Jesus very clearly describes Hades in Luke 16, a place of paradise and fire, separated by a gap, and which people are conscious. Those in the fire describe their experience as being tormented.
Jesus also mentions the tormented - even torture - aspect of hell in Mt 18 where he describes God as a master who in the end In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.
Not sticky at all. Matt 25:46 refers to the the sheep/goat judgment of the nations at Christ's second coming - not the great white throne judgment. The goats go into aiōnion punishment while the sheep enter into aiōnion life. These sheep are those people who are alive at Jesus' return and because of their kindness/good works to the brethren they are allowed to remain living on the earth during Christ's millennial reign. The millennium is 1,000 years so the sheep have life during the aiōnion or 1,000 year age. Likewise the goats are punished for the same 1,000 year age. Aiōnion in this context cannot mean "eternal." A better translation would be age-during or life pertaining to the age.
I don't deny that there is "torment" after death. I actually believe we ALL will endure some amount of "torment" (because none of us are perfect and we all have our blind spots to our own sin). The key is (IMO) to understand the word used that's interpreted as "torment" (first).
Strong's Greek Cognate: #931 básanos – originally, a black, silicon-based stone used as "a touchstone" to test the purity of precious metals (like silver and gold). See 928 (basanízō).
[In the papyri, basanos also means, "touchstone," "test" (so P Oxy I. 58.25, ad 288).
931 (basanois) was "originally (from oriental origin) a touchstone; a 'Lydian stone' used for testing gold because pure gold rubbed on it left a peculiar mark. Then it was used for examination by torture. Sickness was often regarded as 'torture' " (WP, 1, 37).]
Read more: http://www.city-data.com/forum/chri...ment-basanizo-likely-means.html#ixzz5Nbb2VTUF
Another time that "básanos" is used is in Matthew 4:24:
And his fame went throughout all Syria: and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and TORMENTS, and those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatick, and those that had the palsy; and He healed them.
"Love is the touchstone by which the reality of truth is perceived, and by it shall all men know that ye are My disciples" (John xiii.35)
Both of these parables (the sheep and the goats & the rich man and Lazarus) are about how God despises what ["wordly" and unrighteous] man sees as valuable (v 15 in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus). Both are about "the great reversal" of those that trampled on the poor (in this life) experiencing "torment" in the next life. But I only see this as refining.....healing...."burning off the dross" in order for them to be made more pure (just like the refinement of precious metals).
These parables DO beg the question (in my mind): if a person believes this is an eternal destination with NO grace after our death - then why isn't more emphasis being placed on the importance of how we treat the poor and marginalized? IOW.....often it's the ones that are asserting these passages are speaking of a final destiny.....a "no going back and no changes made" sort of thing...."you're going to this place -as your life has already determined your destiny- and there will be no way for you to get to the other side" is basically what is presented....and they are often also the ones that say that "how we get there" isn't based on what we do.....it's based on a "profession of faith" (and that doesn't seem to align with the text).
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