The powerful words of emotions…
It’s only right for powerful emotions to follow powerful conclusions from careful exegesis of Scripture. After all, we serve a powerful God, do we not? 
i remember that tale of the chap who discovered an important scientific principle being so happy about it that he leapt from his bath and ran naked into the streets rejoicing!
but OTT for displacement (though undoubtedly important), but how much more joyful should we be? 
are you going to provide some solid Scriptural evidence that there is no hope of reconciliation past a certain point?
i can think of a couple… “seek the Lord while He may be found” if that helps?
but what i’m hoping for is proof that fits into the Biblical meta-narrative that consists of God creating man, knowing we’d sin, God promising judgement on the wicked, but restoration afterwards, that God promises resurrection to sinful nations in the OT, that God does not cast off forever, that His wrath is momentary but His favour for Life, that God sends His Son as saviour of the whole world, that those who believe will be saved…but that no one comes to Him unless He draws them, and that He will draw all men unto Him when He is lifted up, that He reconciles ALL things to Him, that He fixes for all what Adam broke for all, that He will judge than heal the nations, that He will be All in All and that there will be no more curse.
is there any point on that where you disagree? i have more or less quoted Scripture verbatim from various places, so i trust not.
if that’s the case, can you provide this evidence that flies in the face of the meta-narrative that Rev 20:11-15 is the final statement for anyone as you claim it is?
And the fact that Paul, at least, sees beyond Revelation to the time when Christ gives up the kingdom so God can be all in all. I wonder how much the fact that Revelation is placed last in the canon influences people to think the things it describes are chronologically the very end.
Indeed, a lot of people have this misconception of the Old Testament as portraying the wrathful God of Judgment and the New Testament as portraying the loving God of Grace, but the truth is, the pattern of judgment followed by restoration is in the heart of God throughout the Old Testament just as much as the New. If God is not a God who casts off forever, then He isn’t. After all, He doesn’t change, right?
I think the reason Universalism is so hard to non-Universalists to swallow, as I remember back to my own pre-Universalist days, is that it requires a whole new hermeneutical structure. So many interlocking ideas about God, judgment, salvation, Jesus, the Cross, resurrection, forgiveness, the story of Scripture, Heaven, Hell–nearly every major point of theology–must be rethought. Not all points must be rejected, of course, but nearly everything must be rethought at least to some degree. The whole story is changed by the alteration of the ending, and the perception that the new story gives of the main Character is altered in some pretty fundamental ways. It isn’t that it’s unbiblical; a day at these forums should demonstrate that pretty thoroughly as Scripture after Scripture is presented and the story drawn out of its pages. It’s that it’s a really massive paradigm shift, and those tend to come either by very slowly changing and realigning bits and pieces of information at a time, or in violent, emotional upheavals.
Amen! 
Totally agree.
In Revelation 14:10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without
mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the
presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:
So this must mean that for all eternity Jesus is watching people suffer in anguish in their sins? That would mean sin is going on someplace with billions and billions of people under the curse.
…which would contradict…
Phil. 2:10-11:
10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the
earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
So i guess they’re going to be forced into it, or basically be made to cry uncle. How can this glorify God?
Nahh, its pretty easy not to believe universalism because it is based on emotionalism and not solid biblical evidence.
that’s totally incorrect, i’m afraid. ECT doesn’t work in any logical or Biblical sense.
Nahh, its pretty easy not to believe ECT because it is based on emotionalism and not solid biblical evidence.
My argument is just as valid as yours. Except your emotion is you are glad people will suffer and you are one of the special ones that got it right. Is that the truth? Is that how you feel? If not then why don’t you maybe give us the credit and drop the emotionalism and unbiblical argument wrapped in arrogance.
Also Zeph 3:8,9 you still have yet to address it (well except when you were completely wrong the first time 
)
Also you first say that the parable of the rich man and lazarus must be real because it has a persons name then when evidence is given opposing it, you say it doesn’t matter if it was a real guy the spiritual principle is still there. But your whole whole reason for it being truly about hell is because the person is a real name, “what other parable has a person named in it?” (my paraphrase).
Beware of the leaven of the pharisees
Read Luke 16:19-31…I’m pretty sure the richman was conscious and fully experiencing the torment of the flames of hell. Also read 2 Thess 1:8-9
do you ever actually read and respond to what people write? maybe you’re actually an automated bot that just spews out the same thing over and over. You have contradicted yourself so many times in the last couple days, unfortunately there are so many posts I don’t have time to go back to them all. One instance (besides the one above) is that you said people aren’t created in the image of God (you quoted the script about adam begetting seth in his likeness), they’re not God’s creation, they’re death creation or some other rubbish, then in a couple posts later you defend your doctrine by saying that people deserve eternal punishment because they’re immortal because they’re made in the image of God.
Sounds like a lot of confusion to me… what means confusion? Babylon, the same place ECT came from.
Redhot
Sorry your confused and don’t understand what I said, but I can assure you that I did not contradict myself.
*One instance (besides the one above) is that you said people aren’t created in the image of God (you quoted the script about adam begetting seth in his likeness), they’re not God’s creation, they’re death creation or some other rubbish, then in a couple posts later you defend your doctrine of demons by saying that people deserve eternal punishment because they’re immortal because they’re made in the image of God.
Sounds like a lot of confusion to me… what means confusion? Babylon, the same place ECT came from.*
Indeed. In the defense of ECT, a number of other unbiblical views have come to the surface:
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That, as Jason has indicated, spiritual death can remain without physical death following.
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That some people deserve to suffer the worst imaginable agony, day and night, forever and ever.
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That man, in his fallen state, is not God’s image-bearing creation.
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That man, despite his fallen state and lack of the image of God, is still intrinsically immortal (as Redhotmagma has pointed out).
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That man’s will was unaffected by the Fall as part of the Image of God even though the Image of God was supposed to have vanished and man wasn’t even God’s “creation” anymore.
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That sin, death, and condemnation can somehow be “defeated” by continuing to increase and flourish in Hell.
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That unsaved humanity will joyfully worship God just prior to being everlastingly damned (how DOES that work, by the way? Does everyone worship Him joyfully and then He go, “SUCKERS!” and toss most of them into Hell?).
Now, what’s interesting about all of these is that there is not a shred of biblical evidence for any of them–not so much as a single verse, and usually multiple whole passages contradicting these positions. Yet, despite that, they are clung to and defended. Meanwhile, Scripture after Scripture shows, unambiguously, that God will triumph over sin, death, and condemnation, that He will reconcile the whole world, and so on, yet it’s not enough. More Scripture is demanded no matter how much is given. Let’s use the example of the Lake of Fire. When the characters shown being redeemed after the Lake of Fire are named by the same names as the characters that were judged as God’s enemies just prior to the Lake of Fire, and John offers no indication that they are different, a reasonable reader would conclude they’re the same. But, instead, we’re told that unless there’s a verse actually showing the process of their redemption, he won’t believe it.
I’ve indicated that it’s rather like watching a movie and seeing the scene cut from one location to another, and insisting that unless footage can be produced showing the characters actually moving from the first location to the second, it didn’t happen, and those characters must, in fact, be different characters. Of course that’s nonsense, but that’s the sort of nonsense that must be embraced for the ECT hermeneutic to hold up.
Or take, for a moment, the discussion on Colossians 1. First he insists that Paul somehow leaves out a good part of creation by omitting “under the Earth.” It was indicated that “in Heaven and on Earth” is a common idiom for “everything and everyone everywhere,” a point that was simply ignored. It was further pointed out that God will, according to this passage (since eudokeo never means anything less) certainly bring to pass the salvation of everyone on Earth. In order to maintain ECT, the unbiblical argument that the unsaved aren’t God’s creation (and thus aren’t necessarily included in the scope of reconciliation) is marshaled, along with adding to the text a giant “UNLESS”–“unless they die first.” Well, that wasn’t what Paul wrote! Hm. Guess it’s a good thing Revival is here to correct Pauls theology, huh?
Or how 'bout the case of I Corinthians 15:22. Revival literally argued the opposite of what it says–NOT everyone will be made alive in Christ. The list can go on and on. The point is this: any kind of close examination of these verses will ultimately lead to one of two places: Universalism or nonsense. Defending ECT is to choose the latter route, and that makes nonsense not only of these and other passages, but of the whole of Scripture, of the God behind Scripture, and of the Gospel of Grace. It forces Revival to embrace blatantly unbiblical positions just to prop it up because, of all things, it is the one uncompromisable. It is the one thing that MUST be believed, at the cost of all else if necessary.
I’ve commented before, though I don’t know if it was here, that I understand that sometimes people must believe things they do not want to believe. That’s reality; the evidence is sometimes incontrovertible for unpleasant truths. However, when the evidence is shown, time after time, in multitudes of situations, to point in one direction and a person insists, against logic and reason and Scripture, on believing the opposite, using arguments that sound like they came out of a can rather than having been thought out, it points to one of two possibilities. Either the person WANTS to believe it so badly that no evidence can turn him, or he’s so afraid to let go of that position that no evidence can turn him. Either possibility is tragic.
Snitzel
When God** originally** created man he was created in His image and likeness. What does this mean? The Hebrew word for image means resemblence or representive figure. The word for likeness means similitude model or shape, pattern. In plain talk, this means that God desired for man to look like, act like, and live like Himself. This does not mean that God and humans look exactly identical. And we are certainly not deity.
This obviously changed after the fall in Gen 3. Man no longer had the life of God and it was replaced with spiritual death.
After the fall God said Adam begat a son in his own likeness; after his image. What do you think God was saying here based on the information above, snitzel?
Genesis 5:3
And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth.
Btw, physical death is a result of spiritual death otherwise Adam would of lived forever. It took 930 years for physical death to catch up with the spiritual death that happen in Adam’s spirit.
Snitzel
Since you are accusing me of saying these things can you show me where there are? Is it possible that you misunderstood what I did say? Thanks.
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That some people deserve to suffer the worst imaginable agony, day and night, forever and ever.
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That man, in his fallen state, is not God’s image-bearing creation.
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That man’s will was unaffected by the Fall as part of the Image of God even though the Image of God was supposed to have vanished and man wasn’t even God’s “creation” anymore.
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That sin, death, and condemnation can somehow be “defeated” by continuing to increase and flourish in Hell.
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That unsaved humanity will joyfully worship God just prior to being everlastingly damned (how DOES that work, by the way? Does everyone worship Him joyfully and then He go, “SUCKERS!” and toss most of them into Hell?).
Revival,
I can look up the quotations for you from your posts, but before I do, are you denying each of those things?
How could any of this be coherent with your pelagianism? Also, the Bible strongly implies that we are still made in the image of God post-fall (ca. Genesis 9:6). Many Calvinist’s deny this – why is a pelagian agreeing with them?!
Brothers,
It’s interesting, really. We’re made in God’s image when it comes to our free will and “immortality,” when it’s a convenient card to play for ECT. But when our image-bearing status as God’s creation lends support to Universalism, it is denied. Similarly, there’s the affirmation that spiritual death brings about physical death, but that’s suspended when it’s pointed out that spiritual death must, then, be defeated as well (or physical death can never truly be defeated). “The Nations” and “Kings of the Earth” are God’s enemies throughout Revelation, but when the same group is shown as God’s friends at the end, they must really be a different group and John just forgot to tell us. “In Heaven and on Earth” refers to everything that exists when Jesus claims all authority at the end of Matthew, but must leave out a huge part of all that exists when Paul uses it at the beginning of Colossians to express the reach of reconciliation. Free will is sacred and God would never force Himself on anyone or coerce worship, but when the whole world is pictured in worship, it must be God coercing most of them.
The sheer number of exegetical and logical inconsistencies that must be believed in order for eternal torment to be considered true or biblical is, frankly, a little staggering. I’m reminded of the White Queen, whose skill at believing impossible things was so keenly honed that she was able to believe six impossible things before breakfast.
Snitzel
I’m saying maybe you misunderstood me. Maybe I didn’t say those things in the way you say I said those things. Again, can you show me where I said these things. Thanks.
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That some people deserve to suffer the worst imaginable agony, day and night, forever and ever.
-
That man, in his fallen state, is not God’s image-bearing creation.
-
That man’s will was unaffected by the Fall as part of the Image of God even though the Image of God was supposed to have vanished and man wasn’t even God’s “creation” anymore.
-
That sin, death, and condemnation can somehow be “defeated” by continuing to increase and flourish in Hell.
-
That unsaved humanity will joyfully worship God just prior to being everlastingly damned (how DOES that work, by the way? Does everyone worship Him joyfully and then He go, “SUCKERS!” and toss most of them into Hell?).
When God originally created man he was created in His image and likeness. What does this mean? The Hebrew word for image means resemblence or representive figure. The word for likeness means similitude model or shape, pattern. In plain talk, this means that God desired for man to look like, act like, and live like Himself. This does not mean that God and humans look exactly identical. And we are certainly not deity.
This obviously changed after the fall in Gen 3. Man no longer had the life of God and it was replaced with spiritual death.
After the fall God said Adam begat a son in his own likeness; after his image. What do you think God was saying here based on the information above, brothers?
Genesis 5:3
And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth.