The fact is destruction is closely linked with change and transformation in both the Old and New Covenant.
The Flood destroyed all the wicked > the world except the 8 who survived were not reconciled to God, they were not given a second chance. No God destroyed them and started over with eight. Man was on the planet for 1656 years prior to the Flood. Some men walked with God but most did not and evil spread.
Ask yourself, if the all powerful God could not transform the world before destroying it, then what makes you think that after their destruction, He was able to do so forcefully with fire? No sir, they were destroyed. God was sorry He created man to the point of grieving. Why would He be sorry and grieve if He knew was later going to transform them anyways?
Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. They were wicked. Abraham tried to bargain with God not to destroy these cities: If there were 50 righteous would you destroy them? No. 45? No. 30? No. 20? No? 10? No. There weren't even ten righteous in these cities, so Lot and His family were told to leave.
Listen God does refine character during our lives. But it is clear if there is a calling, a justification, a sanctification, chastising those He loves, it happens during our lives.
Fire will test our works.
Those works that were not done by the Holy Spirit through us will be burned up.
That's the point. The fire gets rid of all the flaws, all the unrighteousness and all the worldly works of man apart from God. If a person has not been given righteousness imputed by Jesus, His blood during their lives, then no transformation will take place. All that is in that person is evil, wicked. God has not reconciled that person. Jesus will say, away from Me, I do not know you (meaning He never had a relationship with that person).
Therefore they are burned in the fire, destroyed!
Fire, Ronald, Is the essence of God, in it and thru it our God the consuming fire brings the all (the ta panta), and rather than "no more", in fact saves!
One aspect of God is that He is a consuming fire. Mortals could not look upon God, we would burn up because we have sin.
So all sinful men who have not been washed by His blood will burn up!
I won't list proof texts, but they do abound, and probably others will take the time to present those in detail.
He won't because his statement is a blatant misconception backed up by his misunderstanding.
I would say that, typically true of him, Paul, gets to the heart of the matter when he writes about every man's work being tried by fire, yet the man, himself, being saved. John, whose theology parallels Paul's more explicit style, with a more implicit style of his own, makes it a point to call the lake in question not only the lake of fire, but also of brimstone, which is an old word for sulfur. With sulfur being a common agent of ceremonial purification in temples of worship in ancient times, I think the association is obvious in the Book of Revelation.
Christians will be tested with fire and all their worldly works apart from God will burn up. However, God worked through them in many ways during their lives and so they will be perfected, resurrected at the last trumpet.
Brimstone/sulfur can be found spewing out of volcanoes. In volcanoes we see lava lakes, the closest conception of what the lake of fire will be. In the end times, 1/3 of the planet will be on fire. From above, it would look like a lake of fire. But after the Millennial Kingdom, the WHOLE PLANET WILL BURN UP ALONG WITH ALL THE UNRIGHTEOUS.
Now, to specifically address the possibility that John means to convey destruction rather than purification, let me say that neither scripture nor science recognizes the destruction of anything in the sense of annihilation, that is, of anything being reduced to a state of absolute nothingness. Destruction does not render anything nonexistent, but rather incapable of carrying out its function, as in the destruction of a tank in warfare. The mass of metal is still there, but it can't function as a tank any longer.
Destruction means to put an end to. He destroyed the world during the flood. He put an end to their lives.
Death brings an end to the living.
Spiritual death is the same. This concept of death is echoed throughout scripture.
So, what we have in the process of purification by fire is, first, a separation of the object of purification from all that defiles it, all that is foreign to it's intrinsic constitution, and then the removal of the corrupting element(s)...
Correct, all the flaws, the unrighteous, wicked are separated from what is good, of God.
If nothing in that person is of God, nothing will survive!
In the case of death and Hades being cast into the lake of fire and a separating of these foreign elements of corruption from the persons who are subjected to the divine flame, it is clear that the persons are saved; they are delivered from the corruption to which they were subjected, but other scripture indicates that death, that last (ultimate) enemy is not merely discarded, but is swallowed up in victory.
This is a false concept of the refining fire of God concerning His sheep. Hades and Death involve only those who are not His, those who during their lives did not see the LIGHT and receive it.
This brings us to the depth and extent of reconciliation in the economy of God. Certainly, God has reconciled the alienated person to Himself in Christ, that is undeniable in the scripture, but beyond that, God does not defeat death and the place/Hades [the capacity and potential] of death, by merely removing them. He takes alienation, enmity and hostility themselves and reconstitutes them back into the grace out of which they first proceeded. In a word, God defeats his enemies by transforming them into friends.
Speculation, not based on an opinion, a false assumption.
This is an example of someone who does not have the Holy Spirit to help them discern scripture!
At the heart of the message of the Book of Revelation is majestic statement of Him who sits upon the throne, "Behold, I make ALL THINGS new." God loses nothing. The loss of anything does not compute when it comes to God. He created good and evil, the prophet said, and in the end, all things return to God that "He might be all in all."
We shall see!
