural Being,
But The Scriptural Personification of Sin
In Its Manifestations Among Men
IN THE religion of Christendom, the devil figures almost more prominently than God. If we have found Christendom astray as to the nature of man, it will not be wonderful if we find it astray on the subject of the devil, with which, scripturally, man has so much to do.
The theology of Christendom places the devil in juxtaposition with God. As the one is presented for worship as the source and embodiment of all good, so the other is held up for detestation and dread, as the instigator and promoter of all evil.
Practically, the one is regarded in the light of the good God, and the other as the bad god. It is the polytheism of paganism in its smallest form: and the philosophy of the ancients embodied in names and forms supplied by the Bible.
Practically, the one is regarded in the light of the good God, and the other as the bad god. It is the polytheism of paganism in its smallest form: and the philosophy of the ancients embodied in names and forms supplied by the Bible.
cont. > http://www.tlcecclesia.org/id92.htm
Read also > Satan or the devil
Read also > Satan or the devil
SINCE it is said in the Bible that Christ came to destroy the devil and his works, the answer must be "Yes": but what is the devil to be destroyed? He cannot be the fiend of old-fashioned theology, or the spirit of evil which has come vaguely to take the place of this mythical being in modern ideas. Could any kind of superhuman being be destroyed by the dying of Jesus? Yet it is said that Christ shared human nature for the
ReplyDeletevery purpose that "through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil" (Heb. 2:14).
It is also written: "For this purpose was the Son of God manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil" (1 John 3:8). These passages should make two facts clear: (1) That the subject is vital to any understanding of the work of Christ; and (2) that they cannot be reconciled with traditional ideas.
> http://bibletruthalive.org/showthread.php?tid=26
Where Is Hell?
ReplyDeleteLITTLE is heard today -- unless it be in derision -- of the old notion that hell is a place of fiery torment somewhere below the earth. There has been a revolt from the horrible doctrine that suffering without end is a just retribution for the sins of a few years of mortal life. This has partly resulted from a state of feeling which makes light of sin; but while we would repudiate any tendency to belittle sin, we would heartily agree that the doctrine of eternal torment cannot be reconciled with the belief in a righteous and loving God. Punishment for sin there must be; but it is a punishment consistent with God's character.
The tragedy is that this doctrine, which has been such a stumbling block to religion, need never have arisen if men had confined their ideas to what the Bible teaches about hell.
Today we are likely to be told that "hell" is not a place but a state of mind, or the "consciousness of alienation from God". This idea, like the other, has no warrant in Scripture.
> http://bibletruthalive.org/showthread.php?tid=27
Read also: http://sites.google.com/site/belgianchristadelphians/sheolorthegrave & http://sites.google.com/site/belgianchristadelphians/hellfire