Another good post!
When Tom Hanks played in the movie "Green Mile" one of the guards would escort a death row prisoner, calling out "Dead Man Walking." Peter is speaking of people who are still alive right now, but by "twice dead" I would think he is talking about "doomed to die, so determined in rebellion that they will reject God to his face when they are raised to judgment." It would be the same type of futuristic type reference. Like when you say "the war is won" because of an event that just happened, when the literal reality is the war is now certain to be won.
I agree with the twice dead portrayal. But it allows for some interesting consequences. First, that the death of Adam "in that day" could then be a recognition of a future fact not yet realized. Second, that there are people that have no chance of repentance--their judgment has already taken place, in a sense--or that both their body and soul would be destroyed by the one that has the power to do so.
It is appointed unto men once to die means that the first death is nothing unusual. Everyone on earth (excepting those alive at Christ's return) goes through it. It's appointed. After that is the judgment.
I thought death
was the judgment!?! Why is there more?
After the judgment there's either life or death, but this life or death is permanent. So some people die once, and are raised and live forever. Some people die once, are raised, and are destroyed forever. The difference only need be in their permanence.
So was the first death...permanent, that is. What made it temporary then?? I think this is an important question that isn't often considered. The second resurrection (described, but not labeled as such in Rev 20:12; and implied in Rev 20:6) was indeed a resurrection. Just as you rightly pointed out above--that "dead" can mean those appointed to a death not realized. So could "the dead, small and great" in Rev 20:12 refer to those that HAD been dead, but that were now standing, after the second resurrection. Who is the only one that can empower people to be resurrected? And in what circumstances can it be allowed?
Only Jesus is the resurrection and the life. If Jesus resurrected all of the dead, why? Were they not better off dead? doesn't such a resurrection already tend toward the sadism people complain about with the ECT hell? Isn't the act of resurrecting a person for the purpose of killing them again sadistic even without the everlasting part? Why resurrect a dead person, one that has already paid for his sins (Rom 6:23)? Is it for that person's sake? Surely not (unless we admit of a repository of souls that are not happy where they are, similar to the rich man's state)! To REALLY torment them, even if just for a little while, by casting them bodily in the fire? Adam and Eve were not promised torment if they disobeyed, but death--peaceful, unconscious, nothingness, if that's what death is. God seems to be breaking a promise if they are resurrected at all, if I understand the logic behind annihilationism.
And the mechanism? what mechanism is available to resurrect people? Is there something else out there than Jesus' death to get past their death? I don't know what it is, and it would seem to make Jesus a liar, and the Christian faith a sham, to have anything else available.
Therefore, if Jesus's death is the only mechanism for resurrection, and these people are resurrected, does Jesus' death somehow apply to them? I'm sure I'll hear from [MENTION=6696]Lon[/MENTION] about universalism, but it seems to make sense of two things many/most Christians believe in some form:
1) That belief in Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection is the ticket (if I can be so crass) to eternal life, and
2) That the unforgivable sin is unbelief in Jesus' DBR.
So, if Jesus' DBR applies to all sons of Adam, but disbelief is cause for condemnation, and if death is defeated in Jesus, perhaps the only thing left is to be alive forever without Jesus, who is the sustainer of all things--the "second death" is an eternal lack of sustainment by the only one that sustains (Col 1:16,17).
It's not very speculative at all. Lazarus is the symbol of the gentile. He is outside the city, the dogs lick his sores. There are a couple references to "dogs" within the gospels that evidence that Jesus himself recognized this usage of the present day. The gentiles are without "Moses and the prophets" because the scriptures were given to the Jews (Paul himself comments on this.) If the rich man symbolizes the Jews (already posted more than enough to demonstrate this, but can step through it again if asked) then Lazarus is plainly not the rich man, and as the Jews had Moses and the prophets, the gentile did not.
The rich man had Moses and the prophets, which if they would believe them, foretold Jesus and identified them as who He was. "Search the scriptures, for they testify of me" (and more). Yet the rich man won't believe, even if one comes back from the dead. Jesus? Or Lazarus? In this case, for extra irony, BOTH. Lazarus was brought back from the dead, and they sought to kill Lazarus. Jesus did come back from the dead, and they still refused to believe.
I don't see that it says anywhere that Lazarus was outside the city. he was laid at the rich man's gate (And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at
his gate, full of sores, [Luk 16:20]), but that doesn't mean the whole city.
And you just assume the rich man had Moses and the prophets--not a bad assumption, but an assumption nevertheless. Abraham's statement was that
his brothers had Moses and the prophets, not him. And Abraham's statement didn't apply directly to the rich man, it applied even less directly to Lazarus--to try to apply it in the negative is certainly to take scripture where it doesn't go by itself. Thus an assumption of one or the other in regard to Lazarus is presumptive...except that angels carried Lazarus to Abraham's bosom.
We can look back and see that that could apply to either Gentiles or Jews, but Jesus' audience would be unlikely to think of it ever applying to Gentiles. Thus Jesus' hearers would have presumed that Lazarus was a descendant of Abraham (his name is certainly more Hebraic than Hellenic). And at this time in Jesus ministry, all of His disciples would have, too.
I'll give you the "dog" reference--that it was about Gentiles. But Lazarus wasn't one of the dogs--they were just empathetic to his plight, as they shared it. He had been denied the good things from the rich man's table, just like the Gentiles had been.
I admit of a little trepidation as I delve into deeper meanings of the parable/non-parable. The more mystical my (and your) speculations get, the further we might go from the original intent. An interesting exercise, no doubt, but rife with potential problems, imo.
