Quote:
Originally Posted by Sean
for since the fathers fell asleep] Ordinarily, the “fathers,” as in Romans 9:5, would carry our thoughts back to the great progenitors of Israel as a people. Here, however, the stress laid by the mockers on the death of the fathers as the starting-point of the frustrated expectation, seems to give the word another application, and we may see in the “fathers” the first generation of the disciples of Christ, those who had “fallen asleep” without seeing the Advent they had looked for ( 1 Thessalonians 4:15); those who had reached the “end of their conversation” ( Hebrews 13:7). The scoffers appealed to the continuity of the natural order of things. Seed-time and harvest, summer and winter, followed as they had done from the beginning of the creation. In the last phrase we may trace an echo of Mark 10:6; Mark 13:19. “You have told us,” they seem to have said, “of an affliction such as there has not been from the beginning of the creation, and lo! we find the world still goes on as of old, with no great catastrophe.” The answer to the sneer St Peter gives himself, but it may be noted that the question of the scoffers at least implies the early date of the writings in which the expectation of the Coming is prominent.
In the use of the verb to “fall asleep” for dying, we are reminded of our Lord’s words “Our friend Lazarus sleepeth” ( John 11:11); of St Paul’s “many sleep” ( 1 Corinthians 11:30). So in Greek sculpture Death and Sleep appear as twin genii, and in Greek and Roman epitaphs nothing is more common than the record that the deceased “sleeps” below. Too often there is the addition, as of those who were without hope, “sleeps an eternal sleep.” In Christian language the idea of sleep is perpetuated in the term “cemetery” (κοιμητήριον = sleeping-place) as applied to the burial-place of the dead, but it is blended with that of an “awaking out of sleep” at the last day, and even with the thought, at first seemingly incompatible with it, that the soul is quickened into higher energies of life on its entrance into the unseen world.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...4OjPZQLPnQDKcQ |
2 Peter 3:4-6. Where is the promise of his coming — To raise the dead, judge mankind, and destroy the earth? We see no sign of any such thing. The promise of Christ’s coming we have
Matthew 15:27, The Son of man shall come in his glory, &c.;
John 14:3, I will come and receive you to myself, &c., and in many other passages of the gospel; a promise which was renewed by the angels at our Lord’s ascension, and is spoken of in many passages of the epistles, especially in those of St. Paul. By representing Christ’s promised coming as a delusion, the scoffers set themselves and others free from all fear of a future judgment, and bereft the righteous of their hope of reward. For since the fathers fell asleep —
Since our ancestors died; all things — Heaven, earth, air, water; continue as they were from the beginning of the creation — Without any such material change as might make us believe they will ever have an end. So say these scoffers.
http://biblehub.com/commentaries/2_peter/3-4.htm
Sean, maybe you should read these websites before you post. You just cherry pick, because you haven't the slightest idea of what you believe. Jesus was one of the fathers that fell asleep? You tripped over your feet on that one. Yet, you let that post get buried and didn't even produce any commentary from your mentor Google concerning Jesus being one of the father's that fell asleep.
