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Originally Posted by stephanos
No I don't think we are ready. We are making ourselves ready right now by doing works which warrant rewards and crowns. Not only that, but we are in a corruptable body, which shall put on an incorruptable one. So yeah we're ready if you want to claim our salvation as being ready, but the Bible is clear that there is more that Christ's Bride can do to make herself ready while He tarries.
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Rom. 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Obviously this is a big "proof text" of Calvinists, so it takes a little explanation. If God did "foreknow" you, that simply means that He knew that you would be saved (this does NOT negate man's Free Will, it just means that God already knew; God is not willing that any should perish, etc.). Those that He knew would be saved, He "predestinated," not to be saved, but to be CONFORMED to the IMAGE (The Sure Word of Prophecy, Dr. Ruckman) of His SON. A Christian is predestined to be conformed to His image: that is our final state. At that point, we ARE complete; right now we are not. So I agree with you Stephen: we are still preparing (Matt. 25).
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Originally Posted by stephanos
Perhaps verse 7 is saying that the garment of fine white line which is given us is our righteousness because it is His righteousness which is given us and which we adorn ourselves with. The reason I say this is because it says that the linen garment is the righteousness, not the saints.
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The reasons that chette777 gave are a little too flimsy for me; no, we are not clothed in our own Righteousness but in His. At the same time, we are washed in His blood and Sanctified and Justified by His finished work. Justification is a declaration of righteousness: we are Justified because Jesus Christ already paid the penalty for our sins!
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Originally Posted by stephanos
I've yet to see a single verse in the Bible that gives credit to this recreation "theory". That being said, it is clear that God's purpose has always been to establish Himself as King on a throne in a Kingdom where He would rule as absolute authority. (hint hint, there's 4 books in the Bible called the books of the Kings ^_^)
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I do believe that he is speaking of the pre-Ademic earth; while you don't have to believe that to understand what he's talking about, I would suggest (again) that you get a copy of Doc's "The Sure Word of Prophecy, otherwise known as The Kingdom of Heaven vs. The Kingdom of God." This book gives a firm foundation for understanding God's eternal plan through the Ages, starting with King Lucifer, then King Adam, Noah, the plan for the Jewish kings and ending with Adam II, Jesus Christ. Of course it's kinda' a whiplash journey, thanks to man's unfailing ability to fail, being that there's two Kingdoms involved and over 6,000 years of recorded history to discuss.