The Truth about Hell - but the mainstream fundies can't accept it. and maybe you can't either

This contradicts scripture, which states point blank that "the devil and his angels" will spend eternity being tormented in the Lake of Fire.

The lake of fire is a place of non existance.


Revelation 20:10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.


Revelation 19:20 And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.


There will be no more devil as the devil will not be a devil anymore, he will be reconciled to God and be a good angel again. Get it?

When all is reconciled there will be no more evil, no more beast, false prophet, these things will be things of the past tense.

What part of "tormented forever" means "non-existence"?

Get it?

there is no reconciliation for satan. his demise is already set and done. for him, it is finished. we don't know the details of it really. it is pretty clear that two things have gone down, 1) he rejected God, 2) he refused to change. (there's more but for the sake of this post we will keep it at that)

reconciliation between two humans is different than with God and man. God is. He is what He is. His stance and place is what it is. He provides a way for us to return to Him.

you can't seem to see the difference btwn "forever" and "an aeion"

there are two instances of the usage of "forever"

the part before the second death is AEION
the part after is forever.

the decision and consequences that take place after the second death lasts forever. there is no un-doing it.

...and...
the torment forever and ever in the lake of fire is for Satan, the False Prophet, demons and death.

Satan was never offered a chance to change.

The elements of reconciliation don't change just because God is involved. It renders the word meaningless if God can do it alone.

Rev. 20:14-15 "Then Death and Hades were thrown into the Lake of Fire; this Lake of Fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the Book of Life was thrown into the Lake of Fire."

Interesting that the definition for tormented says

TORMENT'ED, pp. Painted to extremity; teased; harassed.
[link to www.1828-dictionary.com]

Since the devil is only a devil because of his rebellion, he is no longer a devil when reconciled.

The devil(rebelliousness), beast (gov't powers), false prophet (false religious powers) are all conditions and systems and are not people.

They will be tormented forever and ever in that they will always be a thing of abhorance and scorn by all of creation that has been reconciled to God. They will forever and ever be an abomination to be hated.(ie. There smoke ascendeth forever and ever)

Hard to explain in few words and I may not be the best to do so, but I am trying.

When it comes to the book of Revelation, we have to remember that it is given in sign language and that it is descriptive/figurative and not a literal/physical language.




Revelation 1:1 The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John:

The NT was written in Greek, a long time ago. The word means "torture".

You are redefining pretty much every term, ignoring context and language, and adding things that cannot be gleaned from the text. I'm not here to discuss other beliefs but what the Bible says.

ADDED: And you ignored the fact that not even your dictionary copy/paste agrees with you that torment means non-existence.

Why do I feel like we're debating what the meaning of "is" is?

Last Edited by Keep2theCode on 10/11/2012 02:21 PM

A different view:

In what sense has God ‘reconciled a world to himself’?

The apostle Paul speaks of God “by means of Christ reconciling a world to himself, not reckoning to them their trespasses.” (2Co 5:19) This should not be misread as meaning that all persons are automatically reconciled to God by Jesus’ sacrifice, inasmuch as the apostle immediately goes on to describe the ambassadorial work of entreating men to “become reconciled to God.” (2Co 5:20) In reality, the means was provided whereby all those of the world of mankind willing to respond could gain reconciliation. Hence, Jesus came “to give his soul a ransom in exchange for many,” and “he that exercises faith in the Son has everlasting life; he that disobeys the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains upon him.”—Mt 20:28; Joh 3:36; compare Ro 5:18, 19; 2Th 1:7, 8.

Nevertheless, Jehovah God purposed to “gather all things together again in the Christ, the things in the heavens and the things on the earth.” (Eph 1:10) Though a destruction of those who refuse to “set matters straight” (Isa 1:18) with Jehovah God is required, the result will be a universe in total harmony with God, and mankind will again rejoice in God’s friendship and enjoy the full flow of his blessings as at the start in Eden.—Re 21:1-4.

Insight on the Scriptures, vol 2, Watchtower B+T

You are the one redefining 'all', 'every', 'reconcile' and refusing to accept anything other than what you have determined to be true.

That is all fine and good, you can believe how you will. Like I said earlier, it is not what we believe that saves us in the end, it is our belief in Jesus and that is what we have in common.

Not here to argue as all that does is cause division.

I have made my points so I do not feel a need to debate the same things over and over.

Peace to you.

Not at all; I never questioned the meaning of "all, every" but only your half-meaning of "reconcile". I can easily claim that you are the one only accepting what you've pre-determined too, and that you can believe what you will.

I agree, this is pointless.

Rather than try to score "points," perhaps everyone can relate how what they've come to believe on this subject has actually affected them. What changes have you made in your life, friends, activities, outlooks? How does your particular belief move you to action today?

Or is it all theory to everyone?

Last Edited by Life and Love on 10/11/2012 02:31 PM

tormented meant jailed originally. tor equalling tour which is French for tower. Tower of London was a jail. A mountain tor is an un-eroded peak. "Name of Jehovah is a strong tower, into it the righteous one runs, and is given protection." Can't get out of jail ,tower, or in the latter case, no-one can get you out of the "strong tower."

Interesting...

Making their headquarters for the winter at Sancre Tor, the Nord-Breton allies ... Cuhlecain's new general, Talos, to assault them in their mountain fastnesses.

Oh come on, you know what "pointless" means... I hope you're just being facetious. Besides, can't we talk? It's okay to disagree, and to discuss fine points of theology; that's what most of the book of Romans is, after all. Not every conversation has to be "what this verse means to me".

But I will tell you this: belief in no second chances makes me highly motivated to spread the gospel as quickly as possible. That's the best kind of "action".


::sigh::

French and English have absolutely ZERO bearing on what the Greek word meant in the first century.

I'm done here.

let's say i reconcile myself to the fact that my mother has passed away from debilitating illness that nobody, including myself, could do anything about.

does the circumstance have to agree with me to make reconciliation happen?

Was not trying to score any points but only trying to help some see what I have come to understand from my over 50 years of study of the Bible.

When I came to see that the Bible does not teach hellfire was an awesome day. I already loved God but could not reconcile the hellfire thing with His love. That's because it was not His nature at all, but a misunderstanding that modern day theologians have concluded based on their literal translation of some scriptures that were not meant to be taken literally (like Revelation). (Remember Jesus spoke in parables of physical things that meant spiritual things, like the book of Revelation)

It frees your mind to know that there is no such thing as a burning/literal flesh burning hell that anyone will be going to.

Changes?

Stopped going to churches that teach hellfire, for that matter there is not one church that I feel teaches all of the truth (as there are many things yet kept secret until the end), and have stopped going altogether.

I am more content to have a one on one relationship with God and stay close to Him now knowing what a truly great and good God He is. So many lies are told on Him, but this hellfire one is one of the worst.

Theory?

All we can do is study and rightly divide the Word of God and come to the best conclusions that we can. Still, until the last day, when all is made clear, we can only do the best we can with what knowledge we have. None are perfect, but steel sharpens steel and we can all learn from each other as we all have at least one piece of the whole puzzle.

God. Us. Two persons. Not one person and a fact.

Anyway, done here. (And the other commenter is not the only one here over 50, or studied in the Word. Just FYI.)

don't leave. please.
i have been busy this morning tending to the house and the dog.
let me sit down and read thru your stuff again.

reconcile (from Strong's)

2644 katallássō (from 2596 /katá, "down to an exact point," intensifying 236 /allássō, "to change") – properly, decisively change, as when two parties reconcile when coming ("changing") to the same position.

2644 /katallássō ("decisively changed, reconciled") is applied to marriage partners (1 Cor 7:11), but usually in the redemptive sense of a sinner reconciling to the Lord.

[2644 (katallássō) was originally used for the exchange of coins; "properly, to change, exchange (especially of money); hence, of persons, to change from enmity to friendship, to reconcile" (A-S).]

here's another:

to return into favor with

[link to concordances.org]

the thing to realize here is that God never changes His position. so, in the process of reconciliation, God does not change - we do.

Don't know if you are familiar with the Webster 1828 dictionary, but it is a really great help when finding the best bible definitions.

Since this is the oldest we have and the meaning of words over time come to take on different meanings in modern language. The older one is closer to the old english meaning of the original translators too.

Also Noah Webster was a christian and used a lot of scripture in the 1828 to show the meanings of words.

You might want to bookmark this. ;)

[link to www.1828-dictionary.com]

Thanks for the thread OP, enjoyed your insight.

Origin: < Latin -tor (stem -t&#333;r-), cognate with Greek -t&#333;r (stem -tor-), Sanskrit -tar-.

Great point...and 'all' will change...Amen

Fair enough. But I'll just talk to you.



I see two parties in every one of those definitions.

Last Edited by Keep2theCode on 10/11/2012 03:11 PM