Lake of Fire

[throughfiierytrial]

If this phrase means "hell" then why didn't Jesus or Paul (or any of the disciples) ever teach that the Lake of Fire is a place of everlasting punishment in the afterlife? You'd expect that to be their main focus if that were the case - and we'd have that teaching recorded for us in the Scripture.....but I don't see it.

I suppose by now that you have received your Bible citations to prove that hell is a lake of fire. In case not, I point you to the following...
Firstly, disobedience of God and hell itself are to be profoundly feared...
Luke 12:4-7:
“I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. 5 But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. 6 Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. 7 Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

Matthew 3:11-13:
“I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. 12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” (!!!)

Matthew 5:21-22:
“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder,a and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ 22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

There are so many other passages as the above...read them all...do a Biblegateway search for the word fire and find them.

Once assured of forgiveness one must continue to be on guard against sin and condemnation...remember the parable of the sower and the seeds. (Some have salvation but lose it in the end.) One must never give up, always hope and always love, for the Lord says I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. In fact God's own apostle Peter was in need of merciful forgiveness for his grave sin of denying Jesus 3 times...so we must show the sinner his/her hope with these passages. Repent! we say to the sinner, for the Lord says a broken and contrite heart He will not despise...Psalm 51:17. This requires sincerity, for if the Lord tells us in Romans that love must be sincere (Romans 12:9) then our love and repentance to God must also be sincere and all the more so.

So much more can be said, if you wish to discuss further, post me. But I leave you with this thought...
Matthew 24:11-14:
and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.

And the significance of this Christian love growing cold?...

I Corinthians 13:8-12:
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

How do we practice love?

I Corinthians 13:1-7:
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast," but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Therefore...

... now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

The message above is mostly speaking of the love which is shared between all believers, however, this love pertains to our love to unrepentant brothers and sisters as well...with qualifications. We are to rebuke one another and correct one another with the goal of salvation. The individual's knowledge of God helps determine our message and "tactics" with the outsider. We are always to remember to be merciful for judgement without mercy will be shown to those who have not been merciful. (Remembering one sows while another waters and that too much mercy is no mercy at all, correction is needed and that is what is meant by love always protects, and finally Jesus says: Lo, I am with thee even to the ends of the world.)


Amen and Come Lord Jesus!

 

[timothyu]

Rev. 20:14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

 

[sdowney717]

Jesus came with the good news of the Kingdom and man turned it around to the good news of hell simply because it served his will better than losing his will to the Kingdom of God..

Your disrespecting Christ's words about the everlasting fire where He sends the wicked saying this.

Matthew 25:41 New King James Version (NKJV)
41 “Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels:

 

[timothyu]

Your disrespecting Christ's words about the everlasting fire

I said nothing about the everlasting fire

 

[sdowney717]

So v46 is a myth?, if you think so, then Jesus and all His words are also mythical, and He was not God come in the flesh.
44 “Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ 45 Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’

46 And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

 

[sdowney717]

I said nothing about the everlasting fire

I think your playing the role here of a spoiler.

 

[timothyu]

everlasting punishment

eternal second death

 

[sdowney717]

eternal second death

Eternal second death in the Lake of Fire is also where Hell is cast, and so then anyone who was in there is along for the ride.

 

[mkgal1]

Your disrespecting Christ's words about the everlasting fire where He sends the wicked saying this.

Matthew 25:41 New King James Version (NKJV)
41 “Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels:

Eternal second death in the Lake of Fire is also where Hell is cast, and so then anyone who was in there is along for the ride.

WHAT IS THE SYMBOL OF THE LAKE OF FIRE?
What event in their past does it point to, that the generation that John lived in was in danger of experiencing? Every Israelite, every Jew in that day knew the history from their scriptures. When someone spoke of the greatest fire and brimstone story related to the judgment of a city, it was the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. And do you know where that is? It is the cities around the dead sea… which is a large lake, historically a lake of fire.

Imagine John speaking of the lake of fire to his contemporaries. He would be warning them that just as Sodom and Gomorrah fell, through fiery destruction, they were in danger as a Jewish legalistic system of ending in the same manner. He was pointing to the past, in order to warn them that just as what happened in the past… A SIGN POINTING.

Jude verse 7, uses the illustration of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities around them, to warn the apostate Jews in his day.

Did you know that in the NT era, there were still active fires and smoke around the dead sea according to Strabo, the first century geographer, who called it “a land of fires” (XVI, 764).

A hundred years before Strabo, there is the record of a Jewish author who described the Dead Sea area. “Wisdom saved a man [Lot] from a destruction of the godless, and he escaped the fire that came on the Five Cities, cities whose wickedness, is still attested by a smoking waste” (Wisdom of Solomon 10:7, italics mine).

Diodorus Siculus, who also lived in the 1st century BC said: “The fire which burns beneath the ground and the stench render the inhabitants of the neighboring country sickly and very short lived” (Book II, 48).

A few years later, in the time of Christ’s childhood, the Jewish writer Philo gave witness to the burnings and smoke that was still ascending. “The fire is most difficult to extinguish, and creeps on pervading everything and smoldering. And a most evident proof of this is to be found in what is seen to this day: for the smoke which is still emitted, and the brimstone that men dig up there” (On Abraham XXVII). [References from Associates of Scriptural Knowledge]

BUT… in the Bible IS Jerusalem associated with Sodom? YES!

In Deuteronomy 29:22-24, the book of the Law, was a prophecy that one day they would be overthrown like the burning and brimstone of Sodom and Gomorrah. The prophets multiple times say one day Jerusalem would be overthrown like Sodom and Gomorrah.

Jesus said in Matthew 11:24, "Nevertheless I say to you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for you.”

But does Revelation teach that Jerusalem is Sodom? Yes… Revelation 11:8, “And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which mystically is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.”

So everyone knew that the lake of fire was a symbol of the dead sea lake region of Sodom, and Jude and John pointed back to it saying that was going to happen to Jerusalem.

Did that happen? Yes… in AD 70 fires ravaged the city killing hundreds of thousands. -
Spiritual Myth-Busters: The Lake of Fire — A New Day Dawning

 

[mkgal1]

So v46 is a myth?, if you think so, then Jesus and all His words are also mythical, and He was not God come in the flesh.
44 “Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ 45 Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’

46 And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

Quoting from linked article:
“Weeping and gnashing of teeth in the outer darkness! That is obviously a reference to suffering eternal physical torture in hell.”

Is that so?

Look at what happened leading up to Stephen being martyred in Acts 7:54: his accusers (members of the Sanhedrin) became furious and gnashed their teeth at him. Weeping and gnashing of teeth was an expression not of tormented pain and anguish, but of rage.

When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard His parables, they understood that He was speaking about them (Matt 21:45). The only reason they did not seize Jesus then and there was because they were afraid of the public outcry.

It was not the general mass of humanity that Jesus was speaking of when He talked about gnashing of teeth and the outer darkness in Matt 8:12, 13:42, 13:50, 22:13, 24:51, 25:30 and Luke 13:28. It was this group of self-righteous individuals who would find themselves outside the covenant they were so sure was their birthright. In that ‘outer darkness’, having failed to heed Jesus’ warnings, they would respond with defiant anger.

Sheep and goats
Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life (Matt 25:46).

To be fair, you can understand why people tell us ‘the Bible clearly says…’. Our English Bibles certainly seem to. But we need to look at the Greek words used by the original writers of the New Testament books.

Firstly, what do we understand by ‘punishment’? Kolasis is the word used here, and it means ‘correction’, not ‘retribution’. Greek had a word for retributive punishment, timoria, which is never used of God in the New Testament. God’s discipline is always restorative.

Secondly, the Greek language had no word for ‘eternal’. They could have invented one if they had wished to: the language was exceptionally well-suited to building new words from component parts. They did not need the word because they did not have the concept. The root of the word used here, aionios, is ‘age’. For Greek speakers, an aion could mean a lifetime, a generation, or a longer period of time – but always of finite length. So not never-ending, not forever and ever, not eternal.

“Ah, but the same word appears in both halves of this sentence, and since ‘eternal life’ is everlasting, then the punishment must be, too.”

That depends on what aspect of the life we focus on when we read ‘eternal’. Surely it is not primarily the length, but the quality. The life being promised is the-God-kind-of-life: and the punishment therefore is the-God-kind-of-punishment: restorative and corrective, not retributive.

There are other reasons to treat this passage with caution, too. The sheep and goats in the parable are nations, not individuals. The criterion for escaping ‘eternal punishment’ is good works, not faith in Jesus. So if you are prepared to assert that whole nations will be sent to heaven or hell – based on their works, not on faith – then you can reasonably use this passage to argue your case for an ‘eternal hell’. So far I have not come across anyone in any theological stream who is prepared to do so.
- 246. Gnashing Teeth and Goats

 

[Ricky M]

Sorry guys I'm a bit late to the party and haven't had time to wade thru all the posts. But here's my take on the op....

Our universe is made up at the subatomic level with clusters of like charged particles, which science tells us should naturally repel each other. They call the unknown factor that keeps it all from exploding "the strong force". There are several theories as to the source of this ‘strong force’, including God’s claim that He holds it all together. Now, on that theory, God claims He spoke it all into being out of nothingness - while science says out of nothingness, kaboom there it is. Are those really 2 different stories?


And then there’s dark matter/energy. Scientific estimates vary, but they hover around the theory that 90% of what makes up the universe, we can’t see, except for how it affects the things we can see. God says there is another realm that we can’t see, other than how it affects what we can see. And He wants His 10% back. Again, are these really unrelated?

God also says that someday He will speak this universe out of existence. Paul describes that moment, saying the elements will melt with fervent heat (2 Peter 3:7, 10, 12). Think of what results when the atom is split – intense heat and fire.

Now, the interesting thing is, that we don’t see the lake of fire (hell) appear until right after this present earth and heavens are de-created.

Could it be that the de-creation of our world creates the lake of fire?

Could it be that God lets those who loved this world more than Him, have it in its natural state apart from Him?

God lets us choose. It’s the only way He can know if the love we give Him is real - by giving us the ability to choose not to.

 

[Yahkov]

Show me a passage that supports that. Bonus points if Jesus taught it (as recorded in Scripture).

He literally did already with John 3:16. You either A) perish or B) have eternal life. What's the confusion?

 

[mkgal1]

If this phrase means "hell" then why didn't Jesus or Paul (or any of the disciples) ever teach that the Lake of Fire is a place of everlasting punishment in the afterlife? You'd expect that to be their main focus if that were the case - and we'd have that teaching recorded for us in the Scripture.....but I don't see it.

It is the main focus.

Isn't this why Jesus Christ was crucified on a cross, shedding His blood, and dying?

Wasn't a Savior needed to be the "Remedy" for a sin-cursed world for any who would repent? (as it is written in John 3:16), thus saving any who repented from such a fate?

He literally did already with John 3:16. You either A) perish or B) have eternal life. What's the confusion?

What she provided has nothing to do with the Lake of Fire. Also - my point in the OP is that if we're to understand that the "goal" is to "escape hell and go to heaven" by confessing our faith in Jesus and the Lake of Fire = hell....then why didn't Jesus it Paul teach on the Lake of Fire (specifically using that term and that method of escape from it)? Or Luke, in the book of Acts?

 

[sdowney717]

What she provided has nothing to do with the Lake of Fire. Also - my point in the OP is that if we're to understand that the "goal" is to "escape hell and go to heaven" by confessing our faith in Jesus and the Lake of Fire = hell....then why didn't Jesus it Paul teach on the Lake of Fire (specifically using that term and that method of escape from it)? Or Luke, in the book of Acts?

He did by calling it everlasting fire.
And gnashing of teeth is what the wicked do in this life and after they die.

Destruction of the wicked is what is going to happen, first time by water, second time by fire, end result they are all killed, they will not inherit eternal life with God, they wont be in a good place .

2 Peter 3:6-7 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
6 through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water.

7 But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

 

[timothyu]

Define second death

 

[mkgal1]

He did by calling it everlasting fire.
And gnashing of teeth is what the wicked do in this life and after they die.

Destruction of the wicked is what is going to happen, first time by water, second time by fire, end result they are all killed, they will not inherit eternal life with God, they wont be in a good place .

2 Peter 3:6-7 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
6 through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water.

7 But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

How can “perish” refer to going away to a place where people keep on living forever? How can it suggest a Hell of eternal torment, where in order to be tormented, someone must have everlasting life?

Your belief of annihilation does make more sense than eternal torment (but that's still not what I see in Scripture).

 

[Yahkov]

How can “perish” refer to going away to a place where people keep on living forever? How can it suggest a Hell of eternal torment, where in order to be tormented, someone must have everlasting life?

Your belief of annihilation does make more sense than eternal torment (but that's still not what I see in Scripture).

It's called the second death. Where you are confusing this is in the word death itself. There is no death in the sense of nothingness.

 

[timothyu]

It's called the second death.

Second death same as the first but with no chance of resurrection this time.

 

[mkgal1]

He did by calling it everlasting fire.
And gnashing of teeth is what the wicked do in this life and after they die.

Matthew 13 -

36 Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field.”
37 He answered and said to them: “He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. 38 The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one. 39 The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. 40 Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. 41 The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, 42 and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!

1. THE CONTEXT FOR THESE EVENTS IS NOT HEAVEN. IT IS THE WORLD. THIS IS SOMETHING THAT WILL HAPPEN ON EARTH.
2. THE GOOD SEEDS/WHEAT ARE THE SONS OF THE KINGDOM. THE TARES ARE THE SONS OF THE WICKED ONE, THE DEVIL.
3. NOTICE THAT JOHN THE BAPTIST USES THIS SAME IMAGERY IN MATTHEW 3:7-12:
“But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the WRATH ABOUT to come (Greek- mello)? Therefore bear fruits worthy of repentance, and do not think to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I say to you that God is able to raise up children to Abraham from these stones. And EVEN NOW (Greek- mello) the ax is laid to the root of the trees. Therefore every tree which does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize YOU with the Holy Spirit and FIRE. His winnowing fan is (Greek- mello) in His hand, and He will thoroughly CLEAN OUT HIS THRESHING FLOOR, AND GATHER HIS WHEAT INTO THE BARN; BUT HE WILL BURN UP THE CHAFF WITH UNQUENCHABLE FIRE.”

The Greek word mello is a word related to time and it means “even now, about to be, about to do” in terms of something happening. It is used in John 18:32 for instance (NASB), “to fulfill the word of Jesus which He spoke, signifying by what kind of death he was ABOUT TO die.” No one would say that this means we are still waiting 2000 years later for Jesus to die! So to, John the Baptist describes the wheat and chaff separation and fire metaphor as something about to happen in their day!

4. THE FIRE IMAGERY IS ONE THAT APPLIED TO THEIR DAY, NOT OURS. JOHN THE BAPTIST WAS THE ELIJAH MESSENGER SPOKEN OF IN MALACHI 4:
“1 For behold, the day is coming, Burning like an oven,
And all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble.
And the day which is coming shall burn them up,”
Says the Lord of hosts, “That will leave them neither root nor branch...
4 “Remember the Law of Moses, My servant, Which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel, With the statutes and judgments.
5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet
Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

John the Baptist fulfilled this verse and is the context for what he was saying. The fire's are not referring to "hell", but a literal fire as the city of Jerusalem burned to the ground in the war with Rome in AD70. By confusing this passage with a hell-fire scenario, we create an assumption that this is about the end of the world.
Spiritual Myth-Busters: Is God Separating the Wheat and the Tares? — A New Day Dawning

 

[Der Alte]

Jesus came with the good news of the Kingdom and man turned it around to the good news of hell simply because it served his will better than losing his will to the Kingdom of God..

Nonsense! Rubbish! As I have have shown repeatedly. According to three irrefutable Jewish sources; the Jewish Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia Judaica and the Talmud, quoted below, among the Jews in Israel before and during the time of Jesus there was a belief in a place of everlasting torment of the wicked and they called it both sheol and gehinnom.
…..There were different groups within Judaism; Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes etc. and there were different beliefs about resurrection, hell etc. That there were other beliefs does not rebut, refute, change or disprove anything in this post.

Jewish Encyclopedia, Gehenna
The place where children were sacrificed to the god Moloch … in the "valley of the son of Hinnom," to the south of Jerusalem (Josh. xv. 8, passim; II Kings xxiii. 10; Jer. ii. 23; vii. 31-32; xix. 6, 13-14). … the valley was deemed to be accursed, and "Gehenna" therefore soon became a figurative equivalent for "hell." Hell, like paradise, was created by God (Sotah 22a);​

[Note, this is according to the ancient Jews, long before the Christian era, NOT supposed bias of Christian translators. DA]

(I)n general …sinners go to hell immediately after their death. The famous teacher Johanan b. Zakkai wept before his death because he did not know whether he would go to paradise or to hell (Ber. 28b). The pious go to paradise, and sinners to hell(B.M. 83b).
But as regards the heretics, etc., and Jeroboam, Nebat's son, hell shall pass away, but they shall not pass away" (R. H. 17a; comp. Shab. 33b). All that descend into Gehenna shall come up again, with the exception of three classes of men: those who have committed adultery, or shamed their neighbors, or vilified them (B. M. 58b).[/i]
… heretics and the Roman oppressors go to Gehenna, and the same fate awaits the Persians, the oppressors of the Babylonian Jews (Ber. 8b). When Nebuchadnezzar descended into hell, [ שׁאול /Sheol]] all its inhabitants were afraid that he was coming to rule over them (Shab. 149a; comp. Isa. xiv. 9-10). The Book of Enoch [x. 6, xci. 9, etal] also says that it is chiefly the heathen who are to be cast into the fiery pool on the Day of Judgment (x. 6, xci. 9, et al). "The Lord, the Almighty, will punish them on the Day of Judgment by putting fire and worms into their flesh, so that they cry out with pain unto all eternity" (Judith xvi. 17). The sinners in Gehenna will be filled with pain when God puts back the souls into the dead bodies on the Day of Judgment, according toIsa. xxxiii. 11 (Sanh. 108b).
Link: Jewish Encyclopedia Online
Note, scripture references are highlighted in blue.
= = = = = = = = = =
Encyclopedia Judaica:
Gehinnom (Heb. גֵּי בֶן־הִנֹּם, גֵּי בְנֵי הִנֹּם, גֵּיא בֶן־הִנֹּם, גֵּיא הִנֹּם; Gr. Γέεννα; "Valley of Ben-Hinnom, Valley of [the Son (s) of] Hinnom," Gehenna), a valley south of Jerusalem on one of the borders between the territories of Judah and Benjamin, between the Valley of *Rephaim and *En-Rogel (Josh. 15:8; 18:16). It is identified with Wadi er-Rababi.
…..During the time of the Monarchy, Gehinnom, at a place called Topheth, was the site of a cult which involved the burning of children (II Kings 23:10; Jer. 7:31; 32:35 et al.; ). Jeremiah repeatedly condemned this cult and predicted that on its account Topheth and the Valley of the Son of Hinnom would be called the Valley of the "Slaughter" (Jer. 19:5–6).
In Judaism the name Gehinnom is generally used as an appellation of the place of torment reserved for the wicked after death. The New Testament used the Greek form Gehenna in the same sense.
Gehinnom
= = = = = = = = = =
Talmud -Tractate Rosh Hashanah Chapter 1.
The school of Hillel says: . . . but as for Minim, [followers of Jesus] informers and disbelievers, who deny the Torah, or Resurrection, or separate themselves from the congregation, or who inspire their fellowmen with dread of them, or who sin and cause others to sin, as did Jeroboam the son of Nebat and his followers, they all descend to Gehenna, and are judged there from generation to generation, as it is said [Isa. lxvi. 24]: "And they shall go forth and look upon the carcases of the men who have transgressed against Me; for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched." Even when Gehenna will be destroyed, they will not be consumed, as it is written [Psalms, xlix. 15]: "And their forms wasteth away in the nether world," which the sages comment upon to mean that their forms shall endure even when the grave is no more. Concerning them Hannah says [I Sam. ii. 10]: "The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces."
Link: Tract Rosh Hashana: Chapter I.​

When Jesus taught e.g.,

• “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:” Matthew 25:41
• "these shall go away into eternal punishment, Matthew 25:46"
• "the fire of hell where the fire is not quenched and the worm does not die, Mark 9:43-48"
• "cast into a fiery furnace where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth,” Matthew 13:42, Matthew 13:50
• “But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” Matthew 18:6
• “And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” Matthew 7:23
• “woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born. ” Matthew 26:24
• “But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom, than for that city.” Luke 10:12​

…..These teachings tacitly reaffirmed and sanctioned a then existing significant Jewish view of eternal hell, outlined above. In Matt. 18:6, 26:24 and Luk 10:12, see above, Jesus teaches that there is a punishment worse than death or nonexistence.
…..A punishment worse than death without mercy is also mentioned in Hebrews 10:28-31.

Heb 10:28 He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses:
29 Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?
30 For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people.
31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.​

…..Jesus is quoted as using the word death 17 times in the gospels, if He wanted to say eternal death in Matt 25:46, that is what He would have said but He didn’t, He said “eternal punishment.” The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection, they knew that everybody died; rich, poor, young, old, good, bad, men, women, children, infants and knew that often it had nothing to do with punishment and was permanent. When Jesus taught “eternal punishment” they would not have understood it as merely death, it would have meant something worse to them.
…..Concerning “punishment” one early church father wrote,

“‘Then these reap no advantage from their punishment, as it seems: moreover, I would say that they are not punished unless they are conscious of the punishment.” Justin Martyr [A.D. 110-165.] Dialogue with Trypho Chapter 4​

…..Jesus undoubtedly knew what the Jews, believed about hell. If the Jews were wrong, why would Jesus teach “eternal punishment,” etc. to Jews who believed, "The Lord, the Almighty, will punish them on the Day of Judgment by putting fire and worms into their flesh, so that they cry out with pain unto all eternity," which would only encourage and reinforce those beliefs?