Jesus said not peace but sword?

com7fy8

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the consequence is to have them slain before him.
That can be an image, because ones who have refused Jesus will go to the flaming sewer which burns with fire and brimstone; the evil spirit of Satan will have to go somewhere, inside of any being who has kept on living in Satan's selfish spirit. So, slaying could be an image in some way, because they will still be conscious in hell.

Fire is like this. You can question if fire is good, because of how people get themselves burnt. But anyone who does what is right with fire won't get burnt. Fire can be used for loving, by cooking and by gathering with one another around a nice campfire :) So, people who mess with fire can have a bad relationship with it.
 
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ananda

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That can be an image, because ones who have refused Jesus will go to the flaming sewer which burns with fire and brimstone; the evil spirit of Satan will have to go somewhere, inside of any being who has kept on living in Satan's selfish spirit. So, slaying could be an image in some way, because they will still be conscious in hell.

Fire is like this. You can question if fire is good, because of how people get themselves burnt. But anyone who does what is right with fire won't get burnt. Fire can be used for loving, by cooking and by gathering with one another around a nice campfire :) So, people who mess with fire can have a bad relationship with it.
Well, my emphasis was that the parable implies on the who - that Jesus commands the slaying - and not a focus on the nature of the slaying.
 
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com7fy8

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Well, my emphasis was that the parable implies on the who - that Jesus commands the slaying - and not a focus on the nature of the slaying.
This is because Jesus is the Lord of all and King of Kings, and > all judgment has been committed to Jesus >

"'For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son, that all should honor the Son just as they honor the Father.'" (in John 5:22-23)

You were also talking about if God loves if Jesus is commanding the slaying of people. Well, now is the time when anyone may come to Jesus and trust in Him for salvation and enjoy sharing with God in His own love. But there are anti-love people who refuse Jesus, and even make their own selves the judges of God's own Son. This is not wise, since "all judgment has been committed to the Son", by God our Heavenly Father.

Jesus has been so humble, that He has left Heaven itself in order to come to us and reach us and save us from our sin with all our love-dead pleasure seeking and fearing and hurting and suffering. Jesus first is about saving anyone who wants love's salvation. But if people refuse this . . . even though they already have suffered in their own sin's misery and destruction, still they will be judged; their own wrong's suffering can not deliver them from being properly punished.

They already are love-dead, but even though they are dead, they will still be slain, whatever Jesus knows this will mean. And after one dies, however, one is still conscious. It is part of the process of moving evil people to the lake of fire and brimstone which will be needed to contain them so they are not trying to mess with people who are loving and enjoying God as family with one another.

By the way > Revelation 14:9-11 > if a person worships Satan's beast and takes Satan's mark > the person "shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of" the Lamb and His holy angels. So, yes there will be brimstone and not only slaying. A thing, though, about this, is how Jesus the Lamb and His angels won't feel any torment of the brimstone. Because Jesus and the Lamb and we His children have the nature of love so we can not be tormented by the brimstone.

But while I was trying to use women, I have felt the brimstone in myself, possibly; it is the most horrible experience I ever have had or imagined having, I would say. You do not want to play games with this. But it was against how I was being anti-love, being willing to just use a woman instead of tenderly caring for her in God's love and appreciating and honoring her as a person of Jesus.

So, the nature of the person determines if he or she can be effected by the torment of the brimstone, or can be slain > we in God's love are alive with His own almighty power so we can not die. Our bodies can die, but we stay alive spiritually.

And so those who shall be slain will be already love-dead, anyway. They have refused the eternal life of Jesus, already. So, having them slain is simply continuing what they have started for themselves. But it gets worse, which is true of how things become because of unloving and selfish living (2 Timothy 3:13). So, Jesus will be doing what needs to be done, to keep Satan and his evil spirit and beings where they will belong.

You seem to be questioning if Jesus is loving; so this is why I am getting into this, in detail. Hell and slaying the wicked is included in the process of God loving those who desire Him for Himself and who seek all which is good; Satan and his beings need to be so processed away from us, in order that our attention can be fully with God and loving, and our attention will not keep on being involved with Satan and dealing with his nasty filth and the fallen beings who are vessels (Romans 9:21) of his "spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience." (in Ephesians 2:2) Jesus in His judging will be moving and processing Satan and his spirit and his fellow beings to the flaming sewer which burns with fire and brimstone. So, doing this practical and needed thing is not unloving.

And yes Jesus will be involved in this judging, because God our Heavenly Father has committed all judgment to Jesus His own Son > John 5:21-23 < and this scripture says that not only does Jesus judge, but Jesus "gives life". This includes how love is alive in us.

However, Satan has been right in the presence of Jesus, and he did not appreciate the One so beautifully wonderful and loving and kind like Jesus is . . . also humble and gentle and "life-giving" (in 1 Corinthians 15:45). And humans of Satan . . . both certain Jews and certain but not all Roman Gentiles were right in the presence of Jesus, and they hated Him and tortured and murdered Jesus God's own Son. So, yes Jesus will process them differently in judgment, unless anyone changes to trust in Christ (Ephesians 1:12) who is our Messiah.
 
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Halbhh

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Eternal punishment still doesn't sound loving to me.

Well, is natural death something you feel you want to avoid? The 'eternal punishment' is the finality of the "second death". If you want to Live, Love is the way, through Christ.
 
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Halbhh

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Well, my emphasis was that the parable implies on the who - that Jesus commands the slaying - and not a focus on the nature of the slaying.

God is Love.

I think rejecting Love means a person will eventually in time, decades or centuries -- living without love as their guiding principle -- attack others.

After enough time, such a person will become a killer.

Would you bring a killer into your house with your own children, permanently?

Literally letting them "perish" in the "second death" -- meant by the metaphor: "slay" -- this allowing them to perish is for the best.
 
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ananda

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You were also talking about if God loves if Jesus is commanding the slaying of people. Well, now is the time when anyone may come to Jesus and trust in Him for salvation and enjoy sharing with God in His own love. But there are anti-love people who refuse Jesus, and even make their own selves the judges of God's own Son.
Did you not go to Jesus after judging him and other religious leaders for yourself?
 
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ananda

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Well, is natural death something you feel you want to avoid? The 'eternal punishment' is the finality of the "second death". If you want to Live, Love is the way, through Christ.
No, because my core question & concern is not about death, but about suffering.
 
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ananda

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God is Love.

I think rejecting Love means a person will eventually in time, decades or centuries -- living without love as their guiding principle -- attack others.

After enough time, such a person will become a killer.

Would you bring a killer into your house with your own children, permanently?
No, that is why I am against those who slay.

Literally letting them "perish" in the "second death" -- meant by the metaphor: "slay" -- this allowing them to perish is for the best.
Why didn't Jesus say "allow them to perish" then, instead of "slay them before me"?
 
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Halbhh

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No, that is why I am against those who slay.

Why didn't Jesus say "allow them to perish" then, instead of "slay them before me"?

I think the powerful metaphors like "slay", "fire", and "cast into the outer darkness" are intended to help you and me, all, understand how serious and real final death is, that's its truly final, eternal.

Not just a temporary thing before another reincarnation, for example.

Instead, those going into it really will weep and gnash their teeth in extreme and total regret/grief.

Because it's truly a final death, the "second death. "

The powerful wording is meant to get you to understand the gravity of it.
 
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ananda

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I think the powerful metaphors like "slay", "fire", and "cast into the outer darkness" are intended to help you and me, all, understand how serious and real final death is, that's its truly final, eternal.

Not just a temporary thing before another reincarnation, for example.

Instead, those going into it really will weep and gnash their teeth in extreme and total regret/grief.

Because it's truly a final death, the "second death. "

The powerful wording is meant to get you to understand the gravity of it.
Perhaps so ... but I hold personal expectations that an omniscient deity would be extremely precise and accurate, instead of being given over to hyperbole for dramatic effect which comes with loss of accuracy.
 
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com7fy8

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Did you not go to Jesus after judging him and other religious leaders for yourself?
I got to where I realized that I could not know if and who God really is. I needed for God to personally reach me and have me know what He knows is true.
 
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ananda

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I got to where I realized that I could not know if and who God really is. I needed for God to personally reach me and have me know what He knows is true.
Interesting ... I would say the same thing about my experience with the Buddha. It all seems to come down to personal experience again, doesn't it?
 
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com7fy8

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It all seems to come down to personal experience again, doesn't it?
There is personal experience. But if there is God, and if He knows things and is conscious and able to communicate and relate personally . . . He knows who He is. He has personal experience, Himself :)

And if God is so different than humans, like the Bible testifies, then the way we are keeps us from experiencing God. It might be a little bit like how a worm can not know that there is sunshine, if the worm is staying under damp leaves and coming out on the lawn only after sunset. The worm does not have the nature to know what the sun is. But God is able to reach us and change our nature so more and more we really do experience and enjoy Him. But this includes becoming all-loving and personally sharing and caring in His family way; so in case a person is more impersonal, maybe having affection only or mainly for people he or she can use . . . such a person who mainly only uses people is not going to be able to experience God's love which is all-loving and not about just using people. The person is impersonal, so he or she can not connect with God who "is love" (in 1 John 4:4:8&16) and personal in our Heavenly Father's family caring and sharing way.

Now, of course, there are things and wording in the Bible which someone could find to be anthropomorphizing God. He "sees", He "hears", and we have how Jesus on the cross was a "sweet-smelling aroma" (in Ephesians 5:2). So, this can mean God can somehow smell how Jesus is and how we are. So, God is alive and conscious, the Bible indicates; so have the Bible's writers been anthropomorphizing God > trying to give God a make-over into our own human image? I am sure ones consider this possible.

But in the Bible, I find, we keep seeing ways in which God is so better and greater than humans. And my experience is that God in His love is so greatly more beautifully wonderful and kind and personal and gentle and humble and nicely quiet in His love, than I ever have been on my own, you might say. And His love effects my character to become more and more naturally and easily immune to nasty and negative emotional stuff and dominating and nagging pleasure drives in me. And I never thought to get this going in me, but God has proven Himself in me, to me, more and more, I would say.

@Godistruth1 > So, by the way, this fits with Jesus not coming to bring peace but a sword.

He means He is not going to just try to unite humans while we stay pretty much the way we are. But His word is a sword to cut apart the unloving stuff from the truly loving stuff which is in people. Our Apostle Paul says,

"Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice." (Ephesians 4:31)

So, the sword of God's word is an attack on stuff which is negative and nasty and naughty and numbskulling. In this way, Jesus did not come to bring peace. But in case humans stay with the dirty rotten cruel stuff in them, this stuff is going to the flaming sewer which burns with fire and brimstone; and so they are in danger of going with that stuff if they keep on having it in them.

Instead, we need how God's love changes our nature so we become "tenderhearted" in how we relate > Ephesians 4:31-32. And this is not how humans tend to relate; so, going by things like this in the Bible, I think we can see that the writers are not trying to create a God who is like us humans!

And so the sword which Jesus has brought is meant to separate ones who hold on to the nasty nonsense of Satan, from those who get into how God corrects us and how His love cures our nature > Hebrews 12:4-11, 1 John 4:17.

You mention Buddhism. I have gotten the impression that Buddhists in general are more self-dependent, not making a big emphasis on how we can personally share with God in His love and how this changes us to become like Jesus His Son so we can be compatible with God for all eternity.

So, there is stuff Jesus came to attack . . . not to bring peace to things like unforgiveness and people who can welcome opportunities and excuses to look down on others and be unforgiving. I myself have been a conceited self-righteously judging person. His word has been a good sword . . . including Hebrews 5:2 . . . to confront me and bring me to seek God for real correction better than human so I become more and more compassionate with hope for people, instead of mainly reacting and criticizing against them.
 
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