I know it's very late in the thread for this but I decided to try to read through some of it and think about it further. I didn't at first connect with the thread because your dismissing a metaphor such as Gehenna in such literal terms as you did in the OP just seemed beyond my answering, and as the thread progressed it seemed it was becoming a semantic battle that I don't have much patience for. But I guess I can register a few responses even at this late date.
If one was to receive eternal torment as taught, then the person would still be "living". IOW being tormented throughout his eternal life, but this verse states that only the righteous receive eternal life.
Therefore the punishment is death by destruction in the Lake of Fire, which is eternal in the sense that it is a permanent judgment. No resurrection for this person.
Eternal life is for the righteous and all others just cease to exist.
The fact that there is a "worm that does not die" and a "fire that is not quenched" suggests that there is an eternal state that is capable of suffering these endless experiences. Scripture sometimes refers to it as death but it would be a mistake to think that means the cessation of consciousness in light of these images of endless experience. Otherwise there is no point to them. I think you are getting bogged down in the term "life" but as Paul says, all of us are "dead in sins" until regenerated in Christ, although sinners are apparently alive in our usual way of speaking. In other words, there is a "death" that is "everlasting" -- experienced for eternity -- just as there is an everlasting life.
I think others have said pretty much the same thing on this thread but I don't recall your response to it, so I'm sorry if I'm just repeating an old point.
Edit: I myself said it in
Message 189 and you didn't answer it.
To reiterate and emphasize, where you say "If one was to receive eternal torment as taught, then the person would still be "living". IOW being tormented throughout his eternal life, but this verse states that only the righteous receive eternal life," you are missing the point that there are different kinds of life and death in scripture, and while the person experiencing eternal torment is able to experience it, which seems like that is being alive, in scriptural terms that is not the case. Life is only what Jesus imparts, and we're all dead in scriptural terms until Jesus imparts it.
*
Edit: Had to add that
resurrection is not identical to
life as you imply when you say the judgment of the Lake of Fire implies cessation: "No resurrection for this person."
ALL human beings will be resurrected without exception:
Daniel 12:2 And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame [and] everlasting contempt.
(my bold)
In fact, that passage in Daniel pretty much establishes the picture of an everlasting state of torment, doesn't it?
**
There are also better and worse resurrections, as implied by:
Hebrews 11:35 Women received their dead raised to life again: and others were tortured, not accepting deliverance; that they might obtain a better resurrection:
(my bold)
* I'm accumulating quite a string of edit notices, but oh well, here comes another. Wanted to add this bit of orthodox theology about the life vs death discussion: The life, the abundant life, that Jesus imparts, is the restoration of the life that was lost by Adam and Eve through their original sin, which plunged us all under the curse of the Fall. Jesus came to restore that life by paying for the sin that caused --and causes-- it to be lost.
This is another indicator -- besides Paul's statements that sinners are "dead in sins" and that Jesus "quickens" believers -- that death came instantaneously to Adam and Eve, and it's not merely the literal death of the body, and that the state of humanity ever since is a state of death -- what is usually called spiritual death. Yet humanity retained consciousness, retained intellect and feeling, retained great powers as a matter of fact -- as far as we can tell anyway (compared to what will ultimately be restored I suspect it's pretty weak stuff).
And from this it is also deduceable that when scripture speaks of the second death no loss of consciousness is implied. Death never did mean loss of consciousness, as we are all immortal souls and even physical death does not extinguish consciousness.
** Anticipating some alternate readings of Daniel 12:2, I wanted to provide this commentary by David Guzik at Blue Letter Bible.org that expresses how it is traditionally read:
B. (2-3) The resolution of resurrection
1. Many have sought to explain this resurrection as a national resurrection for Israel; but the most plain meaning refers it to the resurrection of the body
2. The Bible clearly teaches two resurrections, one for the saved and one for the damned (John 5:29; Revelation 20:4-6; 11-15)
3. But are only many resurrected?
a. There is evidence that the Hebrew word for many in verse 2 can also be used for "all"; "The emphasis is not upon many as opposed to all, but rather on the numbers involved." (Baldwin)
b. As well, the Bible acknowledges that all are raised, but not all at the same time
4. Everlasting contempt - the terror of hell never ends; there is not blissful anhilation after some punishment
Edited by Faith, : fix quote box
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Edited by Faith, : better organization paragraph
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