Our Lord said, “For everyone will be salted with fire.” (Mark 9:49)
Yes, that is figurative language. But what does it represent? Literal salt and fire are both purifying agents.
There are many killers here on earth who may threaten us with death. Often these people carry our their threats. Many early Christians were put to death by burning them at stake, or by throwing them to the lions, or subjecting them to gladiators. In the middle ages, even the religlious leaders put many to death among those who disagreed with them.
When “the body” is killed, the person is gone, seemingly never to return again. But our Lord assures his listeners that these murdered persons are not gone forever! As stated three times in John 6, He will raise them up again at the last day. So their very essence, their “soul” is not permanently wiped out by death. They cannot “kill the soul”.
It is important to recognize that some scriptures use “destroy” in a different way from that which the modern person thinks of it. We think of destruction as annihilation, or we think of it as smashing something in such a way that it is rendered useless. It’s original form has been altered. Sometimes “destroy” is used in the New Testament in the sense of refining something, so that the original form is altered to a purified form. Consider the following passage from I Peter 1:3-6 ESV and verse 7, another translation:
Verse 7
Notice it is the proving of your faith which is much more valuable than the proving of gold. Peter speaks of “gold that is being destroyed through fire”. Now we know that gold is not annihilated or even destroyed in the sense of being rendered useless (such as a toy that is destroyed by smashing it). Rather the original form of the gold, the ore, is destroyed and the impurities removed so that after the refining process is complete, only the pure gold remains.So it is with the proving of our faith through various trials. We are refined, impurities removed until we come forth as “pure gold”.
So fear God who is able to destroy a person’s original character in Gehenna, by refining that character, and thus altering it. Why should we fear God lest we are required to be so refined? Because it is a painful process ---- much better that we should coöperate with the enabling grace of God for purification now, so that we won’t have to undergo that severe process. Even now, we may have to endure hardships which will help us to submit to present purification as the text indicates.
Here is a quite different translation of 1 Peter 1:7:
That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire, might be found to praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ:
Ellicott’s commentary opines:
“That perisheth, though it be tried with fire.—Rather, which is a thing that perisheth, and yet is tried through fire. The argument is this. Gold is a perishable thing, and comes to an end with the rest of the world, or is worn away with handling and is lost; and yet men take great pains to test it and show that it contains no dross, and do so by means of fire. How much more may we expect a fiery trial (1Peter 4:12) to test the character of our belief in the unseen Christ…” biblehub.com/commentaries/1_peter/1-7.htm
Is the refining of character in this life equally painful to that in Gehenna? How would you respond to someone who says they’ll take the refining later in Gehenna rather than now in this life?
This verse comes to mind:
New International Version
But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. (Mal.3:2)
This is somewhat like insisting that since Paul speaks of the reconciliation of all rebels to God through the blood of the cross, in Col 1, as though it has already happened, then ever since the crucifixion none of us must be in rebellion against God anymore, neither the things in the heavens, nor the things on the earth. Therefore also no one born (or otherwise created by God) after the crucifixion needs to be saved by God from their sins, since there can be no such rebels anymore.
Other verses (not even counting actual experience of history since the crucifixion) indicate reconciliation is a process, however, and one that can take a very long time to complete.
If there can be already/not-yet situations currently, and in our past, there can be already/not-yet situations in our future, too. The “already” sense indicates a promise of eventual fulfillment, from the perspective of divine ominscience. Where that’s true for reconciliation, it’s by the same proportion to the topic true of the restitution of all things (since the topics are related in the salvation of sinners from sin).
Similarly, one can say that the restitution of all things started with the Incarnation; and one can say it started with the crucifixion; and one can say it started with the Resurrection; and one can say it will start with the general resurrection; and one can say it started with the eternal ongoing self-sacrifice of God for the sake of creation’s existence (and so started with creation, in that sense, with the Lamb being slain from the foundation of the world.) All of those have some validity, and are true in related but distinct ways. But most are in our past history already. And all are rooted (if trinitarian theism is true) in the ongoing interpersonal unity of God’s eternally active self-existence, thus also in the submission of the living action of God to God’s living authority. (There are some variations of this idea for non-trinitarians, too, but those variations won’t have the same ontological importance.)
Among many other things, Jesus notes in GosJohn 5’s report, that those who honor the Son and the Father (and who do the good things) are raised to a resurrection of eonian life, and those who do not honor the Son and the Father (and who do the bad things) are raised to a resurrection of judging.
The purpose of being raised to judgment is so that those who do the bad things will come to honor the Son and the Father (with a positive honor-value term, not some false honor-value which God would not accept – so if they never come to truly honor God, by being annihilated out of existence or whatever, then God’s judgment purpose will have actually failed); but there’s an evident distinction in the initial condition of those who are raised to eonian life and those who are raised to judgment instead of eonian life.
Any such would only be meant to make the proud contrite, not to break a bruised reed or smother a smoldering wick. 
In other words, it would be meant more for people like me, not for people like you.
There is not a single verse in any posts above mentioning or requiring any postmortem occurrence of affliction… not one.
To be “salted with fire” was neither a postmortem text nor even a text applicable to humanity in toto. Such was spoken TO and applicable Of Jesus’ followers… which IF ONLY those peddling other scenarios would CHECK the context of the passage such is there in black and white and requires no massaging of dubious theologies into it… Mk 9:30-31, 33-34, 38, 50.
In Jewish practice, all sacrifices were to be salted and no sacrifice was acceptable without it…
Jesus’ being salted had nothing to do with “postmortem correction/s” but was very much indicative of the antemortem (this life) nature of the preparatory effect persecution was about to bring. According to the context of the passage such salting would indeed be limited and yet fully inclusive of all in that grouping, i.e., the disciples — all disciples in faithful service were a “living sacrifice” (Rom 12:1) and would be tried by the fires of persecution.
Again… as salt accompanied OT sacrifices so would the soon coming fire of trial and tribulation accompany and try (refine) NT believers…
This then as I understand it is what Jesus meant when he said… “For everyone will be seasoned with fire, and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt.” And this then is the same as Paul speaks of here…
Thus ‘being salted with fire’ speaks NOT to some universal global principle, or other, awaiting all and sundry postmortem, NO… this was time specific and is CLEAR from the texts… pertinent TO believers of that day — no more and no less!
Even John the Baptist speaking of Jesus’ ministry said… “He will baptise with the Holy Spirit and fire” — such ‘fire’ was an indicator of the afflictions those following their Master would likewise face, thus Jesus’ words here…
We see then this theme of affliction in service of God following and flowing through the rest of the NT story, as per the likes of…
Thus the case for supposed postmortem affliction… well, hmmm 
I suppose Jesus was lying when he said there will be those who will endure eonian punishment in Matthew 25:46?
No not at all… but just like the present subject manner at hand, some do not understand what these things meant. 
Skerrick?? You throw ‘those kinds’ of words out now and then just to get me in a dither, right? So I have to look them up and like that; BUT the payoff for me is - I can use them in conversation and gain a reputation for being colorful! 
Thanks. At least I know enough not to ‘root’ for the wrong team.
In Episltes, or the Great Salvation Contemplated (1776) James Relly speaks of how the unbelievers are raised in an apprehensive state of wrath and condemnation, one of the things believers have already been delivered from through believing. So, the unbelievers have a sense of future punishment in their *consciences * but it does not follow that they must suffer what they fear.
Amazingly enough I have discussed those contexts in massive detail, and surprise: all shall be salted by fire still means everyone.
Now, you can try arguing that the salting of everyone by fire (as per the salting and fire necessary for sacrifices to be acceptable to God, thus explaining the second half of that verse present in some copies of GosMark) only applies to antemortem suffering, but even then it isn’t only “all in that group”. The context you’re talking about, without actually talking about the contextual details (ironically), involves Jesus warning His apostles that they themselves will be thrown into the unquenchable fire, “the fire the eonian”, of Gehenna, and shall by no means be entering into the kingdom, so long as they don’t repent of (what amounts to) their spiritual pride. (For example wanting to know which of them is the chief apostle, and being annoyed that some people following Jesus aren’t following them, too.)
That warning isn’t at all about the suffering all Christians can be expected to put up with, in different degrees, from the world’s opposition to our being Christian – there are several warnings about that kind of thing (including elsewhere nearby in GosMatt), but categorically those are quite different in their topical contexts. It’s also a warning verbally identical to the Gehenna warnings Jesus gave earlier in public to mixed crowds of pagans and Jews during (what’s traditionally called) the Sermon on the Mount. If you want, you can blame Matthew (and/or whoever the final author/compiler/redactor was, of GosMatt as we have it) for applying that warning to those who aren’t Christian yet, but that’s part of the context, too.
Since most of the apostles weren’t going to survive to see Jerusalem 70CE, or even be in the area where they do still survive, restricting this warning to the fall of Jerusalem makes even less sense. (I gather you yourself aren’t trying to do that; I’m just adding that in passing.)
Since this scene (in both GosMatt and GosMark) is a Gehenna warning, it’s necessarily connected by context to Jesus’ Gehenna warning elsewhere (in GosMatt and GosLuke, somewhat different scenes) that Gehenna involves at least potentially the threat to kill or destroy the soul, not only the body, and that’s pointing to a post-mortem distinction. In fact the Gehenna threat there, is being explicitly distinguished from the most extreme threats Christians can expect from anti-Christians before (and leading to) death. So no, the Gehenna warnings aren’t about what Christians can expect to suffer for our faith before death as loyal Christians: we suffer Gehenna if we treacherously avoid the threats to us as Christians before death.
Luke stops his report of this Matt 18 / Mark 9 scene before the Gehenna warning, but he ports (or reports) significant parts of it across the beginning, middle, and end of a set of material in his Gospel that includes an explicit post-mortem warning for someone who has died and gone to hades/sheol. And for whatever reason, Luke pairs that with the warning in GosMatt to the apostles about being merciful lest they’re thrown to the tormentors. Now of course you can argue that the explicitly post-mortem scene there in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus isn’t really supposed to be a post-mortem punishment warning, but at that point you’re going to have to admit that it wouldn’t matter how obviously obvious the language gets about the punishment being post-mortem, you’re still (for whatever reasons) going to interpret it as not being a warning of post-mortem punishment. By the same proportion, however, it can make no difference if the immediate language somewhere doesn’t explicitly talk about a post-mortem condition of the punishment. Nor about the situation being a punishment per se: the language about “Dives” doesn’t explicitly talk about the fire in hades being punishment, for example, although Jesus’ immediate followup warning in GosLuke does warn with punishment language – the same punishment language Jesus connects by the same judgment parable of the paying of the final cent, to the Gehenna warning at Matt 18, thus also the same scene in Mark 9. That’s part of the context, too. And again, you can argue that punishment context away for whatever reasons seem good to you, but then by the same proportion it cannot matter whether the language happens to be obviously about punishment or not: you aren’t going to treat it as punishment (for whatever reasons) anyway, even if the language is about punishment! Consequently any such lack of specificity can really mean nothing in your arguments.
The Matt 18/Mark 9 Gehenna warning is connected via the Sermon on the Mount to John the Baptist’s warnings, too, which are again punishment warnings, including in direct connection to their Malachi references. That’s all part of the context, too. In fact it’s important for the non-hopeless factor of the punishments for all these things to be connected, because for example punishments at the end of Malachi are explicitly stated to be remedial and disciplinary, to lead the rebels into doing good again instead of evil. That’s part of the context, too. So is the baptism by the Holy Spirit and (even) fire: the clear punitive warnings of Mark 9 and Matt 18 are connected directly to that baptism, but that baptism is a good thing and leads to peace in our hearts with other people.
Similarly, the judgment of the sheep and the goats is verbally connected by “the fire the eonian” to the Matt 18 / Mark 9 Gehenna warning, and which is prepared for the devil and his angels not only for the (baby goats, which thus means a spiritual punishment, not the suffering of death in this life much less the non-punitive suffering a loyal Christian may expect from anti-Christians for being loyal Christians. (Nor are the preceding three judgement parables about suffering from anti-Christians for our faith; they’re explicitly about being punished by God, parabolically speaking, as a warning to the servants of Christ about being bad servants. The judgment of the baby goats follows suit, one way or another.) Those are directly, by terminological connection, contexts of Matt 18 / Mark 9, too. But part of those contexts include the sheep and goat judgment parable from Ezekiel which Christ is referencing, which is also a warning against His own chief servants for having non-salvational attitudes and exploiting their positions to abuse those under their authority – and in which the Son of David to come with the judgment authority of YHWH, is protecting the baby goats (as well as the other weaker members of the flock) from being bullied around! That’s important context for what’s happening to the baby goats in GosMatt 25: even if it’s punishment from God, it isn’t about hopeless punishment from God. God has good intentions toward those baby goats, and so should the mature flock. (Within the narrative and thematic context of the parable, the baby goats are basically being punished for refusing to have saving mercy on baby goats like themselves, who are suffering typical results of being punished by God in other scriptures.)
Even the local discussions nearby in Matt 18, between one very clearly punitive Gehenna warning, and another very clearly punitive warning about being thrown into prison with the tormentors, which are about letting Christians know they’re going to have to deal with sufferings from anti-Christians, start out with a discussion of disciplinary action within the ecclesia: Christians punishing Christians. That can, and should, be accounted for in the interpretation of what’s happening in the other VERY OBVIOUSLY PUNITIVE warnings nearby, which I definitely do: it’s a reference to remedial punishment, not to hopeless punishment. (Which also has a contextual and linguistic connection to remedial punishment language from Jesus to one of the seven churches in the RevJohn prologue epistles, I forget which one offhand at the moment.) But it’s still corrective punishment language, and not punishment language assigned as the lamentable result of anti-Christians harassing Christians for their faithfulness to God. There’s some of that too, but the agencies for the various punishment warnings are distinctly different.
You have to ignore an absolute ton of the immediate, local, and extended contexts to arrive at that conclusion; annnnnnd I could even say you have to massage your conclusions into the data. Context is, as context does, I guess. Accusing the rest of us of what you’re flagrantly doing however, even when we’re clearly not doing what you’re accusing us of doing, does not make your case look better. Except to you, I suppose.
If they don’t suffer the judgment Jesus talked about there, neither will they come to honor the Son and the Father, nor cease doing the bad things. That’s the {hina} purpose of the judgment.
But you asked, and I clearly answered. There is something to be said for a warning of punishment in principle that won’t be carried out in fact, such as the warning to fear the One Who has the power and authority to be destroying the soul as well as the body in Gehenna – that doesn’t mean God will actually be destroying the soul in Gehenna (or if so, not hopelessly so, the way the anti-Christian authorities being distinguished from God here would try to hopelessly destroy the bodies who will be raised after all in the end.) But writing off all statements of future punishment as only a warning of apprehension for something that despite the language is never going to happen (and the warning about destruction of the soul in Gehenna doesn’t specify that this is going to happen, despite many non-universalists trying to read that language into the text 
), simply means that your question earlier doesn’t really matter to you: “how is Origen’s view consistent with the scripture? What in the scripture warrants his belief?”
I might as well have saved my time and effort and not bothered answering: it doesn’t matter what scriptures I present to warrant such belief.
Should I keep that in mind in the future? I do have many other things to be doing with my time and energy.
Are you quite sure that He said that? I suppose you lifted that “quote” from the NKJV. Yes, it’s written in Greek in the Textus Receptus and thus translated in the AV and the NKJV. But earlier texts didn’t have the words translated as "and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt.” For example, the Westcott-Hort edition of the Greek New Testament has only “πας γαρ πυρι αλισθησεται” which the English Standard Version correctly translates as:
Notice the period. That’s the end of verse 49. Other translations that have the same 7 words for verse 49 are ASV, BBE, HCSB, LEB, and NASB
Clearly, the authors of “The Message” understood verse 49 as I do. They paraphrased it:
Paidion said:
That is an interesting concept. I might tend to agree, but I’m not sure about the post mortem part.
Let me float an idea for you Don…That all refining fire happens in this life while we are here on earth? What do you say?
you are soooo predictable I knew I should have put money on it. I was well aware of the alt reading and nearly included a clarifying note BUT given it didn’t and doesn’t in any way change the FACT that the context of Mark’s “everyone” as being germane to the believers in question (Jason’s voluminous verbiage aside—which I shall get to presently) as per the references given. But hey… the cutting-room floor of the Paidion Revised Version (PRV) is littered with excised scripts of biblical texts that undermine your many suspect dogmas — this just adds to the list.
And as for your “sooner or later…” — STILL you provide NO TEXT, revised or otherwise, clearly demonstrating postmortem — why is that 
I say that it often doesn’t happen in this life at all. Many people have gone through their whole life serving only themselves. They have not responded positively to any adversity as a consequence of their self-serving natures—only resentment. So how are their natures going to be refined, if not in the next life?