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Originally posted by FMFIt works for you because you intend to discard the Bible for one reason or another - for any you reason you can get.
This advice works for me and I accept it.
Is it your advice to your fellow Christians too?
If it works for you you shouldn't care about anyone else. That is unless you need some added assurance by all Christians likewise so abandoning the Bible.
If you know the Bible is to be discarded as being untrue, you just know it. You don't need every Christian to reinforce or confirm you.
I'm persuaded that if Jesus didn't abandon Scripture of His day, it, plus the new testament scripture should not be.
Originally posted by sonshipI don' find the Bible credible and I don't believe the claims made by Christians like yourself about Jesus and God. That is the reason why.
It works for you because you intend to discard the Bible for one reason or another - for any you reason you can get.
Originally posted by sonshipIf we believe that the punishment for non-believers is torture by burning agony for eternity is unjust, then we must discard the Bible, that is your advice, right? Or are you now back-peddling? I believe the notion of "eternal punishment" - that you believe in - is the antithesis of justice. In my view, should Christians who agree with me "discard the Bible"?
If it works for you you shouldn't care about anyone else. That is unless you need some added assurance by all Christians likewise so abandoning the Bible.
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Originally posted by FMFI cannot tell you the temperature of the lake of fire or all the details pertaining to the lost that go there.
By "destruction", you mean torture ~ by being burnt ~ and by "eternal", you mean this agony goes on forever and ever, right? This is the reality of the vengeance in your view, yes?
What I do know is unspeakably dreadful.
If that is the case, I am glad that Jesus, who I believe always spoke the truth, told us about it.
How loud the screams, how hot the fire, what goes on there, I don't know.
But it sounds dreadful and forever.
I believe that something dreadful and eternal exists.
You don't believe that something dreadful and eternal exists.
An ultimate something to be feared, I think, exists.
And we can be saved from it through Christ.
So, if you ask again "Please tell me about the blood curdling torture. Described the screams. Outline the misery. Detail the pain" none of these so-called "moral compass" type probings reduce my belief that Jesus Christ spoke the true truth from God.
Originally posted by sonshipYou advised people to discard the Bible over this issue of justice if they do not see it your way. Which people were you addressing?
I cannot tell you the temperature of the lake of fire or all the details pertaining to the lost that go there.
What I do know is unspeakably dreadful.
If that is the case, I am glad that Jesus, who I believe always spoke the truth, told us about it.
How loud the screams, how hot the fire, what goes on there, I don't know.
But it sounds dreadfu ...[text shortened]... "moral compass" type probings reduce my belief that Jesus Christ spoke the true truth from God.
Originally posted by sonshipThe god of sonship...
They will pay the penalty of eternal destruction ..." (1 Thess. 2:7-9)
"Eternal destruction" is not the same thing as being kept (deliberately maintained from dying) alive in a place specifically designed for its purpose of burning those therein for all eternity. Is it...?
In order to do the latter, the God of John 3:16 had to deliberately create this place of eternal suffering and maintain it in existence. He then has to cast the unfortunates into it and maintain them also, otherwise they would die.
Furthermore, according to some here (including yourself i believe), Jesus will watch this holocaust of a spectacle with his angels.
This is the god you are proposing the atheists here accept is it?
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Originally posted by divegeesterThis involves two words - "death" and "destruction" in the Bible.
The god of sonship...
[b]"Eternal destruction" is not the same thing as being kept (deliberately maintained from dying) alive in a place specifically designed for its purpose of burning those therein for all eternity. Is it...?
In order to do the latter, the God of John 3:16 had to deliberately create this place of eternal suffering and ...[text shortened]... spectacle with his angels.
This is the god you are proposing the atheists here accept is it?[/b]
And a fair discussion will bring the charge of "walls of text" to me. But I will write something.
According to English dictionary "death" would be a loss of existence.
If the English dictionary is our sole source of truth, you would be correct.
Death to the Annhilationist means the absolute end of existence.
If the Bible as God's revelation is our standard, it is not so.
Jesus told the one thief crucified with Him, who became a believer, on that day of their death they would be together in Paradise (not non-existence). -
And he said, Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom. And He said to him, Truly I say to you, Today you shall be with Me in Paradise." (Luke 23:42,43)
The main point is that Jesus and the thief with faith did not become absolutely non-existent, though they did both die. On that day they went to Paradise. Death then was NOT absolute cessation of existence for them.
What may be true of animal or vegetation at death, is not for man.
1.) Death, in the Bible, is a point of transit. It is spoken of in Scripture as the movement of the soul out of the body. IE. "He was at the point of death" (John 4:47). Or Mark 5:23 - "My little daughter lies at the point of death." See also ( Matt.9:18; John 19:30)
Death is taught in Scripture as an act of transit. This transit is an "end". IE. "He was there until the end of Herod" - "But when Herod was ended ... " (Matt. 2:15,19) .
This end, as we would say, "someone came to his end," is a relative end. So while the Holy Spirit speaks of David's end as in "Let me freely speak to you of the patriarch David, that he both ended and was buried:" (Acts 2:29), the apostles goes on to teach that David's soul is left in Hades.
The soul of David is David also. David and other men exist therefore though they come to the "end". Physical death is a relative end pertaining to the earthly life and the body.
Wall continues below.
2.) Death is an act of dissolution.
3.) Death as a state.
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2.) Death is the act of dissolution. But it is partial and not absolute for man.
"If our earthly house of this tabernacle were DISSOLVED, we have a building from God, an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens." (2 Cor. 5:1)
Man is dissolved at the point of death, when he is divided into a body on one hand, and a soul and spirit on the other hand. The immaterial soul and spirit are severed from the body.
Death of man is a transition or departure. Paul speaks of his death as his depature to be with Christ in a relatively more real way.
"Having a desire to DEPART, and to be with Christ, which is far better." (Phil, 1:23,24).
He means the depature of His soul and spirit from the physical tent or tabernacle of his earthly body. Do not miss the point here or raise a red herring. The Paul DEPARTS because death is a a dissolution and transition. He is not saying annhilation is far better. He is saying in physical death he goes to be with Christ in a relatively "better" way. He awaits the best, resurrection and glorification.
"The time of my DEPARTURE is ..." an unclothing to him, in Second Corintians. And he says in 2 Timothy 4:6 - "The time of my DEPARTURE is at hand."
Together Second Corinthians 5:2-9 and 2 Timothy 4:6[/b] prove that physical death is not non-existence to Paul but unclothing of something outer as he makes a transition from one state to the other.
While we may not assume this for vegetation and animals, we do reckon it as man's experience.
In Second Corinthians Paul says the God, however, does not want man to appear before Him "unclothed" as a disembodied soul and spirit. God's first will is that we be "clothed upon" with a glorious resurrection body.
But in the interim as God works His economy, there is a time when the souls and spirits of men are apart from the "clothing" of the outer body. Dissolution has taken place at death.
Cont. below.
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According to the Bible after the moment of death there is the state of death.
3.) Death as a state -
The "end" I have shown above is only relative. The end of the man is only in relation to THIS world. The one departed still exists elsewhere. There is an "end" pertaining to this world, but a beginning pertaining to another place.
David died and was buried. But his soul and spirit began to exist in Hades. God says that Sheol or Hades is wide open to His view. It is not opened to man's view.
"Have you entered into the springs of the sea, Or hoave you walked about in the recesses of the deep? Have you seen the gates of death been revealed to you, Or have you seen the gates of the shadow of death?" ( Job 38:16,17)
God can observe a place that man cannot.
"And in Hades he lifted up his eyes ..." (Luke 16:23a)
Jesus said He has the keys of Death and of Hades (Rev. 1:118). The weight of biblical evidence is not that He has the keys to non-existence but of a state, a place. That place would include the unpleasant part where the rich man went but also the Paradise to which Jesus and the believing thief went together on the day they both died.
"Truly, I say to you, Today you shall be with Me in Paradise." (Luke 23:43).
Sheol and Abaddon are open to the view of God's eyes:
"Sheol and Abaddon lie open before Jehovah. How much more the hearts of the children of men." (Proverbs 15:11)
The impact of the verse is - if God can see into the place of Death itself, how much more is nothing in our hearts hidden from Him.
Death as a place is never full -
"Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied [or full] , And the eyes of man are never satisfied." (Proverbs 27:20)
" ... He enlarges his appetite like Sheol, And is like death and cannot be satisfied, But gathers to himself all the nations and collects for himself all the peoples." (Habakkuk 2:5b)
This place never seems to fill up even though everyday souls are entering into it. God can see into it. We cannot.
"The beggar died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom.". They did not carry nothing into non-existence. They "carried" his immaterial part into a place called "Abraham's bosom" which must be the same as "Paradise" where Jesus and the thief went.
If it is not true then it is not merely too parabolic but misleading for Jesus to so teach. But the Apostle Peter says that Jesus died and announced the gospel to some spirits in that realm.
"For Christ also suffered ... the Righteous on behalf of the unrighteous, ... on the one hand being put to death, but on the other, made alive in Spirit, In which also He went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, who had formerly disobeyed when the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah ..." (See 1 Peter 3:18-20)
The only pertinent point in this is that Christ died and was not annhilated into non-existence but was someplace. And there were some there to hear His proclamation of whatever He proclaimed in that state.
There is a PLACE, is all that matters here.
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Originally posted by divegeesterWhat I am attempting to do right now is to draw you away from the unbearable thought of hell, which I agree is unbearable, and set your emotion aside for the moment.
Is that a yes or a no sonship?
Destruction and Death - what ARE they in the Bible. That is what I am writing about.
The honest Bible student should come objectively to the data to see what is taught there. I don't care about the others right now. I assume that you are concerned with what data is there in the Bible.
So - to continue Death is a state and place. Now the word death is mention in a number of nuanced meanings. When Jesus said "Let the dead bury their own dead" of course we have to soberly realize that Jesus was using "the DEAD" to mean two things:
1.) Spiritually dead
2.) Physically dead
The spiritually dead, He says, should be left by the hesitant disciple, to bury their own physically dead.
Death also, as seen above, is a place. David had the revelation that even in the realm of DEATH, God would be there -
"Where shall I go, away from Your Spirit, And where shall I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there;
If I make my bed in Sheol, there You are.
If I take the wings of the dawn And settle at the limits of the sea, There also You hadn will lead me ..." (Psalm 139: 7-10)
There is no PLACE that he can go and be completely away from God, including Sheol [Hell / Hades].
Some people point to Ecclesiastes 3:21 to prove death is non-existence. But Solomon's word there pertains to everything "under the sun"{/b]. Certainly for this earthly realm [b]"under the sun" death is an absolute end. But relatively speaking too much elsewhere in Scripture proves Ecclesiastes has to be speaking relatively.
Also, that passage is much in the form of a QUESTION. Solomon is saying really "WHO KNOWS?" Without God's revelation we would not know.
"Who knows the breath of the children of men, that is goes upward; or the breath of the beasts, that if goes downward to the earth?"
He is saying in his worldly wisdom "I have never been there and back. Who knows if the man's spirit goes somewhere up at death and the soul of an animal goes down?"
The book of Ecclesiastes is could be called "Equal Time for the Skeptical".
It has to be taken in context of the rest of Scripture. There is not enough there to prove the death is non-existence. There is only enough there to show a very wise worldly person has to speak agnostically about some things he has never experienced.
Now I know you want me to get to the part about the specifics of suffering in hell. The Bible is not Dante's Divine Comedy where exquisite details are gone over about all the people being punished. We have the expression "weeping and gnashing of teeth" which gives us enough of a realization.
My burden here is concerning Death being a point of departure, a event of dissolution, and a state and a place.
The Bible says "Hadees is never full". It cannot mean only graves in the dirt because any grave can be filled up.
Rather those in a place where the departed are in some sense before the Lord. "Sheol [covered to men's eyes] is naked before Him [God]" (Job 26:6 Prov. 15:11)
Neither the grave or the tomb could have been Jacob's thought of Hadees when he said he would go down to his son in Hadees mourning.
"I will go down into Hadees [Sheol] to my son mourning" (Gen. 37:35)
Jacob did not believe that his son Joseph had been taken to a tomb for burial. Rather he believed he had been devoured by a wild beast. So Jacob could not have meant he was going down to some grave site or tomb to Joseph. A place of the body is not his meaning. Jacob believed that in the one place of departed souls, he would again meet the soul of his son.
Now the Bible speaks of the lower parts of the earth and the heart of the earth in connection with Death. This use to puzzle me. But it is not AS perculiar on this side of our suspicion that space and time are not always what they appear to be. Perhaps going DOWN into the lower parts of the earth God has realms.
Amos implies that if the search could occur long enough such a place, in prinicple, could be reached.
"Though they dig into Sheol, from there shall My hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, from there will I bring them down:" (Amos 9:2)
Do not press me about physics. I don't know that much. I think there is ground to see Sheol as a dimension or a place. God may have many places we cannot reach.
But if you object that Amos 9:2 is only poetic speaking, still there is ample clear instances of death or Sheol being a place in the Bible and annhilation from existence is less evidenced. However, as to the realm "under the sun" of our earthly living, death is the END.
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Originally posted by divegeesterThat death in the is not annihilation into non-existence is the point I take head on, in the last few posts.
Based on ∑O ∝ ∫TW.nST
Whereby:
O = objuscation
TW = text wall
ST = sub-topics
I'd say you were avoiding the point.
So to add to the evidence, we also have the example of Samuel the prophet. God apparently allowed his soul to come up from Sheol.
It mentions that it WAS Samuel FIVE TIMES. I don't think there is any room to interpret it otherwise. See 1 Samuel
28:3 -25
Now you can offer a few glib words of skepticism.
Or you can say you just don't believe the Bible in Second Samuel 28:3-25.
And you can dismiss the evidence as obfuscating. But I am taking this matter head on - DEATH is not non-existence.
So your annhilationism stands in error on several biblical grounds presented.
Originally posted by sonshipMy last post was obviously tongue-in-cheek; surely even your limited forum humour could see that.
That death in the is not annihilation into non-existence is the point I take head on, in the last few posts.
So to add to the evidence, we also have the example of [b]Samuel the prophet. God apparently allowed his soul to come up from Sheol.
It mentions that it WAS Samuel FIVE TIMES. I don't think there is any room to interpret it otherwise. S ...[text shortened]... on-existence.
So your annhilationism stands in error on several biblical grounds presented.[/b]