Lazarus Short
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- Apr 6, 2016
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God asks us to reason together with Him (Isaiah 1:18). He also tells us to study, to show ourselves approved, rightly dividing the Word of God (II Timothy 2:15). So I did. I'll share some of what I found out. Keep in mind I studied the Bible, not doctrine or dogma.
satan/lucifer/the devil
First, I could not find any origin story. Second, I found that most of the time when he appeared in the narrative...it was not him. In the garden, most folks think satan was there. No, and maybe it was not even a serpent/snake - it was a being called "nachash" in the Hebrew. The king of Tyre mentioned in Ezekiel 28 is thought to be satan, but the passage calls him "a man." Phooey. Over and over, translators propped up the cardboard cutout figure of satan to make him seem more real. The best glimpse we get of satan is in the first two chapters of Job, where we see him as some kind of minor functionary who must ask God before he can torment Job. Apparently God keeps him on a short leash, and when God asks where he came from, satan answers that he was running around on the Earth...not Hell. He's not the Prince of Hell, folks, not even the Prince of Heck.
hell
Again, there is no origin story, as hell is never mentioned as created by God. It is translated (I use the term loosely) from four Hebrew or Greek words: sheol, hades, gehenna, tartarus - and none of them refer to a place like what Dante, Milton, Baxter and many others describe. Please note that the works of Dante, Milton and Baxter are FICTION. I dug a little deeper, and found hell in Norse mythology as helheim, the afterlife realm of hel, where they supposed you went if you did not rate valhalla. Pagan through and through.
The closest we get to "hell" in the Bible is the Lake of Fire, and I do accept that Lake as real, but having done a long and tedious word study on "fire" and related words, I have concluded that all supernatural fire in the Bible is Godfire, not "hellfire." When we read in the Bible that God is like a refiner's fire, we understand that His intention is to remove all our impurities to produce the pure silver and gold:
“I have refined you, though not as silver;
I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.”
(Isaiah 48:10)
“He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver;
he will purify … and refine them like gold and silver.”
(Malachi 3:3)
“And the words of the Lord are flawless,
like silver purified in a crucible, like gold refined seven times.”
(Psalm 12:6)
“I will thoroughly purge away your dross and remove all your impurities.”
(Isaiah 1:25)
“He knows the way that I take;
when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.”
(Job 23:10)
satan/lucifer/the devil
First, I could not find any origin story. Second, I found that most of the time when he appeared in the narrative...it was not him. In the garden, most folks think satan was there. No, and maybe it was not even a serpent/snake - it was a being called "nachash" in the Hebrew. The king of Tyre mentioned in Ezekiel 28 is thought to be satan, but the passage calls him "a man." Phooey. Over and over, translators propped up the cardboard cutout figure of satan to make him seem more real. The best glimpse we get of satan is in the first two chapters of Job, where we see him as some kind of minor functionary who must ask God before he can torment Job. Apparently God keeps him on a short leash, and when God asks where he came from, satan answers that he was running around on the Earth...not Hell. He's not the Prince of Hell, folks, not even the Prince of Heck.
hell
Again, there is no origin story, as hell is never mentioned as created by God. It is translated (I use the term loosely) from four Hebrew or Greek words: sheol, hades, gehenna, tartarus - and none of them refer to a place like what Dante, Milton, Baxter and many others describe. Please note that the works of Dante, Milton and Baxter are FICTION. I dug a little deeper, and found hell in Norse mythology as helheim, the afterlife realm of hel, where they supposed you went if you did not rate valhalla. Pagan through and through.
The closest we get to "hell" in the Bible is the Lake of Fire, and I do accept that Lake as real, but having done a long and tedious word study on "fire" and related words, I have concluded that all supernatural fire in the Bible is Godfire, not "hellfire." When we read in the Bible that God is like a refiner's fire, we understand that His intention is to remove all our impurities to produce the pure silver and gold:
“I have refined you, though not as silver;
I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.”
(Isaiah 48:10)
“He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver;
he will purify … and refine them like gold and silver.”
(Malachi 3:3)
“And the words of the Lord are flawless,
like silver purified in a crucible, like gold refined seven times.”
(Psalm 12:6)
“I will thoroughly purge away your dross and remove all your impurities.”
(Isaiah 1:25)
“He knows the way that I take;
when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.”
(Job 23:10)
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