I agree with you johnkw, that the lake of fire is literal. I think you are the first one, to advocate that the person’s cast into the Lake of Fire will still be alive.
“And we don’t know what eternal bodies are capable of enduring, so we don’t know the nature of what people in the lake of fire will be experiencing”.- - very interesting. Looking forward to your new contributions.
Blessings
Hi Puddy… not sure where you got me saying “no resurrection”?? And yes I believe in the after-life. Typically by preterists who have an issue with my inclusivision I’m called a universalist so I have to believe in life after death, lol.
My position understands Paul’s words to be directly applicable to the audience of his day, i.e., old covenant Israel… these were exactly the same as when Jesus spoke to the same generation then living when he said: “Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.” Ignoring “audience relevance” has led to all manner of gymnastics to explain this away because the obvious is true, that IF reading this any other way than the bleeding obvious then there must be some very, very old people somewhere still alive on the face of the earth. Well NO, Jesus meant it to those with whom he spoke AND they understood it as such.
My position understands “the resurrection” as dealing with the covenant restoration of Israel that Jesus came to establish and fulfill… something ratified through Calvary and consummated at the Ad70 Parousia.
Now as for Babylon… “Babylon” in Revelation IS a metaphor for “Jerusalem” - she is "the great city which is spiritually called Sodom [immorality] and Egypt [persecution], where also our Lord was crucified. Rev 11:8
Jesus gave her [Jerusalem] warning of God’s wrath was to be poured out on her for all her murderous and harlotrous ways etc Mt 22:31-38. The conflagrations of Ad66-70 were the fulfillment of these words and further where Jesus in answering his disciples entreatises about the “end of the world” and he Jesus pointed directly to that time when “not one stone shall be left upon another” Mt24:2.
Well actually no, Israel’s promises WERE fully conditional… they simply failed to keep covenant and so paid the consequence for covenant disobedience. THAT is why Jesus came and fulfilled them all, as per 2Cor 1:20. It was as a direct result of Jesus’ obedience that Israel was redeemed and THAT caused the reconciliation of the world beyond Israel… Israel was God’s firstfruits of humanity… “Israel was holy to the Lord, the firstfruits of his harvest.” Jer 2:3a The “harvest” was the rest of humanity.
Pantelism does not rely on the oft disputed texts that between exclusionists and universalists to make the biblical case for UR. Pantelism makes its case solely on a fully fulfilled eschatology which goes hand-in-glove with a fulfilled redemption and thus the reconciliation of all. 
Cindy,
Have you considered Rev. 21:6-8 "6 And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. 7 He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. 8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. " This is after the white throne judgment where people are thrown into the LoF. Who is it that is thirsty? Who needs to overcome? The sinners enumerated in verse 8, whose part is the LoF. They seem alive to me, although in a horrible condition. But maybe, given the fact they have eternal bodies now, it’s only just a bad, not horrible, condition.
Then, consider Rev. 22:2 “…and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” Who needs healing after the White Throne Judgment? Then consider the invitation given in Rev. 22:17: “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” I believe that during this age the gates to the New Jerusalem will always be open and there will be a standing invitation to those in the LoF to come out and wash their robes in the River of Life and eat of the Tree of Life and be healed. Maybe this invitation will be given on a personal level by members of The Bride to people they appeal to who are in the LoF. Who knows how long it will take, but at some point every knee will bow and every tongue confess Jesus as Lord and the LoF will be finally emptied.
Hullo, Johnkw
I just clicked on this thread as a whim and there is your note to me. I had to think for a while because I haven’t participated in it for quite some time . . . the thing I was talking about there was the idea that people would be thrown as corpses into the lake of fire and would be dead until God decided to call them back out.
I don’t like the idea of them being in pain either, but strangely enough perhaps, I do like that idea better than their being non-existent. I have some very dear friends and loved ones who don’t show much desire toward God, and honestly I’d rather think of them making progress in the lof than just being missing – dead – no one getting any benefit from it, them not growing, none of us able to help at all. That’s dismal to me.
Now my picture of the lof (one of them) is that our God is a consuming fire and for sinners to be in His presence – that’s a painful thing. His holiness burning out their defilement. It seems to me that it will take as long as it takes, and the worse off, the farther gone a person is, the more chaff there’s going to be to burn out.
You’re welcome to think of it as a literal lake, but for myself, I think that’s as likely to be literally true as the literal beasts of Daniel. Fire is highly symbolic in the bible. I see the lof as symbolic of the bronze (judgment) laver which was made from the mirrors donated by the women who helped in the creation of the Tabernacle furnishings. Seeing themselves as they are, experiencing at close quarters the holiness of God, being washed not by water this time, but by fire (the water comes later), all imo symbolic though none the less real for all that. I just think that the things of God are as easy for us to conceptualize as it is for a person in a black and white universe to understand the experience of color. So He tells us stories. We can understand stories better and they tend to stick with us.
Gotta run! Thanks for your thoughts. 
Blessings, Cindy
I hope what I am about to say has not already been discussed (or cussed) on this thread, but I had never thought of it this way before. The early posts brought up the question as to whether the Lake of Fire was figurative or literal. Well, let’s see, if it’s a literal lake, we would expect literal things to be thrown into it. If it’s a figurative lake, we would expect figurative things to be thrown in. As far as I know, only three things are cast into the LoF:
People - apparently literal, resurrected people, anyone whose name is not listed in the Book of Life.
Death and the Grave - apparently figurative, since they are used in a figurative sense (“Death and the Grave delivered up the dead that were in them”) in just the previous verse.
I’m confused…
As I understand it… it was literal in that it was an historic fact; it was metaphorical in that it portrayed the conflagration of the OC’s fiery end as per Ad70. The OC’s end had already been dealt with DECISIVELY in Ad30 through Christ’s Cross, and yet there was a generational outworking to fullness of this reality, i.e., 40yrs to the CONSUMMATED end in Christ’s Parousia.
Following the biblical pattern this replicates the 40yrs transition period of the children of Israel coming out of bondage [OC] INTO the fullness of the land of Promise [NC].
It isn’t hard to see why hell believers think the revelations LOF is literal. The literal LOF being the dead sea as pointed out earlier, but the symbolic LOF where the gehenna fires consume the carnal nature of all men is a process most chistians don’t want to think about going through, especially if they believe the will be saved from suffering by floating up to the clouds in the crapture. 
When we read ‘death and the grave’ were cast into the lake of fire, it is a figure of association. These are the ‘unjust dead’ of John 5.29. They are not raised to eternal life, and so are referenced as ‘the dead’
In 1 Cor. 15 the apostle Paul gives three orders of vivification. 1) Christ. 2) believers 3) those at the consummation. The consummation cannot occur until all rule and authority have been abolished. Rule still exists in the new heavens and the new earth. Thus there cannot be a resurrection to life at the white throne.
Too much is made of the figurative use of fire in the scriptures, since we read
Here it is unmistakable that Peter is thinking in terms of literal fire, just as much so as he is thinking of literal water. In Revelation the lake of fire is given as the agency which produces the second death.
Death is our enemy, and that includes the ‘second death’ Scripture puts the ‘second death’ in a very negative light. Scripture does not say ‘the glorious lake of fire’ or ‘the lake of purging’ or define it as ‘this is the lake of fire - the second chastening’ It is simply human conjecture to add to the words of Revelation.
What can we learn by the jurisdiction of death? We can learn in a very personal way our need for God. We take life for granted (all of us) That God will need to raise those we love from death and the grave, will teach us our dependance on God. Those born in the new heavens and earth will not have the same direct exposure to sin and death. They will need to learn through us, and the power of the resurrection. Just as we have learned in many ways from Israel.
I think Christianity is trying to run away from the reality of death. The immortality of the soul, is nowhere taught in the Bible. Death is complete degradation. We become dinner for the worms. It is an enemy, and according to Paul it will be the final enemy.