"12 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
"13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
"14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
“15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”
It says here that whosoever is not found in the book of life is cast into the lake of fire with death and hell. That seems to indicate there will at least be some people who will be cast into the lake of fire with death and hell. How do we reconcile that? Death and hell are destroyed, but it seems there are people who are lost as well.
There are many views on what the Lake of Fire signifies. I really don’t know…i personally think the writing makes it sound pretty unpleasant, but there could be validity in it being God’s presence (IE, HE is a consuming fire, and that’s fearful if you’ve got sin in you, though He is repeatedly seen as a purifying fire in the Bible, and i find the idea of a fire that just tortures/destroys is not really consistent with Biblical themes involving fire).
Whatever it means (though i disregard views saying it is pure torture or total destruction), the fact that death and hell are thrown in at the end says something important to me.
death = the path to the grave, a state of unlife, of unconscious oblivion
hell = the grave, a place that one goes to moulder after ceasing to exist in a temporal state at least (trying to accomodate a few theories here)
if death, ie the process of ceasing to be, is thrown in…the very concept of death is destroyed. this is not inconsistent with the idea of a human going in and not being annihilated, as death is a THING/Concept, not a person.
if the grave as a general concept is also destroyed, it means there is no place to moulder.
to get to my point, at last
if the very concept of dying and the grave are destroyed…then how could anyone be dead? if judgement in the Lake of Fire is called The Second Death…death is still death, surely??? that would mean it too dies…
and if one cannot be dead, or cannot die…that says to me there is LIFE to come.
Does that help? Any flaws in that thinking? I am trying to be quite general, but i believe that death and hell being thrown into the grave signifies an end to the Reality of Death, and thus the opposite would be the case: Life.
It’s important to remember that Revelation is Apocalyptic literature, a style then common amoung the Jews. It is to be intepreted more like a series of paintings or movie clips of Lord of the Rings, than a text book. How does one interpret Picasso’s Guernica? Because of its very nature it is interpreted widely; these views are often broken into 4 categories - Preterist, Historical, Spiritual, and Futurist. The view you speak of ASSUMES a Futurist perspective. Of the 4, I find the Futurist perspective the least compelling and the most open for radical differences of opinion. The Preterist is the most solid, the Historical is compelling though, and the Spiritualist perspective is to me the most inspirational.
Also, it’s likely imo that the “lake of the fire and the brimstone” is actually a reference to the Dead Sea. The ash remains of the 5 cities of the plains, including Sodom and Gomorrah, are on the West bank of the Dead Sea. Ashes from the bodies burnt in Ben Hinnom Valley (Gehenna) are washed through a series of ravines down into the Dead Sea. And though it is relatively quiet for the last couple hundred years, the Dead Sea is on the Jordon Rift Valley where two techtonic plates meet thus creating much geological activity. The Dead Sea has large quantities of gas under it as well as tar, beutimine (sp?) that boils up from the bottom, floats and is actually taken out of the sea and sold. “IF” it was the Dead Sea that John saw in his vision, then this is significantly different than a lake of molten lava as it is often pictured today.
Also note that vs. 15 can be interepreted “Whatsoever is not found in the book of life is cast into the Dead Sea”. So instead of people being cast into the Dead Sea, it is our Dead and Useless works. This goes quite well with how Paul pictures judgment as burning up that which is worthless or evil in our lives - wood, hay, and stuble; and that which is valuable is purified like gold in fire!
Frankly, I do not look to Revelation to establish doctrine because it is apocalyptic literature, literature meant to inspire, to illustrate, but not meant to be taken literally or didactically.
I believe the plain reading of the Bible points to people who will never submit to the perceived oppression of God and they will be utterly destroyed for good. Not writhing in pain for eternity but nonetheless, gone for good. That’s the plain reading. Think about this. If we all only exist because of God’s breath of life then we never had or have sovereign life to begin with. Technically we aren’t sovereign living souls but require God’s "breath to become a living soul. It’s why I doubt we’ll ever be able to create life in the lab and if we do one day I would be surprised (and wrong). So if men are not men (living souls) without the life giving breath of God then all men who are written in the Book of Life are indeed, “all men”. All who are not in the Book of Life are not men. They might have been men at one time but that was long ago and far away and ended when the breath of life that was on loan from God returned to God.
It could be that the non living (clay) remains of former men get thrown into the lake of fire.
These x-men are resurrected, Judged and totally eliminated.
I know I could be wrong and I probably am wrong and completely blind to how I am wrong. That’s where I stand on this issue until wiser more scripturally knowledgeable experts show me the error of my view.
That was my position for a few years. I still think it’s not the worst option, though it requires God to fail to achieve His stated Scriptural goal to have NONE perish, and also to reconcile those “Under the earth” (which is in the grave) with everyone else…
i still come back to the fact that DEATH is said to be cast into the Lake of Fire as well…and the only way death can die is if it is utterly reversed for all time…otherwise the phrase means nothing. So i don’t think that i’d be able to fall back to Annihilationism/Non-Universalistic Conditional Mortality at this point…
It seems Death might make a last stand before being eliminated in the LoF from the plain reading of the Bible.
I must reconcile those not written in the Book of Life being thrown into the LoF with death and Hell somehow.
My thinking is if you’re not in the book of life, you’re already dead.
The Book of Life could indeed merely be a list of those who are Alive…but perhaps more literally so then we tend to mean when we think of it? i haven’t checked it out too deeply.
I think the reason that i believe the Lake of Fire is NOT permanent punishment (involving total destruction) is that when God speaks of fire in the Bible most often it’s about refining. Impurities are destroyed by this fire, not the precious metal itself. Death and Hades are corruptions of life, the ultimate corruptions, so it seems fine to me to assume that a human could go into the Lake of Fire and have Death and Hades burned out of them, and themselves purified and restored. Yes, there are references, such as Psalm 1, to the wicked being like chaff which is burned up totally, so there is definitely “plain reading” support for this idea. However, plain reading isn’t always plain reading as the many threads on here about the word “eternal” that shows up in most modern translations point out. Hell, also, is not a good “plain reading” as it is an incorrect word used to translate several others that have different meanings than Eternal Conscious Torment, for example).
There are many threads debating whether or not destruction is to annihilation in the end…worth a search.
i do usually caution against “plain readings” as for many years, a “plain reading” of some parts of the Bible lead to “witches” being burned at the stake, slavery, oppressive governmental and family structures and many other darknesses from which we are slowly emerging.
what’s plain to you is not necessarily what’s plain to me.
The plain reading of scripture is just the plain reading and not necessarily the right one.
You make a better point than I did and one that I think has more scriptural support.
I’d be interested in knowing if “Fire” was translated from different Greek words or in different context.
Often the Greek is really specific and the english translation is loose.
Many of the judgment words are metaphors for the refining process of metals. Jason and/or Paidion would be better at expounding that than I would.
As regards the LoF, we’ve had long discussions on this and of course everyone has his or her pet theory. I’m surprised at how little correspondence there is between us on this topic. Maybe we’ve all been given certain pieces to the puzzle or various facets to the metaphor. Be that as it is, I will share my particular facet with those patient or masochistic enough to read.
IMO the Tree of Life is Jesus. It is His body and blood that give life to the world. IMO the River/Water of Life is of Jesus. He said He would give living water, and that living water is the Spirit of Christ. Jesus is also symbolized by the Bronze Laver in which the priests must wash before entering the holy place, to purify them from their sins.
Bronze is significant of Judgment
The Laver was made of mirrors of bronze – significant of seeing oneself in a mirror as in James
The Laver stood before the sanctuary; as did the Brazen Altar. One purified oneself in the Laver after making sacrifice on the Altar.
(Did you know that when the sacrifice was burned on the altar, it was called an “ascending offering” (presumably because of the smoke)? This seems important to me. The “flesh” is burned away, but the soul ascends to God.)
The Lake of Fire is just outside the New Jerusalem, which is the throne of God. (Christ also suffered outside the camp)
The Crystal Sea that burns with fire is before the Throne of God (earlier in RevJohn)
I believe the Bronze Laver (or sea, as it’s sometimes called) is the Lake of Fire is the Crystal Sea, is Christ.
For the believer, life and peace and joy; for the unbeliever grief and anguish and loss.
Grief because they see the Son and mourn.
Anguish because they cling to their sins.
Loss because they must lose themselves to find themselves.
So if your name (representative of all that you are) is already in the Book of Life, then you don’t need to be thrown into the LoF. It wouldn’t be a LoF to you. If your name is not in the BoL, then a little harsher treatment might be needed to save you. And Jesus IS the Savior of the World.
Anyway, those are just my musings, and I likely hold this particular escatology (in all its details) completely and totally on my own. But I like it. It’s pretty.
Wow I can’t tell you how many times I had someone accuse me of killing puppies because I said I thought the tree of life was Jesus.
It’s great to meet another believer.
The refiners stone, refining fire and refining metals do have their themes and parallels in the Bible (not that I’m an expert).
So does the death of the wicked so it’s possible that some will be refined and others destroyed. I have learned a long time ago that truth is not left or right, either, or but is sometimes both or neither.
Humans tend to automatically pick sides as if truth is contained in one or the other but rarely both or neither.
It’s possible that some will be refined because they are worthy enough and others thrown into outer darkness never to be seen again.
It’s possible that both are true and I suspect likely because there is scriptural support for both.
I think your belief on people not in the BoL being saved anyway is stretching scripture beyond it’s breaking point especially since I have scripture that say’s the opposite that I don’t have to stretch to conform into a belief.
A relaxed reading of scripture has evil people who never repent being thrown into the lake of fire where they die and stay dead forever.
Eternal Hell doesn’t even survive a relaxed reading of scripture but I believe that some will never live again.
What I mean by “relaxed” doesn’t mean flippant or uncaring. It means the natural shape the Words of scripture want to take form without any help.
Well, we are agreed on one thing at the least then, with Jesus as our Tree of Life. And a couple of years ago we would have been agreed on conditional immortality, but you’re too late for that. I’ve "crossed over – way, way over. And I have to admit that yes, I’m glad of it and I don’t anticipate going back. But I can certainly respect a belief in conditional immortality. It’s just that it isn’t good enough for our Papa – though it is better than ECT. Neverthelesss, I am fully persuaded that HE is better – far, far better – than either.
You said:
There are a number of scriptures you could be referring to, but I’d be interested to know which ones, in particular, you mean. Otherwise I end up throwing snowballs at a fog, and I’d rather know where your objections lie than to guess and spend time getting the wrong answers for want of the right questions.
(Please consider all I’m going to say a giant question and not a rebuttal to your belief)
“There are a number of scriptures you could be referring to”.
There are only a few lines of problematic scripture but I’m looking at the Bible as a whole.
My point is more about the relaxed reading of the Bible which leaves me with the impression that evil people will die and be remembered no more.
I think to get an alternate reading you would have to stretch the overall meaning of the Bible and I don’t believe the Bible has been corrupted so that it can no longer be clearly understood by even a child.
My simple relaxed reading of the bible as a whole leaves me with the impression that evil will die and exist no more (not burn forever in pain).
I got no impression that evil will be transformed into good and while all knees will bend to Christ there is no scripture that says it will not be reluctantly and death doesn’t follow (I’m not saying it does say that although I think scripture suggests that knees will reluctantly bend).
Why do we need to believe in Jesus?
Christ was lifted up and sacrificed in full view of friend and foe for a reason.
So all would know that a sacrifice was made for them and an opportunity to repent and believe exists according to God’s plan.
The world is dead in sin and was given a gift, if we would only take it.
Again that’s the overall message I got from the Bible.
I do however see a very dangerous trend happening where word “Universal” is becoming true to itself and taking on a meanings where sinners still go to heaven, if you don’t believe in Jesus you still have salvation, there is no death of the wicked, all have life etc whether you repent and believe or not. This is slowly becoming the evangelical message. This is too close to serpent doctrine (you will not die) for my comfort. It’s like your debt was paid for by the cross whether you believe it or not. It looks to me little like Universalism could be a part of the worldly religious trend of universalism where, for example, Catholics and Muslims come together because they -Ahem- worship the same God.
Please don’t be upset with me, I’m not an expert on the subject and I’m trying to understand where it comes from by looking at the big picture. Since I was an atheist/agnostic I wasn’t “churched” in any doctrine which would have colored my reading of the Bible.
Universalism looks New Age belief to me and Motherly rather than Fatherly.
The payment for sin is death, Christ paid the price for us so in him we may live but only if we repent and believe. If not we die in our sins.
Is that not the plain reading of scripture, the simple message of the cross and the power and message of redemption?
Is not the way to salvation narrow?
When did it become wide?
Is it really loving to save everybody or is it just being nice?
The overall message of the Bible is that Christ will save the world of repenting believers.
Anything else sounds to me like nice motherly new age wishful thinking and not the Fatherly God of the Bible.
We have no mother.
UR turns our Father into a friendly mother type who accepts her murderous children no matter if they repent of their crimes and believe.
Those are my concerns and they are major concerns of a possible satanic connection with Universalism.
The feminine vs the masculine.
My Father is not feminine and just because he is masculine doesn’t mean he isn’t loving and will also utterly destroy unrepentant unbelieving sinners according to his will and Word.
I could be terribly wrong about this Cindy but the plain relaxed reading of scripture is yelling this message to me, loudly warning me and almost begging me to listen.
Repent and believe or death follows.
The refining fire could just be for all repentant believers and in order to make scripture whole and complete, it has to be.
I don’t think that just because I repented and believe in Jesus that I am pure.
I am gold ore with all the impurities in place and we don’t throw away gold ore because of impurities.
We keep it and purify it.
Where does a relaxed reading of the Bible say everyone will be purified?
Isn’t it only repentant believers?
Thanks for listening to my concerns about this issue Cindy.
As you can tell my fear is that UR is new age satanic doctrine that’s only going against other satanic doctrines to the detriment of God’s Word.
To me it looks like another example of Thesis, antithesis, synthesis where two bad doctrines are battling it out so a new bad doctrine can be created.
Humans naturally want to choose between two choices but sometimes the best thing to do is to reject both.
Again I want to remind you to take my post as a giant question mark as my learning about the Bible is ongoing.
Still I can’t help noticing the new age message in universalism.
You will not die and you will be as gods.
So I believe by the simple, plain and relaxed reading of scripture that the refining fire is for repentant believers (not everyone) and everyone else dies and is remembered no more.
Revelation being Apocalyptic literature is more like interpreting this painting than interpreting a personal letter (Paul’s, James, Peter’s, John’s) or historical narrative (Gospels and Acts). Paintings are meant to inspire, to challenge one to think, to ponder, to muse, to feel. It is not a chart of facts, but a picture full of metaphors. Sadly, the significance of Revelation being Apocalyptic literature is ususally never even considered when people attempt to “interpret” John’s series of visions, movie clips.
So when John saw the Dead Sea (the lake of the fire and the brimstone) and death and hades and evil being cast into it, what did it mean? Who knows! I think it speaks of… but when I look at it from a historical perspective today it might be speaking of… And when I look at it from a spiritualist perspective it speaks to me of the judgment of God burning the hell outta me! And when I look at it from a preterist perspective it seems to speak to me of God’s judgment of Rome, the church triumphing and the barbarians invading, burning, and looting. And when I look at it from a futurist perspective it comforts me that God is in control and one day evil will come to an end. And when I look at it considering Obama Care, well…
Revelation is more like Picasso’s Guernica than a systematic theology.
Robert, I don’t know if this helps, but believers in UR don’t teach that unrepentant sinners will still get to go to Heaven and be with God in their unrepentant state. (If that’s not what you meant by that statement, then I apologize in advance.) Instead, they believe that everyone will eventually repent and be made pure, no matter how long it takes or how much suffering must be endured. For most people, this process will not be finished during their earthly life. UR still affirms that God is holy and just; the difference is that it says that God, out of his infinite justice and mercy, will not give up on anyone until they have accepted him.
also, what’s wrong with God having mother qualities? we say “He” but God is above gender. He is the source of male and female. Jesus Himself (who was biologically male in the Incarnation if Bi/Trinitarianism is true) didn’t hesitate to compare His attitude to Jerusalem as a Hen gathering Her chicks, a very feminine image, indeed…
Also, at least one name for God (Shekhinah, source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_God_in_Judaism) is feminine, though maybe simply a word for His presence. here is another source with evidence for Shaddai: goodnewsinc.net/v4gn/shaddai.html (though i’ve just read a little further and this has some weird stuff about Shaddai being God’s wife, which seems a bit like stretching it to me…God being the wellspring of both gender means we don’t have to have a dualistic pair of beings…rather one God we can all see as our Parent. i don’t think this undermines the point about the definition of Shaddai).
so i ask again, why should there be any problem with God being Mother and Father? Why would the wellspring of femininity AND masculinity lack the qualities of a loving mother? also, how is God’s Fatherhood unforgiving or stern? what about the Father who ran to his reprobate son and embraced him, rejoicing that he had been dead and was now alive? why would God being the perfect Father suddenly make Him NON-universalist?
this sort of language you are using seems to portray a gender bias that is un-Scriptural in the broad meta-narrative sense and archaic…both negating that God can be maternal and that Fatherhood could be compassionate or nurturing. that is deeply worrying and shows a rather flawed view of God’s parental qualities, regardless of what gender “He” is, if we can even categorise that.
What do you mean by New Age here? New Age thinking is broadly based on positive thinking Knew Thought ideas and Transcendentalism connected to certain nineteenth century religious movement in America that had new life infused to them by 1960s counter culture. Universalism goes back to the beginnings of Christianity. Health and Wealth Gospel teaching is New Age - but that’s also believed in by people who are ECT. ADN it has been widely criticised by universalists.
The terms ‘father’ or ‘mother’ , and the related emotional aura that surrounds those terms, can easily be ‘projected’ onto the heavenly Father/Mother. (The concept of ‘projection’ has become a part of pop psychology but there appears to be some truth behind it).
For instance - people fortunate enough to have a loving and respectful relationship to their mom/dad, TEND to experience God in much the same way - in other words it is not the concept of Fatherhood as deduced from a systematic examination of Scripture, so much as a (desirable IMO) ‘natural’ extension of the feelings of trust, love and respect that one has hopefully gotten from good parenting. That natural extension of feeling can be destroyed by various religious practices and teachings, or encouraged.
The atheistic slur, that we think of God as good, not on ‘rational’ grounds but because we project onto Him parental feelings, cuts both ways; a study of many leading militaristic atheists shows that generally their parental relationships were very bad, and those experiences are also ‘projected’.
I struggled for quite a bit of my lifetime with envy - of those that seemingly had such an easy time in their Christian experience, while I was always floundering around, trying to get a grasp on what God’s love was like, how to appropriate the good feelings that others so naturally seemed to have. After a lot of years, and overcoming some terrible counseling, I did see that, because I had a clinically insane mother in an asylum, and an alcoholic father who drank himself to death - that MAYBE those things had some little effect on my skewed perceptions of normality? Duh.
The terrible counseling came from well-meaning religious folk who took my struggles to be indicative of sinful or demonic oppression. There was of course an amount of truth in that - but had any one of them just asked about home life - of which there was none - I think they could have helped instead of giving what they thought was ‘spiritual admonition’, which in effect was just to lay more guilt on the suffering kid.
I threw in that autobiographical stuff to help as an illustration.
Thank God for GMD. It is no surprise to me that a man who had an ‘almost perfect’ relationship with his earthly father is able to help so many people get an holistic and wholesome take on Fatherhood. I feel like I would be lost without his ministry.
I think grasping the Fatherhood of God is non-rational, not irrational nor autonomously rational. It should be very natural.
$.02. Usual disclaimers and ‘butt-covering’…
Dave that’s a wonderful post . I won’t way ‘thanks for sharing’ (because it’s a horrible cliché) - but it is really honest and it goes to the heart of the matter and I’m glad you told us your story with such honesty so as to be an encouragement.
I believe that when Jesus said ‘Call no man no earth Father’ he was showing us just this point. That we shouldn’t limit our concept of God by referring it to our earthly experience of a father who is less than perfect, less than all embracing. It is a blessing for us all that GMD was graced with a father who was at least a better approximation to the all embracing One than you experienced and that he gave you sustenance on a deep and perilous journey to find our God of Love.
And regarding feminine pictures of God - there is the whole tradition the runs deep in the OT of God’s /Wisdom/Sophia. Chomakah/Shekinah; this is God as Sustainer and as pattern of creation. And Jesus is associated with Sophia several times in the NT and is referring to himself as Sophia as Christ the Hen. Indeed John’s Logos is Sophia. John is using the word of the Greek Philosopher Heraclitus - but Heraclitus’ Logos is a pattern of never ending strife while John’s Logos like the OT Sophia is the pattern of peace.
They’re either lying, or deluded, the poor things. I far prefer Paul’s sober realism to the saccharine piety seen in Christian folk of a certain variety: “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death?!”
Yep.
I missed out on that, thank God!
Maybe they did!
Profound sigh.
Yep.
All of the bad stuff learned as a toddler etc is so deeply wired into your brain, it’s not going anywhere any time soon. It’s a thorn in your flesh, but that’s ok.
One day God will give us a new and better brain (one that actually works), and set us free to love.
)
. I won’t way ‘thanks for sharing’ (because it’s a horrible cliché) - but it is really honest and it goes to the heart of the matter and I’m glad you told us your story with such honesty so as to be an encouragement.