Hi Craig, let’s do move this discussion to the thread on Gehenna.
And btw, I do not “presume to know what it is talking about”; rather, based on my research I’ve come to believe that when Jesus speaks of Gehenna He is speaking of eternal remedial judgment/punishment/discipline. It’s Remedial in that it is meant to produce a positive change in us. And it is Eternal in that it is from God and transcends time; such judgment effects us in this life and the life to come. When we encounter the judment of the Lord, it burns the hell out of us (whether in this life or in judgment to come).
I’ve encountered the remedial judgment of God multiple times in my life; and it was always terrible resulting in a lot of weeping and gnashing of teeth for me, but it was good for me! I can only imagine how terrible it will be when I stand in the unveiled presence of Truth! But I also know (by the Word and by Experience) that His judgment is rooted in His love; and this wonderfully comforts me.
I’ll see if I can copy your post and respond to it in the thread on Gehenna, later. Or maybe you could copy it there.
All due respect, Sherman, God does not judge his children with remedial judgment ( whatever that means) he disciplines them. There is a huge difference between loving discipline and judgment, sir. Hebrews 12:5-12 explains how God deals with his children. Your theology is all over the place, it is hard to believe you graduated from ORU. Sheesh. Lord have mercy.
I bet I know what verse Sherman has in mind: 1Pt 4.17
“For it is time for judgment to begin with the family of God; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?”
Yeah, horrabul edjecashun ya got thur at ORU Sunny.
Hello Sherman, you have no evidence of such so you only have an presumption on which you built your premise. Start with what Scripture SAYS about Gehenna and then build your belief from there. There is no remedial understanding of Topheth, or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, anywhere written in the Scriptures. Gehenna has been and always been and served as a symbol of judgment against Jerusalem and Judah because of their sin, a prophesy of one will come to redeem them, Jesus Christ.
Before you declare that I have no evidence supporting my beliefs, you might want to inquire as to what evidence I have. Of course, if you do not want to consider why I’ve come to believe as I do, then no need to check it out. I present the evidence in the thread on Gehenna where I copied your post for further discussion.
[May I have feedback on my CU drafts?)
Already read it, wouldn’t have replied otherwise. Hearsay is not evidence and what the Pharisee’s believed after the Temple was destroyed has no relevance on their understanding of Gehenna because they still didn’t accept Jesus as the Redeemer.
As I said earlier, read all references to Gehenna in the OT and there is no understanding that it is ‘purgatory’. It is a symbol of judgment against Jerusalem and Judah that their plans will not succeed and in 70 AD the Gehenna went out, because that judgment had been fulfilled.
Maybe you haven’t experienced the judgment of the Lord, but I have and it was part of loving discipline. The first step in repentance is embracing the truth about your sin. This is what judgment does. When God as a loving Father steps in and says, “You are like that lazy and wicked servant”, His word of judgment reveals to you your wickedness. And btw, Hebrews 12:4-11 is an awesome passage referring to the remedial judgment and even punishment of the Lord. When God steps in and rebukes you, it’s terrible, but it works tremendous good in you. This is the judgment of the Lord, aionian kolasis, Mt.25.46. In Mt.25.46, Jesus is warning of remedial judgment/punishment from the Lord that if we are wise, we’ll embrace even in this life; but if we are foolish, we’ll waist this life and not submit ourselves to the judgment of the Lord until we face Him in all of His Glory.
It’s sad that judgment in English does not inherently carry the connotation of being remedial. When we think of judgment, typically we think of nothing positive about it; but Judgment is a necessary part of discipline. A father judges, pronounces that his child’s actions, attitudes, or sinful patterns of life or thinking are wrong, are evil. He does whatever it takes to help his child see the truth of how bad they are acting and helps them to repent. This is Remedial Judgment. If you don’t know what a word or phrase means, look it up. Remedial = intended as a remedy. Judgment = a formal declaration from an authoritative source.
And btw, if memory serves me correctly, I and others have noted before that there really is no need to be condescending or disrespectful of me or others in your posts. People who resort to such reveal that either their position is weak and they feel threatened by what others are sharing, or their character is immature and they can’t help but attack others. Usually it reveals both that the person is not able to support their beliefs adequately and that their character is immature. Such condescending and disrespectful words certainly do not encourage the person you are addressing to seriously consider what you write. In other words, if you want to be taken seriously, share what you believe and why you believe it respectfully and with grace.
As to me and ORU, actually I transferred to Regent University before graduating ORU, ultimately graduating from Regent. I’d love to go back and work on a PHD in Renewal Theology, but the needs of my family will not allow such at this time. Both are excellent schools though, I believe. I especially appreciate the way the professors helped students from various denominations to learn how to discuss differing beliefs respectfully, staying on point and not devolving into personal attacks. Brothers and sisters in Christ studied, worshiped, and even lived together even though they have very significant beliefs. Our common faith in Christ compelled us to respect one another, even in the middle of passionate disagreement on theology.
Hi Tom, actually I wasn’t thinking of 1 Pet.4.17; rather I was thinking of the meaning of Kolasis in Mt.25.46 which is translated as either punishment or judgment, but punishment/judgment that is remedial.
When you speak of “Hearsay”, I assume that you are speaking of the various quotes recorded in the Mishnah and Talmud of the sayings of Rabbis Shammai and Hillel, the President and Head of the Sanhedrin just prior to the time of Christ. What they believed and taught predates the time of Christ though it continues to be quoted and discussed after the destruction of the Temple. The Mishnah and the Talmud are the written “Oral Traditions” of the Pharisees. They were passed down from Rabbi to student for generations and were only written down in outline form in the Mishnah around 200 A.D. because of the intense Roman persecution focused especially on killing Jewish Rabbis. Because they were afraid of loosing the Oral Traditions, they recorded them in the Mishnah, and later expaned upon them in both the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds. Anyhow, I believe they accurately convey the beliefs of the Pharisees during the time of Christ. You’re welcome to disregard them of course and on this we will just continue to disagree.
You are correct in that in the OT Gehenna was not used as a metaphor of personal judgment. But in the literary context of Jesus’ use of Gehenna in the Gospels, Jesus is not speaking about the destruction of Jerusalem or the Judgment of God against the Jewish people. He is warning of individual personal judgment. Metaphors can be used to illustrate various concepts. In both of these cases, Gehenna is a metaphor of judgment; the literary context determines what is being judged.
I believe that the purpose of judgment is to enable us repent; it is remedial. In other words, we continue in our sins until we encounter the judgment of God, the conviction of the Spirit which works in us repentance. Judgment and the Revelation of the Atonement are two sides of the same coin. When our eyes are opened to the truth of the Atonement, we see just how wicked we are and we repent. As Isaiah, we are undone! But the Lord puts a coal of fire from the altar of the Atonement to our lips and purifies us!
This is the Remedial Judgement from God (aionian kolasis) that Mt.25.46 speaks of. One day, we shall all face the unveiled truth concerning our lives, how we’ve lived, the opportunities we’ve missed, the times we’ve missed blessing others, the talents we’ve buried, the times we’ve misused authority, and the Truth shall set us free. Judgment is an eternal reality, something that we can embrace today. And the more we embrace it, the freer we are in Christ and the freer we are from sin and selfishness, and the more of the righteousness of Christ we live in.
Jesus was speaking of of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Judgment of God against the Jewish people. They are a grouping of individuals. Someone here is not seeing the forest from the trees and the trees from the forest, and I know it isn’t me. I have done as much or more research on this subject, so don’t think you are talking to some layman. I have shown you continually, that NOWHERE in Scripture was Gehenna EVER referenced as remedial, but it’s affects is what brought reconciliation and salvation to the entire world.
The problem comes with your ‘Rabbi’ friends tell you it is, but I have my “Rabbi” friends who tell me it does not. I can go through quotes from Ignatius, Iraenius, Justin, Polycarp, Tertullian and show where they demonstrate Gehenna was most definitely not a metaphor for remedial punishment. But whatever these men believed 200 years after the fact doesn’t mean they understood what it meant when Jesus said it. So in order to know what Gehenna is, you need to actually read what it is in Scripture before you EVEN come up with a single conclusion of what it meant.
Gehenna was the judgment against Jerusalem and Judah, clearly stated by Jeremiah and Isaiah. It specifically says that this valley would be known as the Valley of Slaughter, a blight against the apostate Hebrews who sacrificed their children to Molech and Baal, something God did not have in mind and something God did not command. It is not a place of eternal torment, nor is it a place afterdeath punishment. It was a SYMBOL of a coming judgment in which the plans of Jerusalem and Judah (the Jews) would not succeed. Those who are called sons of Gehenna, are children of those apostates participating in the practices of their forefathers.
Matthew 23:15, 23-31, 36-38 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of Gehenna as you are.
Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of the sin of your forefathers! You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape the judgment of Gehenna! Therefore I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town.
I tell you the truth, all this will come upon this generation. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate.
Jeremiah 7:23-29, 32-33
I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in all the ways I command you, that it may go well with you. But they did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward. From the time your forefathers left Egypt until now, day after day, again and again I sent you my servants the prophets. But they did not listen to me or pay attention. They were stiff-necked and did more evil than their forefathers.’
"When you tell them all this, they will not listen to you; when you call to them, they will not answer. Therefore say to them, 'This is the nation that has not obeyed the LORD its God or responded to correction. Truth has perished; it has vanished from their lips. Cut off your hair and throw it away; take up a lament on the barren heights, for the LORD has rejected and abandoned this generation that is under his wrath.
So beware, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when people will no longer call it Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter, for they will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room. Then the carcasses of this people will become food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and there will be no one to frighten them away. I will bring an end to the sounds of joy and gladness and to the voices of bride and bridegroom in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, for the land will become desolate.
Everything Jesus said was referencing Jeremiah’s and Isaiah’s judgment. Understanding history, it was in that generation that Jeruslaem and Judah’s plans were foiled, the Temple was destroyed and the fires of Gehenna were put out. The reason why the fires of Gehenna were put out was because there was no more need of a symbol of judgment that had already come to pass, the people scattered and have not been the same ever since. There is a twist however, of the what the type and shadow of Gehenna is and was which I can talk about later.
Copy-paste it to the Gehenna thread, guys. Answering here is a disservice to people looking for concentrated discussion on this topic (and missing it because it’s here instead of in one of the Gehenna threads); or looking for concentrated discussion on the judgment of the sheep and the goats (which is the main topic to this thread).
Back on topic now, I’ve found it very interesting that the word for goats, eriphos, better refers to kids, or baby goats. Thanks for noting that Jason. And the word for sheep, probaton, can refer to cattle, sheep, or goats. So Mt.25:32 could be interpreted as the separation of the goats from the kids, highlighting the difference beween mature and immature believers. Mature believers live serving others, whereas immature believers live focused on themselves and don’t even notice the needs of those around them. Both groups either serve others or do not serve others as an outflow of their character - subconscious level motivation - they don’t ever realize they are doing it. Thus both the goats and the kids were suprised by the results of their actions. The goats were suprised that the Lord was rewarding them for what came naturally to them. And the kids were suprised that the Lord was punishing them for what came naturally to them. How we live is an outflow of our character. A grace-filled person is graceful. A joy-filled person is joyful. A love-filled person is loving and compassionate.
I think it gets even better, in a typically Christ-like looping of unexpectation (so to speak), that the baby goats of the flock (the most immature and stubborn animals) are sent off for chastising due to refusing to visit the least of Christ’s in prison: THUS BECOMING THE LEAST OF CHRIST’S FLOCK IN PRISON!
I don’t know about anyone else here, but I sure as heck don’t intend to speak out against the visiting of the least of Christ’s flock in prison…
(But this is worth a whole new post, maybe, on the irony of Evangelical Universalism being far, far too evangelical to be accepted by other evangelical Christians… )
The more I study this passage, Mt.25:32-46, the parable of the “Goats and Kids”, the more I’m convinced that it speaks of maturity vs. immaturity - not even necessarily “Christian maturity”, but maturity in general. Emotionally mature people serve others, love others, invest their lives in others. Immature people as selfish - “all about me”; though surrounded by others who might even be more needy, in more desperate situations, the immature person will not even recognize these needs and will only be concerned with their own needs and wants. Those who are emmotionally mature will be rewarded by God; those who are emmotionally immature (selfish) will be chastized by God.
Also, I’m wrestling with how to describe the maturity spoken of in this passage. Would one call it emotional maturity, social maturity, relational maturity, what? Notice that I did not include “spiritually mature”. The reason I do not like the “spiritually mature” wording is not only because this passage speaks nothing of faith or belief, but also because people of many different faiths exibit care and concern for others. The passage also does not assume a personal relationship with these people in need, but only an awareness of the needs of others and an inner, even subconscious, motivation to help meet those needs of others. Maybe “emotional maturity” is the best description.
I think the problem with the phrase “spiritually mature” is that to many Christians that I know it would assume that the person be a Christian, and it would not necessarily speak of the fruit of the spirit, but might speak to them of just good religious activity. So maybe “socially”, “emotionally”, or “relationally” mature would be better. I believe that the passage notes a universal principle, applicable to all humans. Those who give thier lives in service of others will be blessed by God; and those who are selfish will run into trouble, the chastisement of the Lord.
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