Universalism comes from semetics and treating the gospel like a puzzle that needs to be put together to see it, but it itself is actually not taught in scripture. There is never the question "how long will the punishment be?" and likewise it is never answered, not explicitly or implicitly. For all I know Jesus just wags his finger at us but this is not what the gospel reveals to us.
When we begin to teach something that was never meant to be there to begin with we take away from the gospel and this is why it retards it. Try to explain universalism using the words of Jesus. The question is "how long is the punishment?" or "is the punishment forever?" now answer that using the language and focus of Jesus only. What you get is an unanswered question where you just simply have to admit we are no told these details.
It's like OSAS doctrines, although they can be extrapolated in scripture they themselves are not taught and we take something away from the gospel when we hyper focus on these details that seem to only exist philosophically. For example let's take the parable of the talents in Mat 25. If at the end of the parable if someone asks Jesus "Yes, but how long is the servant kicked out for?" Jesus would probably reply "Didn't you even listen to the parable!?" It's just completely from the left field and has nothing to do with the focus the gospel puts on the antithesis to our reward in Jesus. Let's take the parable of Lazarus and the Rich man, if the reply was "How long is the rich man punished before he can join Abraham's side?" Again Jesus would look at them and say something like "stop trying to figure it out details that don't belong and listen to the parable"
Hi DW, do you believe the literal translations of the bible are a corruption of the Hebrew and Greek text?the literal translations use the word age and age-abiding, or age-during which is in direct contradiction to translations that are interpreted such as the KJV. One of them is obviously correct and the other is not. So my question to you is, which would be more accurate a literal translation or a translation by interpretation?
You seem to believe by your posts so far in this thread that an interpretive (which is made by man) is more accurate then a literal translation.
Now if the literal translation is more accurate (an I do believe it must be more accurate then man's interpretive translation) then the scripture does indeed speak of an age of life or punishment.
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