The Fires of Hell Have Gone Out: No Eternal Torment

I just feel like saying that I'm impressed when I read your posts at your knowledge and the way you approach questions. Good stuff.

Aw. . . what a sweet . . .ambiguouspost there Iano. Thanks though. I guess. That righteous fury bit. Yeah, I am a hothead. You'd think I was Irish or something. This message has been edited by Faith, 05-06-2006 07:51 PM

Are you talking about me too? I have no idea if anything I write at EvC counts for anything at all in heaven -- I lose track of my motives and get involved in the wrangle just for the wrangle's sake and forget to pray and the works. Not a great record.

I guess I'm just obtuse when it comes to jokes. Carry on guys.

"Life" has two different meanings in the Biblical context. When Jesus says He came to give abundant life He meant to people who supposedly ARE living -- but in the true sense aren't. We are "dead in trespasses and sins" -- since the Fall in Eden -- until regenerated or "quickened" (the words imply being brought (back) to life) -- to TRUE life which is eternal life in Christ.

quote:

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Eph 2:1 And you [hath he quickened], who were dead in trespasses and sins;

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Eph 2:5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved

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Col 2:13 And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;

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But in the usual sense of the word, we are all "alive" as sentient beings and THIS life -- which is really death in the Biblical sense --will continue for eternity and is quite capable of suffering torment eternally, while the righteous will receive the true life that is in Christ.ABE: Bunch of little errors like repeats and forgetting to disable smilies.This message has been edited by Faith, 05-09-2006 10:50 AM

Most of the Bible makes no sense to us in our natural state, it seems to me. It takes a lot of spiritual study and experience to begin to understand most of it, and even then we cringe at things like the idea of eternal punishment. Who would ever have realized that we are "dead in sins" as we are anyway? We could only know that through revelation.But whether it makes sense or not, that's what it appears to say, to me and to a great part of Christian tradition, and it worries me when people whitewash it because that just lulls them into complacency when they should be concerned about their own future. This habit people have of imposing our own human fallen feelings and thoughts on the scripture -- insisting that God see things the same way we do -- instead of realizing that God is not like us to that extent, and that we are dealing with a transcendant supernatural revelation, is only going to lead them into misery.This message has been edited by Faith, 05-09-2006 01:54 PM

I believe there will be special bodies. Scripture tells us that believers will be transformed into the kind of body Jesus had when he walked through walls and yet ate fish with the disciples after His resurrection. Not a physical body, a spiritual body and yet a body, not a ghost. And not a physical fire either, but a spiritual fire -- that burns forever.Love does not tolerate wickedness {abe: at least not forever, I should add; and real wickedness - criminal harm, sociopathic behavior - not at all ever}. The kind of love people hold up to accuse God with is not true love, it's a sappy sentimental thing that doesn't grasp the heinousness of sin and evil. True love exalts purity and goodness and purges or punishes wickedness. And all of us are given the choice of being purged by Jesus' sacrifice, or punished. I have no wish for anyone to be tormented either. The thought does something awful to my stomach when I wonder if I am really saved or the people I care about won't make it. This is why Christians are always being so obnoxious about telling people how to be saved from the torment.What people are missing in their human level of compassion is the extreme ugliness and offensiveness of sin / wickedness in God's eyes. We don't see as He sees, but when we face Him in judgment suddenly it will all become only too clear. In a sense God won't need to act to condemn anyone, as sin will be self-condemning because it's simply contrary to everything God is. Sin can't be in His presence for that reason, will practically flee His presence of its own volition. There is a mutual hatred between sin or the fallen nature and God. Or another way to think about it: it is the moral Law that runs the universe that will condemn.God's compassion sent His son to die for us. There will be no way around this in the end. You won't be able to say He lacked compassion since He did the utmost to spare you and you refused it and did nothing but accuse Him and complain about Him despite His provision for your salvation.This message has been edited by Faith, 05-09-2006 06:34 PM

I agree with Buz. You appear to be treating the writings as in contradiction with one another. If something is mentioned in one or two, but not others, you seem to treat that as meaning that either it was put in the first by mistake, or it was not included in the others by mistake, rather than that it's all true and only the first happened to mention it.And, referring to your Message 219 I don't get how you can speak in terms of different writers representing different times and cultures when you're only talking about a span of a century or so, and about writers who claim to have known each other and would have been telling their experiences all along before they wrote them down. These writings circulated among the various churches, many of them before their authors were dead, and certainly before all those who had known them were dead, so there was plenty of opportunity to compare notes and make corrections if necessary.Doesn't it count for anything that the believers in the first centuries considered all the writings they regarded as authentic to be of one mind, to build upon each other, so that everything all of them said was included as truth, with no "changing views," but just as different emphases and angles on the same events, and that's why they were all eventually put into one book?This message has been edited by Faith, 05-11-2006 12:15 PMThis message has been edited by Faith, 05-11-2006 12:18 PM

What does this mean, SOLELY on the basis of the others? The usual approach to Bible interpretation is to interpret all the books in relation to all the others. Nobody treats any of them as having some "secret answer key," where did that idea come from? {abe: They are all equally valid, all equally "God-breathed" and all modify each other, no one dominating.} The rule is simply to read any one in the context of all the others, reconciling them all with one another. Edited by Faith, : Edit to clarify a statement where noted in the text.

I have to admit I haven't followed the discussion too closely, but if you allow interpretation of all books in relation to all others you certainly have to allow Revelation. I don't understand your excluding it. Revelation is what it says, revelation. Its purpose {abe: some of its purpose anyway} is to reveal meanings and what's behind the scenes of some things we'd otherwise not know so clearly from the rest of scripture. I don't know offhand how much evidence there is in the rest of scripture for eternal torment (although I thought quite a bit), but if it's only in Revelation then that's the source and it's completely valid.Edited by Faith, : noted in text

That's odd. I do.

You seem to be insisting on your own idiosyncratic literal reading that refuses to read parts in context of the whole and flat out denies the reading of the majority of traditional Christian churches. There's no arguing with someone who is willing to take such a position but it is hard to understand how an intelligent person gets herself so convinced of it.

We are all taught that it refers to the existing dump in the Valley of Hinnom and that it is being used to symbolize what is referred to in other places in the Bible as the eternal torment of the damned. Which I'm saying makes no sense to me, to trust in your own reading of the Bible and ignore the teachings of hundreds or thousands of seminary-trained pastors who have the job of exegeting such passages and don't see it your way. You've rejected everything Jaywill and Buz have said, and I certainly can't do any better. The reason for the tradition is basically that traditionalists treat all the books as building on each other instead of speaking in their own insulated frame of reference as you treat them. If you already have references to eternal torment, understanding it in context as the same as eternal fire, then Gehenna is just another figure for it.

Simply to say that something Jesus prophesied "didn't happen" makes your views so alien I find it hard even to try to follow your arguments. Therefore I guess I shouldn't, should just leave the thread alone, but I fell for the temptation so my answer is: If it hasn't yet happened, then it is yet to happen --That's the position of faith on all biblical prophecy. However, in this case, Jesus' own coming and death and resurrection can be thought of as the beginning of the Judgment Day and those things DID happen. His life in His believers IS the Kingdom of God. It has come. He's the pivot of all history, the basis on which the final disposition of all humanity will ultimately be determined. Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Well I guess this is wandering off topic but it's hard not to answer: Interesting. Apparently different seminaries than I had in mind.
What denominations were these, if you don't mind saying? Apparently you found their views convincing. According to the churches I've been a part of, or at least the ones that made most sense to me, the Gentiles were in God's plan from the beginning, all the way back in Eden when the sending of a Savior was first hinted at. When Jesus says He has other sheep (John 10:16) He is talking about the Gentiles, and implying at the same time that they were chosen from before the foundation of the world, since He speaks of them as already of His flock in the present tense. Yes, you are talking about Romans 9 through 11, which is the very touching passage where Paul, in a state of grief for his brethren according to the flesh, spells out God's plans for the Gentiles requiring the rejection of the Jews until some future time. But you have a completely different view of God's work than I do -- you think God can change His mind, or that human circumstances cause Him to change plans, whereas I believe that God planned everything at the beginning down to every last comma and period. There is no such thing as a prophecy given by God's people that doesn't come true. And Jesus, being God Himself, could not have been prophesying something that didn't come true. It has to mean something other than you read it to mean.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.