THE ATHEIST'S COMPLAINT:
Elijah and Moses appeared many centuries after they died (Mark 9:2-4), but only God is eternal (1 Timothy 6:15-16). Is there a contradiction?

RESPONSE:
Certainly, Elijah and Moses had been physically dead for centuries, but that does not mean they had ceased to exist. To best address this idea that they were dead, and therefore their appearance could not have occurred, I would allow the Lord to answer. Having been tested by the Sadducees, Jesus said, "Are you not therefore mistaken, because you do not know the Scriptures nor the power of God? ...But concerning the dead, that they rise, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the burning bush passage, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living. You are therefore greatly mistaken." (Mark 12:24, 26-27)

As regards Paul's statement to Timothy that God "...alone has immortality...", Barnes mentions, "...the word here – athanasia – properly means exemption from death, and seems to mean that God, in his own nature, enjoys a perfect and certain exemption from death." Death cannot affect the nature of God, ever. Certainly all men are subject to physical death, but God has granted that we should have an eternal spirit, as we have been created in His image (Genesis 1:26-27). The fact that Elijah and Moses appeared on the mount next to Jesus certainly does not violate Paul's statement in 1 Timothy 6:15-16.

There is no contradiction.

This article is a response to Skeptic's Annotated Bible, but original article is no longer listed

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