Revelations won wrote:
Dear ttruscott,
I would agree with you regarding “
let the wheat and the tares grow together until the harvest�, but I am not certain as to your definition as to who comprises each.
By way of clarification, I will state that all those disembodied spirits in heaven were children of God our Father.
This realm of our pre-earth existence as spirit children of God is also known as “our first estate�. In that realm God had given us an eternal principle of “agency� as an essential to our eternal progress. As I see it, only by the free exercise of this principle of agency could we as free agents achieve our greatest failure or our greatest success in heaven and during our mortal probation or tests during mortality.
Lucifer rebelled against our Heavenly Fathers foreordained plan of salvation and sought the power and glory of God with a plan to deprive man of the power of agency to promote his own devised plan by use of force.
So we have all people created with a free will as their first estate yet then Satan rebels against our 'foreordained plan of salvation'.... Why would we need a plan of salvation if no one has sinned? What skin off Satan's nose is it if there is a plan to save some sinners? Why is Satan not within that plan as noted by him being sent to the lake of fire?? Why have you not included any scripture support?
I answer such thoughts this way:
Once we grew to maturity (no one sinned by mistake) we heard the gospel which was YHWH's claim to be our GOD and HIS offer of salvation as found in HIS Son if we should ever sin. The support verse is
Colossians 1:23...if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant. The verb
'has been proclaimed' is a past finished action that is repeated in the present and the future. Since this proclamation has never been a finished action on earth, it is necessary to accept that it was finished as a proclamation to every creature under heaven before the creation of the physical universe.
In short, hearing these claims of the gospel resulted in some accepting them and these people became the people of the kingdom, HIS elect, and some rejecting HIM as a liar and a false god who thereby became the people of the evil one, the Satanic angels / demons. This is the Satanic fall by the unforgivable sin and they were condemned on the spot,
Jn 3:18, condemned already as outside of HIS promise of salvation and if free will means anything, then it is sacrosanct against the will of GOD who might not like the decision.
I contend that Satan had a real reason that impacted his own status to reject YHWH's claims. His pride refused to let him accept another superior to him. There is nothing in the gospel that hints at the promise of our salvation causing anyone to sin...<shrug>
But we all know the effects upon anyone who rejects the gospel!!!
This doctrine sounds like a fill in measure to make a theology work but there are no reason to accept it at all.
He and his followers in a spirit of open rebellion against the divine plan were cast out of heaven, failing by their own determination and evil use of the power of agency, whereby they were denied or forfeited their opportunity to progress to their second estate wherein they could never receive a physical body.
Well yes, they were
thrown to the earth but they also
flung down 1/3 of the angels... The word
flung of
Rev 12:4 His tail swept a third of the stars from the sky, tossing, FLUNG / CASTING them to the earth. is
flung, cast: 906 he cast
and in
Revelation 12:9 The great dragon was HURLED down--that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was HURLED to the earth, and his angels with him. hurled: 906 [e] he was hurled down and 906 [e]
was hurled to, the same casting down with violence that he had subjected others to with his tail...
Rev 12:4 and
12:9 give two instances of some people being flung, tossed or cast to the earth. The word contains thoughts of violence and roughness.
v 9 says the dragon himself and his angels were thrown down into the earth which we all accept but
v 4 claims that Satan also threw down some people to the earth, 1/3 of the angels...?
So...who were these angels who were thrown down by Satan's power? Were they his demonic angels? No, they went with him in
v9. So who were they? The fact that he was in a war with Michael and all the holy angels means that he would need all his demons to fight for him which means it is unlikely he threw any of his cohorts down to the earth with violence. Therefore I suggest that these people thrown down to the earth by Satan describes the sinful elect who idolized him and his demonic angels out of love and friendship for them so as to forestall and postpone the judgment and by siding with him against GOD. They too were sent to Sheol in the Earth to await their birth and their redemption as human.
The Satanic thrown to the earth are the people of the evil one sown into the world by the devil. The sinful but good seed are GOD's sinful (under Satan's sway) elect who are the people of the kingdom, sown into the world by the Son of Man...check
Matt 13:36-39, the explanation of the parable with no metaphor, no hyperbole and only straight forward doctrine.
PCE Theology as I see it...
We had an existence with a free will in Sheol before the creation of the physical universe. Here we chose to be able to become holy or to be eternally evil in YHWH's sight. Then the physical universe was created and all sinners were sent to earth.
This theology debunks the need to base Christianity upon the blasphemy of creating us in Adam's sin.