Sunday 24 April 2011

Easter Day

.
.
He is risen ...
..

Friday 8 April 2011

Resurrexit, certum est, quia impossibile.

.

It is done.
.

Salvation

.
Do Jews and Protestants go to hell? Can either become vampires? - Michael Douglass



Christian denominations, whether Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant, have historically taught that an afterlife awaits everyone. All people will eventually spend eternity in either Heaven, where the rewards are beyond anything we can imagine, or Hell, where unbelievable levels of pain and suffering will endure without any hope of relief.


Different denominations teach that their followers have a better chance at attaining Heaven, and that believers in other faiths, cults or sects are either totally excluded from Heaven or, at least, are more likely to go to Hell. In John 3: 3, a man named Nicodemus was a ruler of the Jews. Yet Jesus told him that unless you are born again you cannot see the kingdom of God. The statement "born again" means that God has to see you in a body other than the body of Adam. When we place our faith in the Precious Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 6) we are baptised into the Body of Christ. This means that in the eyes of God we are in a Body that has never sinned against God in any way. That is how man is redeemed. Whether you are a Jew or Gentile or any nationality, without the Body of Christ, no man or woman will enter Heaven. So anyone who says Jesus Christ is not risen in a physical body is still yet in his sins (1 Corinthians 15: 17).

Jews do go to Hell, as many of them still believe that the Messiah has yet to come. They reject the New Testament and the Son of God, the Risen Christ. The Old Testament saints were considered believers for they believed what they were told about the Saviour of the world that was to come, as prophesied in Genesis 3: 15. Christ is also pictured many times by His many ancestors, eg Adam. Christ is the Second Adam. Therefore, Jews that die outside of Christ do, unfortunately, go to Hell. Jews, even though they are God's people, are not all destined for Heaven, for they, as well as Gentiles, non Jews, have to believe in Christ and be born again with a new nature to combat our old one that wants to sin.

The Jews of today are not the Jews of the Bible. A group of them deviated from their beliefs and rejected their own saviour from their prophesies. Christians are now the new "jews" who did follow the teachings and accepted the saviour when He appeared. Therefore, the Jews of today forfeit their birthright just as their ancestors did during Jesus' time. By an extension of their own law, the Jews of today will be in Hell, as many of the groups of Jews throughout the Old Testament who continued to deviate from God's word and were punished. Redemptive grace is focused most clearly in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, whom Christians recognise as the Living Christ. We might refer to Jesus as Grace Himself, as Grace in the Flesh, as Grace walking around. The grace of Christ can inspire us in such a transformative way as to change our awareness of ourselves, of our potential as human beings and as mankind, and our awareness of God's gracious purpose for us and through us for all Creation. It is this changed awareness which recognises a still more specialised form of grace — the grace made available to all who choose to serve God's hope for all in Christ. This is the grace which makes us disciples and is available as spiritual power for goodness' sake. Jesus exhibited this kind of power and challenged us to do the same.

Contagion of a demonic kind, including vampirism where the person is afflicted in life and is not one of God's true dead, is something anyone outside of a state of grace is susceptible to, and is certainly not restricted to particular faiths or denominations. We are potentially all at risk from the wiles of the Devil and his demonic horde.


Jesus rejects Satan (Matthew 4: 1-11, Mark 1: 12-13, Luke 4: 1-13)..