okay Dave. I’ll do it for you. But just let me say those terrorized by hell are taking it out of context. I use to do it myself. You have to look at it in it’s proper context like Blaise Pascal does.
Thanks Michael. I know it is not your intention to cause harm to anyone! 
Most people have not read Pascal, which is too bad; so when they see the word “hell” being superior to God’s victory overcoming sin and death for each and every person,( even if there is an age-long period of correction and growth), the more suggestable among them could really be damaged.
OOps - looks like someone responded before I could get back to you Michael. But anyway, thanks again.
It’s okay Dave. qaz is just upset because he’s wrong. I’m going to let it go.
Whatever qaz. I’m letting it go because Dave asked me nicely. You don’t have to worry about it.
No. I’m not trolling and never have been. But Dave asked me nicely. So, I’m letting it go and moving on. I also like your idea of getting a blog. So, I think I’ll do that. My time here is up.
I’m set in my position now. I’ve had trouble making my mind up in the past on certain things. But I got it. Besides I need to find somewhere else to go. Anytime someone is kind to me the way Dave was and makes his point I listen. Take care qaz.
I think you are insane. How can you believe ECT is superior over UR? People suffering forever is “superior” to you? What kind of person says that?
He said he was letting it go, Andre. Doesn’t mean you can’t start a thread on the topic if you want to.
Thanks Dave. If anybody is interested I got this idea of hell from “The Case For Faith” where the philosopher Dr. J.P. Moreland shows hell to be a quarantine. I did use my own words of perfect love from the Bible though and how God is a protector when we are under His wings. It’s all through the Bible and J.P. Moreland’s philosophical defense has been around for quite some time.
Moreland is an excellent and very ethical philosopher.
I think the idea of “hell” as quarantine is wonderful.
After the anti biotics hav done their job, you get out of quarantine, except in the most primitive of cruel uncivilized societies where perhaps someone would be left to die in quarantine or isolated on an island like lepers often were.
Even among the wickedness of this world, men labored and sought until a cure was found for the “quarantined”.
But God has established a cure, and it will eventually heal all.
“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, 15that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life. 16For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Jn 3
"Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out. 32 And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.”Jn 12:32
The contrast between the casting out of the devil, who held the power of death, and the exaltation of Christ as Lord, who took the keys to death and the grave, is that all will be drawn into life.
"And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He *said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.”
The longer in hell the more hardened one becomes. It follows logically that the longer your heart is separated from mercy the worse you get. Your heart doesn’t get softer without God’s mercy it gets harder. Oh how powerful and glorious God is by protecting and defending His few powerless babies in heaven from all that evil.
LOL that is hilarious. You mean the few powerless babes of whom Jesus said, “Upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail aginst it?”
I think you are writing a fantasy novel and pumping us for energy from which to develop a new mythology 
If all of these statements are true, then it looks like it’s “To hell with everybody!”
I think it is physical death.
The future tense can refer either to a single event or to continuity. I suggest that the passage in Genesis 2:17 is a continuous future and should be translated, "but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely be dying.” In other words, in the day that they ate the fruit from that tree, the death process began.
That seems to me, Paidion, to be a really key point, one I have not considered closely enough, but it makes a lot of sense.
Could the same be said of verses such as Eph. 2.1?
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
Indeed… hardly I would contend, and in view of that I might advocate an alternative which captures the essence of this above…
As I understand it… the “death” in view here, as with Gen 2:17, is primarily “spiritual” or relational thus covenantal and was experienced in real terms as “separation from God” — or to use biblical parlance… EXILE.
Simply read, this means Adam died (obviously not physically) on the day he ate thereof. There is no “process” of physical death to be found in this passage, but rather, an expressed Hebrew idiom (a form of expression having a significance other than the literal one) indicative of the repetitious “die die” as per the Masoretic Text; the variance of verbal tense here does not affect this Hebraism.
The words translated “you shall surely die” is the combination of the infinitive absolute form of the Hebrew verb “mvōṯ” <מ֥וֹת> (surely [die]) followed by the future form of the same Hebrew verb “tāmuṯ” <תָּמֽוּת> (die). In the Hebrew, when a word or short phrase is sequentially repeated it intensifies its given meaning (not dissimilar to the examples of this as found in Jer 7:4 and Ezek 16:6) emphasising its unequivocal or definitive position of certainty. Again, for example in the NT Jesus would say… “amen! amen!” meaning “truly truly!” meaning ‘with absolute surety!’ Gen 2:17 literally means without fear of contradiction “you SHALL SURELY die!” and that, not “eventually” or inevitable, BUT imperatively so.
And in this instance, according to this verse “…in the day…” Again, NOT talking about the beginnings of a “process” but rather with strong overtones of the immediate execution of divine judicial sentence being at hand; thus “spiritually”. Sin-death (relational separation from God) came via the first Adam and was defeated via the last Adam.
That Adam could have access to the Tree of Life and “live forever” logically dictates that physical death, i.e., biological demise was ALREADY present and a natural part of the created order.
Had Adam partaken of the Tree of Life in his now fallen state SIN-death would have been immortalised and mankind screwed. We all sin, it’s natural. Paul said “he who has died is freed from sin” and so it is we all die the physical death we were naturally meant to die. Prior to Jesus defeating spiritual death humanity at natural death was locked up in Hades (the grave) i.e., “no one has ascended to the Father”. Thus when Jesus ascended He led captivity (spiritual death aka EXILE) captive giving gifts (grace, liberty and life aka FREEDOM) to men.
Again, that physical pain and death was a natural part of the created order is a given, for whatever food they partook of (prior to their infraction) was ALREADY in the process of biological demise (physical decay i.e., physical death) as it was sustaining them, i.e., giving them LIFE. Also… that’s Eve’s pain in conception/childbirth was “multiplied” is obviously indicative of the presence of pain pre-fall as well. As perfect in one sense that Eden was Christendom has magicallised paradise to something it logically never was.
Again… “You shall surely die” was a direct executable judgment without any equivocation or doubt as to its certainty. It basically meant: “from the moment you… ([size=85]fill in the infraction[/size]) …you shall die” i.e., it was irreversible. For example…
This above although indeed referencing physical death would still be understood in terms of timeframes as executable via divine edict with reasonably short term effect; as opposed to Adam having lived a long life full of “begetting sons and daughters” and then finally dying at a ripe old age near a millennium later… that seems rather far-stretched from “in the day”.
Adam sinned and from that “day” forward his spiritual relationship with God was fractured with the inevitable consequence being… expulsion and exile, i.e., spiritual death, banished from His presence. Until Jesus rectified this Adam’s problem was humanity’s problem.
The Greek of that one says, “And you being dead in the trespasses and sins.” However, if you are being dead, then you are dead. So I don’t think that one makes a significant difference. For example, my mother is dead, and she will continue being dead until Jesus raises her at the last day.
This is the way I understand you, davo - tell me if I’m on target, ok?
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Adam was already in the process of biologically dying, though it might take several hundred years.
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The ‘day’ he ate the fruit, he died. This could not be a physical death because a) he continued to live biologically and b) according to #1, he was already mortal.
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Therefore his death - on that ‘day’ - was ‘relational’ or ‘covenental’ - and actually more, perhaps a ‘spiritual’ death. I’m not certain what that is, exactly; I don’t know that what Adam had WAS a ‘spiritual relationship’ . What do you mean by that?
I think the crux of the disagreement with Paidion is whether eating of the tree of life, and living forever means:
- that Adam had been mortal, but would become immortal or
- that Adam had been immortal and innocent but that his new immortality would be an immortal sinfulness.
By “spiritual” I mean “relational” or in particular “covenantal” aka personal. God and Adam interacted together in Eden… it was this closeness that Adam lost.
I only use the term “spiritual death” because THAT’S what everybody else uses when distinguishing such from physical death, but by that term, I’m meaning relational/covenantal/personal, etc. Thus to have been “dead in trespasses and sins” meant being in a former position of NOT knowing God.