12 reasons why hell is not eternal couscious torment - Part One

[th1b.taylor]

No they're not, they've returned to the dust as the Scriptures say

Butch,
No scripture nor any collection of scripture can nor will ever be understood without the light of all scripture shinning on it/them. Their bodies, just as the bodies of the modern day saints just as the bodies of the Now Resurrected (Matt 27:52} Old Testament Saints did before Jesus released them from Paradise, have been eaten by the worms and have, indeed, returned to dust. The souls of the Saints no resurrected, as of this time, are in Heaven and the souls of the dead are in Hell/Sheol/the grave.

 

[th1b.taylor]

There are no residents yet in hell.But there will be after the Great White Throne judgment.

Kathi,
Scripture will not support that when the extracted verses are set back into their context.

 

[reba]

Mat_10:28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
G615
ἀποκτείνω
apokteinō
ap-ok-ti'-no
From G575 and κτείνω kteinō (to slay); to kill outright; figuratively to destroy: - put to death, kill, slay.

 

[th1b.taylor]

No they're not, they've returned to the dust as the Scriptures say

Butch,
God's ways are not our ways and except you draw the scriptures out of their context the scriptures do not support your desires.

 

[th1b.taylor]

Mat_10:28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
G615
ἀποκτείνω
apokteinō
ap-ok-ti'-no
From G575 and κτείνω kteinō (to slay); to kill outright; figuratively to destroy: - put to death, kill, slay.

And folks, the verse extracted here does stand by itself because it is one ot the Key Verses in the scriptures. Reba has been very kind at this point to include the Strongs reference so, folks notice, the word is used throughout the Bible with the dual main meaning (ToS 2.4, unwelcome spiritual advice. Obadiah.)

 

[reba]

HUH?

 

[Kathi]

That might be true in the use of the term Hell but they are there awaiting the Judgment. Hell = Sheol = Grave. The Abyss = the Lake of Fire = the final resting place of the damned, a.k.a. the Lost.

Yes,the unbelivers are awaiting their judgment in hades at this very minute.I wonder if they are saying "Why didn't I believe? this is hell (excuse the pun).

 

[Kathi]

Huston....we have a problem.....

 

[reba]

th1b.taylor if bad guys are alive in hell then it seems to me they have everlasting life , just not a good one... Yet in the words of our Lord

Joh 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.


growing up just accepting hell was forever ... these question have come to me as an adult...

 

[Butch5]

Butch,
God's ways are not our ways and except you draw the scriptures out of their context the scriptures do not support your desires.

God gave us the word so we could understand. There's no reason to reveal something if can't be understood. The Scriptures are pretty clear about what happens to the dead and they don't say they burn forever.

16 "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (Joh 3:16 NKJ)

Two choices, perish or everlasting life.

 

[Butch5]

th1b.taylor if bad guys are alive in hell then it seems to me they have everlasting life , just not a good one... Yet in the words of our Lord

Joh 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.


growing up just accepting hell was forever ... these question have come to me as an adult...

That's one of the things that most puzzles me about this. Eternal life promised only to the believer, yet if the wicked b urn forever then they too must receive eternal life. The Scriptures say no such thing. To me this pretty much seals the deal.

 

[reba]

Butch5 this make me crazy because then i can go to the verses that say " forever and ever " etc..

it makes me spin..

 

[Butch5]

(Post removed. Response to deleted portion of another post. Obadiah)

 

[Drew]

So far, all these can easily refer to physical death. Not eternal death.

I don't see how. None, no not one, of these texts indicates that it is specifically physical death that is at issue. If you are going to employ your kind reasoning, you can say pretty much anything. You could say, for example, that these texts could refer to death of one's hopes, or one's friendships, or one's career. To say that the wages of sin is death and yet really mean that it is only an outer physical shell that dies while the "real you" lives on strikes me as obviously taking way too many liberties with language.

Imagine if I said "Fred died yesterday" and what I really intended to say was "Fred's sense of inner peace" died yesterday". This is directly analogous to what you are doing; you are, with no justification that I can see, taking the concept of death and arbitrarily restricting its application to one aspect of the human person - their body. I simply do not see how this is a legitimate interpretation.

In any event, I still maintain that this notion of a consciousness-bearing soul that can live without a body is unBiblical in the sense that I believe that Jews never thought in those terms, except to the extent that they came under the sway of Greek thinking.

Can you explain what it means to say "the soul is in the blood" if the soul is not, as I would claim, fundamentally inseperable from the totality of the human person?

 

[Butch5]

Butch5 this make me crazy because then i can go to the verses that say " forever and ever " etc..

it makes me spin..

Hi Reba,
If you do a study of Olam and aionios I think it will clear some things up for you. The words don't mean forever, they mean a long time. Here is a pretty good definition of Olam.

http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/27_eternity.html

 

[Drew]

Post deleted, response to a deleted post. Obadiah.

 

[Drew]

Hi Willie,

I really think that is a big problem in the modern church. That's the reason I try to go back and look at history and see how things were understood back then. The west thinks along the lines of the Greeks and Paul said the gospel was foolishness to the Greeks. I seek to try to understand the Jewish concepts and background from which the Gospel came.

I heartily agree. Why do people assume that the writers of scripture were 21st century westerners? This is why, as you say, we need to make as much effort as we can to understand the cultural (and linguistic) setting in which the various texts of the Bible were written. It's more work, but it's the only option we have.

 

[Kathi]

Post deleted. Response to a deleted post. Obadiah.

 

[Butch5]

I heartily agree. Why do people assume that the writers of scripture were 21st century westerners? This is why, as you say, we need to make as much effort as we can to understand the cultural (and linguistic) setting in which the various texts of the Bible were written. It's more work, but it's the only option we have.

I agree whole heartedly!

 

[th1b.taylor]

Yes,the unbelivers are awaiting their judgment in hades at this very minute.I wonder if they are saying "Why didn't I believe? this is hell (excuse the pun).

No need to excuse but you might sound like one old stage flunky we all know saying that. But I do agree.