The Restitution Of All Things A.K.A. Universalism

[ClementofA]

Paul qualifies that statement verse 1, 'Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. (Rom. 5:1)

No where does Paul suggest that all who are judged sinners in Adam will be the righteousness of God in Christ, it's absurd. In Christ all are saved but the only way you are in Christ is by grace through faith, in the power of the Holy Spirit. Not all come to faith in Christ, so they perish apart from Christ because at some level, in a permenant way, they reject the gospel.

"Saint Paul’s Apparent Universalism

"That many Pauline texts at least appear, when taken in their own context, to teach an explicit universalism should be obvious to any careful reader of the New Testament. For again and again, Paul made explicit statements to the effect that God will eventually bring all things into subjection to Christ (1 Cor. 15:20-28) and reconcile all things in Christ (Col. 1:20) and bring justification and life to all persons through Christ (Rom. 5:12-21). These statements are neither obscure nor incidental; indeed, the lengths to which some have gone to explain them away is itself a testimony to their clarity and power.

As a good illustration, consider more closely a single text, namely Romans 5:18,1 and consider first its parallel structure:

Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all [humans],

so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for [them] all.

"The whole point of such a parallel structure, so typical of Paul, is to identify a single group of individuals and to make two parallel statements about that single group of individuals, and the practical effect is therefore to eliminate any possibility of ambiguity. The very ones who came under condemnation, as a result of the first Adam’s act of disobedience, will eventually be brought to justification and life, as a result of the second Adam’s act of obedience. Or, as Paul put it in verse 19: the very ones who were constituted sinners, as a result of the first Adam’s act of disobedience, will eventually be constituted righteous, as a result of the second Adam’s act of obedience. I do not know how Paul could have expressed himself any more clearly than that.

"So does anything in the immediate context of Romans 5:18 justify the widespread supposition that Paul did not intend to say what his words in fact do say? One of the more popular arguments at this point appeals to 5:17, where Paul spoke of “those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness.” According to Douglas J. Moo, for example, “the deliberately worded v. 17, along with the persistent stress on faith as the means of achieving righteousness in 1:16-4:25, makes it clear that only certain people derive the benefits from Christ’s act of righteousness.”2 Others, such as the New Testament scholar Ralph P. Martin, point to Paul’s use of the expression “the many” in verse 19, which Martin interprets as “a Semitic way of saying that ‘all’ are included with the assurance that ‘the all’ [included] are not a few in number.”3

"I think it fair to say, however, that neither of these arguments is even remotely plausible. As for Moo’s appeal to 5:17 in an effort to limit the number of those who eventually receive justification and life, there are, I believe, two decisive objections. First, Moo never even considers those contexts in which Paul obviously used the verb “to receive” (lambanō) in a passive sense, and this has nothing to do, by the way, with the grammatical idea of the passive voice. When Paul declared, “Five times I have received [active voice] … the forty lashes minus one” (2 Cor. 11:24), we understand that he received these 39 lashes in the same passive way that a boxer might receive severe blows to the head; and when he spoke of those who “have received [active voice] grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith” (Rom 1:5), we again understand that such persons are the recipients of some divine action in the same passive way that a newborn baby receives life. Similarly, in Romans 5:18 and 19 Paul was comparing the effect of Christ’s one act of righteousness on the whole mass of humanity with the effect of Adam’s disobedience, pointing out in verses 15 and 17 that the latter is far greater, and far more extensive, than the former. So even though the Reformed New Testament scholar John Murray rejected altogether the universalist interpretation of our text, he nonetheless pointed out that the “word ‘receiving’ [in 5:17] … does not refer to our believing acceptance of the free gift but to our being made the recipients, and we are regarded as the passive beneficiaries of both the grace and the free gift in their overflowing fullness.”4 According to Paul, in other words, we no more choose to experience the beneficial effects of Christ’s one act of righteousness than we chose to experience the destructive effects of Adam’s disobedience.

"Second, Moo has attributed to Paul a fallacious argument of the following form:

(1) Only those sinners receiving the abundance of grace will “derive the benefits of Christ’s act of righteousness” and thus be saved.

Therefore,

(2) Not all sinners will “derive the benefits of Christ’s act of righteousness” and thus be saved.

"The premise sets forth a necessary condition of salvation, namely that a sinner must receive “the abundance of grace” in order to be saved, and the conclusion draws the inference that, therefore, some sinners will never meet that necessary condition. But the inference is obviously fallacious—as is the following inference of exactly the same form: only those believers who remain faithful to the end will be sanctified; therefore, not all believers will be sanctified. So even if Paul were not using lambanō in a passive sense, as he surely was, Moo’s appeal to 5:17 in an effort to explain away 5:18 would merely attribute to Paul the same fallacious inference that Moo brings to the text. For unless Paul himself had drawn a similar fallacious inference, neither “the deliberately worded v. 17” nor the “persistent stress on faith as the means of achieving righteousness” carries any implication that Paul intended the second “all” in 5:18 to be more restrictive than the first. Much less would it justify Moo’s conclusion that, according to Paul, “only certain people [that is, only some sinners and not all of them] derive the benefits from Christ’s act of righteousness.” Quite the contrary. Paul’s explicit affirmation in 5:18 that Christ brings “justification and life” to all humans already entails that all of the necessary conditions of such justification and life will eventually be met. So you can hardly challenge the universal scope of the second “all” in 5:18 merely by pointed out, as Moo does correctly, that the right kind of faith is one of these necessary conditions.

"Accordingly, if you want to understand Christian universalism accurately before criticizing it, as any competent critic would want to do, the first lesson to learn is this: proponents of such universalism not only do not deny, but even insist, that the salvation of any sinner requires that certain conditions be met. But they also believe that Christ’s ultimate victory over sin and death is what guarantees that all of the relevant conditions will indeed be met in the end.

"Consider next Martin’s suggestion that Paul’s use of “the many” in verse 19 reduces his “all” in verse 18 to something like more than a few in number. Unfortunately, that ignores Paul’s own clarification in verse 15—where Paul distinguished within the group or class of all human sinners between “the one” and “the many”—“the one” being Adam himself, who first sinned, and “the many” being all of those who died as a result of Adam’s sin. So once again it is John Murray who, despite his own vigorous opposition to universalism, has nonetheless pointed out the fatal flaw in Martin’s kind of argument:

"When Paul uses the expression “the many”, he is not intending to delimit the denotation. The scope of “the many” must be the same as the “all men” of verses 12 and 18. He uses “the many” here, as in verse 19, for the purpose of contrasting more effectively “the one” and “the many”, singularity and plurality—it was the trespass of “the one” … but “the many” died as a result.5

"In the same context, moreover, Paul insisted that “the one,” namely Adam, was “a type” of Jesus Christ (vs. 14), presumably because Jesus Christ, the second Adam, stands in the same relationship to “the many” as the first Adam did. But with this difference: “if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!” (vs. 15–NIV). It seems to me indisputable, therefore, that Paul had in mind one group of individuals—“the many,” which included all human beings except for the first and the second Adam—and he envisioned that each of the two Adams stands in the same relationship to that one group of individuals. The first Adam’s act of disobedience brought doom upon them all, but the second Adam’s act of obedience, whose effects are even greater and more extensive than the effects of Adam’s disobedience (thus the expression “how much more”), undid the doom and will eventually bring justification and life to them all. In the words of M. C. de Boer, “Unless the universalism of vv. 18-19 is taken seriously … ‘how much more’ is turned into ‘how much less,’ for death is then given the last word over the vast majority of human beings and God’s regrasping of the world for his sovereignty becomes a limited affair.”6 Or, as Arland J. Hultgren has put it, “As Adam was the head of humanity in the old eon, leading all to destruction, so Christ is the head of humanity in the new age which has dawned, leading all to justification and life. The grace of God in Christ amounts to ‘much more’ than the trespass of Adam and its effects (5:17). All of humanity is in view here without exception.”7

continued next post...

 

[FineLinen]

lol i see you have risen to the challenge of making this conversation last 'for ever and ever'

good to see you! Clement? which version of the Bible should I buy? Mostly I have KJVs around the house... should i get a concordant version?

Good grief are you guys and gals going to stay up all night? I trust the dog with the fancy sweater is at least avoiding this hot little link!

"Earth's crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God: But only he who sees takes off his shoes." -Elizabeth Barrett Browning-

We may be required to ban Eliz. from the link because she believed the "unscriptural" revelation of our Father's unyielding love.

 

[ClementofA]

"The Wider Context of Pauline Thought

"Even opponents of universalism sometimes admit that, taken in its own context, Romans 5:18 at least appears to teach an explicit universalism. Indeed, no less a conservative authority than John Murray appears to have made such a concession in the above quotations; he therefore appealed to the broader context of Pauline thought in an effort to escape the clear universalistic import of our text. He thus wrote:

"When we ask the question: Is it Pauline to posit universal salvation? the answer must be decisively negative (cf. II Thess. 1:8, 9). Hence we cannot interpret the apodosis in verse 18 [of Rom 5] in the sense of inclusive universalism, and it is consistent with sound canons of interpretation to assume a restrictive implication. In I Cor. 15:22 Paul says, “As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive”. As the context will demonstrate the apostle is here dealing with the resurrection to life, with those who are Christ’s and will be raised at his coming. The “all” of the second clause is therefore restrictive in a way that the “all” in the first clause is not. In like manner in Rom 5:18 we may and must recognize a restriction in the “all men” of the apodosis that is not present in the “all men” of the protasis.8

"The first sentence in the above quotation is especially relevant to our main topic of how to read the Bible from a universalist perspective, and I’ll return to it shortly. But first I want to point out that Murray too has fallen prey to an obviously fallacious inference, indeed the same kind of reasoning that we have already encountered in Moo. From Murray’s premise that the second “all” in 1 Corinthians 15:22 is restricted to “those who are Christ’s and will be raised at his coming,” it simply does not follow that the second “all” is therefore more restrictive than the first. To get that conclusion, you must adopt the additional assumption that the first “all” includes some who will never belong to Christ—a question begging assumption, if ever there was one. As a good Calvinist, Murray held that the elect have belonged to Christ from the very foundation of the world—long before any of them knew they belonged to him and long before they consciously identified with him. So even if one should accept Murray’s understanding of the context—which is itself debatable—why not draw the inference from 1 Corinthians 15:22 and its immediate context that the entire human race has belonged to Christ from the very foundation of the world? That inference, unlike Murray’s, would at least have the virtue of being a valid inference.

"In fact, Murray appears to have gotten the matter exactly backwards because the first “all” in 15::22 is, if anything, more restrictive than the second. For right after making his two parallel statements about the entire human race, Paul immediately expanded his second “all” to include not only the descendants of Adam, but every competing will as well. Christ must continue to reign, he insisted, until he finally brings all things, including every will and opposing power, into subjection to him (15:24-27), and there is but one exception to this “all things,” namely the Father himself (15:28). The last enemy to be destroyed is death (15:27), which in the larger context of Paul’s thought includes all separation from God. When Christ finally overcomes all separation from God, all persons will then be in subjection to Christ in exactly the same sense that Christ places himself in subjection to the Father (15:28)—a sense that, as I have argued in various places, seems clearly to imply spontaneous and glad obedience. Then and only then will the Father truly be “all in all,” because then and only then will all persons belong to him, or at least know that they belong to him, through his Son.

"Note also that Murray seems to have thought it sufficient merely to cite 2 Thessalonians 1:8- 9 as proof that we should reject the apparent universalism of Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15. In a similar vein, Charles Hodge once wrote: “As, however, not only the Scriptures generally, but Paul himself, distinctly teach that all men are not to be saved, as in 2 Thess. I.9, this [universalistic] interpretation [of Romans 5:18] cannot be admitted by any who acknowledge the inspiration of the Bible.”9 On its face, that is a remarkable claim for two reasons: first, because many Christian universalists have believed as strongly as Hodge did in the inspiration of the Bible, and second, because one could just as easily, if one wanted to be uncharitable, use the same kind of argument against Hodge. For surely, the following argument, which is just the reverse of Hodge’s argument, is equally cogent at this point: “Because not only the Scriptures generally, but Paul himself, distinctly teach universal reconciliation, as in Romans 5, Romans 11, and 1 Corinthians 15:20-28, Hodge’s interpretation of 2 Thessalonians 1:9 cannot be admitted by any who acknowledge the inspiration of the Bible.” As this counterargument illustrates, the issue of inspiration is a distracting irrelevancy in the present context; it is the correct interpretation of a text, not the inspiration of the Bible, that is here at issue. And concerning that issue—the correct interpretation of Romans 5:18—the appeal of Murray and Hodge to 2 Thessalonians 1:9 suffers from a serious weakness. For without any trouble at all, one could simply reverse their argument and argue just as plausibly in the opposite direction.

"Herein lies an important key, I believe, to reading the Bible with confidence from a universalist perspective: to do so, you need only become aware of how easy it is to reverse the most common arguments against such a reading. There are, after all, two prominent New Testament themes that may initially seem difficult to harmonize: that of Christ’s total victory and triumph over sin and death, on the one hand, and that of God’s wrath, judgment, and punishment of sin, on the other. Such texts as Romans 5 and 11, 1 Corinthians 15, and the old creedal hymn reproduced in Colossians 1:15-20, among others, illustrate the first theme, whereas such texts as 2 Thessalonians 1:9, the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matt. 25:31-46), and the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16), among other texts, illustrate the second. Now one possible response is to claim that these two themes are simply incompatible and hence irreconcilable. But those who reject such an inconsistency, as do most Arminians, Calvinists, and George MacDonald-type universalists, can reason in one of two directions, each of which is just the reverse of the other. Those, such as Murray and Hodge, who interpret various judgment texts as teaching that some sinners are destined for unending retribution in hell, will adjust their understanding of Christ’s ultimate victory and triumph in light of that presumed teaching; and we universalists, who interpret certain texts as teaching that in Christ God will eventually reconcile the entire human race to himself will in a similar manner adjust our understanding of God’s wrath and judgment in light of that presumed teaching. The one pattern of argument is just the reverse of the other.

"So do we here encounter a mere impasse or stalemate? Not in my opinion. For Paul himself, I believe, teaches us exactly how to understand God’s wrath, judgment, and severity as an expression of his boundless love and inexhaustible mercy.


"God’s Severe Mercy

"According to Paul in the eleventh chapter of Romans, God’s severity towards the disobedient, his judgment of sin, even his willingness to blind the eyes and harden the hearts of the disobedient, are expressions of a more fundamental quality, namely, that of mercy, which is itself an expression of his purifying love. In 11:7 he thus wrote: “What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened” (or blinded). He then immediately asked, “Have they [the non-remnant who were hardened or blinded] stumbled so as to fall?” And his answer was most emphatic: “By no means!” (11:11). By the end of the following verse, he was already speaking of their full inclusion: “Now if their stumbling means riches for the world, and if their defeat means riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!” (11:12). And three verses later he was hinting that their acceptance would mean “life from the dead” (9:15). He then generalized the whole thing: God blinded the eyes and hardened the hearts of the unbelieving Jews, we discover, as a means by which all of Israel might be saved (Romans 11:25-26)—all of Israel including those who were blinded and hardened. There is simply no way, so far as I can tell, to escape the universalistic implication here. The specific point that Paul made in Romans 11 was this: though the unbelieving Jews had become in some sense “enemies of God” (11:28), they nonetheless became “disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy” (11:31–NIV). But the general principle (of which the specific point was but an instance) is even more glorious: “For God has imprisoned all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to all” (11:32–my emphasis).11

"According to Paul, therefore, God is always and everywhere merciful, but we sometimes experience his mercy (or purifying love) as severity, judgment, punishment. When we live a life of obedience, we experience it as kindness; when we live a life of disobedience, we experience it as severity (see 11:22). Paul himself called this a mystery (11:25) and admitted that God’s ways are, in just this respect, “inscrutable” and “unsearchable” (11:33), but nothing could be clearer than his own glorious summation of the whole thing in 11:32. If the first “all” of 11:32 refers distributively to all the merely human descendants of Adam, if all are “imprisoned” in disobedience, then so also does the second; they are all objects of divine mercy as well. And if one should insist, as some have in a seemingly desperate effort to escape universalism, that neither “all” literally means “all without exception,” the obvious rejoinder is that here, no less than in Romans 5:18 and 1 Corinthians 15:22, the parallelism is even more important than the scope of “all.” According to Paul, the very ones whom God “shuts up” to disobedience—whom he blinds, or hardens, or cuts off for a season—are those to whom he is merciful; his former act is but the first expression of the latter, and the latter is the goal of the former. God hardens a heart in order to produce, in the end, a contrite spirit, blinds those who are unready for the truth in order to bring them ultimately to the truth, “imprisons all in disobedience so that he may be merciful to [them] all.”

https://afkimel.wordpress.com/2018/05/29/how-to-read-the-bible-from-a-universalist-perspective/

 

[ClementofA]

Not all come to faith in Christ, so they perish apart from Christ because at some level, in a permenant way, they reject the gospel.

Scripture knows nothing of any "permanent" endless perishing or tortures dealt out forever by Love Omnipotent:

Do you agree with Vincent that aidios means everlasting?

I think it was a superior word to use relative to the ambiguous aion & aionios, if God was a believer in endless punishment. Moreover, as opposed to aion and aionios (which are often used of finite duration), God had a number of other words & expressions available that would also have better served to express endless punishment, if Love Omnipotent were a believer of such. But He never uses such of eschatological punishment. So the reasonable conclusion is that Love Omnipotent rejected using such words and expressions of a final destiny of endless punishment because He knew better & He rejected the notion that anyone will endure endless punishment. Those words & expresssions are:

1. no end (Lk.1:33)...this expression is used of God's kingdom having "no end". It is never used of anyone's torments or punishment. We never read of anyone receiving torments that will have "no end". This unambiguous phrase, "no end", would have been a superior choice to the ambiguous words aion & aionion, if Love Omnipotent had a belief in endless torments or annihilation. But He rejected its use in expressing such a fate.

2. endless (1 Tim.1:4)...Again if Love Omnipotent believed in endless torments, why didn't He use this word to express it, instead of the ambiguous aion & aionion, which often refer to finite durations in ancient Greek usage?

3. never (Mt.7:23, etc)...this word appears to occur 16 times in the NT & it seems that it never means anything except "never". It is used of "love never fails" (1 Cor.13:8). It also occurs in Mt.7:23 where Jesus says "I never knew you; depart you from Me, those working lawlessness." Which is such an incredibly lame remark, if Love Omnipotent believed in endless torments. If He believed that such an unspeakably horrific final destiny awaits the wicked, including those He was referring to in Mt.7:23, why didn't He make it clear by telling them that they would "never" be saved and/or He would "never" know them? Would that not have been clear & unambiguous, unlike the words He spoke, & unlike the ambiguous aion & aionios, which often refer to finite duration in ancient Koine Greek? OTOH consider re the use of the word "never":

"Philo saith, “The punishment of the wicked person is, ζην αποθανοντα αει, to live for ever dying, and to be for ever in pains, and griefs, and calamities that never cease..." http://biblehub.com/commentaries/benson/mark/9.htm

Yet Scripture - never - uses such language. Moreover, it speaks of death being abolished, not being "for ever".

4. eternal (Rom.1:16; Jude 1:6)...this word, AIDIOS, is used of God's "eternal" power & "eternal" chains that bind until the day of judgement. It is never used of anyone's final destiny. We never read of anyone being tormented for eternal ages. We never read of anyone suffering eternal (AIDIOS) punishment. If Jude believed in endless punishment, he had the perfect opportunity at Jude 1:6 by simply adding that the angels would suffer the judgement of eternal (AIDIOS) punishment or torments. Instead of warning his readers of such a horrificly monstrous fate, as he should have been morally obligated to do if it were a real possibility, instead he conveys the relatively utterly lame & insignificant info that these angelic beings will be kept in chains until judgement day. OTOH, consider:

"Instead of saying with Philo and Josephus, thanaton athanaton, deathless or immortal death; eirgmon aidion, eternal imprisonment; aidion timorion, eternal torment; and thanaton ateleuteton, interminable death, he [Jesus] used aionion kolasin..." http://www.tentmaker.org/books/prevailing/upd3.html

"Nyssa defined the vision of God promised there as "life without end, eternal incorruption, undying beatitude [ten ateleuteton zoen, ten aidion aphtharsian , ten athanaton makarioteta]." ("Christianity and Classical Culture: The Metamorphosis of Natural Theology in ..." By Jaroslav Pelikan, p.165 @): https://books.google.ca/books?id=3V...5DMMQ6AEIODAE#v=onepage&q=ateleuteton&f=false

5. unfading (1 Pet.1:4; 5:4)...Peter uses this word of an endless inheritance reserved in heaven & a crown of glory. It is never used of the endless pain, punishment or torments that anyone will receive. Can it be denied that this would have been a superior word (over aion & aionios) to use to express such a horrific destiny if Love Omnipotent actually had such in store for anyone? Wouldn't He want to express warnings about it in the clearest ways possible?

6. found no place for repentance (Heb.12:17)...is used in Heb.12:17 of the loss of a finite earthly blessing..."he found no place of repentance, although having earnestly sought it with tears". Never is it used regarding those in Gehenna, Hades, the lake of fire, or eschatological punishment. Never do we read of those cast into any "hell" that they will not (or never) find a place of repentance, even though they earnestly seek it with tears. God was quite capable of expressing such in His Holy Scriptures. But rather than give such a warning, as Love Omnipotent should have if such an unbelievably horrific future awaited anyone, instead we are told of the relatively lame loss of a finite earthly blessing. Such a waste of words if endless punishment were really true.

7. In Mt.18:6 is the lame warning of a punishment which is compared to mere drowning, which is nothing compared to being kept alive for the sole purpose of being tortured for all the "endless" ages of eternity that have "no end" & "never" cease. Jesus says it is "better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea". OTOH, if He had been a believer in endless punishment, He could have expressed that by saying it is better for them to have never lived, never been conceived, or that their parents had never known (had sex with) one another. Compare this anti-biblical Jewish view that the Lord Jesus Christ, Love Omnipotent, rejected:

"To every individual is apportioned two shares, one in hell and one in paradise. At death, however, the righteous man's portion in hell is exchanged, so that he has two in heaven, while the reverse is true in the case of sinners (Ḥag. 15a). Hence it would have been better for the latter not to have lived at all (Yeb. 63b)." http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/6558-gehenna

---

 

[FineLinen]

Romans 8 is about the glory which shall be revealed in the children of God, not all people.
Not everyone is a child of God, some are children of the devil.

Romans 8:21=

https://www.biblestudytools.com/romans/8-21-compare.html

The whole=holos

Strong's Greek: 3650. ???? (holos) -- whole, complete

Creature/creation= ktisis=

Strong's Greek: 2937. ?????? (ktisis) -- creation (the act or the product)

Delivered=rhuomai=

Strong's Greek: 4506. ?????? (rhuomai) -- to draw to oneself, i.e. deliver

"The whole of created life shall be delivered/liberated/set free"

Jonathan Mitchell N.T. Translation=

http://www.greater-emmanuel.org/jmt/

"20. For the creation (that which was framed and founded) was placed and arranged under, in emptiness (was subordinated to vanity; was subjected by futility; was arranged under, in unprofitableness for frivolous idleness), not voluntarily (willingly), but rather because of (on account of; for the sake of) the one (or: the One) placing [it] under and arranging [it] in subordinated subjection upon an expectation (a hope)

21. that even the creation itself will be set free (will be liberated and made free) from the slavery (bondage) of the corruption (of decay which leads to ruin) into the freedom of the glory of God’s children (into the liberty of the manifestation of that which calls forth praise and good opinion which pertains to God’s born-ones).

22. For we have seen and thus know (are aware) that all the creation is continuously sighing, groaning and travailing together as in childbirth (suffering common birth pangs) until now (the present moment)."

 

[ClementofA]

lol i see you have risen to the challenge of making this conversation last 'for ever and ever'

good to see you! Clement? which version of the Bible should I buy? Mostly I have KJVs around the house... should i get a concordant version?

I like the CV (OT & NT), though it's free online, e.g.:

https://studybible.info/version/CLV

What you won't get online AFAIK is the concordance at the back of it & the extensive notes. The online version is, also, occasionally, incorrect.

It's very literal, though, & not in the beautiful KJV style.

Another one i like is the new - 2017 - NT translation by EO scholar DBH:

https://www.amazon.com/New-Testamen...300186096/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

 

[mark kennedy]

tormented day and night-to the ages of the ages. (Rev.20:10, YLT)

Does ages of the ages have an end? Christ's reign is "to the ages of the ages":

Universalist are the only ones I've ever seen that bend over backwards to refute their own points.

But His reign is "until" He gives up the Kingdom to the Father:

Just a word of advice, when you are dealing with traditional evangelic a l Protestants, especially those who do doctrinal and exegetical work. Learn your basic theism, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are coequal, coeternal, in other words coregients. You don't even get the trinity?

So Christ's reign "to the ages of the ages" is not "forever and ever". Therefore the phrase "to the ages of the ages" can be understood of a limited time period that comes to an end. So those in the lake of fire are not punished there "for ever and ever" (Rev.20:10).

No it's forever and ever, it's one of those words Universalist can minipulat because the have no awareness of a context. Your throne oh God is forever and ever, you laid the foundations of the world in the beginning, let all the angels worship him. I mean if you don't get that this is a description of eternal God you've went from blinders to blindfold

Also, "forever and ever" is nonsense. No time can be added to "forever".

It's hyperbole, the Greeks were famous for it, they liked to say myriads and myriads, it's not a head count it's a literary feature.

When Christ's reign ends (1 Cor.15 above), this will lead to God being "All in all" (v.28). IOW everyone will be saved, as all will be "in Christ" (v.22).

His reign doesn't end, it was without beginning and will continue forever. He returned to the right hand of the Father were he had been for all eternity previously.

(5) Comparing Rev.20:10 with Matthew 25:41, Jesus said the future of the devil & his angels is fire aionios (Mt.25:41, 46), mistranslated everlasting or "eternal fire" by pro ECT (eternal conscious torments) Bible versions (e.g. KJV). Fire aionios is also associated with the fire that burnt Sodom (Jude 7). That fire was not eternal, went out long ago, & its effects will last only until Sodom is restored (Ezek 16). Thus there is a Scriptural basis for taking the same phrase, fire aionios, which also occurs at Mt.25:41 & 18:8, as referring to a fire that is of finite duration. Likewise with "into eons of the eons" in Rev.20:10 which also refers to the devil's eonian (Mt.25:41) punishment associated with fire. So the devil's eon related punishment by fire in both Mt.25:41 & Rev.20:10 is finite. Therefore, the period "the eons of the eons" (Rev.20:10) must end. And surely since the devil's torments "into the ages of the ages" end, so do those related to human beings (cf. Rev.14:11; Mt.18:8; 25:41), for the same terminology is applied to them. Moreover, they are less sinful than Satan. If his punishment ends, then why not theirs also? Consequently the mistranslation "forever and ever" in Rev.20:10 & 14:11 refers to a finite period of time, with a beginning and an end.

So tradgic, Jesus says don't fear him who can destroy the body, fear him that can destroy body and soul in he'll. The fires need not burn forever, the condemned need not suffer forever, but once in the fires of perdition you never leave. Personally I think they are vaporized almost instantly.

Summing up the argument:

- eonian fire is finite (Jude 7)
- eonian fire is the devil's punishment (Mt.25:41)
- which is equal to his punishment in Rev.20:10
- therefore his punishment is finite &
- his torment for the eons of the eons is finite &
- the eons of the eons themselves are finite

Regarding Jude 7 the following Interlinear does not say "suffering the vengeance of eternal fire", but the cities are "set forth as an example", "undergoing the penalty of fire aionion":
Jude 1 Interlinear Bible . Similarly, a literal version reads:

7 As Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them in like manner to these committing ultra-prostitution, and coming away after other flesh, are lying before us, a specimen, experiencing the justice of fire eonian." (Jude 7, CLV)

"The destruction of Sodom and the surrounding cities is still apparent to all who visit the region. In this way these cities are experiencing the justice of eonian fire. The fire has long ceased but its effects will remain and testify to God's judgment until the close of this eon, after which Sodom shall return to her former estate (Ezek.16:53-56)" (Concordant Commentary of the New Testament, p.376) Concordant Commentary on the New Testament

"We likewise subscribe to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, who "are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire" (Jude 7). This occurred many centuries ago. How poor a passage to apply to that which is thousands of years hence!"

"The word "set forth" is, literally, "lying before." The term "example" or specimen, is from the word show. These are readily comprehended if we apply them to the sites of Sodom and Gomorrah today. Their destruction was so complete that their exact location is in dispute. Now the preponderance of opinion places them under the shallow end of the Dead Sea. No one can visit this terrible desolation without fully appreciating the force of these words."

"But we are asked to forget this solemn and forceful scene for an "example" which no one can see, and which is not at all "set forth" or "lying before" us. We are asked to forget the fire (Gen.19:24) which destroyed these cities so that the smoke of the plain went up like the smoke of a furnace. The justice or "vengeance" of this fire is all too evident to this very day. It is a powerful reminder of God's judgment which should deter those who are tempted to follow a similar path. This fire is called "eternal." Just now the plain is covered by water, not fire. It was an eonian fire, as is witnessed by its effect for the eon."

"Speaking of Jerusalem, Ezekiel gives us God's thoughts concerning Sodom. "As I live, saith the Lord God, Sodom thy sister hath not done, she nor her daughters, as thou hast done, thou and thy daughters." And again, "When I shall bring again their captivity, the captivity of Sodom and her daughters...then will I bring again the captivity of thy captives in the midst of them...when thy sisters, Sodom and her daughters, shall return to their former estate, then thou and thy daughters shall return to your former estate" (Ezek.16:48,53,55)."

"2 Peter 2:6 gives a parallel passage, where we read that God condemns the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, reducing them to cinders by an overthrow, having placed them for an example. This is perfectly plain, unless we try to distinguish between the cities and the people, and make conscious cinders suffer from flames beneath the waters of the Dead Sea."

"If the Sodomites were on public exhibition where all could see them suffering in the flames of a medieval hell, we might consider them as set forth as an example, but as no one has ever seen them, and no one can see them, they are no example at all. The cities, however, are lying before us as a specimen of God's eonian justice. The effects of the fire endure for the eon. When Jerusalem is restored, they will be restored."A Reply To “Universalism Refuted” Part Seven

Next we'll look at a 6th case that occurs in the book of Revelation where our phrase "the ages of the ages" is applied to God, either to His glory or living, etc:

(6) The book of Revelation makes several references to God living (or His glory) "for the eons of the eons" (Revelation 1:6, 18; 4:9-10; 5:13; 7:12; 10:6; 15:7). God living "into the eons of the eons" that end no more denies His future endless life than it denies He was living before the times of the eons (1 Cor.2:7; 2 Tim.1:9; Titus 1:2) that He created (Heb.1:2). "The existence of God is not confined to the eons. He made the eons; therefore, He existed before they began." Eons come & go, but He is both before & after them. Similarly, God is living for the present eon, but that doesn't mean He was dead before it, nor that He will be dead when it ends. Likewise He was living for past eons, but that doesn't mean He died when they ended. Likewise with His glory.

His “years shall not come to end” (Psa.102:27).

Further remarks on this point can be found in the following article in the section titled "Living For the Eons of the Eons": Eon As Indefinte Duration, Part Two

So we find the phrases "into ages of ages" & "into the ages of the ages" in 6 category types in Revelation:

- Rev.20:10 the torment of Satan & 2 others
- Rev.14:11 rising smoke of humans tormented
- Rev.19:3 rising smoke of a city burned
- Rev.22:5 saints reigning
- Rev.11:15 Christ reigning
- multiple references to God living or His glory

In at least 5 of the 6 category types above, the vast majority, we have said that the phrase in question is of limited duration. Even if, in the one other case, when the phrase refers to God, it somehow means "forever and ever", e.g. because God is forever, that has no bearing on the other 5 categories which do not connect the phrase with God's life or glory, and do not connect it with something or someone everyone knows is endless.

(7) As documented by scholar Illaria Ramelli, Origen & a number of other early church fathers spoke of an end of all ages & or an end of "ages of ages". See Ramelli's tome below, pages 8-10, 13-14, 112ff, 132, 157-8, 160-1, 167-8, 202. (Ilaria Ramelli, The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis: A Critical Assessment from the New Testament to Eriugena (Brill, 2013. 890 pp)
Preview of The Christian doctrine of Apokatastasis : a critical assessment from the New Testament to Eriugena [WorldCat.org]

"In Hom. in Ex. 6,13, similarly, Origen foresees the end of all aeons: “Whenever Scripture says, ‘from aeon to aeon,’ the reference is to an interval of time, and it is clear that it will have an end. And if Scripture says, ‘in another aeon,’ what is indicated is clearly a longer time, and yet an end is still fixed. And when the ‘aeons of the aeons’ are mentioned, a certain limit is again posited, perhaps unknown to us, but surely established by God.” (Ilaria Ramelli, The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis, p.161)

"Cf. Apoc. 14:10–11, where the smoke of the tormented sinners rises eis aiônas aiônôn, in saecula saeculorum, which does not self-evidently mean absolutely forever; for Origen,
as we shall see, this will be the time of the aiônes, before the apocatastasis which brings on the aïdiotês. Only the aïdiotês of the universal restoration will be truly forever." (Terms for Eternity: Aionios and Aidios in Classical and Christian Texts, Ilaria Ramelli and David Konstan, 2007, p.69)

...continued at my next post...

Wow, that was excessive. I don't really disagree with most of that all except for the part where the children of perdition get out. That's not only unbiblical, it's insane.

 

[mark kennedy]

here is the video that proves all means ALL (every one)

and here is the other video on the lake of fire...

have a little fun with God
i don't know what you mean by 'toys' ... i said i would leave you to the 'BOYS' lol

Yea couldn't sleep so went a head and finished the second one. The first one dweller in pas, the Greek word for all without once considering the context of the pass a 've. In Greek everything is context driven so just randomly jerking it out of its context can make it mean anything you want it to mean. The second one was a little more engaging, at least he made his point and let it go. The etymology regarding the touchstone is very interesting, there is another word in the passage that has a similar meaning, I've noticed it before. In that context it clearly means torture but it's always nice to explore the etymology to get a better look at the literary features.

 

[FineLinen]

I hate to disclose the fact that the Risen Christ preached to the "disobedient" dead, dead, dead. Would you like to tell us what the results were?

Lets take a peek at the "dead, dead, dead" referred to by sdowney717

"For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:

By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison;

Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.

For unto this end was the gospel preached even to the dead, that they might be judged indeed according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit."

 

[FineLinen]

Wow, that was excessive. I don't really disagree with most of that all except for the part where the children of perdition get out. That's not only unbiblical, it's insane.

ClementofA only posts what is "excessive". You better do your homework Mark!

Never ever use the word "limited" when referring to the Unlimited One. What is insane to Mark & "dead, dead, dead" is the fact our God refuses to be hedged into one of our limited corners!

 

[mark kennedy]

"Saint Paul’s Apparent Universalism

"That many Pauline texts at least appear, when taken in their own context, to teach an explicit universalism should be obvious to any careful reader of the New Testament. For again and again, Paul made explicit statements to the effect that God will eventually bring all things into subjection to Christ (1 Cor. 15:20-28)

The obvious absurdities here are clearly dispelled by taking these proof texts in context, something Universalist just don't do. Paul talks at length about the central priority of faith and the resurrection, by which your saved, lest you believed in vain. (1Cor. 15:2). So Paul is clear not everyone is going to believe, some will not continue in the faith, thats how your saved, and if you depart from the faith your lost. So verse 22, '' For as in Adam all die, in Christ shall all be made alive.' All are in Adam by lineage but you can only be in Christ by faith. You have to be called, repent, believe in your heart, confess with your mouth,, ecieve the Holy Spirit of promise, bear fruit to the glory of God, without neglecting salvation, or departing from God with a faithless unbelieving heart. But your going to pin your hopes on a single word, 'all', taken out of context and grossly misrepresented in the original.

The and reconcile all things in Christ (Col. 1:20)

That's all things in heaven and earth, not all people good or evil.

and bring justification and life to all persons through Christ (Rom. 5:12-21).

Being justified by faith, is the qualifier that gives us access to his grace in verse 1 of that chapter.

These statements are neither obscure nor incidental; indeed, the lengths to which some have gone to explain them away is itself a testimony to their clarity and power.

No those statements are pedantic and grossly erroneous. Youve demonstrated a complete indifference to essential doctrine, namely the Trinity and justification by grace through faith. Your expositions abandondon any and all literary features that could help you navigate the context but your fixation with 'all', is all consuming. You don't have another doctrine, no interest in the gospel, historical narrative, prophetic oracle's and divine imperative.

As a good illustration, consider more closely a single text, namely Romans 5:18,1 and consider first its parallel structure:

Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all [humans],

so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for [them] all.

"The whole point of such a parallel structure, so typical of Paul, is to identify a single group of individuals and to make two parallel statements about that single group of individuals, and the practical effect is therefore to eliminate any possibility of ambiguity. The very ones who came under condemnation, as a result of the first Adam’s act of disobedience, will eventually be brought to justification and life, as a result of the second Adam’s act of obedience. Or, as Paul put it in verse 19: the very ones who were constituted sinners, as a result of the first Adam’s act of disobedience, will eventually be constituted righteous, as a result of the second Adam’s act of obedience. I do not know how Paul could have expressed himself any more clearly than that.

"So does anything in the immediate context of Romans 5:18 justify the widespread supposition that Paul did not intend to say what his words in fact do say? One of the more popular arguments at this point appeals to 5:17, where Paul spoke of “those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness.” According to Douglas J. Moo, for example, “the deliberately worded v. 17, along with the persistent stress on faith as the means of achieving righteousness in 1:16-4:25, makes it clear that only certain people derive the benefits from Christ’s act of righteousness.”2 Others, such as the New Testament scholar Ralph P. Martin, point to Paul’s use of the expression “the many” in verse 19, which Martin interprets as “a Semitic way of saying that ‘all’ are included with the assurance that ‘the all’ [included] are not a few in number.”3

"I think it fair to say, however, that neither of these arguments is even remotely plausible. As for Moo’s appeal to 5:17 in an effort to limit the number of those who eventually receive justification and life, there are, I believe, two decisive objections. First, Moo never even considers those contexts in which Paul obviously used the verb “to receive” (lambanō) in a passive sense, and this has nothing to do, by the way, with the grammatical idea of the passive voice. When Paul declared, “Five times I have received [active voice] … the forty lashes minus one” (2 Cor. 11:24), we understand that he received these 39 lashes in the same passive way that a boxer might receive severe blows to the head; and when he spoke of those who “have received [active voice] grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith” (Rom 1:5), we again understand that such persons are the recipients of some divine action in the same passive way that a newborn baby receives life. Similarly, in Romans 5:18 and 19 Paul was comparing the effect of Christ’s one act of righteousness on the whole mass of humanity with the effect of Adam’s disobedience, pointing out in verses 15 and 17 that the latter is far greater, and far more extensive, than the former. So even though the Reformed New Testament scholar John Murray rejected altogether the universalist interpretation of our text, he nonetheless pointed out that the “word ‘receiving’ [in 5:17] … does not refer to our believing acceptance of the free gift but to our being made the recipients, and we are regarded as the passive beneficiaries of both the grace and the free gift in their overflowing fullness.”4 According to Paul, in other words, we no more choose to experience the beneficial effects of Christ’s one act of righteousness than we chose to experience the destructive effects of Adam’s disobedience.

"Second, Moo has attributed to Paul a fallacious argument of the following form:

(1) Only those sinners receiving the abundance of grace will “derive the benefits of Christ’s act of righteousness” and thus be saved.

Therefore,

(2) Not all sinners will “derive the benefits of Christ’s act of righteousness” and thus be saved.

"The premise sets forth a necessary condition of salvation, namely that a sinner must receive “the abundance of grace” in order to be saved, and the conclusion draws the inference that, therefore, some sinners will never meet that necessary condition. But the inference is obviously fallacious—as is the following inference of exactly the same form: only those believers who remain faithful to the end will be sanctified; therefore, not all believers will be sanctified. So even if Paul were not using lambanō in a passive sense, as he surely was, Moo’s appeal to 5:17 in an effort to explain away 5:18 would merely attribute to Paul the same fallacious inference that Moo brings to the text. For unless Paul himself had drawn a similar fallacious inference, neither “the deliberately worded v. 17” nor the “persistent stress on faith as the means of achieving righteousness” carries any implication that Paul intended the second “all” in 5:18 to be more restrictive than the first. Much less would it justify Moo’s conclusion that, according to Paul, “only certain people [that is, only some sinners and not all of them] derive the benefits from Christ’s act of righteousness.” Quite the contrary. Paul’s explicit affirmation in 5:18 that Christ brings “justification and life” to all humans already entails that all of the necessary conditions of such justification and life will eventually be met. So you can hardly challenge the universal scope of the second “all” in 5:18 merely by pointed out, as Moo does correctly, that the right kind of faith is one of these necessary conditions.

"Accordingly, if you want to understand Christian universalism accurately before criticizing it, as any competent critic would want to do, the first lesson to learn is this: proponents of such universalism not only do not deny, but even insist, that the salvation of any sinner requires that certain conditions be met. But they also believe that Christ’s ultimate victory over sin and death is what guarantees that all of the relevant conditions will indeed be met in the end.

"Consider next Martin’s suggestion that Paul’s use of “the many” in verse 19 reduces his “all” in verse 18 to something like more than a few in number. Unfortunately, that ignores Paul’s own clarification in verse 15—where Paul distinguished within the group or class of all human sinners between “the one” and “the many”—“the one” being Adam himself, who first sinned, and “the many” being all of those who died as a result of Adam’s sin. So once again it is John Murray who, despite his own vigorous opposition to universalism, has nonetheless pointed out the fatal flaw in Martin’s kind of argument:

"When Paul uses the expression “the many”, he is not intending to delimit the denotation. The scope of “the many” must be the same as the “all men” of verses 12 and 18. He uses “the many” here, as in verse 19, for the purpose of contrasting more effectively “the one” and “the many”, singularity and plurality—it was the trespass of “the one” … but “the many” died as a result.5

"In the same context, moreover, Paul insisted that “the one,” namely Adam, was “a type” of Jesus Christ (vs. 14), presumably because Jesus Christ, the second Adam, stands in the same relationship to “the many” as the first Adam did. But with this difference: “if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!” (vs. 15–NIV). It seems to me indisputable, therefore, that Paul had in mind one group of individuals—“the many,” which included all human beings except for the first and the second Adam—and he envisioned that each of the two Adams stands in the same relationship to that one group of individuals. The first Adam’s act of disobedience brought doom upon them all, but the second Adam’s act of obedience, whose effects are even greater and more extensive than the effects of Adam’s disobedience (thus the expression “how much more”), undid the doom and will eventually bring justification and life to them all. In the words of M. C. de Boer, “Unless the universalism of vv. 18-19 is taken seriously … ‘how much more’ is turned into ‘how much less,’ for death is then given the last word over the vast majority of human beings and God’s regrasping of the world for his sovereignty becomes a limited affair.”6 Or, as Arland J. Hultgren has put it, “As Adam was the head of humanity in the old eon, leading all to destruction, so Christ is the head of humanity in the new age which has dawned, leading all to justification and life. The grace of God in Christ amounts to ‘much more’ than the trespass of Adam and its effects (5:17). All of humanity is in view here without exception.”7

continued next post...

Thats ok, I think Ive seen the same argument enough tomes to get the idea. I was starting to like you guys, was under the impression you had actually studied, now this is looking like spam tactics.

A word of advice in case your interested, in theology simplicity is the prize. You have a couple of interesting arguments in there but I'm not digging them out. You could have done this whole post in a paragraph and getting careless with essential doctrine is a big no no

You guys are like the seventh day Adventists you can go on forever about nothing. You'll hear anything and everything from you but the gospel, even though you quote passages that preach and teach it. No wonder you guys don't bother learning essential doctrine, a quick acid wash in gehena, maybe an son or two, and you'll be all squeaky clean and heaven bound.

The Scriptures are clear. It don't work that way. Thanks for the exchange, may God help you with all this.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[needhugs]

i think i will go and watch 'to wong foo, thanks for everything! Julie Newmar'

Clement will be patrick swazey
FL will be wesley snipes
and Mark can be the little boy in a dress

and yes, FL, i'm up all night! xox

 

[mark kennedy]

ClementofA only posts what is "excessive". You better do your homework Mark!

Never ever use the word "limited" when referring to the Unlimited One. What is insane to Mark & "dead, dead, dead" is the fact our God refuses to be hedged into one of our limited corners!

I did my homework on you guys and it's not much of a challenge frankly. You have no interest in a real exposition, no background in essential doctrine and a compulsion, bordering on obsession with redundancy. I haven't seen anything like you guys since I encountered the...lets just say some unsettling groups, years ago. Anyway, congradulations, you got me seriously concerned about a topic for the first time in years. I had head about Universalism but I thought it was just kind of a benign tangent of some kind. Your not, you guys are playing with fire and you don't known it.

Anyway thanks for the exchange and the wake up call, I'll know to approach the unorthodox with more caution in the future.

 

[needhugs]

Yea couldn't sleep so went a head and finished the second one. The first one dweller in pas, the Greek word for all without once considering the context of the pass a 've. In Greek everything is context driven so just randomly jerking it out of its context can make it mean anything you want it to mean. The second one was a little more engaging, at least he made his point and let it go. The etymology regarding the touchstone is very interesting, there is another word in the passage that has a similar meaning, I've noticed it before. In that context it clearly means torture but it's always nice to explore the etymology to get a better look at the literary features.

do you ride to school in a short bus??
that video was him showing how MAINSTREAMERS make 'pas' or 'all' mean whatever they want... his job in that video was to prove the God WILL save everyone, thru the ages... without even using the word 'all' (pas)... and he DID prove it, without using all the texts that state that God will save 'all' (pas)

 

[needhugs]

I did my homework on you guys and it's not much of a challenge frankly. You have no interest in a real exposition, no background in essential doctrine and a compulsion, bordering on obsession with redundancy. I haven't seen anything like you guys since I encountered the...lets just say some unsettling groups, years ago. Anyway, congradulations, you got me seriously concerned about a topic for the first time in years. I had head about Universalism but I thought it was just kind of a benign tangent of some kind. Your not, you guys are playing with fire and you don't known it.

Anyway thanks for the exchange and the wake up call, I'll know to approach the unorthodox with more caution in the future.

**you're**

 

[FineLinen]

 

[needhugs]

I like the CV (OT & NT), though it's free online, e.g.:

https://studybible.info/version/CLV

What you won't get online AFAIK is the concordance at the back of it & the extensive notes. The online version is, also, occasionally, incorrect.

It's very literal, though, & not in the beautiful KJV style.

Another one i like is the new - 2017 - NT translation by EO scholar DBH:

https://www.amazon.com/New-Testamen...300186096/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8

thanks so much!! i think i will order that NT first, do you suggest kindle or hardcover? and what is an 'EO' scholar?

 

[FineLinen]

 

[FineLinen]

My friend Mark: it has been a pleasure speaking with you. Evidently your homework has reached an impasse, but rest assured you are not the first to arrive at such a destination. The landscape is filled with individuals who have given up with playing and pressed into the reality of cherished secrets. We do wish you well (F.L. at least) and trust your journey into Him will be enlarged in coming days. May He bless you and yours in Him!

 

[needhugs]

FL... it's not that i don't wish Mark well... it's that i have no patience with people who treat God badly...

when the Israelites were burning their babies to molech, God was so disgusted, so gobsmacked, that He said 'NOTHING like that would EVER enter His heart!!!'....

that's the God we love... tender, kind...

and Eternal torture in the fires of hell believers are saying that not only WOULD that enter His heart, to burn people, but that He will keep them alive in the flames so He can burn them an infinite amount of time.

after God rescued me from that... i just... i CAN'T CONCEIVE of sweet, shy, meek Jesus doing that to people... i cannot, any longer, CONCEIVE of it!!!!!!!

i just can't even TRY to conceive of it, without crying...

i think people are like the God they believe in... and no, i'm not saying we serve different Jesus... i'm saying that God will give you, as you believe... 'according to your faith, let it be done unto you'... Jesus said so... and I for one, am very glad that Jesus has given me a ROCK SOLID faith in His kindness... toward us ALL, EVERY SINGLE ONE.