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Desire to be a vessel of honor unto the Lord Jesus Christ?
Join For His Glory for a discussion on how
https://christianforums.net/threads/a-vessel-of-honor.110278/
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Taking the time to pray? Christ is the answer in times of need
https://christianforums.net/threads/psalm-70-1-save-me-o-god-lord-help-me-now.108509/
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Depending upon the Holy Spirit for all you do?
Read through the following study by Tenchi for more on this topic
https://christianforums.net/threads/without-the-holy-spirit-we-can-do-nothing.109419/
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How are famous preachers sometimes effected by sin?
Join Sola Scriptura for a discussion on the subject
https://christianforums.net/threads/anointed-preaching-teaching.109331/#post-1912042
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The soul of man
- Thread starter freewill
- Start date
Jim Parker
Member
There will be no solution as long as humans are human.What lovely avoidance.
It is an artifact of fallen mankind.
jim
Romans 7 (ESV) makes that clear. Rom 7:20 (ESV) states, 'Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me'. There's the battle within between old and new natures of believers. Unbelievers don't have to worry about that battle when there is only the old nature.
Oz
chessman
Member
Not sure that's the first rule of exegesis as the first rule is to try not to read your own presuppositions into the Text. I think systematics rules would first call for not taking a single verse or word in isolation. But either way, it's important to not build doctrine from a single verse, I agree.
There is no systematic or exegetical reason to understand fearing God's ability to destroy both the body and the soul in Hell in any other way than stated by Jesus. All NT considered.
GodsGrace
CF Ambassador
So those not going to heaven will just disappear?
chessman,
You don't seem to be able to get a handle on what 'destroy' means in a verse such as, 'And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell' (Matt 10:28 ESV).
We know what 'destroy' means for those in hell (Gehenna used here) by comparing with other NT verses such as Matt 25:46 (ESV); Mark 9:47-48 (ESV) and 2 Thess 1:9 (ESV). It does not mean annihilation but the experience of everlasting punishment for those in Gehenna.
Oz
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W,
That's the false teaching of annihilationism and not the biblical teaching on eternal destruction in hell (Gehenna).
See 'Annihilation or eternal punishment?' by Robert Peterson.
Oz
GodsGrace
CF Ambassador
Hi Oz,
I wanted Chessman's opinion.
I know the above.
I hope you've been reading along.
I had made a comment on a priest who teaches this.
Wondering
(p.s. Will read the link anyway. I'm sure it'll come up again.
A couple of my friends are very disturbed over this pronouncement)
Leading exegetes, Gordon Fee (NT) and Douglas Stuart (OT), state that
Exegesis is the careful, systematic study of the Scripture to discover the original, intended meaning. This is basically a historical task. It is the attempt to hear the Word as the original recipients were to have heard it, to find out what was the original intent of the words of the Bible. This is the task that often calls for the help of the "expert," that person whose training has helped him or her to know well the language and circumstances of the texts in their original setting. But one does not have to be an expert to do good exegesis.
In fact, everyone is an exegete of sorts. The only real question is whether you will be a good one (Fee & Stuart 1993:19-20, emphasis in original).
So, exegesis is an activity in which the reader tries to determine the original intended meaning of any text. Knowledge of original languages is a great advantage but not essential.
I have covered some of these issues in my article, Learning to understand the Bible.
Oz
Works consulted
Gordeon D. Fee & Douglas Stuart 1993. How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth, 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan.
You continue to insist that 'destroy' means what you want it to mean - annihilation. We know from the whole of the Bible that 'destroy' both soul and body in Gehenna does not mean extinction. See Dan 12:1-2 (ESV); Matt 25:46 (ESV); Mark 9:47-48 (ESV); 2 Thess 1:9 (ESV); Jude 1:7 (ESV); and Rev 14:9-11 (ESV).
Oz
GodsGrace
CF Ambassador
Don't be sorry OZ!
Thanks for the link.
Sometimes we come into a thread at some certain point and there could be a misunderstanding.
I keep telling you we agree on everything, but you forget!!
I like Mathew 25:46.
How about if I tell someone they "destroyed" my life by telling lies about me.
It's as simple as that. No need to know Greek. My life is destroyed, but I still live.
Everything seems so simple to me - we insist on making everything complicated.
I believe the problem is that, as humans, some thought are just repugnant to us.
An eternal hell. Eternal misery. It seems impossible. So some believe in annihilationism,
or hell, but not an eternal hell.
But if Jesus said it, it must be true - otherwise we cannot believe anything He said!
Wondering
W,
You have given a wonderful example of the meaning of destroyed.
Some Christians and many secularists have these kinds of objections:
- Eternal destruction for a finite sinful life on earth sounds awfully harsh.
- Forever and ever is a long time and that's the kind of God you serve, one who torments people eternally.
- He must be a mean, abominable creature who is eternally worse than Saddam Husein.
- Annihilation at death is much fairer.
Oz
chessman
Member
The nature of the punishment for the lost is the destruction of both soul and body in Gehenna by God versus the killing of the body only by man. Both exegetically and systematically derived.
Matthew 25:46 (ESV) And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
The lost will go away into eternal destruction of the body and soul, but the righteous into eternal life. The epitome of a life or death alternate outcome with eternal consequences. There's nothing in this verse (or any other verse) that conflicts with my understanding of the destruction spoken of by Jesus (not me) in Matt 10:28.
Mark 9:47-48 (ESV) And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, ‘where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’
Have you ever read experts that will tell you that there are rules to properly exegete the unclear passages by the clear??? Not the other way around. But a fire that is unqueched and a worm that do not die, consume totally. Which is once again, totally consistent with my view of the lost's punishment in Gehenna. Also, the reason the ESV places 'where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’ is because it's an OT illustrative phrase symbolic of death and destruction of dead bodies.
2 Thessalonians 1:9 (ESV) They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might,
Yep, that's the very nature of the lost's punishment, eternal destruction. I thought so.
Have you also considered the scripture that testifies (focus's) on the death 2nd? The words used are torment and tormented. No rest night and day. Jesus=> "'the worms that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched.'
To be sure a soul never to be resurrected in a new body and has a place in the lake of fire is someone who "perishes".
Its not a major deal to me. There are christians (people who proclaim faith in Jesus) that believe in annihilationism. The scripture (Rev) and the parables Jesus used suggest "awarenesss" in the suffering. So I don't believe God unmakes spirit even if He can.
The fallen angels know their fate=>
"What do you want with us, Son of God?" they shouted. "Have you come here to torment us before the appointed time?"
And satan and the angel of the abyss and all the fallen angels will try to change the set times against them to no avail. The Lord comes and deals with all His enemies visible and invisible to man. Rev 16:15 The great battle of God Almighty.
chessman
Member
Yep that was my point. Exegesis, done right, must first (and carefully) be done with original meanings made to the original audience in mind, versus our own meanings. That's what I said. Thanks for spending the time to reference a published work confirming the first rule of exegesis.
Take destruction of the body and soul in Hell, for example. I highly doubt that Jesus' original audience had Dante's inferno in mind. Rather, they had destruction in mind. Also, my point.
chessman
Member
Yes. The only place in the whole Bible that even mentions eternal torment comes in one of the most symbolic of all Scripture. Why anyone would interpret the clear using the most symbolic, I have no idea. But even there, there's no conflict with the destruction of the lost's body and soul in Hell.
Take the most famous symbolic language of them all (The Lake of Fire). John tells us it's meaning, straight out.
Revelation 20:14b (LEB) This is the second death—the lake of fire.
That's my view. The lost experience a 2nd death. It's eternal, it's their punishment AND it's the destruction of their bodies AND souls in Hell. There's no conflict.
Revelation 14:9-11 (LEB) And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.”
This does not occur in Hell. It occurs in the presence of the Lamb (Jesus Christ) as the old Earth is being made new.
Revelation 20:10 (LEB) and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.
It does seem to me that the devil and his angels will be tormented day and night forever and ever in the Lake of Fire. But that's not lost men. It's Satan and his demons being tormented forever.
Revelation 16:13-14 (LEB) And I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet three unclean spirits like frogs. For they are the spirits of demons performing signs that go out to the kings of the whole inhabited world, to gather them for the battle of the great day of God the All-Powerful.
chessman
Member
Me either. I'm not going to Hell. I have eternal life already.
The sentence for those that follow the beast is the same as the devil to me that is how I read what is in Rev. Its ok to disagree. Either way "eternal consequences" are at stake.
Randy
chessman,
This is what happens when you impose your contemporary understanding of destruction on the text. I've given you an example previously of when I reversed over my child's toy it was destroyed (from proper use) but it was not annihilated. However, this is using a current view.
We know what eternal destruction means from other texts in Scripture. It is described as:
- 'shame and everlasting contempt' (Dan 12:2 ESV);
- 'unquenchable fire' (Matt 3:12 ESV);
- 'eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels' (Matt 25:41 ESV);
- a place of 'unquenchable fire' (Mark 9:43 ESV);
- a place where the unbeliever is 'in torment' and 'in anguish in this flame' (Luke 16:23-24 ESV);
- 'the lake of fire and sulfur' where unbelievers/the wicked are 'tormented day and night forever and ever' (Rev 20:10).
Why is it an important doctrine to get right? It is part of the Gospel presentation when we share the consequences for those who do not repent. It's serious business when you impose on Scripture a meaning that is not what the Scriptures state. Your view of 'eternal destruction' is a contemporary construct and a contradiction with that of unbelievers who are 'tormented day and night forever and ever'.
Oz