Hell is not permanent.

[gort]

Something tells me that even if I did all that, you still wouldn't get it.
So alas for you, I guess you'll just have to stay with the "Left Behind" series and keep hoping for the best.

Never read the "Left Behind" series. But the least you could do, or anyone else, rather than just say someone is just plain wrong, would be to show point by point your understanding just how the new Jerusalem is either literal or whatever.

I think I've made a valid case for a literal new Jerusalem. I can't make a case for anything else other than literal.

If you can, then show me.



<><

 

[Havahope]

The 'new Jerusalem' is literal, the 'as a bride adorned.." is symbolic, figurative.


I think I've made a valid case for a literal new Jerusalem. I can't make a case for anything else other than literal.

If you can, then show me.

The only way I know to show you that the "New Jerusalem" that John saw was figurative, and not literal, is to have you explain to me how a literal city could be dressed as a bride.

And one more thing to add: If John saw the New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven over 2000 years ago, don't you think that if it were a literal city descending down into our atmosphere that we should be able to see it by now?

 

[gort]

The only way I know to show you that the "New Jerusalem" that John saw was figurative, and not literal, is to have you explain to me how a literal city could be dressed as a bride.

And one more thing to add: If John saw the New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven over 2000 years ago, don't you think that if it were a literal city descending down into our atmosphere that we should be able to see it by now?

Rev 21:2 And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of Heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her Husband.


John is still telling of what he saw, being in the spirit on Patmos.(Rev 21.10) It's a future event. A literal city, the new Jerusalem is coming down from God out of Heaven, much as a beautiful bride walking down the aisle, most beautiful.

,And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain and showed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of Heaven from God, Rev 21:10
having the glory of God. And its light was like a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal. (Rev 21.11) And the foundation of its wall was jasper; and the city was pure gold, like clear glass. Rev 21:18 And the foundations of the wall of the city had been adorned with every precious stone. The first foundation, jasper; the second, sapphire; the third, chalcedony; the fourth, emerald; Rev 21:19 the fifth, sardonyx; the sixth, sardius; the seventh, chrysolite; the eighth, beryl; the ninth, topaz; the tenth, chrysoprasus; the eleventh, hyacinth; the twelfth, amethyst. Rev 21:20 And the twelve gates were twelve pearls. Respectively, each one of the gates was one pearl. And the street of the city was pure gold, as transparent glass. Rev 21:21



the city is 1500 miles cubed. The space shuttle orbits around 250 miles above the earth.

 

[Havahope]

Rev 21:2 And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of Heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her Husband.


John is still telling of what he saw, being in the spirit on Patmos.(Rev 21.10) It's a future event. A literal city, the new Jerusalem is coming down from God out of Heaven, much as a beautiful bride walking down the aisle, most beautiful.

Brides did not walk down the aisle in those days. And this still does not explain how a literal city could be adorned as a bride.

And no, its not a future event. For one of the main themes of the book of Revelation is, "The time is at hand", "must shortly come to pass.", "behold, I come quickly."

The "New Jerusalem" came down from God some 2000 years ago. But the "New Jerusalem" is not something that can be touched, handled, or seen with the human senses. John was "in the Spirit" when he beheld these things. And so, we must also view it with spiritual eyes, in order to see, or enter into it. For without the city are the filthy fleshly things which are indeed very literal; "dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie."

 

[timlamb]

Brides did not walk down the aisle in those days. And this still does not explain how a literal city could be adorned as a bride.

And no, its not a future event. For one of the main themes of the book of Revelation is, "The time is at hand", "must shortly come to pass.", "behold, I come quickly."

The "New Jerusalem" came down from God some 2000 years ago. But the "New Jerusalem" is not something that can be touched, handled, or seen with the human senses. John was "in the Spirit" when he beheld these things. And so, we must also view it with spiritual eyes, in order to see, or enter into it. For without the city are the filthy fleshly things which are indeed very literal; "dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie."

I am flabbergasted, this is laughable, I have seen the words eternal and everlasting argued and reinterpreted in three languages by world class minds, and opinions spanning 20 centuries. But phrases like "at hand" or "come quickly" are taken in the most literal sence. I have heard hell is temporary, a rehab center, and nonexistant; anything, just so it is acceptable and nonoffencive.
Revelation is uninterpritable, metaphoric, symbolic, unprophetic, unrealistic; and now, already happened in the spiritual.
And now, from no where, we learn that the Holy City will cleans us and make us acceptable for heaven.
Jesus and His sacrifice has been lost in all this.
All your quotes from great minds mean nothing. Everyone has doubted God and questioned the scriptures at some point.

How about these for imperpretation;
"The time is at hand" (it is time for you to decide)
"must shortly come to pass" (what is "shortly" to an eternal God)
"Behold, I come quickly" (you will get no warning, by the time you here me comming, it will be to late to change your mind)
You are so busy thinking, you cannot hear the truth. And I don't mean me, I mean the Holy Spirit.
timlamb

 

[Der Alte]

[SIZE=-1]The only way I know to show you that the "New Jerusalem" that John saw was figurative, and not literal, is to have you explain to me how a literal city could be dressed as a bride.

And one more thing to add: If John saw the New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven over 2000 years ago, don't you think that if it were a literal city descending down into our atmosphere that we should be able to see it by now?[/SIZE]

Your question was answered, you simply refuse to see the answer. The city is literal, the adorning is not said to be exactly like a bride with a veil, gown, etc. But as a bride is made up, adorned, dressed up, the city is also made up, adorned, dressed up.

Was Jesus literal? Were the city and people of Jerusalem literal? Did Jesus have literal wings like a chicken?

Rev 21:2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as [[size=+1]&#969;&#788;&#962;[/size]] a bride adorned for her husband.

Mat 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as [[size=+1]&#969;&#788;&#962;[/size]] a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

G5613 [size=+1]&#969;&#788;&#962;[/size] ho&#772;s hoce

Probably adverb of compound from G3739; which how, that is, in that manner (very variously used as shown): - about, after (that), (according) as (it had been, it were), as soon (as), even as (like), for, how (greatly), like (as, unto), since, so (that), that, to wit, unto, when ([-soever]), while, X with all speed.

Gill's Commentary

"the building which the Jews say God will prepare for the Jerusalem which is above, [SIZE=+1]&#1500;&#1504;&#1495;&#1514;&#1488;[/SIZE], "to descend into" (s):''

(r) Zohar in Gen. fol. 126. 4. (s) Ib. fol. 103. 4. (t) Zohar in Gen. fol. 53. 2.​

 

[Der Alte]

[SIZE=-1]Well, tainted could be that you didn't get it wrong. The Iraenus quote might have just been taken out of context instead of misquoted.

As for Clement, here is the prooftext for your quote. It can be googled and found. --Clement of Alexandria, Commentary on 1 John 2.2, Fragments from the Latin Translation of Cassiodorus, ANF, Vol 2

As for Theophilus this is given as proof text for what was quoted. Ad Autolicum, lib. II, cap. 26, Vol. VI, Migne's Patrologiæ

Even so, that still leaves the 8 Bishops and 1 ArchBishop. Not too shabby.[/SIZE]

"Well, tainted could be that you didn't get it wrong. The Iraenus quote might have just been taken out of context instead of misquoted." Who wants to bet their eternity on "could be" and "might have?" If someone found this quote, as they claim, maybe they can show us the context.

Actually it is very shabby, and it leaves nothing. NADA! As I said no proper citations from which anyone interested in truth might verify this crud. One out-of-context sentence, or a fragment, proves absolutely nothing. But just for Tatted not Tainted I looked up a few more, but as I said I don't have time to try to read every writing of all the people listed in that blind knee jerk cut and paste.

If you guys want to believe all that out-of-context rubbish, have at it, but with that kind of stuff you can't prove anything to anybody, who doesn't already believe it. The followers of Jim Jones, and David Koresh blindly followed them and slavishly believed everything they were told.

I have proved that three of the ECF on that list did not espouse universalism, that is all the 1st century fathers, on the list, including Polycarp, and Ignatius, disciples of John, the apostle, and Irenaeus, disciple of Polycarp.

[SIZE=-1]These, if they will, may go Christ's way, but if not let them go their way. In another place perhaps they shall be baptized with fire, that last baptism, which is not only painful, but enduring also; which eats up, as if it were hay, all defiled matter, and consumes all vanity and vice. --Gregory of Nazianzeu, Bishop of Constantinople. (330 to 390 A.D.) Oracles 39:19 [/SIZE]

This supposedly shows that Gregory was a Universalist. Note, the quote has been changed.

Gregory of Nazianzeu, Bishop of Constantinople. (330 to 390 A.D.) Oracles 39:19

Let these men then if they will, follow our way, which is Christ's way; but if they will not, let them go their own. Perhaps in it they will be baptized with Fire, in that last Baptism which is more painful and longer, which devours wood like grass, and consumes the stubble of every evil.

http//:www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-07/Npnf2-07-51.htm#P4961_1632781​

Note, another copy/paste shot down. Gregory did not teach universalism.

Gregory Nazianzen Oration XVI.
7.

I know the glittering sword, and the blade made drunk in heaven, bidden to slay, to bring to naught, to make childless, and to spare neither flesh, nor marrow, nor bones. I know Him, Who, though free from passion, meets us like a bear robbed of her whelps, like a leopard in the way of the Assyrians, not only those of that day, but if anyone now is an Assyrian in wickedness: nor is it possible to escape the might and speed of His wrath when He watches over our impieties, and His jealousy, which knoweth to devour His adversaries, pursues His enemies to the death.45 I know the emptying, the making void, the making waste, the melting of the heart, and knocking of the knees together,46 such are the punishments of the ungodly. I do not dwell on the judgments to come, to which indulgence in this world delivers us, as it is better to be punished and cleansed now than to be transmitted to the torment to come, when it is the time of chastisement, not of cleansing. For as he who remembers God here is conqueror of death (as David47 has most excellently sung) so the departed have not in the grave confession and restoration; for God has confined life and action to this world, and to the future the scrutiny of what has been done.

http//:www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF2-07/Npnf2-07-38.htm#P3718_1082018​

 

[Der Alte]

More actual quotes from the ECF on universalism.

Tertullian Apology

Ch 48 Therefore after this there is neither death nor repeated resurrections, but we shall be the same that we are now, and still unchanged &#8212; the servants of God, ever with God, clothed upon with the proper substance of eternity; but the profane, and all who are not true worshippers of God, in like manner shall be consigned to the punishment of everlasting fire &#8212; that fire which, from its very nature indeed, directly ministers to their incorruptibility. The philosophers are familiar as well as we with the distinction between a common and a secret fire. Thus that which is in common use is far different from that which we see in divine judgments, whether striking as thunderbolts from heaven, or bursting up out of the earth through mountain-tops; for it does not consume what it scorches, but while it burns it repairs. So the mountains continue ever burning; and a person struck by lighting is even now kept safe from any destroying flame. A notable proof this of the fire eternal! a notable example of the endless judgment which still supplies punishment with fuel! The mountains burn, and last. How will it be with the wicked and the enemies of God?

Tertullian Ad Nationes

O ye heathen; who have and deserve our pity, behold, we set before you the promise which our sacred system offers. It guarantees eternal life to such as follow and observe it; on the other hand, it threatens with the eternal punishment of an unending fire those who are profane and hostile; while to both classes alike is preached a resurrection from the dead.

Tertullian 5. On Exhortation To Chastity
Chapter 1

But as there are some things which He forbids, against which He denounces even eternal punishment &#8212; for, of course, things which He forbids, and by which withal He is offended, He does not will &#8212; so too, on the contrary, what He does will, He enjoins and sets down as acceptable, and repays with the reward of eternity.

Tertullian Similitudes 6

The injurious acts of luxury before enumerated bring tortures and punishment upon them; and if they continue in them and do not repent, they bring death upon themselves.&#8221;

http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-03/TOC.htm

Tatian&#8217;s Address [A.D. 110-172]

Theory Of The Soul&#8217;s Immortality

The soul is not in itself immortal, O Greeks, but mortal. Yet it is possible for it not to die. If, indeed, it knows not the truth, it dies, and is dissolved with the body, but rises again at last at the end of the world with the body, receiving death by punishment in immortality.

http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-02/anf02-37.htm#P1114_299739

The Instructions Of Commodianus In Favor Of Christian Discipline,
Against The Gods Of The Heathen

By and by thou givest up thy life; thou shalt be taken where it grieveth thee to be: there the spiritual punishment, which is eternal, is undergone; there are always wailings: nor dost thou absolutely die therein &#8212; there at length too late proclaiming the omnipotent God.

http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-04/anf04-38.htm#P5809_945988

Hippolytus The Refutation Of All Heresies [A.D. 170-236]
Book 10

But (they assert) that God is a cause of all things, and that nothing is managed or happens without His will. These likewise acknowledge that there is a resurrection of flesh, and that soul is immortal, and that there will be a judgment and conflagration, and that the righteous will be imperishable, but that the wicked will endure everlasting punishment in unquenchable fire.

Do not devote your attention to the fallacies of artificial discourses, nor the vain promises of plagiarizing heretics, but to the venerable simplicity of unassuming truth. And by means of this knowledge you shall escape the approaching threat of the fire of judgment, and the rayless scenery of gloomy Tartarus, where never shines a beam from the irradiating voice of the Word! You shall escape the boiling flood of hell&#8217;s eternal lake of fire and the eye ever fixed in menacing glare of fallen angels chained in Tartarus as punishment for their sins; and you shall escape the worm that ceaselessly coils for food around the body whose scum has bred it. Now such (torments) as these shalt thou avoid by being instructed in a knowledge of the true God. And thou shalt possess an immortal body, even one placed beyond the possibility of corruption, just like the soul. And thou shalt receive the kingdom of heaven, thou who, whilst thou didst sojourn in this life, didst know the Celestial King.

http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-05/anf05-14.htm#P2309_744389

The Extant Works And Fragments Of Hippolytus Scholia On Daniel

22. &#8220;Until the Ancient of days come.&#8221; That is, when at length the Judge of judges and the King of kings comes from heaven, who shall subvert the whole dominion and power of the adversary, and shall consume all with the eternal fire of punishment. But to His servants, and prophets, and martyrs, and to all who fear Him, He will give an everlasting kingdom; that is, they shall possess the endless enjoyment of good.

Chap 12
2. &#8220;These shall awake to everlasting life.&#8221; That is, those who have believed in the true life, and who have their names written in the book of life. &#8220;And these to shame.&#8221; That is, those who are attached to Antichrist, and who are cast with him into everlasting punishment.

http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-05/anf05-17.htm#P2633_854182

Hippolytus Against Plato, On The Cause Of The Universe

And in this locality there is a certain place set apart by itself, a lake of unquenchable fire, into which we suppose no one has ever yet been cast; for it is prepared against the day determined by God, in which one sentence of righteous judgment shall be justly applied to all. And the unrighteous, and those who believed not God, who have honored as God the vain works of the hands of men, idols fashioned (by themselves), shall be sentenced to this endless punishment. But the righteous shall obtain the incorruptible and unfading kingdom, who indeed are at present detained in Hades, but not in the same place with the unrighteous.

3. For all, the righteous and the unrighteous alike, shall be brought before God the Word. For the Father hath committed all judgment to Him; and in fulfillment of the Father&#8217;s counsel, He cometh as Judge whom we call Christ. For it is not Minos and Rhadamanthys that are to judge (the world), as ye fancy, O Greeks, but He whom God the Father hath glorified, of whom we have spoken elsewhere more in particular, for the profit of those who seek the truth. He, in administering the righteous judgment of the Father to all, assigns to each what is righteous according to his works. And being present at His judicial decision, all, both men and angels and demons, shall utter one voice, saying, &#8220;Righteous is Thy judgment.&#8221; Of which voice the justification will be seen in the awarding to each that which is just; since to those who have done well shall be assigned righteously eternal bliss, and to the lovers of iniquity shall be given eternal punishment. And the fire which is unquenchable and without end awaits these latter, and a certain fiery worm which dieth not, and which does not waste the body, but continues bursting forth from the body with unending pain. No sleep will give them rest; no night will soothe them; no death will deliver them from punishment; no voice of interceding friends will profit them.

http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-05/anf05-18.htm#P3685_1161987

Cyprian Epistle 30
The Roman Clergy To Cyprian

But let all this be in the sacrament; in the law of their very entreaty let consideration be had for the time; let it be with downcast entreaty, with subdued petition, since he also who is besought ought to be bent, not provoked; and as the divine clemency ought to be looked to, so also ought the divine censure; and as it is written, &#8220;I forgave thee all that debt, because thou desiredst me,&#8221; so it is written, &#8220;Whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father and before His angels.&#8221; For God, as He is merciful, so He exacts obedience to His precepts, and indeed carefully exacts it; and as He invites 641 to the banquet, so the man that hath not a wedding garment He binds hands and feet, and casts him out beyond the assembly of the saints. He has prepared heaven, but He has also prepared hell. He has prepared places of refreshment, but He has also prepared eternal punishment. He has prepared the light that none can approach unto, but He has also prepared the vast and eternal gloom of perpetual night.

http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-05/anf05-55.htm#P5239_1594872

Cyprian On The Jewish Meats

Thy thinking him to have perished will be opposed by the sentence of the Lord, who says, &#8220;Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I also confess before my Father which is in heaven;&#8221; because it is no matter whether he who confesses for the Lord is a hearer of the word or a believer, so long as he confesses that same Christ whom he ought to confess; because the Lord, by confessing him, in turn Himself graces His confessor before his Father with the glory of his martyrdom, as He promised. But this assuredly ought not to be taken too liberally, as if it could be stretched to such a point as that any heretic can confess the name of Christ who notwithstanding denies Christ Himself; that he believes on another Christ, when Christ avows that it cannot avail him at all; forasmuch as the Lord said that He must needs be brought to confession by us before men, which cannot be done without Him, and without veneration of His name.

Then, finally, contrary to their notion, they are condemned to eternal punishment by Christ, the Son of God the Father omnipotent, the Creator whom they have blasphemed, when God shall begin to judge the hidden things of men according to the Gospel by Christ Jesus, because they did not believe in Him, although they were washed in His name.

http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-05/anf05-122.htm#P7907_2659601

The First Epistle Of Clement of Rome To The Corinthians
Chapter 11
Continuation. Lot

On account of his hospitality and godliness, Lot was saved out of Sodom when all the country round was punished by means of fire and brimstone, the Lord thus making it manifest that He does not forsake those that hope in Him, but gives up such as depart from Him to punishment and torture.

http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-01/anf01-05.htm#P171_20841

The Encyclical Epistle Of The Church At Smyrna Concerning The Martyrdom Of The Holy Polycarp [disciple of John the apostle.]

But they reached such a pitch of magnanimity, that not one of them let a sigh or a groan escape them; thus proving to us all that those holy martyrs of Christ, at the very time when they suffered such torments, were absent from the body, or rather, that the Lord then stood by them, and communed with them. And, looking to the grace of Christ, they despised all the torments of this world, redeeming themselves from eternal punishment by [the suffering of] a single hour. For this reason the fire of their savage executioners appeared cool to them. For they kept before their view escape from that fire which is eternal and never shall be quenched, and looked forward with the eyes of their heart to those good things which are laid up for such as endure; things &#8220;which ear hath not heard, nor eye seen, neither have entered into the heart of man,&#8221;

http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-01/anf01-13.htm#P911_166347​

 

[katallasso]

"Well, tainted could be that you didn't get it wrong. The Iraenus quote might have just been taken out of context instead of misquoted." Who wants to bet their eternity on "could be" and "might have?" If someone found this quote, as they claim, maybe they can show us the context.

Actually it is very shabby, and it leaves nothing. NADA! As I said no proper citations from which anyone interested in truth might verify this crud. One out-of-context sentence, or a fragment, proves absolutely nothing. But just for Tatted not Tainted I looked up a few more, but as I said I don't have time to try to read every writing of all the people listed in that blind knee jerk cut and paste.

You're right, it proves absolutely nothing. We know in the first century there were believers in Universalism and believers in Eternal Torment. No different than today.

What is important is that we study, search out proper translations and listen to the Holy Spirit.

Again I believe this bears repeating:

Aion....a noun, that means essentially what our word aeon or eon means....an age.

Aion, which is greek for aeon, is a period of longer or shorter duration, having a beginning and an end, and complete in itself. Aristotle (peri ouravou, i. 9,15) says: "The period which includes the whole time of one's life is called the aeon of each one." So it often means the life of a man, as in Homer, where one's life (aion) is said to leave him or to consume away (Iliad v. 685; Odyssey v. 160).
It is not limited to human life; it signifies any period in the course of events, as the period or age before Christ; the period of the millenium; the mythological period before the beginnings of history.

It does not mean a period of a fixed length for all cases. There are as many aeons as entities, the respective durations of which are fixed by the normal conditions of the several entities. There is one aeon of a human life, another of the life of a nation, another of a crow's life, another of an oak's life. The length of the aeon depends on the subject to which it is attached.

The word always carries the notion of time, and not of eternity. It always means a period of time. Otherwise it would be impossible to account for the plural, or for such qualifying expressions as this age, or the age to come. It does not mean something endless or everlasting.

Aionios...an adjective which describes a noun

Since aionios is the word in the NT that is translated "eternal"
it must be mistranslated, because it is the adjective of the noun aion which means "age" and the adjective cannot be of greater value than the noun from which it comes. It just doesn't work that way in kione greek.

1) "...Whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this ETERNITY [AIONI], neither in the ETERNITY to come." (Mt. 12:32).

2) "So shall it be at the end of the ETERNITY [AIONOS]...." (Mt. 13:49).

3) "...Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the ETERNITY [AIONOS]." (Mt. 24:3).

4) "Far above all principality...not only in this ETERNITY [AIONI], but also in that which is to come." (Eph. 1:21).

5) "But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the ETERNITY [AIONON]...." (1 Cor. 2:7).

6) "Unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ETERNITIES, ETERNITY without end [TOU AIONOS TON AIONON]." (Eph. 3:21).

7) "...But now once in the end of the ETERNITY [AIONON] hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself." (Heb. 9:26).

And something else that came to mind is how can a word with "age" at it's root be involved with the word "eternity". Because the word "age" connotates time, of which there is none in eternity.


Aiodios...eternity

Now there is a word for everlasting, it is aiodios. Because aiodios occurs rarely in the New Testament does not prove that its place was taken by aionios. It just goes to show that less importance was attached to the bare idea of everlastingness than later theological thought has given it. It could be that the Father was more interested in His plan for the ages. Paul uses the word in Rom. 1:20, where he speaks of "the everlasting power and divinity of God." It is also used in Jude 6. The actual use of aiodios should tell us something. If there is actually a greek word for "everlasting" why wasn't it used? Worth thinking about.

 

[Der Alte]

[SIZE=-1]There are very many in our day, who though not denying the Holy Scriptures, do not believe in endless torments. -- Augustine (354-430 A.D.)[/SIZE]

Here is one sentence, allegedly quoted from one of Augustine's many works which supposedly shows Augustine supporting universalism. This so-called quote is meaningless it cannot be verified. The name of the book, paragraph, nothing is listed to identify the book.

Here is a real quote from Augustine, an entire book refuting universalism.

So far of five alleged quotes I have proved all five to be false, phony, fake. Some raging universalist, somewhere, posting any old thing, trying to prop up his false religion, and all the faithful universalists soaking it up without question, if somebody posts it, somewhere, and it supports universalism then it must be true. And some of those, right here in this thread, defending it without even making an effort to check it out.

Augustine –City of God Book XXI

Chapter 1.-Of the Order of the Discussion, Which Requires that We First Speak of the Eternal Punishment of the Lost in Company with the Devil, and Then of the Eternal Happiness of the Saints.
Chapter 2.-Whether It is Possible for Bodies to Last for Ever in Burning Fire.
Chapter 3.-Whether Bodily Suffering Necessarily Terminates in the Destruction of the Flesh.
Chapter 4.-Examples from Nature Proving that Bodies May Remain Unconsumed and Alive in Fire.
Chapter 5.-That There are Many Things Which Reason Cannot Account For, and Which are Nevertheless True.
Chapter 6.-That All Marvels are Not of Nature's Production, But that Some are Due to Human Ingenuity and Others to Diabolic Contrivance.
Chapter 7.-That the Ultimate Reason for Believing Miracles is the Omnipotence of the Creator.
Chapter 8.-That It is Not Contrary to Nature That, in an Object Whose Nature is Known, There Should Be Discovered an Alteration of the Properties Which Have Been Known as Its Natural Properties.
Chapter 9.-Of Hell, and the Nature of Eternal Punishments.
Chapter 10.-Whether the Fire of Hell, If It Be Material Fire, Can Burn the Wicked Spirits, that is to Say, Devils, Who are Immaterial.
Chapter 11.-Whether It is Just that the Punishments of Sins Last Longer Than the Sins Themselves Lasted.
Chapter 12.-Of the Greatness of the First Transgression, on Account of Which Eternal Punishment is Due to All Who are Not Within the Pale of the Saviour's Grace.
Chapter 13.-Against the Opinion of Those Who Think that the Punishments of the Wicked After Death are Purgatorial.
Chapter 14.-Of the Temporary Punishments of This Life to Which the Human Condition is Subject.
Chapter 15.-That Everything Which the Grace of God Does in the Way of Rescuing Us from the Inveterate Evils in Which We are Sunk, Pertains to the Future World, in Which All Things are Made New.
Chapter 16.-The Laws of Grace, Which Extend to All the Epochs of the Life of the Regenerate.
Chapter 17.-Of Those Who Fancy that No Men Shall Be Punished Eternally.
Chapter 18.-Of Those Who Fancy That, on Account of the Saints' Intercession, Man Shall Be Damned in the Last Judgment.
Chapter 19.-Of Those Who Promise Impunity from All Sins Even to Heretics, Through Virtue of Their Participation of the Body of Christ.
Chapter 20.-Of Those Who Promise This Indulgence Not to All, But Only to Those Who Have Been Baptized as Catholics, Though Afterwards They Have Broken Out into Many Crimes and Heresies.
Chapter 21.-Of Those Who Assert that All Catholics Who Continue in the Faith Even Though by the Depravity of Their Lives They Have Merited Hell Fire, Shall Be Saved on Account of the "Foundation" Of Their Faith.
Chapter 22.-Of Those Who Fancy that the Sins Which are Intermingled with Alms-Deeds Shall Not Be Charged at the Day of Judgment.
Chapter 23.-Against Those Who are of Opinion that the Punishment Neither of the Devil Nor of Wicked Men Shall Be Eternal.
Chapter 24.-Against Those Who Fancy that in the Judgment of God All the Accused Will Be Spared in Virtue of the Prayers of the Saints.
Chapter 25.-Whether Those Who Received Heretical Baptism, and Have Afterwards Fallen Away to Wickedness of Life; Or Those Who Have Received Catholic Baptism, But Have Afterwards Passed Over to Heresy and Schism; Or Those Who Have Remained in the Catholic Church in Which They Were Baptized, But Have Continued to Live Immorally,-May Hope Through the Virtue of the Sacraments for the Remission of Eternal Punishment.
Chapter 26.-What It is to Have Christ for a Foundation, and Who They are to Whom Salvation as by Fire is Promised.
Chapter 27.-Against the Belief of Those Who Think that the Sins Which Have Been Accompanied with Almsgiving Will Do Them No Harm
Argument-Of the end reserved for the city of the devil, namely, the eternal punishment of the damned; and of the arguments which unbelief brings against it.

Chapter 9.-Of Hell, and the Nature of Eternal Punishments.

So then what God by His prophet has said of the everlasting punishment of the damned shall come to pass-shall without fail come to pass,-"their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched."13 In order to impress this upon us most forcibly, the Lord Jesus Himself, when ordering us to cut off our members, meaning thereby those persons whom a man loves as the most useful members of his body, says, "It is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched; where their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched." Similarly of the foot: "It is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched; where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." So, too, of the eye: "It is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."14 He did not shrink from using the same words three times over in one passage. And who is not terrified by this repetition, and by the threat of that punishment uttered so vehemently by the lips of the Lord Himself?

Now they who would refer both the fire and the worm to the spirit, and not to the body, affirm that the wicked, who are separated from the kindgdom of God, shall be burned, as it were, by the anguish of a spirit repenting too late and fruitlessly; and they contend that fire is therefore not inappropriately used to express this burning torment, as when the apostle exclaims "Who is offended, and I burn not?"15 The worm, too, they think, is to be similarly understood. For it is written they say, "As the moth consumes the garment, and the worm the wood, so does grief consume the heart of a man."16 But they who make no doubt that in that future punishment both body and soul shall suffer, affirm that the body shall be burned with fire, while the soul shall be, as it were, gnawed by a worm of anguish. Though this view is more reasonable,-for it is absurd to suppose that either body or soul will escape pain in the future punishment,-yet, for my own part, I find it easier to understand both as referring to the body than to suppose that neither does; and I think that Scripture is silent regarding the spiritual pain of the damned, because, though not expressed, it is necessarily understood that in a body thus tormented the soul also is tortured with a fruitless repentance. For we read in the ancient Scriptures, "The vengeance of the flesh of the ungodly is fire and worms."17 It might have been more briefly said, "The vengeance of the ungodly." Why, then, was it said, "The flesh of the ungodly," unless because both the fire and the worm are to be the punishment of the flesh? Or if the object of the writer in saying, "The vengeance of the flesh," was to indicate that this shall be the punishment of those who live after the flesh (for this leads to the second death, as the apostle intimated when he said, "For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die"18 , let each one make his own choice, either assigning the fire to the body and the worm to the soul,-the one figuratively, the other really,-or assigning both really to the body. For I have already sufficiently made out that animals can live in the fire, in burning without being consumed, in without dying, by a miracle of the most omnipotent Creator, to whom no one can deny that this is possible, if he be not ignorant by whom has been made all that is wonderful in all nature. For it is God Himself who has wrought all these miracles, great and small, in this world which I have mentioned, and incomparably more which I have omitted, and who has enclosed these marvels in this world, itself the greatest miracle of all. Let each man, then, choose which he will, whether he thinks that the worm is real and pertains to the body, or that spiritual things are meant by bodily representations, and that it belongs to the soul. But which of these is true will be more readily discovered by the facts themselves, when there shall be in the saints such knowledge as shall not require that their own experience teach them the nature of these punishments, but as shall, by its own fullness and perfection, suffice to instruct them in this matter. For "now we know in part, until that which is perfect is come;"19 only, this we believe about those future bodies, that they shall be such as shall certainly be pained by the fire.

Whoever, therefore, desires to escape eternal punishment, let him not only be baptized, but also justified in Christ, and so let him in truth pass from the devil to Christ. And let him not fancy that there are any purgatorial pains except before that final and dreadful judgment.

Chapter 17.-Of Those Who Fancy that No Men Shall Be Punished Eternally.

I must now, I see, enter the lists of amicable controversy with those tender-hearted Christians who decline to believe that any, or that all of those whom the infallibly just Judge may pronounce worthy of the punishment of hell, shall suffer eternally, and who suppose that they shall be delivered after a fixed term of punishment, longer or shorter according to the amount of each man's sin. In respect of this matter, Origen was even more indulgent; for he believed that even the devil himself and his angels, after suffering those more severe and prolonged pains which their sins deserved, should be delivered from their torments, and associated with the holy angels. But the Church, not without reason, condemned him for this and other errors, especially for his theory of the ceaseless alternation of happiness and misery, and the interminable transitions from the one state to the other at fixed periods of ages; for in this theory he lost even the credit of being merciful, by allotting to the saints real miseries for the expiation of their sins, and false happiness, which brought them no true and secure joy, that is, no fearless assurance of eternal blessedness.

the Lord predicted that He would pronounce in the judgment, saying, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."49 For here it is evident that the devil and his angels shall burn in everlasting fire. And there is also that declaration in the Apocalypse, "The devil their deceiver was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where also are the beast and the false prophet. And they shall be tormented day and night for ever."50 In the former passage "everlasting" is used, in the latter "for ever;" and by these words Scripture is wont to mean nothing else than endless duration.

Plainly it will be so if the conjectures of men are to weigh more than the word of God. But because this is absurd, they who desire to be rid of eternal punishment ought to abstain from arguing against God, and rather, while yet there is opportunity, obey the divine commands. Then what a fond fancy is it to suppose that eternal punishment means long continued punishment, while eternal life means life without end, since Christ in the very same passage spoke of both in similar terms in one and the same sentence, "These shall go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into life eternal!"53 If both destinies are "eternal," then we must either understand both as long-continued but at last terminating, or both as endless. For they are correlative,-on the one hand, punishment eternal, on the other hand, life eternal. And to say in one and the same sense, life eternal shall be endless, punishment eternal shall come to an end, is the height of absurdity. Wherefore, as the eternal life of the saints shall be endless, so too the eternal punishment of those who are doomed to it shall have no end.

http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF1-02/npnf1-02-27.htm#P4076_2229830
​

 

[Im_A]

Here is one sentence, allegedly quoted from one of Augustine's many works which supposedly shows Augustine supporting universalism. This so-called quote is meaningless it cannot be verified. The name of the book, paragraph, nothing is listed to identify the book.

Here is a real quote from Augustine, an entire book refuting universalism.



So far of five alleged quotes I have proved all five to be false, phony, fake. Some raging universalist, somewhere, posting any old thing, trying to prop up his false religion, and all the faithful universalists soaking it up without question, if somebody posts it, somewhere, and it supports universalism then it must be true. And some of those, right here in this thread, defending it without even making an effort to check it out.

Augustine &#8211;City of God Book XXI

Chapter 1.-Of the Order of the Discussion, Which Requires that We First Speak of the Eternal Punishment of the Lost in Company with the Devil, and Then of the Eternal Happiness of the Saints.
Chapter 2.-Whether It is Possible for Bodies to Last for Ever in Burning Fire.
Chapter 3.-Whether Bodily Suffering Necessarily Terminates in the Destruction of the Flesh.
Chapter 4.-Examples from Nature Proving that Bodies May Remain Unconsumed and Alive in Fire.
Chapter 5.-That There are Many Things Which Reason Cannot Account For, and Which are Nevertheless True.
Chapter 6.-That All Marvels are Not of Nature's Production, But that Some are Due to Human Ingenuity and Others to Diabolic Contrivance.
Chapter 7.-That the Ultimate Reason for Believing Miracles is the Omnipotence of the Creator.
Chapter 8.-That It is Not Contrary to Nature That, in an Object Whose Nature is Known, There Should Be Discovered an Alteration of the Properties Which Have Been Known as Its Natural Properties.
Chapter 9.-Of Hell, and the Nature of Eternal Punishments.
Chapter 10.-Whether the Fire of Hell, If It Be Material Fire, Can Burn the Wicked Spirits, that is to Say, Devils, Who are Immaterial.
Chapter 11.-Whether It is Just that the Punishments of Sins Last Longer Than the Sins Themselves Lasted.
Chapter 12.-Of the Greatness of the First Transgression, on Account of Which Eternal Punishment is Due to All Who are Not Within the Pale of the Saviour's Grace.
Chapter 13.-Against the Opinion of Those Who Think that the Punishments of the Wicked After Death are Purgatorial.
Chapter 14.-Of the Temporary Punishments of This Life to Which the Human Condition is Subject.
Chapter 15.-That Everything Which the Grace of God Does in the Way of Rescuing Us from the Inveterate Evils in Which We are Sunk, Pertains to the Future World, in Which All Things are Made New.
Chapter 16.-The Laws of Grace, Which Extend to All the Epochs of the Life of the Regenerate.
Chapter 17.-Of Those Who Fancy that No Men Shall Be Punished Eternally.
Chapter 18.-Of Those Who Fancy That, on Account of the Saints' Intercession, Man Shall Be Damned in the Last Judgment.
Chapter 19.-Of Those Who Promise Impunity from All Sins Even to Heretics, Through Virtue of Their Participation of the Body of Christ.
Chapter 20.-Of Those Who Promise This Indulgence Not to All, But Only to Those Who Have Been Baptized as Catholics, Though Afterwards They Have Broken Out into Many Crimes and Heresies.
Chapter 21.-Of Those Who Assert that All Catholics Who Continue in the Faith Even Though by the Depravity of Their Lives They Have Merited Hell Fire, Shall Be Saved on Account of the "Foundation" Of Their Faith.
Chapter 22.-Of Those Who Fancy that the Sins Which are Intermingled with Alms-Deeds Shall Not Be Charged at the Day of Judgment.
Chapter 23.-Against Those Who are of Opinion that the Punishment Neither of the Devil Nor of Wicked Men Shall Be Eternal.
Chapter 24.-Against Those Who Fancy that in the Judgment of God All the Accused Will Be Spared in Virtue of the Prayers of the Saints.
Chapter 25.-Whether Those Who Received Heretical Baptism, and Have Afterwards Fallen Away to Wickedness of Life; Or Those Who Have Received Catholic Baptism, But Have Afterwards Passed Over to Heresy and Schism; Or Those Who Have Remained in the Catholic Church in Which They Were Baptized, But Have Continued to Live Immorally,-May Hope Through the Virtue of the Sacraments for the Remission of Eternal Punishment.
Chapter 26.-What It is to Have Christ for a Foundation, and Who They are to Whom Salvation as by Fire is Promised.
Chapter 27.-Against the Belief of Those Who Think that the Sins Which Have Been Accompanied with Almsgiving Will Do Them No Harm
Argument-Of the end reserved for the city of the devil, namely, the eternal punishment of the damned; and of the arguments which unbelief brings against it.

Chapter 9.-Of Hell, and the Nature of Eternal Punishments.

So then what God by His prophet has said of the everlasting punishment of the damned shall come to pass-shall without fail come to pass,-"their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched."13 In order to impress this upon us most forcibly, the Lord Jesus Himself, when ordering us to cut off our members, meaning thereby those persons whom a man loves as the most useful members of his body, says, "It is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched; where their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched." Similarly of the foot: "It is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched; where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." So, too, of the eye: "It is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched."14 He did not shrink from using the same words three times over in one passage. And who is not terrified by this repetition, and by the threat of that punishment uttered so vehemently by the lips of the Lord Himself?

Now they who would refer both the fire and the worm to the spirit, and not to the body, affirm that the wicked, who are separated from the kindgdom of God, shall be burned, as it were, by the anguish of a spirit repenting too late and fruitlessly; and they contend that fire is therefore not inappropriately used to express this burning torment, as when the apostle exclaims "Who is offended, and I burn not?"15 The worm, too, they think, is to be similarly understood. For it is written they say, "As the moth consumes the garment, and the worm the wood, so does grief consume the heart of a man."16 But they who make no doubt that in that future punishment both body and soul shall suffer, affirm that the body shall be burned with fire, while the soul shall be, as it were, gnawed by a worm of anguish. Though this view is more reasonable,-for it is absurd to suppose that either body or soul will escape pain in the future punishment,-yet, for my own part, I find it easier to understand both as referring to the body than to suppose that neither does; and I think that Scripture is silent regarding the spiritual pain of the damned, because, though not expressed, it is necessarily understood that in a body thus tormented the soul also is tortured with a fruitless repentance. For we read in the ancient Scriptures, "The vengeance of the flesh of the ungodly is fire and worms."17 It might have been more briefly said, "The vengeance of the ungodly." Why, then, was it said, "The flesh of the ungodly," unless because both the fire and the worm are to be the punishment of the flesh? Or if the object of the writer in saying, "The vengeance of the flesh," was to indicate that this shall be the punishment of those who live after the flesh (for this leads to the second death, as the apostle intimated when he said, "For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die"18 , let each one make his own choice, either assigning the fire to the body and the worm to the soul,-the one figuratively, the other really,-or assigning both really to the body. For I have already sufficiently made out that animals can live in the fire, in burning without being consumed, in without dying, by a miracle of the most omnipotent Creator, to whom no one can deny that this is possible, if he be not ignorant by whom has been made all that is wonderful in all nature. For it is God Himself who has wrought all these miracles, great and small, in this world which I have mentioned, and incomparably more which I have omitted, and who has enclosed these marvels in this world, itself the greatest miracle of all. Let each man, then, choose which he will, whether he thinks that the worm is real and pertains to the body, or that spiritual things are meant by bodily representations, and that it belongs to the soul. But which of these is true will be more readily discovered by the facts themselves, when there shall be in the saints such knowledge as shall not require that their own experience teach them the nature of these punishments, but as shall, by its own fullness and perfection, suffice to instruct them in this matter. For "now we know in part, until that which is perfect is come;"19 only, this we believe about those future bodies, that they shall be such as shall certainly be pained by the fire.

Whoever, therefore, desires to escape eternal punishment, let him not only be baptized, but also justified in Christ, and so let him in truth pass from the devil to Christ. And let him not fancy that there are any purgatorial pains except before that final and dreadful judgment.

Chapter 17.-Of Those Who Fancy that No Men Shall Be Punished Eternally.

I must now, I see, enter the lists of amicable controversy with those tender-hearted Christians who decline to believe that any, or that all of those whom the infallibly just Judge may pronounce worthy of the punishment of hell, shall suffer eternally, and who suppose that they shall be delivered after a fixed term of punishment, longer or shorter according to the amount of each man's sin. In respect of this matter, Origen was even more indulgent; for he believed that even the devil himself and his angels, after suffering those more severe and prolonged pains which their sins deserved, should be delivered from their torments, and associated with the holy angels. But the Church, not without reason, condemned him for this and other errors, especially for his theory of the ceaseless alternation of happiness and misery, and the interminable transitions from the one state to the other at fixed periods of ages; for in this theory he lost even the credit of being merciful, by allotting to the saints real miseries for the expiation of their sins, and false happiness, which brought them no true and secure joy, that is, no fearless assurance of eternal blessedness.

the Lord predicted that He would pronounce in the judgment, saying, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels."49 For here it is evident that the devil and his angels shall burn in everlasting fire. And there is also that declaration in the Apocalypse, "The devil their deceiver was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where also are the beast and the false prophet. And they shall be tormented day and night for ever."50 In the former passage "everlasting" is used, in the latter "for ever;" and by these words Scripture is wont to mean nothing else than endless duration.

Plainly it will be so if the conjectures of men are to weigh more than the word of God. But because this is absurd, they who desire to be rid of eternal punishment ought to abstain from arguing against God, and rather, while yet there is opportunity, obey the divine commands. Then what a fond fancy is it to suppose that eternal punishment means long continued punishment, while eternal life means life without end, since Christ in the very same passage spoke of both in similar terms in one and the same sentence, "These shall go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into life eternal!"53 If both destinies are "eternal," then we must either understand both as long-continued but at last terminating, or both as endless. For they are correlative,-on the one hand, punishment eternal, on the other hand, life eternal. And to say in one and the same sense, life eternal shall be endless, punishment eternal shall come to an end, is the height of absurdity. Wherefore, as the eternal life of the saints shall be endless, so too the eternal punishment of those who are doomed to it shall have no end.

http://www.ccel.org/fathers2/NPNF1-02/npnf1-02-27.htm#P4076_2229830


​

no offense but that was rather pointless.

the quote is not saying that Augustine supports universalism. i thought it was rather obvious in the quote i gave.


and why haven't you broughten up the scriptures that i gave you? why are you picking at the quotes of the church fathers?

hey, why don't you go to www.tentmaker.org and discuss this issue with them? because they are giving false information, at least your allegedly claiming. thank you for clarrifying this up, but put your pride back where it came from. you haven't refuted universalism. you have only refuted an internet citation that happens to the best of us. my apologies to all, but you have failed to refute my claim of universalism with the quotes of the scriptures.

 

[Der Alte]

[...][SIZE=-1]and why haven't you broughten up the scriptures that i gave you? why are you picking at the quotes of the church fathers?

hey, why don't you go to www.tentmaker.org and discuss this issue with them? because they are giving false information, at least your allegedly claiming. thank you for clarrifying this up, but put your pride back where it came from.[/SIZE]

You are the one posting that organic bovine fertilizer from that website. I don't have to get down in a cess pool to know what it is full of. You and others post enough of their false crud here.

I haven't just been "claiming" that the crud from tentburner is false, the several ECF that I have addressed I have proved it from the primary sources.

[SIZE=-1]you haven't refuted universalism. you have only refuted an internet citation that happens to the best of us. my apologies to all, but you have failed to refute my claim of universalism with the quotes of the scriptures.[/SIZE]

The post I was responding to did not have any scripture quotes in it. I told you that once and linked to my post with 27 passages spoken by Jesus which refute the false doctrine of universalism, which you haven't addressed.

If you have a post with scriptures, link to it and I will give you more answer that you can handle. But first let me tell you what I will find, if you do link to the post, another cut and paste from hellbusted or tentburners, they have provided the out-of-context scriptures and the arguments.

You expect me to address everything in your posts and you haven't addressed a single thing in any of my posts, except to say "You haven't refuted universalism." "You haven't refuted universalism."
"You haven't refuted universalism." Maybe not but I have blown your phony proof quotes from the early church out of the water.

The ONLY early church father, who taught universalism, prior to Nicaea was Origen and he was denounced by the church as a heretic, which Augustine mentioned. As I have said repeatedly, and neither you nor any other universalist, has dared to address. Polycarp and Ignatius, disciples of John the apostle, and Irenaeus, disciple of Polycarp, were definitely not universalist. If early church leaders trained by John did not believe in universalism, there is no way it can be scriptural. It doesn't matter how many phony quotes you copy and paste from your pet universalist site.

 

[gort]

Brides did not walk down the aisle in those days. And this still does not explain how a literal city could be adorned as a bride.

And no, its not a future event. For one of the main themes of the book of Revelation is, "The time is at hand", "must shortly come to pass.", "behold, I come quickly."

The "New Jerusalem" came down from God some 2000 years ago. But the "New Jerusalem" is not something that can be touched, handled, or seen with the human senses. John was "in the Spirit" when he beheld these things. And so, we must also view it with spiritual eyes, in order to see, or enter into it. For without the city are the filthy fleshly things which are indeed very literal; "dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie."

I must honestly confess, I'm at a loss for words at this moment.

toodles

<><

 

[Havahope]

I must honestly confess, I'm at a loss for words at this moment.

toodles

<><

I guessed that you would be. (at a loss for words, I mean.)
But you shouldn't just run away. You should try to think of some response. Any response that you gave would have to be better than timlamb's and dear old der's.

So come on and give it a try. But please be please be thorough in your compendium, succinct in summary, laconic yet pithy, synoptic, yet condensed and terse and in plain english so I can understand.

 

[Havahope]

Your question was answered, you simply refuse to see the answer. The city is literal, the adorning is not said to be exactly like a bride with a veil, gown, etc. But as a bride is made up, adorned, dressed up, the city is also made up, adorned, dressed up.
Rev 21:2 And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

But how else is a bride identified as a bride unless she has on the wedding attire of a "veil, gown, etc." ?

Mat 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth jer chickens under her wings, and ye would not!


Was Jesus literal? Were the city and people of Jerusalem literal? Did Jesus have literal wings like a chicken?

Yes, Jesus was literal, and so were the people of Jerusalem. And no, Jesus didn't have wings like a chicken. And the children of Jerusalem were not literal chickens either. So it was figurative speech from start to finish, wasn't it? And whether or not Jesus and the people of Jerusalem were literal is not even relevant to this lame comparison that you have tried to make here.

Gill's Commentary

"the building which the Jews say God will prepare for the Jerusalem which is above,

&#1500;&#1504;&#1495;&#1514;&#1488;, "to descend into" (s):''

(r) Zohar in Gen. fol. 126. 4. (s) Ib. fol. 103. 4. (t) Zohar in Gen. fol. 53. 2.

Thats a little skimpy in my estimation. I will give you another Commentary which goes into a little more detail.

Clarke's Commentary
New Jerusalem] See the notes on Gal. iv. 24-27. This doubtless means the Christian Church in a state of great prosperity and purity; but some think eternal blessedness is intended.

Coming down from God] It is a maxim of the ancient Jews that both the tabernacle, and the temple, and Jerusalem itself, came down from heaven.
And in Midrash Hanaalem, Sohar Gen. fol. 69, col. 271, Rab. Jeremias said, "The holy blessed God shall renew the world, and build Jerusalem, and shall cause it to descend from heaven." Their opinion is, that there is a spiritual temple, a spiritual tabernacle, and a spiritual Jerusalem; and that none of these can be destroyed, because they subsist in their spiritual representatives. . . . .

 

[timlamb]

I guessed that you would be. (at a loss for words, I mean.)
But you shouldn't just run away. You should try to think of some response. Any response that you gave would have to be better than timlamb's and dear old der's.

So come on and give it a try. But please be please be thorough in your compendium, succinct in summary, laconic yet pithy, synoptic, yet condensed and terse and in plain english so I can understand.

What was wrong with my response? You were joking, weren't you? It made me laugh! He He!
OUCH!!! I have been poked!

 

[Der Alte]

[SIZE=-1]You're right, it proves absolutely nothing. We know in the first century there were believers in Universalism and believers in Eternal Torment. No different than today.[/SIZE]

This makes as much sense as me saying, "We know there are little green men, we don't have any evidence but we know it.." Jesus, remember him, said he would build his church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. I think every universalist here, at one time, or other, has posted quotes from hellmaker, allegedly from the ECF, supposedly supporting universalism.

If the rest of us are supposed to believe your so-called "proofs," from the ECF, you need to come up with a darn good reason why ALL of the fathers in the first century clearly rejected universalism, especially the disciples of John the apostle, Polycarp and Ignatius, and Polycarp's disciple, Irenaeus. How did they not know the truth, and somehow, according to universalism, the truth suddenly, pops up in Origen almost 200 years later?

[SIZE=-1]Again I believe this bears repeating:[/SIZE]

No matter how many times you repeat a lie that does not make it the truth. Your gurus at Hellmakers are perpetuating a lie, based on nothing but their own ideas, and all the faithful just swallow every bit of poison they spew out, not bothering to verify anything. I have already proved five of the early church "proof" quotes to be false.

[SIZE=-1]Aion....a noun, that means essentially what our word aeon or eon means....an age.

Aion, which is greek for aeon, is a period of longer or shorter duration, having a beginning and an end, and complete in itself. Aristotle (peri ouravou, i. 9,15) says: "The period which includes the whole time of one's life is called the aeon of each one." So it often means the life of a man, as in Homer, where one's life (aion) is said to leave him or to consume away (Iliad v. 685; Odyssey v. 160).
It is not limited to human life; it signifies any period in the course of events, as the period or age before Christ; the period of the millenium; the mythological period before the beginnings of history.

It does not mean a period of a fixed length for all cases. There are as many aeons as entities, the respective durations of which are fixed by the normal conditions of the several entities. There is one aeon of a human life, another of the life of a nation, another of a crow's life, another of an oak's life. The length of the aeon depends on the subject to which it is attached.

The word always carries the notion of time, and not of eternity. It always means a period of time. Otherwise it would be impossible to account for the plural, or for such qualifying expressions as this age, or the age to come. It does not mean something endless or everlasting.

Aionios...an adjective which describes a noun

Since aionios is the word in the NT that is translated "eternal"
it must be mistranslated, because it is the adjective of the noun aion which means "age" and the adjective cannot be of greater value than the noun from which it comes. It just doesn't work that way in kione greek.

And something else that came to mind is how can a word with "age" at it's root be involved with the word "eternity". Because the word "age" connotates time, of which there is none in eternity.

Aiodios...eternity

Now there is a word for everlasting, it is aiodios. Because aiodios occurs rarely in the New Testament does not prove that its place was taken by aionios. It just goes to show that less importance was attached to the bare idea of everlastingness than later theological thought has given it. It could be that the Father was more interested in His plan for the ages. Paul uses the word in Rom. 1:20, where he speaks of "the everlasting power and divinity of God." It is also used in Jude 6. The actual use of aiodios should tell us something. If there is actually a greek word for "everlasting" why wasn't it used? Worth thinking about.[/SIZE]

These "definitions" are worthless and meaningless. This is just nonsense your gurus at hellmakers have made up. The definition of words is established by scholarship; reading, reviewing, comparing, and contrasting, documents written in the language to be translated. The meaning of words is determined by how they are used in multiple occurrences, and many contexts, NOT just one quote, from one ancient writer.

Where is any scholarship in this entire mess? There is none, just the poison of one website. Your copy paste is unscholarly, unverified, undocumented, garbage. Below is a quote from the LSJ, and before your standard knee jerk argument. This is not a Christian lexicon, it is secular. They couldn't care less about universalism, or any other Christian doctrine, they merely show the definitions of words by how they were used by the ancient writers.

The scholarship has been highlighted for you, everything in red are the multiple ancient sources from which the meaning of the words have been established.

And let us not forget two of the sources you posted, trying to prove that only "aidios" means eternal, both stated that [size=+1]&#945;&#953;&#969;&#957;[/size]/aion was a synonym for aidios.

Liddell-Scott-Jones A Greek Lexicon

[size=+1]&#945;&#953;&#969;&#957;[/size] aion onos, ho, Ion. and Ep. also he, as in Pi.P.4.186, E.Ph.1484: apocop. acc. aio like Poseido, restored by Ahrens (from AB363) in A.Ch.350: (properly aiWon, cf. aevum, v. aiei):--period of existence (to telos to periechon ton tes hekastou zoes chronon . . aion hekastou kekletai Arist.Cael.279a25 ):

I. lifetime, life, psuche te kai aion Il.16.453 ; ek d' ai. pephatai Il.19.27 ; mede toi ai. phthineto Od.5.160 ; leipei tina Il.5.685 ; ap' aionos neos oleo (Zenod. neon) 24.725; teleutan ton aiôna Hdt.1.32 , etc.; aionos sterein tina A.Pr.862 ; aiona dioichnein Id.Eu.315 ; sundiatribein Cratin. 1 ; ai. Aiakidan, periphr. for the Aeacidae, S.Aj.645 s. v. l.; apepneusen aiona E.Fr.801 ; emon kat' aiona A.Th.219 .

2. age, generation, ai. es triton ib.744; ho mellon aion posterity, D.18.199, cf. Pl.Ax.370c.

3. one's life, destiny, lot, S.Tr.34, E.Andr.1215, Fr.30, etc.

II. long space of time, age, aion gignetai 'tis an age, Men.536.5; esp. with Preps., ap' aionos of old, Hes.Th.609, Ev.Luc.1.70; hoi apo tou ai. Rhomaioi D.C. 63.20 ; di' aionos perpetually, A.Ch.26, Eu.563; all one's life long, S. El.1024; di' aionos makrou, apaustou, A.Supp.582,574; ton di' ai. chronon for ever, Id.Ag.554; eis hapanta ton ai. Lycurg.106, Isoc.10.62; eis ton ai. LXX Ge.3.23, al., D.S.21.17, Ev.Jo.8.35, Ps.-Luc. Philopatr.17; eis aiona aionos LXX Ps.131(132).14 ; ex aionos kai heos aionos ib.Je.7.7; ep' ai. ib.Ex.15.18; heos aionos ib.1 Ki.1.22, al.:-- without a Prep., ton hapanta ai. Arist. Cael.279a22; ton aiona Lycurg. 62 , Epicur.Ep.1p.8U.; eternity, opp. chronos, Pl.Ti.37d, cf. Metrod. Fr.37, Ph.1.496,619, Plot.3.7.5, etc.; tous huper tou aionos phobous Epicur.Sent.20 .

2. space of time clearly defined and marked out, epoch, age, ho aion houtos this present world, opp. ho mellon, Ev.Matt.13.22, cf. Ep.Rom.12.2; ho nun ai. 1 Ep.Tim.6.17, 2 Ep.Tim.4.10:--hence in pl., the ages, i.e. eternity, Phld.D.3 Fr.84; eis pantas tous ai. LXX To.13.4; eis tous ai.ib. Si.45.24, al., Ep.Rom.1.25, etc.; eis tous ai. ton aionon LXX 4 Ma.18.24, Ep.Phil.4.20, etc.; apo ton ai., pro ton ai., Ep.Eph.3.9, 1Cor.2.7; ta tele ton ai. ib.10.11.
[…]
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/resolveform

[size=+1]&#945;&#953;&#969;&#957;&#953;&#959;&#962;[/size] aionios , on, also a, on Pl. Ti.37d, Ep.Heb.9.12:--lasting for an age (aion 11 ), perpetual, eternal (but dist. fr. aidios, Plot.3.7.3), methe Pl.R. 363d ; anolethron . . all' ouk aionion Id.Lg.904a , cf. Epicur. Sent.28; ai. kata psuchen ochlesis Id.Nat.131 G.; kaka, deina, Phld.Herc. 1251.18, D.1.13; ai. amoibais basanisthesomenoi ib.19; tou ai. theou Ep.Rom. 16.26 , Ti.Locr.96c; ou chronie mounon . . all' aionie Aret.CA1.5 ; ai. diatheke, nomimon, prostagma, LXX Ge.9.16, Ex.27.21, To.1.6; zoe Ev.Matt.25.46 , Porph.Abst.4.20; kolasis Ev.Matt. l.c., Olymp. in Grg.p.278J.; pro chronon ai.2 Ep.Tim. 1.9 : opp. proskairos, 2 Ep.Cor. 4.18.

2. holding an office or title for life,perpetual, gumnasiarchos CPHerm.62 .

3. = Lat. saecularis, Phleg.Macr.4.

4. Adv. -ios eternally, nous akinetos ai. panta ôn Procl.Inst.172 , cf. Simp. in Epict.p.77D.; perpetually, misein Sch.E.Alc.338.

5. aionion, to, = aeizoon to mega, Ps.-Dsc.4.88.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/resolveform
​

 

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[SIZE=-1]The word always carries the notion of time, and not of eternity. It always means a period of time. Otherwise it would be impossible to account for the plural, or for such qualifying expressions as this age, or the age to come. It does not mean something endless or everlasting.[/SIZE]

This is the standard copy paste argument. How can [size=+1]&#945;&#953;&#969;&#957;[/size] have a plural? I have explained this before but it was ignored. I think because none of the universalists really want an answer. Well here is the answer, like it or not, ignore it like most of my posts have been ignored.

Epizeuksis, reduplication of words for emphasis, in the Bible..

Isaiah 40:1, “Comfort, comfort my people…”

Matt 23:37, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those
who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the
way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.”
When our Lord says in Matthew 27:46, “My God, My God, why have you
forsaken Me”

Gen. 9:25, “So he said, ‘Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants He shall be to his
brothers.’”—“i.e., the lowest and most degraded of servants, or the most abject slave.”
Bullinger. Observe, “servant”(singular) “of servants” (genitive plural).
Deu. 10:17, “For the LORD your God is the God of gods and the LORD
of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God who does not show partiality, nor take a bribe.”—i.e., He is the greatest God, the incomparable Lord … there is none like Him!

Ecc. 1:2, “’Vanity of vanities,’ says the Preacher, ‘Vanity of vanities! All is
vanity.’”—i.e., Life “under the sun” (v. 3) is ultimate futility, like “striving after wind”
(v. 14)! This is the theme of this book. People spend their entire life investing in this life,
yet when all is said and done there is no “advantage” or “profit” (1:3)—he will take
nothing with him! In contrast, Jesus encourages men to “seek for His kingdom” and
thereby to lay up “an unfailing treasure in heaven.” Lk. 12:31,33.
Exod. 26:33, “And you shall … bring in the ark of the testimony there within the veil;
and the veil shall serve for you as a partition between the holy place and the holy of
holies.”—i.e., the “most holy place” (1 Ki. 8:6), which represented coming into the very
presence of the “God of gods and Lord of lords,” who is, “Holy, Holy, Holy” (Isa.
6:3)—holy to the very highest degree! (another figure involving repetition of
words—epizeuxis, or duplication, Bullinger, pp. 189,194).

Song of Solomon 1:1, “The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s.”—i.e., the “Best of the
Songs” (NASB marginal note), or, the most excellent and beautiful song.

Php. 3:5, “circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a
Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee”—i.e. a Hebrew to the superlative degree
enjoying every advantage such could give. But, Paul said, “whatever things were gain to
me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ”!

Crucify, Luke 23:21; Doctor, Luke 8:24; Eloi, Matt. 27:46, Mark 15:34; how very (See as much as), Heb. 10:37; Jerusalem, Matt. 23:37, Luke 13:34; Lord, Mat 7:21, 22, 25:11, Luke 6:46, 13:25; Martha, Luke 10:41; no, Matt. 5:37, 2 Cor. 1:17; Rabbi, Mark 14:45; Saul, Acts 9:4; Simon, Luke 22:31; verily, John 1:51, 3:3, 5, 11, 5:19, 24, 25, 6:26, 32, 47, 53, 8:34, 51, 58, 10:1, 7, 12:24, 13:16, 20, 21, 38, 16:20, 23, 21:18; yes, Matt. 5:37, 2 Cor. 1:17, James 5:12.

http://www.peterwade.org/articles/other/knoch03.shtml

More Epizeuksi, reduplication of words for emphasis in the Bible.

Cf. "Ezek. 21:27.—'I will overturn, overturn, overturn it; and it shall be no more until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him”: i.e., I will completely and thoroughly overturn it.'

Figures of Speech Used in The Bible by E.W. Bullinger Page(s) 189 See at Silva Rhetoricae (rhetoric.byu.edu)

The repetition of the same word in the same sense. When the word is repeated in close and immediate succession, no other word or words coming between, it is called Geminatio , a doubling, duplication, a re-doubling . It is also called Iteratio, iteration; Conduplicatio, conduplication , or full doubling .

When the words do not immediately succeed each other, but are separated by one or more intervening words, the figure is then called Epizeuxis.

It is a common and powerful way of emphasizing a particular word, by thus marking it and calling attention to it.

In writing, one might accomplish this by putting the word in larger letters, or by underlining it two or three times. In speaking, it is easy to mark it by expressing it with increased emphasis or vehemence.

Example(s)
Bullinger's examples:
Gen. 6:17 . —“And, behold, I, even, I , do bring a flood of waters upon the earth.”

Gen. 7:19 . —“And the waters prevailed exceedingly.”
Here, as in other passages, the doubled adverb is used for a superlative. &#1502;&#1456;&#1488;&#1465;&#1491; &#1502;&#1456;&#1488;&#1465;&#1491; ( me&#333;d , me&#333;d ), greatly, greatly . We have the same words in 17:2 , “And I will multiply thee exceedingly ( me&#333;d , me&#333;d ). So also verse 6 , exceeding ; and verse 20 , exceedingly ; 30:43 , “And the man increased exceedingly ( me&#333;d , me&#333;d )”; Ex. 1:7 , “ Waxed exceeding ”; Num. 14:7 , “It is an exceeding ( me&#333;d , me&#333;d ) good land”; 1 Kings 7:47 , “Because they were exceeding ( me&#333;d , me&#333;d ) many”; 2 Kings 10:4 , “But they were exceedingly ( me&#333;d , me&#333;d ) afraid”; Ezek. 9:9 , “And Judah is exceeding ( me&#333;d , me&#333;d ) great”; 16:13 , “And thou wast exceeding ( me&#333;d , me&#333;d ) beautiful”; 37:10 , “An exceeding ( me&#333;d , me&#333;d ) great army.”

Gen. 22:11 . —“And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham .”

This is the first occurrence of this figure, used of names. There are ten such in the Scriptures (the number ten completing the cycle of Divine order). *
Seven of these are used by God to man (four of which are in the Old Testament, and three in the New), the other three being used under other circumstances. When thus used, the figure calls special attention to the occasion or to the person, and to some solemn moment of importance in the action, or of significance in the words.
Used by God to men. (7)
Old Test. (4)
1. Abraham, Abraham ( Gen. 22:11 ).
2. Jacob, Jacob ( Gen. 46:2 ).
3. Moses, Moses ( Ex. 3:4 ).
4. Samuel, Samuel ( 1 Sam. 3:10 ).
New Test. (3)
5. Martha, Martha ( Luke 10:41 ).
6. Simon, Simon † ( Luke 22:31 ).
7. Saul, Saul ( Acts 9:4 ).
Used under other circumstances. ‡ (3)
8. Lord, Lord ( Matt. 7:21 , 22 . Luke 6:46 ; 13:25 ).
9. Jerusalem, Jerusalem ( Matt. 23:37 . Luke 13:34 ).
10. Eloi, Eloi ( Mark 15:34 . Matt. 27:46 . Ps. 22:1 ).

It is to be noted that in raising the dead the Lord Jesus never used this figure! As much as to say it needed no emphasis whatever to make the dead hear His voice (see Mark 5:41 ).
The disciples may cry, “ Master, Master , we perish!” ( Luke 8:24 ), but He calmly rebukes the winds and the waves.

Gen. 25:30 . —“And Esau said to Jacob, “Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage .”

The Hebrew having no superlative, doubles the adjective (see under Idiom ), &#1492;&#1464;&#1488;&#1464;&#1491;&#1465;&#1501; &#1492;&#1459;&#1488;&#1464;&#1491;&#1465;&#1501; ( hah-ahdom, hah-ahdom ), red, red , i.e. , this very red [ food ]; or, this deliciously red food .

Ex. 2:12 . —“And he looked this way and that way.”
Here the Hebrew &#1499;&#1468;&#1465;&#1492; &#1493;&#1464;&#1499;&#1465;&#1492; ( k&#333;h vahk&#333;h ), this and this , is well translated, The repetition emphasizes the fact that he looked in every direction. See also Josh. 8:20 , i.e. , in any direction. 2 Kings 2:8 . Also Josh. 8:33 , &#1502;&#1460;&#1494;&#1468;&#1462;&#1492; &#1493;&#1468;&#1502;&#1460;&#1494;&#1468;&#1462;&#1492; ( mizzeh oomizzeh ), i.e. , on all sides. 1 Kings 2:36 , “Go not forth thence any-whither” &#1488;&#1464;&#1504;&#1462;&#1492; &#1493;&#1464;&#1488;&#1464;&#1504;&#1464;&#1492; ( ahneh vah-ah-nah ), this and this . 2 Kings 4:35 , see margin.

Ex. 4:16 . —“And he shall be , even he shall be to thee instead of a mouth:” i.e. , he shall surely be, etc.

Ex. 15:16 . —“ Till thy people pass over , O LORD , till the people pass over , which thou hast purchased:” i.e. , till thy people have completely passed over and are safe on the other side.

Ex. 23:30 . —“By little and little I will drive them out from before thee,” &#1502;&#1456;&#1506;&#1463;&#1496; &#1502;&#1456;&#1506;&#1463;&#1496; ( me-at, me-at ), “ little, little , I will drive, etc.:” i.e. , I will drive them out by very slow degrees. There s no “by” or “and” in the Hebrew of this passage. These words should be in italics. The figure is beautifully rendered in English idiom, where two adverbs are used to express the superlative.

Ex. 28:34 . —“A golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate upon the hem of the robe round about:” i.e. , alternately.

Ex. 34:6 . —“And the LORD passed by before him, and proclaimed, JEHOVAH, JEHOVAH .”

Here, if we were to translate the figure idiomatically, it means that He proclaimed the wonderful name, Jehovah! (which He did in the sixth and seventh verses).

Lev. 6:12 ( 5 ). —“And the priest shall burn wood on it every morning.” &#1489;&#1468;&#1463;&#1489;&#1468;&#1465;&#1511;&#1462;&#1512; &#1489;&#1468;&#1463;&#1489;&#1468;&#1465;&#1511;&#1462;&#1512; ( babb&#333;ker, babb&#333;ker ), morning, morning : i.e. , every morning, regularly, and without intermission.

Lev 24:8 . —“Every sabbath he shall set it in order before the LORD continually.”
Hebrew &#1489;&#1468;&#1462;&#1497;&#1493;&#1465;&#1501; &#1492;&#1463;&#1513;&#1468;&#1463;&#1473;&#1489;&#1468;&#1464;&#1514; &#1489;&#1468;&#1456;&#1497;&#1493;&#1465;&#1501; &#1492;&#1463;&#1513;&#1468;&#1463;&#1473;&#1489;&#1468;&#1464;&#1514; ( Bey&#333;m hashabbath beyom hashabbath ), on-the-day-of the-Sabbath, on-the-day-of the-Sabbath : i.e. , every Sabbath, with emphasis on the word “every,” i.e. , every Sabbath without fail.

Num. 17:12 , 13 ( 27 , 28 ). —After Aaron’s rod had been brought forth, the people were frightened and cried to Moses, “Behold, we die, we perish, we all perish. Whosoever cometh near, cometh near unto the tabernacle of the LORD shall die: shall we be consumed with dying?”

Here the figure is &#1492;&#1463;&#1511;&#1468;&#1464;&#1512;&#1461;&#1489; &#1492;&#1463;&#1511;&#1468;&#1464;&#1512;&#1461;&#1489; ( hakkahrev hakkahrev ), cometh near, cometh near . It is idiomatically translated by the A.V. , but literally by the R.V.

There is also the repetition of the word &#1488;&#1464;&#1489;&#1464;&#1491;&#1456;&#1504;&#1493;&#1468; ( ahvadnoo ), “we perish, we all perish.”
Deut. 28:43 . —Here the figure is really translated idiomatically, and not literally. “The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high,” i.e. , &#1502;&#1463;&#1506;&#1458;&#1500;&#1464;&#1492; &#1502;&#1468;&#1464;&#1506;&#1458;&#1500;&#1464;&#1492; ( mahalah, mahalah ), high, high ; “and thou shalt come down very low” ( i.e. , &#1502;&#1463;&#1496;&#1468;&#1464;&#1492; &#1502;&#1468;&#1464;&#1496;&#1468;&#1464;&#1492; ( mattah, mattah ), low, low ).

Thus the figure emphasizes the depth of the misery into which Israel should be brought if they would not hearken to the voice of Jehovah (verse 15 ).

http://www.biblebob.net/Figures/Epizeuxis.htm​

 

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Previous post continued.

Judges 5:22 . —
“Then did the horsehoofs stamp:
By reason of the pransings, the pransings of his mighty ones.”
&#1502;&#1460;&#1491;&#1468;&#1463;&#1492;&#1458;&#1512;&#1493;&#1465;&#1514; &#1491;&#1463;&#1492;&#1458;&#1512;&#1493;&#1465;&#1514; ( middaharoth daharoth ), i.e. , the violent pransings, if translated idiomatically. See under Idiom .

1 Sam. 2:3 . —“Talk no more exceeding proudly.”
&#1490;&#1468;&#1456;&#1489;&#1465;&#1492;&#1464;&#1492; &#1490;&#1468;&#1456;&#1489;&#1465;&#1492;&#1464;&#1492; ( gevohah, gevohah ), proudly, proudly , i.e. , arrogantly or haughtily.
Here the repeated adjective is idiomatically translated as a superlative.

2 Sam. 7:5 . —“Go and tell my servant David (Heb., to my servant, to David), Thus saith the LORD , Shalt thou build, me a house for me to dwell in?”

Here there is great emphasis to be placed on the repeated pronoun, “me,” in order to rebuke the popular and universal thought of the natural heart, which ever says, “See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains.”

2 Sam. 18:33 . —“O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son! ”

Here the figure emphasizes the vehemence of David’s grief.

2 Kings 4:19 . —“And he said unto his father, My head, my head. ” ( &#1512;&#1465;&#1488;&#1513;&#1460;&#1473;&#1497; &#1512;&#1465;&#1488;&#1513;&#1460;&#1473;&#1497; , roshee, roshee .)

How eloquent: and what a volume is contained in this simple figure, so naturally used by the child; as an English child would say, “My poor head.”

2 Chron. 4:3 . —“Compassing the sea round about.” &#1505;&#1464;&#1489;&#1460;&#1497;&#1489; &#1505;&#1464;&#1489;&#1460;&#1497;&#1489; ( sahveev, sahveev ), around, around: i.e. , completely round, all around. The same repetition is used, to express complete surrounding, in Ezek. 37:2 ; 40:5 , 14 , 16 (twice), 17 , 25 , 29 , 30 , 33 , 36 , 43 ; 41:5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 16 (the second “round about”), 17 , 19 ; 42:15 , 20 ; 43:12 . In all these descriptions of the new and future Temple, the repetition of &#1505;&#1464;&#1489;&#1460;&#1497;&#1489; &#1505;&#1464;&#1489;&#1460;&#1497;&#1489; ( sahveev, sahveev ) emphasizes the completeness of the measurements.

Ps. 22:1 . —“ My God, my God ( &#1488;&#1461;&#1500;&#1460;&#1497; &#1488;&#1461;&#1500;&#1460;&#1497; , Elee, Elee ), why hast thou forsaken me?”
Who can tell the depth of meaning and of feeling, which this figure here reveals? It is thus impressed upon us, because it cannot be expressed by words. See Mark 15:34 .
Ps. 67:6 , 7 ( 7 , 8 ). —
“ God shall bless us , God shall bless us :”

i.e. , God shall really and truly bless us in very deed.

Ps. 77:16 ( 17 ). —
“ The waters saw thee , O God, The waters saw thee. ”

(See under Prosopopœia .) Thus emphatically describing Ex. 14

Ps. 96:13 . —
“ For He cometh, for He cometh :”
i.e. , for He shall surely come.

Ps. 118:11 . —Twice “ They compassed me about ”; and in verses 15 and 16 , we have three times “ The right hand of the Lord. ”

Ps. 137:7 . —“Remember, O LORD , the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem; who said, Rase it , rase it, even to the foundation thereof,” i.e. , &#1506;&#1464;&#1512;&#1493;&#1468; &#1506;&#1464;&#1512;&#1493;&#1468; ( ahroo, ahroo ), “Down-with-it, down-with-it,” or we might render the figure, utterly overthrow it .

Prov. 20:14 . —“ It is naught , it is naught , saith the buyer: but when he is gone his way, then he boasteth.”
Heb. is &#1512;&#1463;&#1506; &#1512;&#1463;&#1506; ( ra, ra ), i.e. , “very bad,” or “worth nothing.” What a picture of Eastern bargaining!

Ecc. 3:18 . —Lit., I said in my heart respecting the estate of the sons of men that … they , even they are like beasts.”

Here the figure of Pleonasm ( q.v. ) first emphasizes the word “men,” and then the Epizeuxis again increases that emphasis.

Ecc. 7:24 . —“That which is far off and exceeding deep, who can find it out?”
&#1506;&#1464;&#1502;&#1465;&#1511; &#1506;&#1464;&#1502;&#1465;&#1511; ( ahmok, ahmok ), deep, deep : i.e. , as it is translated, “exceeding deep.”

Isa. 6:3 . —The holiness of Jehovah is emphasized beyond measure, and the three persons in one God are indicated by the thrice repeated “ Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts.” Here the highest degree of holiness is ascribed to Jehovah.

Isa. 21:9 . —“Babylon is fallen, is fallen ”: to emphasize the certainty and the greatness of the fall of that great city, and the completeness of its final overthrow. See also Rev. 18:2 .

Isa. 26:3 . —“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace.”

Here the figure is idiomatically translated . The Hebrew reads (see margin) &#1513;&#1464;&#1473;&#1500;&#1493;&#1465;&#1501; &#1513;&#1464;&#1473;&#1500;&#1493;&#1465;&#1501; ( shalom, shalom ), peace, peace , thus emphasizing the word and denoting much peace, great peace; or, as in A.V. , “perfect peace.” In 57:19 and Jer. 6:14 it is not thus translated.
Professor Driver mentions this duplication of words as being a post-Isaian feature of literary style ( Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament , pp. 233, 234). He says, “The literary style of chapters 40–56 is very different from that of Isaiah”: one of the “literary features” being the repetition of words. It is remarkable, as being characteristic of the wisdom and acumen assumed by the higher critics, that though Professor Driver mentions the repetition of &#1513;&#1500;&#1493;&#1501; &#1513;&#1500;&#1493;&#1501; , peace, peace , in Isa. 57:19 , he does not mention the very same repetition in 26:3 : which is an evidence of the very unity of the two parts of Isaiah which he is seeking to disprove. *

Isa. 28:10 . —This is probably the ironical language of the “scornful men” (verse 14 ), introduced by the Ellipsis of verse 9 : “Whom [ say they ] shall he teach knowledge?… for [ it is ] precept upon precept; precept upon precept; line upon line; line upon line; here a little , and there a little. ” And, then, the Prophet retorts: “For (or Yea, verily) with stammering lips ( marg. , stammerings of lips ) and another tongue will he speak ( marg. , he hath spoken ) to this people.”

In the English the Epizeuxis is not perfect, because the word “upon” comes between, but in the Hebrew the words follow each other closely.

&#1510;&#1468;&#1463;&#1493; &#1500;&#1464;&#1510;&#1464;&#1493; &#1510;&#1463;&#1493; &#1500;&#1464;&#1510;&#1464;&#1493; &#1511;&#1464;&#1493; &#1500;&#1464;&#1511;&#1463;&#1493;&#1463; &#1511;&#1463;&#1493; &#1500;&#1464;&#1511;&#1464;&#1493;
&#1494;&#1456;&#1506;&#1461;&#1497;&#1512; &#1513;&#1464;&#1473;&#1501; &#1494;&#1456;&#1506;&#1461;&#1497;&#1512; &#1513;&#1464;&#1473;&#1501;

i.e. , “For it is tzav latzav; tzav latzav; kav lakav, kav lakav; z&#275;hr sh&#257;hm, z&#275;hr sh&#257;hm .”
See also verse 13 .

Isa. 40:1 . —“ Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God.” Here the Epizeuxis consists of one word in the Hebrew, &#1504;&#1463;&#1495;&#1458;&#1502;&#1493;&#1468; &#1504;&#1463;&#1495;&#1458;&#1502;&#1493;&#1468; ( nachmoo, nachmoo ): and calls our attention to the passage; while it emphasizes the plenitude of that comfort wherewith Jehovah has determined to comfort His People Israel at no distant date.

Isa. 51 . —In this Scripture we have three calls emphasized by this figure.
A 1 51:9–11 . A call to the arm of Jehovah:—“ Awake, awake , put on strength, O arm of the LORD .”
B 1 12–16 . Followed by comfort.
A 2 17–20 . A call to Jerusalem:—“ Awake, awake , stand up, O Jerusalem.”
B 2 21–23 . Followed by comfort.
A 3 52:1 , 2 . A call to Zion:—“ Awake, awake , put on strength, O Zion.”
B 3 3–12 . Followed by comfort.

Isa. 57:19 . —“I create the fruit of the lips:— Peace, peace to him that is far off and to him that is near,” etc.: i.e. , great peace, perfect peace as in 26:3 ( q.v. ).

Jer. 4:19 . —“ My bowels, my bowels! ” to emphasize the great distress experienced.
Jer. 6:14 . —“They have healed also the hurt of the daughter * of my people slightly, saying Peace, peace ; when there is no peace.” Here the figure contrasts with the fact that there was no peace for Jerusalem the fact that her false prophets continually promised plenty of peace, much peace.

Jer. 22:29 . —“O earth, earth, earth , hear the word of the LORD .”

Ezek. 21:9–13 ( Heb. 14–18 ). —“ A sword, a sword is sharpened, and also furbished.”
This is to call our attention to “the sword of the LORD ,” viz. , Babylon, and to show that His sword is a sword for war , and not a sword worn for honour . This is the key to this difficult passage. That there are difficulties is seen the moment we observe the italics, note the marginal alternatives, and consult the commentators!

Jehovah’s sword was not like the sword of His son Judah, not like his “rod” or “sceptre” (verse 10 ), which was merely for honour, and was no use against a tree. But this sword (verse 10 ) “contemneth the rod (or sceptre) of my son, as [ it despiseth ] every tree (or wood).” Verse 12 should be, “Cry and howl, son of man: for it shall be upon my people, it shall be upon all the princes of Israel: my people shall be delivered to the sword: smite therefore upon thy thigh” (which was the symbol of fear in man, as beating the breast was in woman). Verse 13 . “Because it was proved, and what? ( i.e., what will happen? what will be the result? ) if the sword shall not despise the wood, saith the Lord! It will not be, saith Adonai Jehovah!” ( i.e. , it will not despise it! it will destroy it!)
Thus we have the sword of Jehovah emphasized: and the structure of these verses explains their meaning.
A 8–10 . The sword of Jehovah (Babylon). Its sharpness and brightness.
B – 10 . Its contempt for the rod or sceptre of His son Judah.
A 11 , 12 . The sword of Jehovah. Its destroying power.
B 13 . Its contempt for the wooden rod or sceptre of Judah.
The point is that the sword of the Lord is a sword of war, not of honour; and its power is so great that the sceptre of Judah (which was of wood ) will not withstand it.

Ezek. 21:27 . —“I will overturn, overturn, overturn it; and it shall be no more until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him”: i.e. , I will completely and thoroughly overturn it.

The threefold Epizeuxis emphasizes the completeness of the overthrow of the throne of David; hence, by implication, the certainty of the promised fulfilment of the prophecy that He who is David’s Son and David’s Lord, shall surely reign upon that same throne according to Luke 1:32 , 33 , and many other Scriptures.

Ezek. 22:2 . —“ Wilt thou judge, wilt thou judge? ”: i.e. , Wilt thou really and truly judge? See under Heterosis .

Ezek. 33:11 . —“ Turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways.”

Ezek. 34:11 . —“Behold, I , even I , will both search my sheep and seek them out.”
And verse 20 : “Behold I , even, I , will judge between the fat cattle and between the lean cattle.”

Thus does Adonai Jehovah emphasize what He will do in consequence of the unfaithfulness of the shepherds, who fed not His flock, but fed themselves. (See under Ellipsis , page 114 ).

Ezek. 34:17 . —“I judge between cattle and cattle .” ( &#1513;&#1462;&#1474;&#1492; &#1500;&#1464;&#1513;&#1462;&#1474;&#1492; .)
For the emphasis in this passage, see the notes on it under the figure of Ellipsis ( page 40 ).

Dan. 5:11 . —“Whom the king Nebuchadnezzar thy father, the king , I say , thy father , made master of the magicians”: i.e. , thy father the great and mighty king Nebuchadnezzar.

Dan. 10:19 . —“ Be strong , yea, be strong :” i.e. , be very strong.

Zeph. 1:14 . —“The great day of the LORD is near , is near , and hasteth greatly”: i.e. , is very near.

Matt. 5:37 . —“But let your communication ( R.V. , speech) be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay : for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.”

Here the figure emphasizes the fact, not that we are forbidden to say , “Yea” or “nay” twice; but that we are merely to say, “Yes” or “no,” and not to indulge in vehement asseverations and oaths; “for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.”

Matt. 23:37 . —“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem , thou that killest the prophets,” etc.: emphasizing the pathetic appeal by the exceeding guilt of the city in killing the prophets of Jehovah.

Luke 23:21 . —“ Crucify him , crucify him,” emphasizing the vehemence of the cry, and the determination of the priest-led people.

John 1:51 . —“ Verily, verily , I say unto you.” &#945;&#956;&#942;&#957;, &#945;&#956;&#942;&#957; ( ameen ameen ). Twenty-five solemn sayings of the Lord Jesus are thus emphatically marked in John’s Gospel: viz. , 1:51 ; 3:3 , 5 , 11 ; 5:19 , 24 , 25 ; 6:26 , 32 , 47 , 53 ; 8:34 , 51 , 58 ; 10:1 , 7 ; 12:24 ; 13:16 , 20 , 21 , 38 ; 14:12 ; 16:20 , 23 ; 21:18 . It might prove a useful study to trace the sequence of truth in these successive statements.

Apart from the Repetition, which occurs only in the fourth Gospel, there is something to be learnt from the number of times the word occurs. *

Heb. 10:37 . —“Yet a little while,” Lit., how little, how little. ” Greek: &#949;&#964;&#953; &#947;&#945;&#961; &#956;&#953;&#954;&#961;&#959;&#957; &#959;&#963;&#959;&#957; &#959;&#963;&#959;&#957; ( eti gar mikron hoson hoson ).

Eph. 3:9 . —Lit. “And to enlighten all [ as to ] what [ is ] the dispensation of the Mystery which has been hidden away, away , from the ages in [or by] God.” Showing the completeness with which the secret was hidden in former times. Compare Rom. 16:25 , and Col. 1:26 .

http://www.biblebob.net/Figures/Epizeuxis.htm

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[Der Alte]

The ancient Jewish view of Hell/Gehenna. Unfortunately, once again, it disproves stuff copy/pasted from hellmakers.

Jewish Encyclopedia-GEHENNA

By : Kaufmann Kohler Ludwig Blau

The place where children were sacrificed to the god Moloch was originally 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). For this reason 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); according to Gen. R. ix. 9, the words "very good" in Gen. i. 31 refer to hell; hence the latter must have been created on the sixth day. Yet opinions on this point vary. According to some sources, it was created on the second day; according to others, even before the world, only its fire being created on the second day (Gen. R. iv., end; Pes. 54a). The "fiery furnace" that Abraham saw (Gen. xv. 17, Hebr.) was Gehenna (Mek. xx. 18b, 71b; comp. Enoch, xcviii. 3, ciii. 8; Matt. xiii. 42, 50; 'Er. 19a, where the "fiery furnace" is also identified with the gate of Gehenna). Opinions also vary as to the situation, extent, and nature of hell. The statement that Gehenna is situated in the valley of Hinnom near Jerusalem, in the "accursed valley" (Enoch, xxvii. 1 et seq.), means simply that it has a gate there. It was in Zion, and had a gate in Jerusalem (Isa. xxxi. 9). It had three gates, one in the wilderness, one in the sea, and one in Jerusalem ('Er. 19a).

"The earth is one-sixtieth of the garden, the garden one-sixtieth of Eden [paradise], Eden one-sixtieth of Gehenna; hence the whole world is like a lid for Gehenna. Some say that Gehenna can not be measured" (Pes. 94a). It is divided into seven compartments (Sotah 10b); a similar view was held by the Babylonians (Jeremias, "Hölle und Paradies bei den Babyloniern," pp. 16 et seq., Leipsic, 1901; Guthe, "Kurzes Bibel-wörterb." p. 272, Tübingen and Leipsic, 1903). Because of the extent of Gehenna the sun, on setting in the evening, passes by it, and receives from it its own fire (evening glow; B. B. 84a). A fiery stream ("dinur") falls upon the head of the sinner in Gehenna (Hag. 13b). This is "the fire of the West, which every setting sun receives. I came to a fiery river, whose fire flows like water, and which empties into a large sea in the West" (Enoch, xvii. 4-6). Hell here is described exactly as in the Talmud.

The fire of Gehenna never goes out (Tosef., Ber. 6, 7; Mark ix. 43 et seq.; Matt. xviii. 8, xxv. 41; comp. Schwally, l.c. p. 176); there is always plenty of wood there (Men. 100a). This fire is sixty times as hot as any earthly fire (Ber. 57b). There is a smell of sulfur in Gehenna (Enoch, lxvii. 6).

In Isa. lxvi. 16, 24 it is said that God judges by means of fire. Gehenna is dark in spite of the immense masses of fire; it is like night (Yeb. 109b; comp. Job x. 22). The same idea also occurs in Enoch, x. 4, lxxxii. 2; Matt. viii. 12, xxii. 13, xxv. 30 (comp. Schwally, l.c. p. 176).
It is assumed that there is an angel-prince in charge of Gehenna. He says to God: "Put everything into my sea; nourish me with the seed of Seth; I am hungry." But God refuses his request, telling him to take the heathen peoples (Shab. 104). God says to the angel-prince: "I punish the slanderers from above, and I also punish them from below with glowing coals" ('Ar. 15b). The souls of the sons of Korah were burned, and the angel-prince gnashed his teeth at them on account of their flattery of Korah (Sanh. 52a). Gehenna cries: "Give me the heretics and the sinful [Roman] power" ('Ab. Zarah 17a).

It is assumed in general that 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).

They are cast into Gehenna to a depth commensurate with their sinfulness. They say: "Lord of the world, Thou hast done well; Paradise for the pious, Gehenna for the wicked" ('Er. 19a).

There are three categories of men; the wholly pious and the arch-sinners are not purified, but only those between these two classes (Ab. R. N. 41). A similar view is expressed in the Babylonian Talmud, which adds that those who have sinned themselves but have not led others into sin remain for twelve months in Gehenna; "after twelve months their bodies are destroyed, their souls are burned, and the wind strews the ashes under the feet of the pious. 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).

The felicity of the pious in paradise excites the wrath of the sinners who behold it when they come from hell (Lev. R. xxxii.). The Book of Enoch (xxvii. 3, xlviii. 9, lxii. 12) paraphrases this thought by saying that the pious rejoice in the pains of hell suffered by the sinners. Abraham takes the damned to his bosom ('Er. 19a; comp. Luke xvi. 19-31).

When Nebuchadnezzar descended into hell, all its inhabitants were afraid that he was coming to rule over them (Shab. 149a; comp. Isa. xiv. 9-10). The Book of Enoch 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 to Isa. xxxiii. 11 (Sanh. 108b). Enoch also holds (xlviii. 9) that the sinners will disappear like chaff before the faces of the elect. There will be no Gehenna in the future world, however, for God will take the sun out of its case, and it will heal the pious with its rays and will punish the sinners (Ned. 8b).

It is frequently said that certain sins will lead man into Gehenna. The name "Gehenna" itself is explained to mean that unchastity will lead to Gehenna ( ; 'Er. 19a); so also will adultery, idolatry, pride, mockery, hypocrisy, anger, etc. (Sotah 4b, 41b; Ta'an. 5a; B. B. 10b, 78b; 'Ab. Zarah 18b; Ned. 22a).

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=115&letter=G
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