LAKE OF FIRE (eternal pain)

[ClementofA]

You still don't get it do you? The comments above were made by someone using the name Aaron on a universalist forum, similar to this one, therefore are worthless as evidence for anything.

Actually quite useful for anyone interested in looking up the references given.

Clearly not you.

Rome wasn't built in a day.

 

[ClementofA]

Here for example what Packer actually said.

​

That quote was not Packer but a comment on Packer with a few of his alleged
out of context remarks.

 

[ClementofA]

You're joking right? Quoting some conversations by an anonymous person on BGreek, a forum similar to this one, as evidence that the 9 sources I quoted were supposedly wrong? Let's get real.

You might as well have cited "the Pope". Nine sources that provide no reasons for their views are next to useless. They may or may not provide any references and seldom if ever quote there sources in context or at all. One of them, Thayer, as i posted before, was outdated almost from its publication.

 

[ClementofA]

Now you are a Greek expert and you claim to know how Plato used the word aionios and that the NT supposedly does not use it the same way?

You still haven't shown one instance of aion or aionios or olam in scripture that follows either Plato's or Aristotles' idea of aion/ios as timelessness.

 

[Der Alte]

Actually quite useful for anyone interested in looking up the references given.
Clearly not you.
Rome wasn't built in a day.

You posted the post with the references, if you think they provide relevant evidence the burden of proof is on you to look up the references.

That quote was not Packer but a comment on Packer with a few of his alleged
out of context remarks.

Virtually everything you have ever quoted was 2nd-3rd hand quotes from tentmaker, etc. thus "alleged out of context remarks." Remember this argument the next time you intend quote from tentmaker or other tertiary source.

You might as well have cited "the Pope". Nine sources that provide no reasons for their views are next to useless. They may or may not provide any references and seldom if ever quote there sources in context or at all. One of them, Thayer, as i posted before, was outdated almost from its publication.

As I showed from BAGD the sources do, in fact, provide justification for the definitions cited, remember all the blue highlights? That is just so people with no knowledge of Greek cannot make the argument you are making.

You still haven't shown one instance of aion or aionios or olam in scripture that follows either Plato's or Aristotles' idea of aion/ios as timelessness.

You have not shown that you understand anything about Plato. Since you have no knowledge of Greek you are not qualified to make this argument.

 

[Der Alte]

That quote was not Packer but a comment on Packer with a few of his alleged
out of context remarks.

Hell's Final Enigma
Won't heaven's joy be spoiled by our awareness of unsaved loved ones in hell?
J. I. Packer/ APRIL 22, 2002
First, I resonate with the question to the depths of my soul. Loved ones of my own, some living, some dead, have not shared my faith in Christ. That is painful.
Second, belief in the outright annihilation of nonbelievers after final judgment (as opposed to an eternal punishment) seems to me biblically illegitimate. I suspect some Christians whose loved ones die without accepting Christ are tempted to embrace the annihilationist view. Scripture, however, seems to show that one aspect of human dignity is that we are built to last. Whether for joy or for sorrow, our souls are eternal.
Third, Scripture and good biblical theology indicate that none will be in hell who did not effectively choose it by following in the footsteps of Adam and preferring their own way to God's. In some fashion, God reveals himself and his will to everyone, and everyone responds in one way or another (see Rom. 1:18-2:16). But nonbelievers universally make the anti-God choice, and hell is God giving people what they chose. That is reality—retributive reality—and an abiding consequence of following our heart and doing what we want to do; I wish I could persuade more people to face this seriously.
Now pose the question in its toughest form. Imagine a believing spouse or parent who loved, prayed for, and agonized over a dear one who resisted the gospel and died suddenly in an accident. There are no grounds for thinking that this or any other memory will be erased in heaven. So how can it not keep the bereaved one from heaven's total joy?
Significantly, this is not a Bible problem; instead, Scripture rules out all thought of it ever becoming anyone's problem. For it tells us that God the Father (who now pleads with mankind to accept the reconciliation that Christ's death secured for all) and God the Son (our appointed Judge, who wept over Jerusalem) will in a final judgment express "wrath" and administer justice against rebellious humans. God's holy righteousness will hereby be revealed; God will be doing the right thing, vindicating himself at last against all who have defied him, and there is no hint that this hurts the Judge more than it hurts the sinner. (Read through Matt. 25; John 5:22-29; Rom. 2:5-16, 12:19; 2 Thess. 1:7-9;Rev. 18:1-19:3, 20:11-35, and you will see that clearly.) God will judge justly, and all angels, saints, and martyrs will praise him for it. So it seems inescapable that we shall, with them, approve the judgment of persons—rebels—whom we have known and loved.
That sounds appalling; how can it be? Remember, in heaven our minds, hearts, motives, and feelings will be sanctified, so that we are fully conformed to the character and outlook of Jesus our Lord. This will happen at or before our bodily resurrection. How we shall then think and feel is really beyond our knowing, just as a chrysalis could not know what it feels like to be a butterfly till it becomes one.
But certainly the promise that God will wipe away every tear from believers' eyes (Rev. 7:17) will find its fulfillment as one aspect of this transformation. In heaven, glorifying God and thanking him for everything will always absorb us. All our love for and joy in others who are with us in heaven will spring from their doing the same, and love and pity for hell's occupants will not enter our hearts. Their hell will not veto our heaven.
Granted, this sounds to us more like hard-heartedness than Christlikeness, yet Christlikeness is precisely what it will be. Our difficulty is that we cannot now conceive the heavenly condition in a full way.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2002/april22/27.84.html
J.I. Packer is an executive editor of CT and a professor of theology at Regent College in Vancouver.
========
This article was excerpted from Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs by J. I. Packer
HELL The sentimental secularism of modern Western culture, with its exalted optimism about human nature, its shrunken idea of God, and its skepticism as to whether personal morality really matters—in other words, its decay of conscience—makes it hard for Christians to take the reality of hell seriously.
Jesus talked about HELL so many times, trying to warn us, that if we do not live for him, and except Him as Our Personal Savior, and believe that he rose again from the dead, and shed his blood for us.....you cannot enter Heaven.
The revelation of hell in Scripture assumes a depth of insight into divine holiness and human and demonic sinfulness that most of us do not have.
However, the doctrine of hell appears in the New Testament as a Christian essential, and we are called to try to understand it as Jesus and his apostles did.
The New Testament views hell (Gehenna, as Jesus calls it, the place of incineration, Matt. 5:22; 18:9) as the final abode of those consigned to eternal punishment at the Last Judgment (Matt. 25:41-46; Rev. 20:11-15).
It is thought of as a place of fire and darkness (Jude 7, 13), of weeping and grinding of teeth (Matt. 8:12; 13:42, 50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30), of destruction (2 Thess. 1:7-9; 2 Pet. 3:7; 1 Thess. 5:3), and of torment (Rev. 20:10; Luke 16:23)—in other words, of total distress and misery.
If, as it seems, these terms are symbolic rather than literal (fire and darkness would be mutually exclusive in literal terms), we may be sure that the reality, which is beyond our imagining, exceeds the symbol in dreadfulness.
New Testament teaching about hell is meant to appall us and strike us dumb with horror, assuring us that, as heaven will be better than we could dream, so hell will be worse than we can conceive.
Such are the issues of eternity, which need now to be realistically faced. The concept of hell is of a negative relationship to God, an experience not of his absence so much as of his presence in wrath and displeasure.
The experience of God’s anger as a consuming fire (Heb. 12:29), his righteous condemnation for defying him and clinging to the sins he loathes, and the deprivation of all that is valuable, pleasant, and worthwhile will be the shape of the experience of hell (Rom. 2:6, 8-9, 12).
The concept is formed by systematically negating every element in the experience of God’s goodness as believers know it through grace and as all mankind knows it through kindly providences (Acts 14:16-17; Ps. 104:10-30; Rom. 2:4).
The reality, as was said above, will be more terrible than the concept; no one can imagine how bad hell will be. Scripture envisages hell as unending (Jude 13; Rev. 20:10). Speculations about a “second chance” after death, or personal annihilation of the ungodly at some stage, have no biblical warrant.
Scripture sees hell as self-chosen; those in hell will realize that they sentenced themselves to it by loving darkness rather than light, choosing not to have their Creator as their Lord, preferring self-indulgent sin to self-denying righteousness, and (if they encountered the gospel) rejecting Jesus rather than coming to him (John 3:18-21; Rom. 1:18, 24, 26, 28, 32; 2:8; 2 Thess. 2:9-11).
General revelation confronts all mankind with this issue, and from this standpoint hell appears as God’s gesture of respect for human choice. All receive what they actually chose, either to be with God forever, worshiping him, or without God forever, worshiping themselves. Those who are in hell will know not only that for their doings they deserve it but also that in their hearts they chose it.
The purpose of Bible teaching about hell is to make us appreciate, thankfully embrace, and rationally prefer the grace of Christ that saves us from it (Matt. 5:29-30; 13:48-50). It is really a mercy to mankind that God in Scripture is so explicit about hell. We cannot now say that we have not been warned. This article was excerpted from Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs by J. I. Packer.
http://heavens-beauty.info/hell_1.html​

 

[ClementofA]

As I showed from BAGD the sources do, in fact, provide justification for the definitions cited, remember all the blue highlights? That is just so people with no knowledge of Greek cannot make the argument you are making.

Nonsense. Nine sources that provide no reasons for their views are next to useless. They may or may not provide any references and seldom if ever quote there sources in context or at all. One of them, Thayer, as i posted before, was outdated almost from its publication roughly 100 years ago.

 

[ClementofA]

You have not shown that you understand anything about Plato. Since you have no knowledge of Greek you are not qualified to make this argument.

That's funny. You tried to argue Plato's endlessness use of aionion is in the Bible after i told you it isn't. Later i posted a lexicon that agreed with me. And disagreed with you, an amateur of Greek.

 

[ClementofA]

Hell's Final Enigma
Won't heaven's joy be spoiled by our awareness of unsaved loved ones in hell?
J. I. Packer/ APRIL 22, 2002
​

Your highlights didn't say anything about Packer's view of the word aionios.
This comment did:

"Because aionios should most likely be understood to mean "belonging to an age (or ages)" or "age-lasting" in both the NT and the LXX, the Greek expression zoe aionios (commonly rendered "eternal life" or "everlasting life") should best be understood to mean "age-lasting life" or "the life of the age." A number of contemporary Christian theologians and scholars (such as J.I. Packer, C.H. Dodd, John Painter, George Eldon Ladd, N.T. Wright, John G. Stackhouse and Alan Richardson) acknowledge that zoe aionios should best be understood to mean "the life of the age." See, e.g., C.H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the First Gospel, pp. 144-50; George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament, pp. 290-292; J.I.Packer, "The Problem of Eternal Punishment," Crux XXVI.3, September 1990, 23; "Evangelical Annihilationism in Review," Reformation & Revival, Volume 6, Number 2 - Spring 1997; John Painter, 1, 2 and 3 John (Sacra Pagina), p. 195; Alan Richardson, An Introduction to the Theology of the New Testament, pp.73-74; John G. Stackhouse, Jr. "Jesus Christ," The Oxford Handbook of Evangelical Theology, p. 151; N.T. Wright, Romans, p. 530."

http://www.evangelicaluniversalist.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2626&p=36115&hilit=packer#p36115

 

[Der Alte]

Nonsense. Nine sources that provide no reasons for their views are next to useless. They may or may not provide any references and seldom if ever quote there sources in context or at all. One of them, Thayer, as i posted before, was outdated almost from its publication roughly 100 years ago.

Still wrong! Repeating "I'm right and you're wrong! Am too! Nuh Huh!" does not make it true. You have not reviewed the primary sources so you have no idea what they did or did not do. Once again I quoted from BAGD and proved you wrong, BAGD gave ample reasons. Until you review the primary sources anything you say about the sources is meaningless. And FYI you have not proved Thayer was outdated. What you did was post a comment from Wiki which made the statement that "Thayer's lexicon quickly became obsolete" but alas no credible verifiable evidence to back that up. Wiki is about as reliable as the scribbling on a public facility wall, every article has [edit] links, anybody can post, change or delete anything with no review or controls.

That's funny. You tried to argue Plato's endlessness use of aionion is in the Bible after i told you it isn't. Later i posted a lexicon that agreed with me. And disagreed with you, an amateur of Greek.

One lexicon vs. the 9 sources, including lexicons I quoted is absurd. Which lexicon was that and did it provide reasons for the definitions? If I recall correctly that lexicon was Gesenius and I think I proved you wrong.

Your highlights didn't say anything about Packer's view of the word aionios.
This comment did: "Because aionios should most likely be understood to mean "belonging to an age (or ages)" or "age-lasting" in both the NT and the LXX, the Greek expression zoe aionios (commonly rendered "eternal life" or "everlasting life") should best be understood to mean "age-lasting life" or "the life of the age." A number of contemporary Christian theologians and scholars (such as J.I. Packer, C.H. Dodd, John Painter, George Eldon Ladd, N.T. Wright, John G. Stackhouse and Alan Richardson) acknowledge that zoe aionios should best be understood to mean "the life of the age." See, e.g., C.H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the First Gospel, pp. 144-50; George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament, pp. 290-292; J.I.Packer, "The Problem of Eternal Punishment," Crux XXVI.3, September 1990, 23; "Evangelical Annihilationism in Review," Reformation & Revival, Volume 6, Number 2 - Spring 1997; John Painter, 1, 2 and 3 John (Sacra Pagina), p. 195; Alan Richardson, An Introduction to the Theology of the New Testament, pp.73-74; John G. Stackhouse, Jr. "Jesus Christ," The Oxford Handbook of Evangelical Theology, p. 151; N.T. Wright, Romans, p. 530."
http://www.evangelicaluniversalist.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2626&p=36115&hilit=packer#p36115

I think I have already refuted all of this. As you said, "a few .. alleged
out of context remarks." and "sources that provide no reasons for their views are next to useless." Listing a bunch of book titles and authors is next to useless. If you think there is any credible evidence in any of those books quote whatever is relevant and post it here.

 

[Der Alte]

This article was excerpted from Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs by J. I. Packer
HELL The sentimental secularism of modern Western culture, with its exalted optimism about human nature, its shrunken idea of God, and its skepticism as to whether personal morality really matters—in other words, its decay of conscience—makes it hard for Christians to take the reality of hell seriously.
Jesus talked about HELL so many times, trying to warn us, that if we do not live for him, and except Him as Our Personal Savior, and believe that he rose again from the dead, and shed his blood for us.....you cannot enter Heaven.
The revelation of hell in Scripture assumes a depth of insight into divine holiness and human and demonic sinfulness that most of us do not have.
However, the doctrine of hell appears in the New Testament as a Christian essential, and we are called to try to understand it as Jesus and his apostles did.
The New Testament views hell (Gehenna, as Jesus calls it, the place of incineration, Matt. 5:22; 18:9) as the final abode of those consigned to eternal punishment at the Last Judgment (Matthew 25:41-46; Revelation 20:11-15).
It is thought of as a place of fire and darkness (Jude 7, 13), of weeping and grinding of teeth (Matt. 8:12; 13:42, 50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30), of destruction (2 Thess. 1:7-9; 2 Pet. 3:7; 1 Thess. 5:3), and of torment (Revelation 20:10; Luke 16:23)—in other words, of total distress and misery.
If, as it seems, these terms are symbolic rather than literal (fire and darkness would be mutually exclusive in literal terms), we may be sure that the reality, which is beyond our imagining, exceeds the symbol in dreadfulness.
New Testament teaching about hell is meant to appall us and strike us dumb with horror, assuring us that, as heaven will be better than we could dream, so hell will be worse than we can conceive.
Such are the issues of eternity, which need now to be realistically faced. The concept of hell is of a negative relationship to God, an experience not of his absence so much as of his presence in wrath and displeasure.
The experience of God’s anger as a consuming fire (Heb. 12:29), his righteous condemnation for defying him and clinging to the sins he loathes, and the deprivation of all that is valuable, pleasant, and worthwhile will be the shape of the experience of hell (Rom. 2:6, 8-9, 12).
The concept is formed by systematically negating every element in the experience of God’s goodness as believers know it through grace and as all mankind knows it through kindly providences (Acts 14:16-17; Ps. 104:10-30; Rom. 2:4).
The reality, as was said above, will be more terrible than the concept; no one can imagine how bad hell will be. Scripture envisages hell as unending (Jude 1:13 Revelation 20:10). Speculations about a “second chance” after death, or personal annihilation of the ungodly at some stage, have no biblical warrant.
Scripture sees hell as self-chosen; those in hell will realize that they sentenced themselves to it by loving darkness rather than light, choosing not to have their Creator as their Lord, preferring self-indulgent sin to self-denying righteousness, and (if they encountered the gospel) rejecting Jesus rather than coming to him (John 3:18-21; Rom. 1:18, 24, 26, 28, 32; 2:8; 2 Thess. 2:9-11).
General revelation confronts all mankind with this issue, and from this standpoint hell appears as God’s gesture of respect for human choice. All receive what they actually chose, either to be with God forever, worshiping him, or without God forever, worshiping themselves. Those who are in hell will know not only that for their doings they deserve it but also that in their hearts they chose it.
The purpose of Bible teaching about hell is to make us appreciate, thankfully embrace, and rationally prefer the grace of Christ that saves us from it (Matt. 5:29-30; 13:48-50). It is really a mercy to mankind that God in Scripture is so explicit about hell. We cannot now say that we have not been warned. This article was excerpted from Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs by J. I. Packer.
http://heavens-beauty.info/hell_1.html​

Your highlights didn't say anything about Packer's view of the word aionios.
...

But it most certainly does say something about Packer's view of the word aionios, see the bolded scripture which accompanies Packers comments highlighted in red.

 

[ClementofA]

​

But it most certainly does say something about Packer's view of the word aionios, see the bolded scripture which accompanies Packers comments highlighted in red.

We STILL see no mention of the word aionios by Packer, let alone his comments
about what it means. Try this instead:

"Because aionios should most likely be understood to mean "belonging to an age (or ages)" or "age-lasting" in both the NT and the LXX, the Greek expression zoe aionios (commonly rendered "eternal life" or "everlasting life") should best be understood to mean "age-lasting life" or "the life of the age." A number of contemporary Christian theologians and scholars (such as J.I. Packer, C.H. Dodd, John Painter, George Eldon Ladd, N.T. Wright, John G. Stackhouse and Alan Richardson) acknowledge that zoe aionios should best be understood to mean "the life of the age." See, e.g., C.H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the First Gospel, pp. 144-50; George Eldon Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament, pp. 290-292; J.I.Packer, "The Problem of Eternal Punishment," Crux XXVI.3, September 1990, 23; "Evangelical Annihilationism in Review," Reformation & Revival, Volume 6, Number 2 - Spring 1997; John Painter, 1, 2 and 3 John (Sacra Pagina), p. 195; Alan Richardson, An Introduction to the Theology of the New Testament, pp.73-74; John G. Stackhouse, Jr. "Jesus Christ," The Oxford Handbook of Evangelical Theology, p. 151; N.T. Wright, Romans, p. 530."

http://www.evangelicaluniversalist.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2626&p=36115&hilit=packer#p36115

 

[ClementofA]

One lexicon vs. the 9 sources, including lexicons I quoted is absurd.

Your 9 sources didn't even mention Plato's timeless aionion use in the Scriptures.
If they did you would have posted the verse(s) they referred to long ago.

 

[ClementofA]

Which lexicon was that and did it provide reasons for the definitions? If I recall correctly that lexicon was Gesenius and I think I proved you wrong.

Not Gesenius. Here is what one of your sources said:

" long time, duration (usually eternal, eternity, but not in a philosophical sense"

 

[ClementofA]

Still wrong! Repeating "I'm right and you're wrong! Am too! Nuh Huh!" does not make it true. You have not reviewed the primary sources so you have no idea what they did or did not do. Once again I quoted from BAGD and proved you wrong, BAGD gave ample reasons. Until you review the primary sources anything you say about the sources is meaningless. And FYI you have not proved Thayer was outdated. What you did was post a comment from Wiki which made the statement that "Thayer's lexicon quickly became obsolete" but alas no credible verifiable evidence to back that up. Wiki is about as reliable as the scribbling on a public facility wall, every article has [edit] links, anybody can post, change or delete anything with no review or controls.

You still haven't refuted wiki but continue to refer to 100 year old Thayer as one of your sources, even though its outdated & contradicts your other sources, which also disagree with each other.

Who made them the Pope?

You have a lot of blind faith in your nine sources. Who completely ignore Origen and all others who disagree with them. Anything to sell books, eh?

Why not follow instead Origen's views re aion/ios & other early church & modern church universalists, instead of the ECT dogma of the dark ages?

Why not put your faith in the inspired infallible Scriptures instead of fallible men?

Yet you constantly refer to fallible, uninspired men , even anti-Christian Jews, to be your teachers, instead of Christ.

Scripture does not say to follow Jewish fables & myths, but reject them.

 

[Der Alte]

We STILL see no mention of the word aionios by Packer, let alone his comments
about what it means. Try this instead:[ . . . Virtually useless copy/paste from evangelical universalist/forum omitted . . . ]

Let me know when you decide to quote directly from J.I. Packer mentioning the word aionios and his comments. But, we did see Packer's interpretation of aionios in the scripture he referenced which used the word aionios and which he interpreted in the article as eternal and unending! And I quoted directly from Packer's writings while you have not quoted any of Packer's primary sources whatsoever, just the same old refuted copy/paste from tentmaker and evangelicaluniversalist.

 

[Der Alte]

Your 9 sources didn't even mention Plato's timeless aionion use in the Scriptures.
If they did you would have posted the verse(s) they referred to long ago.

If you want to discuss any of my posts, quote it exactly in-context and tell me exactly what you want to discuss.

Not Gesenius. Here is what one of your sources said:
" long time, duration (usually eternal, eternity, but not in a philosophical sense"

Then identify the lexicon you are referring to. I don't read minds. If you want to discuss any of my posts, quote it exactly in-context and tell me exactly what you want to discuss.

 

[ClementofA]

But, we did see Packer's interpretation of aionios in the scripture he referenced which used the word aionios and which he interpreted in the article as eternal and unending!

Which is entirely besides the point, as indicated by my previous quote re Packer, of what his
definition [not interpretation] of the word is, namely "age lasting". Whether or not he "interpreted" that to mean an endless age is totally irrelevant & a useless distraction from the topic at hand.

 

[ClementofA]

Then identify the lexicon you are referring to. I don't read minds. If you want to discuss any of my posts, quote it exactly in-context and tell me exactly what you want to discuss.

Koehler, L., Baumgartner, W., Richardson, M. E. J., & Stamm, J. J. (1994–2000). The Hebrew and Aramaic lexicon of the
Old Testament (electronic ed., pp. 798–799). Leiden: E.J. Brill.

 

[Der Alte]

You still haven't refuted wiki but continue to refer to 100 year old Thayer as one of your sources, even though its outdated & contradicts your other sources, which also disagree with each other.

You have not provided any credible, verifiable evidence proving anything about Thayer. Nothing to refute.

Who made them the Pope?

Who made tentmaker, universalistunitarian etc. the Pope?

You have a lot of blind faith in your nine sources. Who completely ignore Origen and all others who disagree with them. Anything to sell books, eh?

Notice how all of the sources you copy/paste only quote from writers who agree with their POV and virtually ignore everyone/everything which proves them wrong?

Why not follow instead Origen's views re aion/ios & other early church & modern church universalists, instead of the ECT dogma of the dark ages?

You have not provided any other early church universalists. Why follow a heretic just because they oppose the majority? Opposition does not prove validity.

Why not put your faith in the inspired infallible Scriptures instead of fallible men?

Why not put your faith in the inspired infallible Scriptures instead of fallible men at tentmaker, universalistunitarian and other websites?

Yet you constantly refer to fallible, uninspired men , even anti-Christian Jews, to be your teachers, instead of Christ.

I don't think I have ever quoted any Christian Jews in this discussion. Yet you constantly refer to fallible, uninspired men at tentmaker and universalistunitarian instead of Christ.

Scripture does not say to follow Jewish fables & myths, but reject them.

I don't follow Jewish fables and myths. Jewish history is not fables and myths. Scripture does not say to follow fallible, uninspired men at tentmaker and universalistunitarian.