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OBJECTION: How can you totally side-step the fact that Jesus suddenly
appeared to the Apostles after they had locked a door? If the human Jesus
was raised in a real human body, how could he go through a locked door?
RESPONSE: There's just no excuse for an objection like that one. Have we
already forgotten how the human Christ walked on water, restored withered
limbs, cured blindness, healed serious diseases like leprosy, revived the
dead, controlled the weather, multiplied fish and bread, turned water into
wine, and levitated? What's one more miracle, more or less? Walking
through walls? Disappearing? How hard could either of those two feats really
be for a man with the powers of God at his disposal?
Too many people want Christianity to be a reasonable religion. It's not.
Christianity is a supernatural religion.
It perplexes me sometimes how it is that people can say they believe in
miracles but yet cannot believe that God can make a physical human body
pass through a closed and locked door. Well; if they can understand how
Daniel's three friends survived totally unscathed inside a superheated fiery
furnace, then they'll understand how a physical human body can pass
through a closed and locked door. It's just downright shameful that folk
daring to call themselves Jehovah's witnesses bear false witness about His
power over the laws of nature.
OBJECTION: Well; if Jehovah has enough power over the laws of physics to
pass a physical human body through closed and locked doors, then couldn't
He pass Michael through the door as a spirit and then materialize him on the
other side as a human in order to communicate with his friends?
RESPONSE: That would be acceptable if only there were some record of it in
the New Testament. But it is an irrefutable fact that the New Testament not
even one time, on any occasion, nor under any circumstances, nor in any
situation, either attests, alleges, alludes, or states that an angel named
Michael appeared to Christ's friends cloaked in a human avatar. That
doctrine doesn't come from the New Testament. It's a humanistic fantasy.
OBJECTION: Angels in the Old Testament appeared to men in materialized
bodies; for example the three men who visited Abraham in the 18th chapter
of Genesis.
RESPONSE: Beware of making the mistake of assuming that the appearance
of angels in human form in the Old Testament validates the Society's theory
that one named Michael did the very same thing in the New.
It is an irrefutable fact that the New Testament never even one time, on any
occasion, nor under any circumstances, nor in any situation, either attests,
alleges, alludes, or states that an angel named Michael appeared to Christ's
friends cloaked in a human avatar. That doctrine doesn't come from the New
Testament. It's a humanistic fantasy.
It's commonly assumed that the two men identified as angels who showed
up at the gate of Sodom were two of the men who visited Abraham. But
even so; the Old Testament word for "angel" is mal'ak (mal-awk') which
should never be taken to eo ipso indicate celestial beings. The word simply
means a dispatched deputy; viz: a messenger; either human or celestial. For
example:
†. Gen 32:3-4 . . Then Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to Esau his
brother to the land of Seir, the field of Edom, and he commanded them,
saying: "yada, yada, yada"
The Hebrew word for the ordinary human messengers in that verse is
mal'ak. Here's another example:
†. Gen 32:6 . . In time the messengers returned to Jacob, saying: "yada,
yada, yada".
Here's another example where mal'ak indicates ordinary human beings
rather than celestial beings.
†. Num 20:14 . . Subsequently Moses sent messengers from Kadesh to the
king of Edom: "This is what your brother Israel has said: "yada, yada, yada."
And another:
†. Gen 6:17 . . Only Rahab the prostitute may keep on living, she and all
who are with her in the house, because she hid the messengers whom we
sent out.
And another:
†. Mal 2:7 . . For the lips of a priest should preserve knowledge, and men
should seek instruction from his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Lord
of hosts.
There are dozens of examples in the Old Testament where the word mal'ak
indicates ordinary human beings instead of celestial beings. Bottom line is:
the 18th and 19th chapters of Genesis are useless for confirming beyond a
shadow of doubt that an angel named Michael appeared to Christ's friends
cloaked in a materialized human body; viz: an avatar.
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