The cloud of witnesses - flowing later into questions about "the Word"

Question:
There seems to be some interesting teaching going on lately about the cloud of witnesses.Some testify encounters with people from the cloud, and many just talk about an awareness of the cloud that is constantly around us.Some preach that one don't go to heaven when you die, but you go to be with the cloud, which is in the heavenlies, yet all around us.Do you have more insight about this?



Answer:
I've got a lot of experience with the cloud of His glory, but had never thought before I saw this email from you that it's perhaps the same cloud as the cloud of witnesses mentioned in Hebrews.  I genuinely have no idea, yet, about what you're asking me, nor any opinion about it one way or the other.  Something for me to think about, though, that when that cloud's present in various charismatic services, perhaps it's an agreement between earth and heaven going on where they're standing in agreement with us for His redemptive will to be carried out and from the testimony of those two witnesses, those that are still corporeal and those in that cloud, then Father brings to pass extra special things in the behalf of that agreement, perhaps.  Uncertain.  Just something, whether intentional or unintentional in this email of yours gave me a whole new area to think through in the Scriptures for what the Scriptures have to say about it.  As far as the location of heaven, I wouldn't necessarily go that far, unless there's a Scripture that I run across that ties it together as either the location of the departed or the portal to where they're at. 

Reply:
Jesus sais in the book of John while speaking to Nicodemus that nobody has ascended to heaven, except Himself, who came down from heaven.

Where was Elijah then?

That's where the conclusion that he is in the cloud.

Reply back:
Elijah was in heaven. Lord Jesus at that time was the only one that had been transfigured.  It was talking about the being caught up to heaven that He experienced when He received honor and glory from Father in His transfiguration according to the 4th account of the transfiguration in the New Testament.  He was citing His authority over the Rabbis.  John's writings are a bit different from some of the rest of the New Testament.  He makes not having seen God a bad thing in 3John 11 and elsewhere, but then speaks it matter of factly about those he's speaking to elsewhere that none of them had ever seen God in 1John 4:12.  This is some of the tricky language of the New Testament where you wind up having to really dig for what He's talking about and about seeing Him in the Written Word and through the life that the Written Word has been "imprinted upon."

Reply:
Elijah was in heaven. Lord Jesus at that time was the only one that had been transfigured.  It was talking about the being caught up to heaven that He experienced when He received honor and glory from Father in His transfiguration according to the 4th account of the transfiguration in the New Testament.  He was citing His authority over the Rabbis.  John's writings are a bit different from some of the rest of the New Testament.  He makes not having seen God a bad thing in 3John 11 and elsewhere, but then speaks it matter of factly about those he's speaking to elsewhere that none of them had ever seen God in 1John 4:12.  This is some of the tricky language of the New Testament where you wind up having to really dig for what He's talking about and about seeing Him in the Written Word and through the life that the Written Word has been "imprinted upon."

Reply back:
Why is there such tricky things in the New Testament.
If God wants to make Himself known to us, as He wants us to have eternal life, why not make it easier on us to understand His heart, His Word and to see Him and hear Him?

Reply:
The epistles of the New Testament were essentially follow-up letters to congregations that had already been established and who had already heard hours and hours of teaching and preaching along those lines, so since we weren't there for the weeks, months, and in a few cases years of discipleship straight from the Apostles, then we're sorta having to prayerfully work through both testaments to put back together what was being said by the Apostles in the New Testament.  They didn't know, initially, that they were writing the New Testament.  These were ministry letters being sent out, sometimes from jail so that the availability of writing materials may have additionally lent to a type of understood short hand where you'd need the rest of the New Testament and what Lord Jesus taught to put it all together.

Reply back:
But surely all Scriptures are given by God and are precisely the way they should be? So surely we can't put the blame on them or the circumstances for being vague at places?

Also, when talking about the Written Word : is there more authority in the words of the bible than in a personal Word God gives you

And when you are filled with the Spirit and the Word, aren't you then the Word becoming flesh, and how does that differ when I then meditate upon what you write me vs meditating on bible scripture?

Reply:
That's true, but 2Corinthians 13 and 1John 4 and other passages of Scripture indicate that there are tests you can give any spirit that's supposedly speaking to someone 'cause the Bible warns that there are many spirits out there saying stuff, not just the Spirit of God.  The Bible says in the book of Acts that the Bereans were the absolute best crowd that St. Paul ever preached to.  They didn't believe a thing he said at face value without searching the Scriptures DAILY to see if what he said was true.

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