Savior of the Damned (the Connor series) by Dirk B. (Page 59 of 59)

How about if the verse says "He'll come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven," and he returns as a boy (like my first draft)? He's still flesh, blood, and bone, which is what he was when he left. He's still God. He's just not yet an adult, which I believe is a requirement to satisfy some of the verses about his return, so the Second Coming might not begin until he grows up, floats up into the sky, and returns on a fluffy cloud with a host of angels.

Or, what if the author of your verse was writing a prophecy during the Middle Ages and was trying to keep from being burned at the stake for heresy for suggesting that he will return but not in this dimension? It would still be factual to write he will return. And since God never lies, the interpretation of that would be: God didn't lie. He spoke in riddles to confuse the "authorities." And if we get the interpretation wrong, that's our fault, not his. We're too limited to understand it all.

Or... an alternative view is: One expects the author of the verse to die for the truth, not fib a little to escape his doom

>> What? Just a warning? No, it's definite.

In the meeting in the year 430 after Rome receives the documents supposedly written by Augustine on his deathbed, the Last Challenge is described as being about corruption in the Church. Specifically, Satan is said to have claimed in the late first century that, by the End Times, the Church will be so corrupt that Christ will not find even one priest worthy of Heaven. That ruse is used by Satan because it supports the narrative that the Emissary is holy and has come to purge the Church of corruption. In reality, it allows Connor to purge the Church of his enemies (real priests still dedicated to God).

So, when Satan, who is in the meeting as a corporeal, discusses the Last Challenge, he explains to the others that, since God accepted the Last Challenge, there is no way the existing ending of Revelation can describe what will actually happen since it does not account for the events related to the challenge. In fact, it was the existing ending of Revelation that led Satan to issue the challenge. He adds that, had it been mentioned in Revelation, along with the likely outcome (God wins), Satan would never have issued the challenge. So, regardless of what John of Patmos wrote, Satan would have done something different to try to "change" the ending.

So, were John's ending "real", Satan would have invalidated it simply by issuing the Last Challenge (assuming God accepted). Although there is precedent in the Bible to change a "prophecy" (the people of Nineveh escaped destruction in the Book of Jonah), for now, I'm going to have Satan go with the argument that Revelation's ending is just a warning, so i don't need to justify how my ending could possibly change one of the biggest prophecies in the Bible. Technically, one could argue that Jonah's prophecy was also just a warning, so no prophecy was actually altered.

Here's a different angle on it. Please forgive it's a tongue-in-cheek variation of Abraham/Isaac:

Example:

What's happened in this example is the speaker is able to enter direct negotiation/discourse with God, unlike us trying to interpret scriptures. Eg: if the scripture says "Nation X will be fruitful and multiply" we implicitly understand not every individual will be fruitful and/or multiply. As the scripture doesn't (well, can't) single out Bob-From-New-York, then should Bob get into a fatal accident before Rapture, he couldn't claim essential facts were omitted.

Satan doesn't have this limitation if he can by-pass the scripture and have a direct-line. He's entering a negotiation where vital facts are being withheld with intent to trick him into losing.

Out of morbid curiosity, was that Gemini? Mine usually gives more light-hearted answers which sound like a TV commercial instead of scholarly