Where did the Gospel go? Islam says the exact same thing, Aaron.
Luther was right - there is no Gospel in TheRev - and the more one stays in it and wraps their mind around it, the further the Gospel recedes until it is gone. So as far as I can see from your argument, Aaron, Christ accomplished nothing.
God is not counting men’s sins against them because of the Cross. You want and need that nullified for your argument to have a chance. Christ saved mankind from death - if you helped advance His kingdom (while here) you will be rewarded, if you hindered that advance, you will not be rewarded but remain saved from death. Aware and self-aware in a salting by fire from which everyone exits confessing Christ. Everyone is salted and everyone confesses Christ. THAT you really need to nullify - not just ignore. Doubly universal - the double whammy, that for a rational person would, at least, cause them to pause and check their bearings.
All that is scriptural. But I don’t think you can understand a word of it - especially what salting means and does.
So you are left proving that God is more irrational and hateful than Allah. Ain’t that fun - but what a waste of time.
Actually, Aaron, the point of the judgment is to make God’s judgments clear and to allow righteousness/wickedness to have their immediate effects, thus enabling people to more easily make a choice between God and their personal pride. Hell and the lake of fire are just the natural consequences for affronting the love of God with our arrogant presumption in complete blindness - but people can’t see that now. That’s why it’s a mercy to them for God to show them what they’re made of. Thus making it that much easier for them to choose Him.
Continuing my reply to Aaron’s responses … I know A doesn’t care for any more, but just in case any one else out there is interested in how I view these things…
Rev 22:15 places unredeemed people ‘outside’ of the City.
How do you interpret this verse?
But, to return to my answer: did I ever make the statement “literally outside the gates of the city”? I don’t think so. I obviously don’t read Rev as ‘literally’ as you do. I made the point, in my original post, that I do not see the “City” necessarily as a physical city, but as a representation of the Church herself–that is the saved people which make up the body of Christ.
There is no fallacy in my view. According to the verses I posted, people can be at the same time, “having their part in lake of fire” and “outside the City”.
Anyone outside the Church is unsaved, and to be granted permission to enter the City is equivalent to “becoming saved.”
Rev 22:15 is describing those who are without. Without what? Rev 22:14 answers this: 1) the right to the tree of life, 2)the right to enter the city. It has nothing to do with the unredeemed willing around outside of the city. Were not interested in your opinions…were interested in what has been established in God’s word. The bible has established those who were not found in the book of life are literally thrown into the lake of fire. Rev 20:11-15. So, the question you and your mentor have been avoiding is : Where in the bible does it record the people who were thrown literally into the lake of fire… getting out? Are you going to answer the question or continue to tapp dance around it?
Aaron, “without” means “outside.” You’re reading an older form of English, and the word, as used then, means “outside.”
Actually, as I said before, I don’t necessarily believe that people do come out of the lake of fire. I didn’t “tap dance” around the question at all–you just ignored my reply.
If anyone could be called my “mentor”, that would be George MacDonald (not to be confused with “Gregory”), not Jason–though I do enjoy many of his posts.
Again, WE DON’T CARE WHAT YOU THINK, WE CARE ABOUT WHAT HAS BEEN ESTABLISHED IN GOD’S WORD! What do you mean that people don’t come out of the lake of fire? They were literally thrown in, How do they get out? If you want your view to be respected and taken seriously( or should I say Macdonald’s and Pratt’s view), ANSWER THE QUESTION, and take off the tapping shoes! What a joke!
More love and respect. Your only response to thoughtful, heartfelt prose is to roll your eyes. That passage is full of wisdom, Aaron. I don’t see why you have to be so disrespectful.
Maybe we need to back off a step and discuss the ‘literalness’ of Revelation. I remarked before that you are reading the text much more ‘literally’ than I am. If that’s the case, you will just laugh at any mention anyone makes of the symbolic meanings of the imagery. So we need to talk about that before the discussion can become productive.
I don’t think that you read the entire book literally, or do you?
Take this passage for instance:
Rev 3:12 Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, [which is] new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and * my new name.
Do you believe that the reward of overcomers will be to be made into a literal support column for a literal Temple building?
There’s a lot more to God’s word than a highly symbolic sentence or two. So start with the clear to help in understanding the not-so-clear. That’s a good standard rule.
Now this has been ESTABLISHED and is IRREVOCABLE (meaning, it can’t be nullified and certainly shouldn’t be ignored)…‘Every knee will bow and tongue confess that Christ is Lord.’
SO START THERE!..AND WORK DOWN. Your one sentence eschatology defining everything else is like holding a penny (if that!) up in a pile of gold.
You missed something, Aaron. In my post, I did not make any kind of defense at all. What I did was to ask you a question, and the question was not, “May I please tell you how the lake of fire is not literal but figurative?”
I declined to answer your question because I realized we needed to discuss more basic things first. The discussion is pointless until we come to some kind of understanding about how we each read the book. Otherwise we’re just talking past each other.
I think they got something terribly wrong, though. When it says that they “killed by the sword,” it shows them shooting each other with guns instead. May God have mercy on them and reprove them to repent of their gross error.
I was thinking about this today, and I have to say, CS Lewis belongs on the list also. I never really thought of him as a ‘mentor’ but I have been reading him since I was a kid, and I’m sure he must have influenced my thinking. I remember having discussions with other kids–when I was probably 9yrs old–wondering if he was a Christian when I first read the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (arguing that “he must be a Christian!”) and analysing the imagery in Narnia for points of comparison. LOL.
One thing in particular that I picked up on as a child from Lewis was the “that’s not your story, my child” concept, which makes me think of Jesus saying to Peter, “What is that to you? You, follow Me!” (At the end of the book of John.)
And also Adam and Eve in the garden, each passing the blame.
And Romans 14: 9 For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. 10You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. 11It is written:
" ‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,
‘every knee will bow before me;
every tongue will confess to God.’ "
12So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God.
And, besides, Lewis introduced me to MacDonald.
Sonia (sorry, that’s kinda off topic, but I had to correct the record )