|
Post by shiloh on Jun 12, 2014 0:18:09 GMT
So,......I was outside watering the flowers and thought of that verse "...and the sea will give up her dead". I know that often it is used to describe a 'sea' of people. Do you think that means people that are lost at sea or all people that are even buried on land...or both? I always wonder about people that have been lost at sea. I know the Lord will not lose one of them but won't that be weird to see?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2014 0:56:53 GMT
I'm not sure, I think that it means the sea literally.
|
|
|
Post by Benjamin on Jun 12, 2014 1:47:43 GMT
Keep in mind that a lot of cultures, both ancient and more recent, did do sea burials.
Floating someone out to sea on a bier and then either watching it float away, or even setting it on fire in some cultures, was important ceremonially - the sea was often viewed as a transitional horizon, a sort of gateway between this world and the next. ...so while it might sound odd to us to hear the Bible talk about "the sea giving up her dead", other cultures wouldn't find that language odd at all.
|
|
|
Post by peaceinthestorm on Jun 12, 2014 2:12:42 GMT
|
|
|
Post by shiloh on Jun 12, 2014 2:38:51 GMT
See, that's what I was thinking too, EPD. The dragon comes out of a sea of people. I can see Benjamin's point too, Many cultures DID bury their dead at sea. Maybe it involves both the 'sea' of people and the literal sea. I guess that was sort of a stupid question I asked.
|
|
|
Post by peaceinthestorm on Jun 12, 2014 2:47:14 GMT
No way. I disagree strongly. It was a very good question. After all, you did make me go looking through the bible.
|
|
|
Post by Benjamin on Jun 12, 2014 3:04:53 GMT
I don't think it was a stupid question either.
there's an interesting point to this that we could easily miss, too.
In this chapter, Revelation 20, we find that the sea gives up her dead, and death and hades give up the dead that are in them.
We also find, later, that death and hell are thrown into the lake of fire, and on the new earth, there will be no more sea (Revelation 21:1).
It's interesting that each of the three elements in which we find the dead are done away with. Anyone have a theory about that?
|
|
|
Post by shiloh on Jun 12, 2014 3:28:31 GMT
I have a theory. I think this all has to do with the Great White Throne Judgment, don't you? That's at the end of the Millennium though. I can't see the Lord doing away with all of His wonderful creation and actual sea life when He basically does a makeover on the earth. I think the literal seas will still exist. They may be rearranged a little bit but I take that scripture allegorically....as in a sea of people. How would we have elusive pink dolphins? Animals and people that repopulate during the Millennium will need water.
|
|
|
Post by shiloh on Jun 12, 2014 3:31:51 GMT
No more division?
|
|
|
Post by Benjamin on Jun 12, 2014 8:12:41 GMT
I have a theory. I think this all has to do with the Great White Throne Judgment, don't you? That;s at the end of thr Millennium though. I can't see the Lord doing away with all of His wonderful creation and actual sea life when He basically does a makeover on the earth. I think the literal seas will still exist. They may be rearranged a little bit but I take that scripture allegorically....as in a sea of people. How would we have elusive pink dolphins? Animals and people that repopulate during the Millennium will need water. I think the distinction is that it's "seas", and not "water". There will obviously still be rivers, and perhaps great lakes and other bodies of water, but the seven great oceans will be no more. That's how I've always understood it, anyway.
|
|
|
Post by shiloh on Jun 12, 2014 9:00:09 GMT
I understand what you're saying but where do you get that from? I'm not being snarky at all. Just being curious and this all leads me to another question. Do you think the Great White Throne Judgement will take place in the 'Outer Darkness' since there is no mention of the New Jerusalem and a new earth while the judgement is being addressed?
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 12, 2014 13:54:44 GMT
This is a good thread and makes us all now that about the phrase. To me, if God is opening the graves first before we are raptured, it makes sense that he will pull up the dead that the sea has. Many have lost their lives on the sea from whaling ships and fishing ships. Does it not make sense that God will call them up from their ocean graves?
|
|
|
Post by peaceinthestorm on Jun 13, 2014 1:01:19 GMT
Gasp! Shiloh, no more elusive pink dolphins. Let it not be so. Maybe all the sea creatures will become fresh water creatures.
|
|
|
Post by shiloh on Jun 13, 2014 1:29:46 GMT
Awwwwww...but elusive pink dolphins are so cute!
|
|
|
Post by Benjamin on Jun 13, 2014 1:39:27 GMT
I understand what you're saying but where do you get that from? I'm not being snarky at all. Just being curious and this all leads me to another question. Do you think the Great White Throne Judgement will take place in the 'Outer Darkness' since there is no mention of the New Jerusalem and a new earth while the judgement is being addressed? A few things before I get to your answer: It is not at all uncommon for creatures that live in salt water to grow accustomed to fresh water. Many fish can do this, and certainly there are types of sharks that do so with regularity (Bull Sharks come to mind), but it is quite rare for species to go the other way (from fresh water to salt water) because of the way the biomechanics of their bodies work. SO... should the seas disappear, it would not be inconceivable to think that species that already exist now could adapt to fresh water sources. HOWEVER... with that in mind, we know that in the Tribulation, 1/3 of the sea will turn to blood anyway (which would obviously kill everything regardless), so it's quite possible that many fish will seek fresh water sources, or make that transferal from salt to fresh water during that time. Regardless, it seems that many organisms in the sea will die, so I imagine there will be a significant amount of restoration and/or reconfiguration of the animal kingdom for the purpose of the new earth. Obviously carnivorous creatures will no longer eat meat ("the wolf will lie down with the lamb" - and yes, I said wolf, look it up, Scripture doesn't say 'lion'!), so we know that there's a Supernatural component to all of this, too. Now, as far as not being seas, but still being rivers... I take that from Genesis 2:10, where a river flowed out from Eden to water the whole earth, dividing into four great rivers, and so on. I'd suggest that the River of Life, flowing out from the New Jerusalem, will perform a similar function. As for lakes etc., I'm simply trying to NOT assume that because the seas are gone, other bodies of water will be too. That's not something I'd be proclaiming from the rooftops, or preaching as doctrine, just a hunch I have, based on trying to let the Bible speak for itself and not read more in than is written. Now, FINALLY... The Great White Throne Judgement. I don't know if this takes place in 'outer darkness' or not - I'd probably try to avoid that inference; I think that the term itself gives us a clue. 'Outer' means that it's clearly outside another location - in this case, outside heaven. How far outside heaven? Well, we don't know. It could be an incredible distance, or it could be removed in dimensional terms rather than mere distance. Either way, that place is relative to heaven, whereas the Great White Throne judgement occurs in a place where heaven and earth have "fled". This obviously means our own, three-dimensional heaven and earth (and not God's heaven, the Third Heaven), which may (and again, this is speculation, not doctrine) imply that it somehow takes place in the void left behind by those locations' disappearance. I'd suspect, though, that this is one of those passages that we can't really make sense of yet, because we're bound in three dimensions, and these events occur in more dimensions than that. Why do I say that? ...because I suspect that this event, because of the sheer enormity of it (billions upon billions standing before God for judgement), the constraints of our own space-time would be... immense - and I suspect God won't be keeping us waiting before He "makes all things new".
|
|
|
Post by shiloh on Jun 13, 2014 3:09:17 GMT
Okay. Well your theory sounds very plausible and makes a lot of sense. I always wondered where the 'outer darkness' was (not that I ever want to go there) and the sea life theory makes a lot of sense too. Perhaps....Brackish waters? I never understood why people would (and still do) quote "the lion will lie down with the lamb" because I know my Bible says "the wolf will lie down with the lamb" too.
|
|