Jason’s points are spot on. We’re justified in believing Aaron intended to leave us permanently.
Tom
Do you have a frog in your pocket, Tom? 
You’re right, Jason. It was a graceful exit and the content of my post and Lester Summerall’s testimony on the link was powerful. I won’t slam the door… I will close it quitely.( and keep it closed). I hope your eyes are opened to the lie of UR. No hard feelings. Remember Eph 6:12" For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." I love you all despite our differences. Go get some people saved, healed, and delivered in Jesus name. God bless. 
Oh, I’ve read it carefully and the focus is on how we treat one another. When we treat others badly, especially those less fortunate than we, we’re treating Jesus badly. “What you’ve done to the least of these, you’ve done to me.” The “Father, forgive them…” passage is not in the immediate literary context.
Thanks for sharing Sonia.
So noted already, back when he did it. 
I’m doubtful this is his rationale, even subconsciously. He typically (if grudgingly!) allows that we’ll be around. I’m sure that, overtly, he’s acting the way he does to try to protect us.
(I’m also sure that, tacitly, he’s acting the way he does to try to protect himself. I expect he would even agree with that, once he thought about it for a while, although I wouldn’t be surprised if he reflexively denied it at first. )
Point taken.
Heres a point, Jason…maybe you will answer firedup2000’s questions( of his post “Redemption from the lake of fire” located in this same section) that you and Sonia tapped danced around with me. Wait a minute…you did answer…You said…Paraphrasing…No where of course will you find this recorded in the bible. You can run but you can’t hide. 
Actually Aaron37, the concept of Purgatory is strongly supported in scripture, if one understands the cultural context from which and to which scripture speaks. To the 1st century Jew, Gehenna spoke predominantly of Remedial Punishment in the afterlife that one would recieve before rising to Ga Eden, Paradise. John’s Lake of Fire also speaks metaphorically of purification in the afterlife. Paul spoke of turning a brother over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh so that his spirit might be saved. Paul also speaks of worthless things, wood, hay, and stubble being burned up, and that which is good, gold and silver, being refined as by fire. Even Isaiah’s encounter with the Lord mentions that a coal of fire was taken from the altar and purified him.
The pope and the Catholic church are wrong, Sherman. I’m not buying their man made traditions that you are selling, sir. Love ya, Sherman.
Hi Craig,
1st Century Jewish Rabbis used Gehenna (Jerusalem’s trash dump) as a theological metaphor of punishment in the afterlife. Shammai taught that very few, even very few Jews, only the very righteous rose, went straight to Ga Eden (Paradise) when they died. They believed that most people, Jew and Gentile went down into Gehenna for up to 11 months to be purged of their sins and sinful attitudes, after which they would rise to Ga Eden (Paradise).
Jesus, being a Jewish Rabbi, understanding Jewish theology, used Gehenna to warn people to live righteously, especially to treat others rightly and to live in integrity, grace, love, humility, and wisdom. Caring for others who are less fortunate than we is the simple message of Mt.25:32-46. And the remedial punishment (kolasis) warned of in vs.46 is from God and can impact us here and/or in the life to come. God is active in our lives to conform us to His will.
No doubt you believed he was pretending (and for the reason you gave), but you were oblivious to the actual point of his satire–or you wouldn’t have agreed with it against yourself.
(Or maybe you did accept his critique against what you had been doing, but if so you gave no clear sign of accepting his critique against you and your behaviors. Which is why he kept at it.)
I’ll be curious to see if he requires you to disavow your extreme disavowal of the forum and its purpose first.
Also, as amusing as it is to see a claimant of pope-level inspiration disavow the pope’s claim to authoritatively inspired teaching , the “Roman Catholic Church” per se didn’t invent the general notion of purgatory. The doctrine, though not in the form that the RCCs eventually developed it, goes back at least as far as the 100s, far before the RCC and the Eastern Orthodox separated, and even far before the (rather fitful) rise of the Imperial Church in the 300s. (Naturally, we would say it goes back to Jesus and the canonical apostolic texts, too, as well as set up by God though at least some of teh OT prophets going back at least as far as Moses.)
Moreover, the RCC version of purgatory isn’t at all universalistic, and so isn’t held by any universalist (including among the Eastern Orthodox); consequently, it isn’t the kind of purgatory being “sold” by Sherman. (Also, I don’t think anyone here is proposing a universalistic version of the typical RCC notion of having to reverse-work-off sins in purgatory, including Sherman.)
If you’ll notice Aaron37, I didn’t appeal to either the pope or the Catholic church, but only referenced scripture that speaks of remedial punishment. Even the word *Kolasis *used in Mt.25.46 in Classical Greek specifically meant “remedial punishment” (punishment meant with the purpose of positive change in the one being punished), as opposed to *Timoria *which meant vindictive punishment (punishment meant to vent the anger and vengence of those who were sinned against).
Furthermore, just because the pope and Catholic Church believes and teaches something doesn’t mean it is wrong. You know, it’s one thing for you to speak reproachfully of me, it’s another thing for you to speak reproachfully of an entire group of our brothers in Christ. If you can’t help being so negative of others, I suggest that you stop discussing scripture with anyone except those who share your beliefs and attitudes.
Agreed. Thanks for pointing that out Jason. I actually have not studied what the RCC affirms concerning Purgatory. My belief in Remedial Judgment and Punishment for us all, believer and unbeliever alike, comes from studing scripture and attempting to understand it based on its context, particularly its cultural context. As you know, “A Text without a Context is a Pretext.”
A graceful exit? Really?
Handing us over to Satan and announcing that we must be condemned sinning heretics could count as “graceful”, in some technically obscure ways (as universalists should be very well aware), but not in any fashion normally meant by the phrase “a graceful exit”. I strenuously doubt that, had any of us left a forum of yours in that manner, you would have consider it a graceful and quiet exit on our part.
You would have done better to try to spin it as a “stern” or “forceful” exit.
You already slammed the door pretty loudly. Had you closed it quietly, you would have just left without making a show of announcing you were leaving. Or, announcing you were leaving because you felt called to spend more time evangelizing than discussing or debating doctrine would have been more quiet, too–that would have even been respectable and admirable. Lambasting us for (supposedly) not doing the same thing, much moreso as sinners on the same level as the Stepmom-Sleeping Guy from 1 Cor 6? Not quiet. Or graceful (in any aesthetic sense related to the term “quiet”.)
You haven’t been keeping it closed so far. Which wouldn’t be so bad, if you were acknowledging you were majorly wrong about at least some of your declarations in that post. Whether you slammed the door on your butt or not (and no one here was impressed with the supposed ‘grace’ of your departure), you have surely slammed it on your own foot, since by the criteria you insisted on in that post you must be sinning against God by participating here.
And yet, here you still are. Trying to convince us you plan to set up “a serious discussion” with Gene, no less.
Had you stuck with only saying something like this, that would have been a graceful, quiet exit, by the way.
That’s good advice in the sense that, say, C. S. Lewis meant it (where any of us might be sheep or goats, “There will be surprises”.) But no one here (among us universalists anyway) was pretending that we know who are sheep and goats in that sense.
Otherwise, your first quote up there depends entirely on having a good idea in principle yourself who the sheep and who the goats are. Other people here also believe we have a good idea in principle who they are. If you aren’t thus “pretending” to know, neither are we by the same ground.
MEANWHILE!–back to the original topic at hand.
It’s possible that at some previous time when discussing this judgment (which happens a lot on our forum 
), I or someone else mentioned that the word there is neither “goat” {aigeios}, nor even “he-goat” {tragos}, but “baby goat” {eriphos} or {eriphion}.
But since I don’t recall that happening before, I thought I should mention it now. 
(Sorry if I never mentioned this before. To be honest, I can’t say I ever noticed it before myself.)
Baby goats are young and weak, and so make for tender eating compared to mature goats–in fact the only other NT use of the term is near the end of the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 15:29), where the older brother (who insists on the younger brother continuing to be rejected after figuratively dying, going to hell, repenting, and returning–ahem ) complains that despite his loyalty the father has never even given him a baby goat as a gift for him and his friends to have a party with.
So, if the {kolasis} of the Lord’s punishment is supposed to be hopeless and final (instead of remedial, as the term was typically used in Greek, such as for the scourging of misbehavior at a synagogue, with which the leaders were threatening Peter and John in Acts 4:21), then our Lord is hopelessly punishing people He thought best described as helpless baby goats!
It would make far more contextual sense for the poetic imagery combination of “baby goat” and “kolasis” to imply a training regimen instead, so that the naturally willful baby goats would behave better.
(I would be curious to see what OT refs there are to baby goats as well!)
As to the other two types of usage in the NT (none of which are at all common), it’s true that faithful believers are never described as goats. Then again, rebel believers are sometimes described as sheep!–the parable of the 100th sheep being perhaps the most famous such example. The species of goat local to the region most usually had a black coat, but the NT texts never make an explicit analogical reference to this (even at Matt 25, where one might have most expected it–and where it may still be expected as an implied visual generalization.) On the contrary, the one and only reference to “goat” (as a general term) in the NT is at Heb 11:37, where the prophets themselves wander about in goatskins. (There may also be a pun intended there in Greek, since the term for goat and the term for holy are closely related!–both have to do with being set apart.)
He-goats, meanwhile, are also never used as a figure for faithful believers. They and their blood are only used instead in the NT as God-sanctioned pre-figures for the sacrifice of Christ! Heb 9:12, 13, 19; and Heb 10:4.
So, while Brian Stoffregen is technically correct that “Goats are not used in the image of this relationship”, it doesn’t mean quite as much as he’s trying to make out of it. It may be impossible for a goat to become a sheep (although that may also be pushing the poetic imagery of the judgment too far), but it isn’t impossible for a bad goat to become a good goat; and apparently goats were good enough to be very positively used in scripture, both OT and NT, up to and including as representations for our Lord.
Actually, “vindictive” punishment was also supposed to be remedial; the point was to eventually be able to pronounce the one being punished as righteous. Technically it would be the same as the proper meaning of “re-tribution”, bringing someone back into loyal tribute relationship.
At least, this is the reference one of the only times the term is used in the NT, Heb 10:29, which leads (at verse 30) into quotations from Deut 30:35-36, where the Lord is judging His own people with an explicit goal (even prophesied to be accomplished) of bringing His rebel people back into loyalty with Him–once He has destroyed them as utterly as possible. (Only after that will they repent and so be restored by God.)
So, even though Aristotle and Plato agree on the distinction of remedial vs (merely) penal punishment when comparing kolasis with timoria (respectively), the only time the term is used by an NT author when teaching doctrine, the context is still remedial hope. (Admittedly, the distinction of who is in view in each term-use may still apply, with the punished in view for kolasis and the punisher’s satisfaction in view for timoria–as the two Greek philosophers also agreed on–but the satisfaction of our Lord is in restoration of those who rebel against Him, even when He has to severely punish them. Which is altogether what we can expect if our God is essentially love.)
I’ll be curious to see you answer this post from firedup2000:
Universalism is a radical shift in thinking from the traditional approach to hell. It is very appealing and seems to resolve a number of apparent contradictions that a belief in “eternal torment” produces.
Universalists are quick to point out that hell is never mentioned in the Old Testament. However, if Universalism is true, 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.
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Why doesn’t God explicitly state that such a thing will necessarily happen?
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Does not the absence of such a statement undermine the Universalist view?
Wow, Jason! I can’t believe I never saw that before!
The word for sheep in this passage is ‘probaton’, which is apparently a general word for small livestock, and always translated “sheep” in the NT. Can you tell me if there’s a particular reason (other than tradition) for translating it this way?
Otherwise it looks to me like it should read that the King separates his people, as the shepherd (which also appears to be a general term for “herdsman”) gathers his stock and separates out the young.
On another note, if anyone is interested … while looking for info on traditional herding practices, I came across this interesting pdf article. The particular group which this study focused on divides it’s herd into 3 groups to optimize coverage of the grazing ground, while allowing all to return to base twice a day for water. The mature goats are the fastest movers and utilize the farthest areas, the sheep move at moderate speed–both young and mature, and goat kids are the slowest and are grazed in circles in certain areas nearby.
Sonia