Sonia
Not saying I am the final authority when it comes to understanding the word of God (the Holy Spirit is) but these verses are as clear as the day is long. Generally speaking, it is a fact… the body of Christ are ignorant to the word of God because they neglect the standard God has established in his word to understand it.
Revival, Jesus spoke in parables, the Rich man and Lazarus story is a parable. Do you understand what a parable is?
How many people can fit into Abrahams bosom? What was it called before Abraham lived and died? Where did the people go before Abraham was born and died? Did Abraham go to his own bosom?
Since when is someone sent to hell for being rich and someone sent to “heaven” for being poor?
Is the kingdom of heaven really a mustard seed? Is it a treasure buried in a field? Maybe Christ really has sex with us at the consumation of the wedding. Maybe New Jerusalem really is a giant woman coming out of heaven, that happens to be a cube, measured in angel cubits. With Pearly gates. Wow that must be one ugly woman 
John 5:29 judgement does not automatically mean eternal punishment. It says nothing of eternal punishment here. You claim we are the ones who use a shotgun approach but isn’t that exactly what you’re doing here? You read in eternal punishment, but judgement is just that a judgement. The KJV says damnation but thats just incorrect.
And before you say show me the verse that says people come out of the LOF, I still hold up Zephaniah 3:8,9.
I once was given an A to Z of Christian theologians. What most impressed me was the diversity of views I found therein, all held by sincere, intelligent, learned, Godly thinkers. Reading the same text, led by the same Spirit, they often came to very different conclusions. What’s more, they felt quite free to do so. I realized I also was free to think for myself. Even more, it was my responsibility to see the world through my own eyes, not the eyes of someone else.
All my childhood I’d been taught the supreme importance of what I believed. Wrong belief doomed not just the body but also the soul to hell. How fortunate the church I attended taught right doctrine! I realize now that that emphasis was gnosticism, pure and simple. I’m not saved by the correctness of my intellectual construct, but by the irresistible power of God’s love, mercy and grace.
One thing I’ve found really helpful is the etymology of the word “belief”. It comes from the Old English “be lyfan” which means “to love, care for, desire and hold dear”. Since it is only possible to love, care for and desire a good God, what we think God is like really does matter. Second, the person who believes in this deeply rich sense (who loves, cares for and desires the good God) already participates in God’s eternal life, because love is the life, the breath, the very Spirit of God.
Alan,
That’s one thing Revival and other Arminians lack, the understanding that the ONLY reason they agree (in their free choice) is because God caused it in them. They seem to think that God does not cause thing yet over and over in scripture God declared “I will cause you to keep my commands and walk in my ways”.
I will say that correct thinking is vital. But who’s correct. We live and breath on the love of God and start there. Arminians live and breath on free will and the virtue of risk. Calvinists live and breath on the sov. of God which allows him to choose some while pass over others.
I’ll follow the way of love.
If the Holy Spirit is doing the teaching, He gives the same doctrine to every church, to every born again Christian. The Bible is originated from the mind of God not the mind of man. The Holy Spirit is God. That alone should make you realize the importance of getting the Holy Spirit involved to help you understand the Bible. Therefore, if we are leaving the Holy Spirit out from teaching how can we accurately say we understand the Bible? God bless.
I will say to you what I told Allan: If the Holy Spirit is doing the teaching, He gives the same doctrine to every church, to every born again Christian. The Bible is originated from the mind of God not the mind of man. The Holy Spirit is God. That alone should make you realize the importance of getting the Holy Spirit involved to help you understand the Bible. Therefore, if we are leaving the Holy Spirit out from teaching how can we accurately say we understand the Bible? God bless.
How many parables use real names of people? Give me another parable where Jesus did this. Jesus used natural analogies to teach spiritual truths. John 5:29 is the resurrection unto final judgement in Rev 20:11-15.
And as I’ve replied to you final judgement does not equate to eternal torture. Yes its the last judgement, they are found to not be pure gold, so must be refined in the fire (tormented) until the refiner can see his reflection in the gold/silver. At that point they can leave the fire, or no longer be hurt of the fire, the hurt being the dross being burned away. Fire doesn’t hurt pure gold. What else is burned away? Wood, hay and stubble of christians (their works). Only those who have overcome are not hurt of the second death. This is not all christians this is the first order or squadron, the anointed first fruits, which is the barley company. These are also those who dwell in heaven in the book of REV. Notice when Jesus is speaking to the 7 churches He says speaks to the churches then specifies those who overcome. Those who are christs at His coming are the wheat company, that still must be separated by tribulation, the tribulus is the tool that was used to thresh wheat and separate it from the chaff. Then comes the end this is the grape harvest. The grapes are treaded under foot and the wine of God’s wrath is poured out. What we have here is all the elements for a meal, as we dine with God when He is all in all. At that time I will give the peoples a pure speech that all of them may call on the name of the Lord with one accord.
As to the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man is the jews, he has 5 brothers, Judah had 5 brothers. Dressed in purple=royalty, fine linen=priesthood. He feasted sumptuously on the scriptures (man does not live on bread alone, Romans 3:2 the Jews have been entrusted with the oracles of God), their job was to feed the nations with what they’d been entrusted. They were called to be a nation of priests, yet they didn’t bring the nations to God. The gentiles longed to just have the crumbs of the goodness they’d been given but they chose to keep it for themselves. So God took the kingdom from them and gave it to the gentiles. Which is the point of the whole story. Notice the context, right before this parable Jesus just throws in out of nowhere the bit about divorce:
“Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced from her husband commits adultery.”
He’s speaking of God divorcing the Jews. A partial hardening has happened until the fullness of the gentiles comes in and so all Israel shall be saved.
When Jesus speaks of gehenna, He’s talking about the actual burning of bodies that happened at 70 ad in the actual valley of Ben Hinnom (what gehenna comes from). Its something that literally happened. Literal literal. It was a sign given as the final stamp on the old covenant being done away with (along with the sacking of the temple).
Thanks for the discussion, redhot. After reading this I believe we have come to an impasse. God bless.
I agree. The Holy Spirit testifies to my spirit that love never fails, that God’s mercies endure forever, that through Christ all shall be made well in the end. The multitudes who think otherwise listen to the spirit of fear, not to the Spirit of God, because perfect love casts out all fear.
What a suprise.
Well, I’ve been a bit behind on this discussion, but Revival made a very common argument about Colossians 1, and it sparked a much longer argument about Hell and such. So I thought I’d engage it a little:
*I think you meant verse 20. Col 1:20 And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.
Where in this verse does it say all things Under the earth? How about the billions of people who are in hell? Are they not under the earth?*
I’m not one to reinvent the wheel, so I’ll draw again on my previously written defense of UR. The numbered point I’m starting with is my summary of the objection itself (I had covered another objection to the Universalist reading of this text earlier on).
First, Paul does mention those “under the Earth” in Philippians 2, which, as we shall see, appears to envision a future in which all worship God freely and in adoration, not one in which the forced obeisance of defeated subjects “glorifies” God. I have not yet reached Philippians 2 [in my presentation there], but if it is, indeed, another Universalist text, then the lack of “under the Earth” in the present text is no obstacle.
Second, either way of phrasing it is a convenient and poetic way of saying, “everything in all creation.” It is highly unlikely that Paul meant to exclude anything by not adding the third category. To use some other examples, it is unlikely Jesus meant to imply that God’s reign as Lord does not extend to “under the Earth” in Matthew 11:25, or that His will should not be done “under the Earth” in Matthew 6:10. It is equally unlikely that the “all authority” given to Jesus somehow excluded that “under the Earth,” or that those things “under the Earth” were not created and sustained in Jesus in Colossians 1:16. No, “in Heaven and on Earth” is universal in scope, and this argument amounts to special pleading.
Third, at the time of Paul’s writing, there were a number of people presently existing “under the Earth” that Paul would have included in the reconciliatory efforts–the righteous dead. Moreover, by this reasoning, we should argue that because Paul did not include “in the sea,” as in Revelation 5:13 (“I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea”), he also intended to exclude from his purview those that died maritime deaths.
Ultimately, the idea that Paul’s omission of “under the Earth” somehow limited the scope of Jesus’ reconciliatory work ignores the context and the other uses of the phrase with its always universal scope. It is not convincing, at least not to me, and Paul (and any other good Jew) would have thought it rather silly.
I respectfully. disagree. Btw, The subject Paul is teaching in Phil 2 is not confession unto salvation for everyone but the authority in the name of Jesus after his resurrection relative to the authority we have in Jesus as believers. This is supported in Eph 1 :19-23. When left in context Phil 2:10-11 and Col 1:20 do not support UR.
Not true. Can you please show me the scripture support where there were a number of the righteous dead that were presently existing “under the earth” after Jesus’ completed work on the cross?
Revival,
I respectfully. disagree. Btw, The subject Paul is teaching in Phil 2 is not confession unto salvation for everyone but the authority in the name of Jesus after his resurrection relative to the authority we have in Jesus as believers. This is supported in Eph 1 :19-23. When left in context Phil 2:10-11 and Col 1:20 do not support UR.
So you’re not engaging my actual arguments. Fair enough. 
I did…look again, friend.
Revival,
I did…look again, friend.
Perhaps you thought you did. I’ll repost what failed to acknowledge.
*Second, either way of phrasing it is a convenient and poetic way of saying, “everything in all creation.” It is highly unlikely that Paul meant to exclude anything by not adding the third category. To use some other examples, it is unlikely Jesus meant to imply that God’s reign as Lord does not extend to “under the Earth” in Matthew 11:25, or that His will should not be done “under the Earth” in Matthew 6:10. It is equally unlikely that the “all authority” given to Jesus somehow excluded that “under the Earth,” or that those things “under the Earth” were not created and sustained in Jesus in Colossians 1:16. No, “in Heaven and on Earth” is universal in scope, and this argument amounts to special pleading.
Moreover, by this reasoning, we should argue that because Paul did not include “in the sea,” as in Revelation 5:13 (“I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea”), he also intended to exclude from his purview those that died maritime deaths.*
Revival,
Can you show me from Scripture where it says those under the earth are damned? If you can’t, then on that point, at least, we are at an impasse; you cannot demonstrate that those “under the earth” are damned as opposed to merely dead, and I cannot demonstrate (right now) that those “under the earth” are all the dead as opposed to only the damned. Of course, when we consider, in particular, that Paul is invoking the Isaianic vision here (Isaiah 45), his reasons for increasing the scope of his own interpretation of that vision to emphasize that even those who are dead will be involved in the joyful adoration of the risen Lord become significantly clearer.
However, all of this is to one side of the point, and the point is that my primary argument here–the argument that “in Heaven and on Earth” includes all creation whenever it’s invoked and that nothing is left out any more than anything is left out by Paul’s omission of “in the sea”–has simply been ignored. If you’re not willing to engage that argument and to demonstrate that you aren’t falling prey to the special pleading fallacy here, you’re welcome to continue ignoring it. That’s your prerogative.
That’s your response to Colossians? 
Sorry to have wasted my time talking to you. I’ll not waste any more time.
Dirtboy,
You’d be amazed how often that objection comes up in discussions on this verse, as though “in Heaven and on Earth” were not sufficient to encompass all creation. I’ve tried to demonstrate for Revival that the whole objection is nothing but special pleading–that, whenever that phrase appears elsewhere in Scripture, it means nothing short of everything. I suppose we’ll see whether he responds to that after two or three iterations of the argument.