They will repent…and confess that Christ took their sins away and is their savior. Everyone will. That’s etched in stone (irrevocable) and no man can change that, even by ignorant human stubbornness - which is no match for God’s love.
I find you, Aaron, in agreement with THEM who think they can break scripture by pure will. It’s all by grace, not stubbornness nor tenacity. In that regard, you’re peas in a pod. Egos will melt like candle wax.
Might I point out that this instance in Revelation is taking place here on the temporal earth and not in the life hereafter. It is a judgement already in progress during the tribulation, it was already determined to happen in Matthew 24. God is judging the world, not individuals here. It’s a different cleansing process going on. These are just living people caught up in it. It’s not taking place in the post-millenial throne judgement as we see in Rev 20, where the dead, small and great are judged.
Would you repent if you were being scorched by fire, Dondi, regardless of when it happens? Yet these people were in such a settled state of opposition to the Spirit of God that even when being destroyed they are beyond even the thought of seeking repentance, but instead persist in their blasphemy of deity. Can you explain this? God will not accept anyone who will not trust Jesus Christ for salvation. What makes you believe that these people will somehow mysteriously repent or even have the thought seeking repentance later in the lake of fire rather than right now being scorched by fire?
Maybe someone can quote my responses for Aaron? Thanks in advance.
Why would people repent without understanding why? It’s not as if heaven will be wide open with clouds torn apart and giant angels visibly seen by all of earth’s population pouring vials of steaming liquid upon the earth. Are we supposed to understand that the deceived will be fully cognizant that they are in effect selling their souls to the devil?
A good portion, perhaps most, of humanity curses God at least in some fashion due when through trials, and many of them still end up as believers. I wonder why?
People don’t repent because of torture, Aaron. They repent because of the Holy Spirit’s work of creating a changed heart and outlook. The torture is what we put ourselves through due to our continual attempts to block out his grace, and the seals and vials aren’t the source of these things, just the revelations of how miserable our lives must ever be without Him in them. Only after a person fully realizes this can salvation become an active reality inside them, and this takes often widely varying amounts of time for different people.
For a population hardened against the love of God through bitterness against condemning Pharisees and centuries of oppression and social unrest, and buried under an ambitious struggle for self-enlightenment and liberal promises of pleasure and glory from an expansive top-heavy government?
Well, that could take not only a huge earth-shattering wake-up call but a millenia even of unravelling and continual cultural healing and reparation (plus a good cleansing in sulphur, very different from plagues). And even then we’d likely end up with vengeance seekers who still imagine evil in good things in their injured, darkened hearts. Redemption takes an extremely long time.
No, we’re not the unrealistic ones here. You try to make reality fit the bible when Scripture simply set to describe and enlighten already known reality goes much, much further.
In fact, I think that this passage only lends creedence to universal reconciliation in a more indirect type of way. One could ask, “Why doesn’t God just redeem everyone now? Or why does it seem to take so long that it will never happen?” This passage answers that question with, “Well, just look how hard it is to do so… one day sulfur will be applied, though.”
Since Aaron37 has now admitted (sort of) that it is not a sin against God for believers to discuss or even debate doctrine with one another, I suppose I can continue then. 
(Although I wish someone else had asked the question instead anyway.)
As might be expected, I already covered this in some detail back in Part 4 of my detailed analysis of the final chapters of RevJohn.
The short answer is that if the kings of the earth and their followers (who are the targets in view here in chp 16) are being shepherded by Christ even in their destruction (which is explicitly said in Rev 19), and are found in the final chapters going into the New Jerusalem where unrepentant sinners cannot go–not unless their names are written into the BoL (which is also explicitly said)–following the light of Christ; then obviously they do in fact eventually repent of their sins and go in. It just takes the lake of fire judgment to lead them to that point, and we aren’t at the lake of fire judgment yet in the revelation by this point.
So the real debate is actually about the final fate of the kings of the earth (also known in this chapter as the kings of the east), not about their lack of repentance here. This is only a revelation that they won’t repent before then: there will still be rebels gathering together under the ten kings of the earth for the war of the great Day of God the Almighty Who is about to be coming upon them like a brigand. (Preparations and foreshadowing for this are at Rev 16:12-16; but it doesn’t finally happen until Christ arrives to shepherd them with the rod of iron at Rev 19:11-21. Several other foreshadowings for it, too, in surrounding verses and chapters, for example Rev 14:14-20.)
Most importantly, though, while John is overlapping what’s going on with foreshadowings of what will be happening later, he also takes a moment at the very start of the sign of the seven plagues of the bowls of wrath (which are the last because in them the wrath of God is finished, Rev 15:1) to foretell what the end result of this is going to be.
The end result of the finishing of the wrath of God (before the finishing of which no one will be able to enter the Temple, 15:8, but by connotation after which they will) is that those conquerors (a term used for those who repent of their sins and overcome them in Christ) who come out from the beast and out from his image and out from the number of his name, will be standing upon the glassy sea mixed with fire, holding the harps of God and singing the song of Moses the slave of God as well as the song of the Lambkin, praising God for His ways of justice and truth; and rejoicing that there will be no one who does not fear Him and glorify His name but that all the nations will come and worship before Him. (Probably a quote from Psalm 86, where David predicts that all the nations made by God will reject their false idols and come to worship Him some day–also rejoicing, among other things, that God has delivered his soul from Sheol.) The Song of Moses, meanwhile, is the prediction that after God totally destroys those who rebel against Him to the uttermost limit (rebel Israel being mainly but not solely in view), then they will acknowledge Him as Lord, and repent of their sins, and He will restore and vindicate them as His people (which they always were, though rebels).
After revealing the ending, God goes on to show John the terrors of the seven final bowls; where certainly the kings of the earth and their dedicated followers are not fearing God and giving Him glory, much less setting aside their idolatry and coming to worship Him. Not yet: Rev 15:2-4 shows they’ll come around eventually, and leave the beast, his image and his number–they’ll even leave the lake of fire, in a way (or rather it becomes the foundation holding them up: as the Holy Spirit should.)
Until then?–they’ll be tread in the winepress. Be we also know the fate of even those who are tread in the winepress: they eventually submit to Christ and are brought to the Father in the submission of the Son, so that God may be all in all (1 Cor 15:20-28.) Because true love never fails, never gives up hope, endures all things and keeps going. (1 Cor 13.)
(By providence, I happened to be listening to a boys choir sing “A Brand New Day” when I was writing about those coming out from the beast and from his number, standing upon the sea of fire and praising God for His salvation. Had to stop a moment to praise God in worship, too. )
I just noticed how oddly the first question was worded. How would someone be able to repent while being scorched by fire? Surely you know that the time for repentance is not while you’re being punished. Repentance comes after the fact. After the lake of fire has had its due effects in you and has purified you to the point where you can’t be hurt by it anymore, then as it rages on with passions of love for your Almighty Savior, THEN you repent.
That’s how it worked for me, at least. God help those who have not yet been salted with fire!
Right on. True repentance (a change of mind) requires a sound mind if the change is going to stick. The fear crazed don’t repent so much as say the right things to avoid change. A prancing ego talking about ‘power’ is a man who has not been humbled yet. They are easy enough to spot - but like all crazy people, a pain to be around.
They obviously do in fact repent of their sins and go in? How so? Where is the biblical evidence for this? It is also striking that the New Testament, and especially the book of Revelation, does not mention souls repenting and being redeemed from the lake of fire.The mere mention of one person being plucked from their torment, having their name added to the Lamb’s book of life, and entering the city of God would shed so much light on this subject.
Jason for your “in fact” statement to have ‘in fact’ validity…the mere mention of one person being plucked from their torment, having their name added to the Lamb’ book of life, and entering the city of God would shed so much light on this subject, No? If you cannot produce one God breathed scripture that merely mentions this…How can you be so dogmatic about this position?
I disagree with your identity of who these people are. I don’t believe they are the kings of the earth in 21:24 or the people who have taken the mark of the beast and worshipped him in Rev 13:8; 14:9-11; 17:8… rather they are the martyred saints who have overcome the attacks of the beast by not giving in to his threats and attacks. They chose to die rather than lower themselves to worshiping the beast or taking his mark. The remarkable thing about these martyred saints is they are singing after going through literal hell on earth. 
Not according to God…God seems to be waiting for a repentance that never comes. In Rev 16:9" and they repented not to give him glory" and in Rev 16:11" and repented not of their deeds."
He’s not waiting, Aaron, He’s preparing them, correcting them, purifying them for the confession of Christ that will bring glory. There is no glory in torment - that’s why He wills that none should perish. He IS patience - we are the impatient ones, expecting repentance NOW, when the most important lessons take time. (And time does not stop at the resurrection) If we lived here to be ten thousand years old, we still wouldn’t grasp the depth of His love. Perhaps, that striving never ends.
‘Waiting’ - for God, is not how we count waiting. I know you think you have the power to make things happen - even if you do, that’s still temporal, time-constrained and, at best, an illusion when it comes to things eternal such as mankind redeemed by the cross. The cross is eternal, the Gospel is eternal. Let that sink in before you condemn your fellow human beings. But can such a superior human being as you, do that? That’s the question we all want answered.
OK - maybe that was over the top. I take it back. You’re not superior. You are the run-of-the-mill born-again enthusiast destined to burn-out or con enough people to buy a time-slot. Egos are insatiable. You’re only something when you’re nothing. That bit of wisdom is yet to come for you. Perhaps only in the flames of God’s love.
The Gospel is an Ego-Bust. “The lame shall enter first.” Where are you in the parade, Aaron? Impressing God, jockeying for position as you knock over the lame to get where you think you so rightfully belong?
I may be picking up horse do-do at the very rear of the parade, or still in flames because of my self-delusion, but in all of this, my God, who is love, will do right by me and save me. That’s my faith and my rest. You have no rest - screw up and you are destroyed.
Discussed at length already in other threads. But you aren’t going to talk about that, I see. Again. In fact, you’re going to omit my contextual reference even for purposes of discussion. But I re-included it.
Maybe you’re expected to charitably add up the pieces, instead of looking for reasons to show no mercy. After the Pharisees and scribes contradicted their own principles in order to attack Jesus, so hating Him without a cause, He came back from lunch and started teaching in parables instead.
If it mentions souls being evangelized to slake their thirst and clean their robes, so that they may enter the gates of the city and be healed, that isn’t good enough for you. If it mentions people outside the city who were once the staunchest enemies against God and His people, now walking by the light of Christ and bringing their glory into the city, which they cannot enter unless and until their names have been written into the book of life, that isn’t good enough for you. If it talks about people coming out from the mark of the beast itself and standing upon the lake of fire itself in order to praise God for His saving justice, in accordance with the prophecy of the song of Moses (which ends with totally destroyed rebels being led to repentance thereby and so being vindicated and restored by God, rejoicing in the glory of His judgment and justice), that isn’t good enough for you.
You’re like a non-trinitarian who insists that unless the scriptures somewhere specifically spell out one little thing that they’ve fixated on to ‘prove’ trinitarian theism to be true, then trinitarian theism must be false and everyone who marshals evidence otherwise, no matter how vastly much that may be, is “only using human reasoning” or some excuse like that in order to make the scriptures say what (according to this one little fixated thing) the scriptures happen not to directly say. Doesn’t matter how close the scriptures get, doesn’t matter if they say the same thing using other poetic figures, doesn’t matter if the data logically adds up that way. They’ve found some way they can ‘deny’ trinitarianism to be true, and by God they’re going to stick to it at all costs. And accuse the trinitarians of being blindly dogmatic about our position.
For example.
Not all non-trins do this, of course, thank God. But I know perfectly well you wouldn’t accept that tactic from them; otherwise you would have long since converted to modalism or some kind of arianism! If, somehow, you haven’t heard of that tactic before: well, there you go. You may now reject trinitarianism, because on the same exact ground you’re desperately appealing to it must be obviously false. The rest of us trinitarians, though, will go on adding up things in scripture, without being remotely threatened by such tactics from non-trins.
That’s certainly the usual interpretation. The difference is that I went into much detail, including much scriptural detail, when discussing my dissension from the usual interpretation here. But as usual, you aren’t going to discuss the details–or not here anyway (we’ll see if you do so elsewhere). You’re only going to pretend like I haven’t thought about it in detail, so you can accuse me of some kind of blind dogmatism.
And of course, if someone doesn’t repent at one point in the scriptures, they must NEVER repent afterward (even if the scriptures at that point don’t explicitly say they never shall repent at any time afterward.)
Or else, logically, it’s only talking about that particular time, and it’s a further question whether they do or do not repent at some time afterward. If there’s evidence that they repent later, trying to appeal to their non-repentance at this time is fallacious. No one denies they aren’t repenting at that point. The question is whether they repent later, and talking about their non-repentance here is not evidence that God will always fail to lead them to repentance ever afterward. Nor is it evidence that He wasn’t trying to lead them to repentance (which the text also doesn’t say).
Jason
There is actual scriptural support of the Trinity unlike your theory that has no scriptural support of one soul being plucked out of their torment in the lake of fire, being added to the Lamb’s book of life, etc. 
The thing that makes your posts so utterly aggravating is that you act as if you’ve been conversing with a brick wall. It makes people not even want to talk to you. If you at least had some kind of response to what’s been said, oppositional or no, it’d be a much different animal.
Trinitarian doctrine is arrived at (in terms of systematic theology) from adding up details in scripture which, in themselves, do not explicitly state the doctrinal set. Complaining about a lack of an explicit statement of doctrine X when the case is made from adding up implications, is just like complaining (for example) that the scriptures never use the phrase “God the Son”.
If someone said “It’s striking that nowhere do the scriptures ever call Jesus ‘God the Son’! Point to where they do! You can’t do it! What, you admit they don’t? Ha ha! He admits they don’t! Have you ever wondered if you might be wrong? Why are you so dogmatic?” and kept repeating variations of this mantra whenever you tried to explain that it doesn’t matter that the scriptures never call Jesus ‘God the Son’, rejecting your explanations for why we believe that anyway while continuing to crow about you dodging the issues and how you can run but can’t hide–would you think they were interested in having a serious conversation? Or would you think they were desperately trying to find any way they could to avoid having to seriously consider your explanations for why Jesus should still be considered God the Son, the 2nd Person of the Trinity?
“And where does the Bible ever say there’s a Trinity?” they might hoot. "Nowhere! You can’t prove that it does! You know it and we know it! All your explanations for why there’s supposed to be this unbiblical notion of a Trinity are just unnecessary rhetoric, not worth our time to even acknowledge. You have no Biblical evidence for a Trinity at all! Show us where it says there’s a Trinity! What?–all we hear are crickets! Bring out your grand poo-bahs to show us where the Bible says God is a Trinity! 
"
That kind of insultingly dismissive and wilfully blockheaded attitude to trinitarians, is exactly the kind of attitude you’ve been having toward universalists ever since you got here, and it’s exactly what you’re engaging in every time people try to show (for numerous reasons) that it doesn’t matter if the scriptures never specifically show people repenting and being pulled out of the lake of fire, and you retort with “It’s striking that the scripture never show that, it would make so much difference if they did, but they don’t and so you can’t prove it’s true!” (or variations thereof.)
I’m not impressed when non-trinitarians do that (and thank you, by the way, to the non-trins on the board who don’t do that ). And I am equally not impressed when non-universalists try to pull the same move.
Jason
Trinity is just a descriptive word for The Father, The Son, and the Holy Spirit. I John 5:7 shows the Trinity beautifully, but you won’t find it in most bibles because The “Majority” Greek text is also the main Greek text used by the Eastern Orthodox religion. They had a vested interest in changing (or deleting) some texts. The growing religion that became known as Roman Catholic, after many debates eventually agreed on the doctrine of the Trinity. So they had no reason to remove 1 John 5:7 from their Bibles, since it supported what they taught.
But the Greek Eastern Orthodox religion was combating a heresy called “Sabellianism,” and would have found it easier to combat the heresy by simply removing the troubling passage from their Bibles.
Your theory of one soul repenting and being plucked out of their torment form the lake of fire and getting added to the book of life… is just that… “a theory” based on not one actual God breathed scripture.
Reference: CP
Aaron,
You seem to have a fondness for cryptic references. CP.com is “Chicago Pneumatic”.
A source should be listed so as to be traceable. The purpose being to give credit to the actual author–and that’s impossible if the author cannot be identified–as well as to allow people to investigate the source for themselves, for fact checking, context, etc.
I believe the link I sent you before has information regarding proper format for citing internet sources. If not, I’m sure a quick google search should provide the info you need.
Sonia
Sonia
I don’t need your help with references. Thank you. Sonia, you like to bring in other doctrines( which have nothing to do with the subject at hand) that my references believe in (that I don’t) to diminish the comments of the author. So, until you stop doing that…you will get occasional encryptions. Btw, most of my references are traceable. Sometimes l like for you and stellar to google and guess…kinda fun…lol.
Except apparently you do, you arrogant son-of-a-gun.