You Fools! You Hypocrites! You Snakes 15
(4) THE BIBLE IS LITERAL:
Is it true that one can only understand the Scriptures if we take them literally? What is true is you will understand very little in the Scriptures if you take them all literally.
I have been told many times that the parables are to be taken literally. This is utter nonsense in addition to being another "damnable heresy" of the Church.
How did our Lord conduct His whole public ministry?
I know of no denomination that teaches the truth to this question. Here is the Scriptural answer which virtually no one will believe even though it is in their own Bibles. Jesus taught parable after parable after parable, and:
"ALL these things spoke Jesus unto the multitudes in PARABLES; and without a parable spoke He NOT unto them: That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying ‘I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.’"
Did ANYONE understand all or any of Christ’s parables? NO, no one:
"Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and His disciples came unto Him, saying DECLARE unto us the parable of the tares of the field" (Matt. 13:34-35 & 36).
Not even His disciples understood any of the parables until Jesus explained them in private to them ONLY. Previously, after hearing Jesus preach in parable after parable after parable, the disciples asked Jesus:
"And the disciples came, and said unto Him, WHY speak you unto them (the multitudes) in parables? He answered and said unto them, ‘Because it is given unto you (disciples only) to know the mysteries (Gk: hidden truths) of the kingdom of heaven (but only AFTER Jesus explained the parables in private), but to them (the multitudes) it is NOT GIVEN" (Matt. 13:10-11).
Jesus said Isaiah had prophesied the multitudes would hear but would NOT understand and therefore they could NOT repent, and Jesus would NOT save them (Matt. 13:14-15). Are these the truths you learned in Sunday school and church regarding parables?
Parables are NEVER taken literally: "Parable" is translated from the Greek "parabole"—Strong’s #3850 defined as, "a similitude, parable that is (symbolically) fictitious narrative a figure (of speech)."
A similitude is: "A simile, allegory, or parable."
A parable is: "short fictitious story that illustrates a moral attitude or religious principle."
A symbol is: "something that stands for or suggests something else"
A fictitious narrative is: "characteristic of fiction—a imaginary story."
A figure of speech is: "An expression that uses language in a non-literal way, such as a metaphor."
Now then, is there ANYTHING in either the Greek word translated parable or in the definitions of that word that can ever mean ANYTHING which is LITERAL? OF COURSE NOT!
The Church cannot understand the parables that Jesus explained. How in the world are they to ever understand the many, many parables and metaphors He did NOT explain in the Scriptures if they believe that parables are literal?
As the Church believes that virtually everything is PHYSICAL AND LITERAL, they understand virtually NOTHING that is spiritual. They teach that in the resurrection we will be PHYSICAL, even though Paul plainly tells us that we will be SPIRITUAL (I Cor. 15:42-54). They believe that Jesus was raised with His old physical body and that He will appear in that old body of sin (FULL OF HOLES) for all eternity.
What a disgrace. Jesus "appeared" in several different bodily forms—a gardener, a stranger on the road to Emmaus, and an unrecognizable person on the shore of Lake Galilee. These were all physical manifestations, not the REAL Jesus Who is now SPIRITUAL AND GLORIFIED!
They teach that heaven itself is a physical place, in a geographical location, on a physical rock, somewhere in physical outer space, with physical streets of gold, etc., etc., etc. The Heaven of Scripture is no such place. Heaven is the spiritual realm of SPIRIT, not the physical realm of FLESH!
Is Jesus is concerned with the FLESH or with the SPIRIT?
"It is the SPIRIT that quickens (gives life); the FLESH PROFITS NOTHING: the words that I speak unto you, they are SPIRIT, and they are life" (John 6:63).
What profit is there in "the FLESH?" NOTHING — "the flesh profits NOTHING." Although the Scriptures tell us:
"Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing SPIRITUAL THINGS WITH SPIRITUAL" (I Cor. 2:13).
The Church teaches its followers to compare PHYSICAL (literal) things with PHYSICAL. No wonder they cannot understand:
"But the natural man (who only can see the literal and the physical—natural things, as opposed to SPIRITUAL things) receives not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are SPIRITUALLY DISCERNED" (I Cor. 2:14).
And so, the spiritually ignorant make such absurd statements as: "The physical IS the spiritual." And all Christendom parrots an "A-men!"
Recently a reader of our site stated the following; "Ray! How can you possibly suggest that ‘the DEAD, are DEAD?" They assured me that "dead people are NOT DEAD." What can I say about a religion that has so totally brainwashed its adherents to the point that "DEATH really means LIFE?" That one of the definitions of WHITE, is BLACK! Unbelievable! UNBELIEVABLE!!