Pam wrote:
2Tim 2:18 "who have wandered away from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some."
I thought that when Paul wrote this book, Christ already resurrected. So why is he saying that it is not the truth? Why does this destroy the faith of others? Is he referring to the 2nd coming? Checked the greek but it didn't enlighten me.
Apparently this is one verse where looking at the original Greek did not yield much result.
ReplyDeleteThe words that came to my mind is "Rapture". I take that to be a hint from the Spirit because yours truly is not that clever nor that imaginative to be able to come up with something like that. However, in this case while studying, just by claiming to hear from God and having a "revelation or enlightenment" will not provide much credibility unless it can be backed up.
So let's do what most scholars will do. One of the various studying method employed by biblical scholars is to let the Bible interprete the bible: through elimination.
First, go through the entire Bible and pick out events of resurrection, then make application to the said context.
There are namely 3 events of resurrection being mentioned.
1) Lazarus' resurrection - obviously this does not make sense in the said context.
2) Jesus' resurrection - obviously the people cannot be stumbled by Jesus' resurrection.
3) The resurrection in the last day. This would fit well to the context in Paul's letter.
At this point, there may be a sort of "yes" in the Spirit.
Some may be satisfied with this and stop here.
If you want to be more gilat, find out where Timothy was when Paul sent this letter. For example, was this sent when Tim was in the church of Corinth or was he still in Ephesus? If Tim is in Corinth, then go through the Corinthian letters Paul wrote to have a better background of the situation and study Acts to find out if there were any incidents that happened when Paul was in Corinth. Vice versa if it Tim was in Ephesus... or any other place, Corinth and Ephesus are just examples here.
Commentaries may help but it is also likely that you may not find useful commentaries. At the same time, different commentaries may agree or disagree because of various views. It takes a bit of relying on the Spirit to discern.
In the absence of available resources, it is also possible that this is an obscure verse in the entire Bible and is not really detrimental if we do not fully understand at this point.
It is good to pursue this study further if one has available resources and time. Be mindful not to lose track of the rhema when one seeks to study deeply the logos.
Here's an example of how the Spirit and how studying the Word systematically can come together.
If such method works for you, by all means. If a more spontaneous method or interaction through fellowship works better, go ahead.
Brother AG answers ...
ReplyDelete>I thought that when Paul wrote this book, Christ already resurrected.
Ans: Yes, that is correct,
>So why is he saying that it is not the truth?
Ans: however, we are not talking about Christ resurrection, but ours..
(Read 1Cor 15:12-56 pay attention to vs23, 51-54, and 1Thess 4:13-17)
>Why does this destroy the faith of others?
Ans: 1 Cor 15, Paul tells us that if we lose the resurrection we have lost everything. The whole of Christian truth rests on whether Jesus was actually bodily raised from the dead -- and as a consequence we too will be raised from the dead -- or not. If we lose that, Paul says, our faith is vain and our preaching is vain (1 Corinthians 15:17); we have no hope beyond the grave.
2Tim 2:18 was a serious deviation from the revelation of the Scripture.
>Is he referring to the 2nd coming?
Ans: I'm sure you can answer this one..
>Checked the greek but it didn't enlighten me.
Ans: The Hebrew and Greek are fantastic for word studies, however, in cases like this, we also need to find out the context (read the whole chapter and maybe the chapters before it), and also the relationship wif other part (books) of scripture.. So commentaries will be more useful here...
Sister PG says ....
ReplyDeleteYour explanation sounds reasonable but I wonder why didn't Paul just say "They say that our/their resurrection has already taken place..."?, rather than "the" resurrection.
Brother AG explains ....
ReplyDeleteGood qns..
Actually some bible translator did use "our" to further clarify that the resurrection is refering to our (ie. resurrection of the dead; which occurs when Christ returns)..
(CEV) by teaching that the dead have already been raised to life. This is far from the truth, and it is destroying the faith of some people.
(CJB) they have missed the mark, as far as the truth is concerned, by saying that our resurrection has already taken place; and they are overturning some people's faith.
(GNB) They have left the way of truth and are upsetting the faith of some believers by saying that our resurrection has already taken place.
(Murdock) who have wandered from the truth, while they say, The resurrection of the dead hath passed: and they subvert the faith of some.
(OJB) Who concerning HaEmes (the Truth) missed the mark, teaching that the Techiyas HaMesim (resurrection of the dead ones) has already occurred. They are overthrowing the emunah (faith) of some.
Also, by deduction, we notice that the heretics here were not denying that there is resurrection; in other words they agree that Christ (the first to resurrect) has resurrected (some heretic totally deny that there is such a thing as resurrection. ie. Christ did not resurrect also 1 Cor15:12)..
However, they are saying that all the resurrection that is going to take place (including those who are already dead and believers who are still living when Christ returns) has already taken place..
So you see how upsetting that would be, since the believer's hope is in Christ returning and we believers either getting raised from the dead (those already dead) or caught up (those still living) with new imperishable bodies to reign with Christ, 1Cor 15:35-54, 1 Thes 4:13-18)..
These heretic tried to misled the believers by mixing up baptism (Rom 6:4, Col 2:12) with the resurrection...
Sister PK says ....
ReplyDeleteIf you read the Chinese version, it is quite clear. It says 'the resurrection is already over', in Mandarin it is very common to tell someone that 'the thing' is already over, it wont happen again and dont think about it any more.