Author: David Ellis

Don: 1 Corinthians 15 told us we shall all be changed: From mortal to immortal, from perishable to imperishable, and from corruptible to incorruptible. But Revelation 2:17 adds one more change: ‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will give…

Don: The final mystery says not only that the mortal will put on immortality, the corruptible will put on incorruptibility, and we all shall be changed, but also that everyone’s name shall be changed. We tend not to make a big thing of names. There may be some sentimentality involved in naming (say) our children….

Kiran: Last week we discussed the fear of technology-driven immortality. One of the reasons proposed to account for this fear was that people feel that immortality without eradication of sin is dangerous, because it magnifies the problems we are facing today. Today we will look at a few examples of extraordinary longevity and immortality mentioned…

Don: Last week we talked about the common fear of death. Yet some people are afraid of its opposite—immortality, particularly a “useless” immortality. A Time magazine article from Feb. 10, 2011, “2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal” says that by 2045 the technology will have been developed to enable a human mind—its memories, dreams, knowledge,…

Don: The mysteries we are seeking to understand are not riddles that need to be figured out. They are mysteries in which Truth is revealed. The mystery of the transformation on the day of judgment reveals the reversal of the consequences of the Fall, of eating  the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good…

(Pat suggested putting the class on YouTube. Kiran said he could do it. We might consider just recording Don’s preamble.) Jay: It has been suggested that the transformation promised in Revelation will be our return to the Oneness with god we had before the Fall. We’ve discussed the delayed timing of the Lazarus incident suggesting…

Jay: Jesus’s decisions concerning the death and resurrection of Lazarus seem different from the decisions he took in the rest of his ministry. A key verse in the story (John 11:4) tells us that when Jesus got the news that Lazarus was gravely ill, he told the disciples: “This sickness is not to end in…

Don: What died in the Garden of Eden was a spiritual death—separation from god, the destruction of Oneness with god. Scripture often describes physical death merely as “sleep”; it marks the end of our separation from god, the return to Oneness with him, and thus physical death is the end of spiritual death. The mystery…

Don: Before the Fall, Wo/Man was not just at one with god, but also at one with nature. Genesis 1:24: Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind”; and it was so. This is borne out further in…